BMW Plans $750M Expansion of South Carolina Factory

Sixteen years after having chosen Spartanburg, S.C., as the site of its first manufacturing center outside of Germany, BMW Group has revealed plans to expand the facility with the addition of 1.5 million square feet. The automobile company will spend $750 million to complete the project.BMW’s 2.5 million square-foot Upstate South Carolina factory sits off I-85 on 1,150 acres about 30 miles east of Greenville, and 75 miles west of Charlotte, N.C. The expansion plan, designed to accommodate an increase in production from 160,000 units to 240,000 units, will add a 1.2 million-square-foot assembly facility to the site, as well as 300,000 square feet to the existing paint shop. According to BMW, fears of a downturn in the economy will not impact its plans. “Our sales are increasing,” a company spokesperson told CPN today. “We believe that we have designed the project for what we need.” The expansion endeavor is not the first for the BMW factory, which began with 1.2 million square feet. Its largest addition came in 1999, and increased the facility’s size to over 2.1 million square feet. Given the significant amount of land at the Upstate South Carolina property, there is ample room for even more growth in the future. Construction of the additional space is scheduled to reach completion in 2012. The project will create 500 new jobs in the area.