GE to Open Fort Worth Plants in Fourth Quarter

By Camelia Bulea, Associate Editor

GE Transportation has invested $190 million to build two locomotive and mining equipment plants in Fort Worth, with plans to open them in the fourth quarter of this year.

According to the Star-Telegram, the company announced in May that it would spend about $96 million to convert and expand an existing facility totaling about 500,000 square feet in north Fort Worth for locomotive production. A few months later, the company announced a second investment in the area: $95 million to add an adjacent 400,000-square-foot plant to manufacture drive systems for mining equipment.

GE plans to hire approximately 500 machinists, assemblers, skilled welders and maintenance technicians for these plants, according to the Dallas Business Journal. In addition, having been granted an 85 percent tax abatement for 10 years, it has agreed to spend at least $5 million with Fort Worth construction contractors and at least $200,000 annually with Fort Worth companies, according to an article published in GoErie.com at the beginning of this year.

Both the Fort Worth plant and the company’s manufacturing site in Erie, Pa, will build the Tier 4 Evolution Series Locomotives, which will be the cleanest and most fuel efficient on the market, GE officials said in a recent statement. Additionally, GE will produce its Tier 4 compliant diesel engines at its manufacturing plant in Grove City, Pa. According to a company news release, the new locomotive will decrease constituent emissions by more than 70 percent and save railroad customers more than $1.5 billion in infrastructure and operational costs.

Marcus & Millichap reports that following a recovery in the Dallas-Fort Worth industrial market last year, growth in demand will foster significant improvements for industrial property owners in 2012. Aside from owner-user space, developers will complete 780,000 square feet of competitive space this year. Last year, projects totaling 1.6 million square feet were completed, as depicted in the chart at left.

Charts courtesy of Marcus & Millichap