Caterpillar building $200M Georgia plant, creating 1,400 jobs

ATLANTA: Heavy equipment giant Caterpillar has revealed plans to build a one-million-square-foot, $200-million manufacturing plant in, Georgia, bringing an estimated 1,400 jobs to the state.

The announcement comes just two weeks after the company shuttered its Electro-Motive plant in London, Ont., putting 450 unionized employees out of work after a dispute over wage and benefits cuts.

The new plant will be in Athens, a city of about 115,000 in the northeastern part of Georgia. The city is also home to the University of Georgia.

The facility will become the company’s main production operation for small track-type tractors. It will also assemble mini hydraulic excavators and export partially assembled mini excavator base units to a facility in Europe, to improve delivery times for its European customers.

Caterpillar has also officially announced production at its manufacturing plant in Japan will be transferred to the new Athens plant. It has yet to release details about the eventual fate of its Japanese plant.

Caterpillar plans to break ground on the new facility in Athens in the first quarter of 2012, while initial production is expected to begin in late 2013.