LAST YEAR, GM POWERTRAIN invested $127 million in its Defiance County, Ohio, plant in order to install a new line to build aluminum blocks for automobiles. Now, five companies are locating in the northwestern Ohio county as suppliers to the GM plant. The five projects represent a total investment of approximately $75 million and will create about 80 full-time jobs.

The five companies that will supply the GM Powertrain plant are Alfe Heat Treating-Defiance Inc., CBS Boring & Machine Co., Advantage Powder Coating, and DQE Energy Services. All five firms will lease space in a building to be constructed by OneSource Diversified at a cost of $3.23 million.

Harley-Davidson Expands Kansas City Area Production

ACCORDING TO A RECENT announcement, two motorcycle model lines will be added to production at Harley-Davidson, Inc.’s Platte County, Mo., plant just north of downtown Kansas City. This expansion will result in a $15 million investment and the creation of 300 new jobs.

The first production line involves the company’s brand new motorcycle, the V-Rod, whose revolutionary engine is liquid-cooled rather than air-cooled. The V-Rod is to be built entirely in Platte County. Additionally, assembly of the Dyna Glide model is being moved from York, Pa., to the Missouri plant. These two models will be built alongside the Sportster at Harley’s Kansas City area facility, which opened in 1998 and currently employs 550 people.

Biotech Firm Bringing 150 Jobs to Central NJ

A BIOTECH COMPANY, GeneProt™, is moving from Evanston, Ill., to 60,000 square feet at the Technology Centre of New Jersey that will house the nation’s largest commercial supercomputer. GeneProt plans to employ 150 people at the North Brunswick location. The company chose the site because it is in proximity to its current and prospective partners in the pharmaceutical industry as well as to leading academic institutions. It also has plans to construct a 40,000-square-foot corporate headquarters at the technology center.

The Tech Centre is owned and being developed by the New Jersey Economic Development Authority to meet the needs of emerging research and development businesses. In order to make the center attractive to potential tenants, the state has offered numerous incentives. For instance, GeneProt will benefit from a construction allowance in excess of $6 million. According to the company’s CEO Cedric Loiret-Bernal, M.D., “This greatly supports our speed-to-market strategy and allows us to apply resources elsewhere, e.g., in recruitment and R & D.”

Bioinformatics Program Being Developed in Virginia

THE INSTITUTE FOR Computational Genomics, Inc. (INCOGEN), the College of William and Mary, and the Virginia Bioinformatics Institute at Virginia Tech (VBI) have announced plans to work together to create a bioinformatics program. As part of its efforts to develop the program, INCOGEN will invest $2.4 million to relocate from South Carolina to an existing building in the Busch Corporate Center in James City County, Va., where it will employ numerous technology specialists. Virginia successfully competed with North Carolina, Ohio, and Colorado for this project.

INCOGEN is a founding member of the Interoperable Informatics Infrastructure Consortium, known as I3C. This organization is comprised of 70+ international leaders from major life science and IT companies. Its purpose is to develop common protocols and interoperable technologies for data exchange and knowledge management for the life sciences community.

Distribution from Iowa at North America’s Center

TWO NEW DISTRIBUTION centers will be developed in eastern Iowa during 2002: Target Corp. will invest $97 million to build a 1.35-million-square-foot center on 133 acres in Cedar Falls, creating 445 jobs; and McGraw-HillCompany’s new 330,000-square-foot Dubuque facility will serve as its primary distribution point, replacing its current Dubuque operation.

Last year, Wal-Mart invested $30 million to expand its Mount Pleasant distribution center to 1.3 million square feet. Also, Family Dollar Stores is building a $30 million, 940,000-square-foot distribution center in Maquoketa that will create some 300 jobs.