Firm pledges jobs for TransPark

Spirit says it will employ 1,031, a chance at redemption for the long-struggling park

KINSTON -- Spirit AeroSystems on Wednesday promised to bring 1,031 jobs and $570.5 million in investment to this rural region in Eastern North Carolina.

But it's on the hook for far more.

The state's top politicians expect the aviation company, lured with incentives that could top $180 million, to validate a government project long criticized as a boondoggle and propped up for almost two decades with taxpayer money.

Spirit, which makes aircraft components for manufacturers including Airbus, Boeing and Gulfstream, will build in the Global TransPark, created by the legislature 17 years ago to transform Eastern North Carolina's economy.

It was envisioned as a bustling business park built around aviation, logistics and trade. A feasibility study projected that its presence on the sprawling farmland about 90 miles southeast of Raleigh would generate 55,000 jobs by 1998.

The TransPark, though, has never lived up to those expectations. A decade later, it has netted just 12 tenants, including three state agencies, and has required regular infusions of state and federal funding to remain in operation. Total government spending on the TransPark to date exceeds $87 million.

"We have had every year someone take the Global TransPark to the graveyard, and we've always been able to drive the hearse back," Gov. Mike Easley said Wednesday. "Today we start to silence all of those naysayers over the years who have been heckling from the sidelines."

The Spirit announcement is a boon for the people of Kinston and Lenoir County, which has lost residents as opportunities in manufacturing and other heritage industries have eroded. The new jobs will pay average wages of $48,000 a year, above the county average of $27,042.

Hundreds of local and state representatives, sporting stickers with the thumbs-up sign, came to a TransPark hangar Wednesday to celebrate. Among them were Joe Hackney, speaker of the N.C. House, and Beverly Perdue, Democratic nominee for governor, illustrating the political firepower lined up in support of the TransPark.

One critic, though, was not appeased.

Given the jobs projections made when the Global TransPark was created, "this announcement barely moves the needle," said John Hood, president of the John Locke Foundation, a conservative think tank in Raleigh. "I would caution everyone to wait and see what happens."

John Lewelling, senior vice president of Spirit, said the company was attracted to the Global TransPark, in part, because of its proximity to ports in Morehead City and Wilmington and the availability of workers. The TransPark is about 30 miles from Seymour Johnson Air Force Base in Goldsboro and about 50 miles from Cherry Point, the Marine Corps air station near Havelock. Those military installations could supply skilled employees for Spirit's operations.

The state community college system helped put together a package, worth about $11 million, to train Spirit workers. And programs at N.C. State University in engineering and materials sciences proved attractive as Spirit executives contemplated their future work force.

Incentives aplenty

The incentives didn't hurt, either. As part of the enticements, Easley committed a record $5 million from a fund he controls to lure the company. The Golden LEAF Foundation, which oversees more than $700 million in public funds stemming from the national tobacco settlement, conveyed $100 million to the Global TransPark Authority to offset costs of constructing a building for Spirit. That was the foundation's biggest-ever award.

Tax breaks and grants mattered because "there were lots of places interested in having us come," Lewelling said. He said Spirit considered international and domestic sites, but he declined to name specific locations. State recruiters said Florida was the main competition.

North Carolina officials redoubled their efforts to bring a major aviation company to the Global Transpark in 2003. That year, the park made Boeing's short list for a 1,200-employee manufacturing plant. The company ultimately chose Everett, Wash., but its consideration of the TransPark emboldened state recruiters.

Since that time, they have beefed up a growing aviation "cluster" across the state. Honda, for instance, is building a plant to make jets in Greensboro, and it is building an aircraft engine factory in Alamance County. GE makes jet engines in Durham.

Spirit expects to open its operation at the Global TransPark by 2010.

It will initially make fuselage components for the Airbus A350 wide body, which competes with Boeing's Dreamliner airplane. Panels made at the TransPark will ultimately wind up in France for final assembly.

(Researcher Lamara Williams contributed to this report.)