(Cibolo) — A total of 900 new jobs are coming to Guadalupe County. The announcement was made recently during a joint meeting of the Cibolo City Council and Guadalupe County Commissioners Court. According to city and county officials, Aisin AW, an automotive parts manufacturing plant from Japan has chosen to make its multi-million dollar investment in Cibolo.
According to officials, the plant will be located on the west end of the county at Santa Clara and Bolton roads along IH 10. To be exact, it will be visible off of the interstate and will be constructed just west of Santa Clara Road and the San Antonio Raceway.
Guadalupe County Judge Kyle Kutscher says landing the plant in Guadalupe County is good news for everyone.
“The project, overall, is really monumental. It’s really the first time that Guadalupe County, the city of Cibolo or this region has talked about a project of this size in recent years, a $400 million capital investment, 900 jobs in the first phase with plans to expand in the next handful of years and possibly double that on the investment end with the number of jobs. It’s just an exciting time in the county and in the business community for our community,” said Kutscher.
Kutscher says the deal is especially exciting for Cibolo and believes it is the catalyst for even more future deals.
“But I think for the city, specifically, it was validation that there is a lot of potential and opportunity within that Cibolo area of the county to handle this type of development, this business you know with close proximity to San Antonio but still far away enough to get the benefit of that more personal feel in a smaller community but that is growing and has that potential so I mean a really big impact for the city of Cibolo and the county,” said Kutscher.
It reportedly took the Japanese company approximately two years to select Cibolo as its US location. This, of course, meant beating out dozens of other Texas cities and communities in other states across the nation.
Kutscher says he believes that Cibolo just had the ideal elements to help the company continue its successful operation.
“This site in particular was attractive for multiple reasons. I think a big part of that being Aisin AW is the company — is a major manufacturer of transmissions for Toyota and multiple other major vehicle manufacturers. Interstate 10 with just the logistics and access to other major interstate systems. The workforce was really an important factor you know having Seguin, Cibolo and Schertz in the county having all 30,000 residents in each one of those cities but in close proximity to San Antonio and that employment pool. I think a lot of things went into that selection but a lot of them ultimately were positives and helped the company decide on our county,” said Kutscher.
Kutscher says the 900 new full-time jobs are just the obvious bonus for local families. According to Cibolo city leaders, employees are expected to earn about $42,000 a year.
“But the average salary and pay scale for those employees for this new manufacturer — when you take out the executives — was over and above the average pay wage that we’ve seen in other developments like this. So I mean it was a step in the right direction. It was a good company with a lot of history that has been very very stable for a longtime in the manufacturing world especially when it comes to automotive manufacturing,” said Kutscher.
Both the Cibolo City Council and Guadalupe County Commissioners Court approved tax abatement agreements for Aisin AW. Both are valid for the next 10 years.
“The action that the court took was to approve and sign once they obtain title to the land which is planned in about another week or 10 days, a couple of weeks. The message as just of the last couple of days was that the company wanted to turn dirt and start in September. I believe the plan was that by the end of 2020, they wanted to be operational,” said Kutscher.
Property owned by Guadalupe Valley Electric Cooperative (GVEC) will house the Fortune 500 Company’s 500,000 square foot facility. The facility will sit on 160,000 acres — acres that the GVEC had invested on years ago as part of an economic development deal.