Columbus crowing over NCR plant

Columbus is hearing cash registers sing with the news that NCR will bring a manufacturing plant and 870 jobs to the mostly military and industrial city.

“We have a lot of growth here in Columbus,” said Chris McCoy, general manager of Peachtree Mall in Columbus. “We’re excited about this move.”

NCR, maker of cash registers, self-checkouts, ATMs and airline check-in kiosks, announced Tuesday it will move its headquarters from Ohio to Duluth, and open a new ATM plant in Columbus.

For Columbus, it’s believed to be one of the largest growth announcements in nearly three decades from a company not born in the West Georgia city. Pratt & Whitney was the last such company, announcing a major facility in 1982.

Columbus expects the NCR manufacturing facility, which will open this December, to generate an estimated $2 million in annual sales tax revenue. It will also add to the city’s corporate A-list, which is highlighted by locally based insurer Aflac, Synovus Financial and payments processor TSYS.

“This move by NCR puts our city a little bit more on the map in terms of opportunity for investments,” said Aflac Chairman and Chief Executive Dan Amos, who added that his first boss at Aflac was a retired NCR manager. “We’ve got all the right things in our community — it’s a great place to live, only 1.5 hours from an international airport in Atlanta and we have easy traffic.”

Aflac plans to add 2,000 new employees over the next three years. Later this year, Kia will open its plant in West Point, about 40 miles north. An expansion at Fort Benning, a major Army installation, will bring an additional 25,000 to 30,000 military employees and their families to Columbus.

The region has added more than $3 billion in new capital investment and 20,000 new jobs during the last 10 years, according to The Valley Partnership, a regional economic partnership set up to attract investments to the area.

“This is pretty exciting for west Georgia when you add the impact of Kia, the Aflac expansion not long ago, and the new people moving into Fort Benning,” said Ken Stewart, commissioner of the Georgia Department of Economic Development. “This is just one more great expansion for them.”

Columbus has not been immune from the recession, but its unemployment rate is on the low side for the state’s metro areas. It was 8.3 percent in April, vs. 9.1 percent statewide.

At full capacity, the new NCR plant will have an annual payroll of more than $35 million, according to Columbus Mayor Jim Wetherington.

NCR already is hiring for positions in engineering, materials management, quality assurance, finance and direct labor. Jobs are listed on the NCR Web site and the Georgia Department of Labor Web site. A job fair is planned for June 13 in Columbus, at which NCR hopes to fill 88 production positions. Separately, the company will be looking for 26 professional positions, including engineering and management slots, and 88 material handlers and assemblers, according to the Web site.

Average pay for jobs at the plant will be $40,000, NCR officials said.

Peter Dorsman, NCR senior vice president of global operations, said most of the jobs in Columbus will be new positions.

NCR chose Columbus over Savannah and Macon and other Georgia cities competing for the plant. Columbus also beat cities in Tennessee, South Carolina, North Carolina, Mexico and Brazil, who were in the running, the Columbus Ledger-Inquirer reported.

Columbus economic development officials offered NCR a $10 million package, which includes a 340,000 square foot leased building, formerly occupied by Panasonic, with an adjacent new facility also planned. Panasonic made batteries at the plant until it moved its operations to Thailand in 2007.