CANTON — Nissan North America will build a 1 million-square-foot campus for its suppliers just north of the company’s vehicle assembly plant in Canton.
The announcement came Tuesday during a ceremony in Canton where Gov. Phil Bryant and Nissan officials spoke.
“For a decade, Nissan has been a loyal corporate partner and has created thousands of jobs for Mississippians,” Bryant said in a press statement. “The addition of the new supplier park will bring more manufacturing-related jobs to Mississippi and serves to strengthen our growing automotive sector. I am grateful to Nissan for demonstrating to the world that ‘Mississippi Works.’ Great things are taking place in our state, and I wish Nissan many more years of growth and success in Canton.”
Lawmakers estimated the suppliers could create 800 to 1,000 jobs.
“Today, we begin an exciting new chapter in Mississippi as we continue our localization and investment efforts in the United States,” said Nissan Vice President for Total Delivered Cost Dan Bednarzyk said in the same press statement. “Today’s groundbreaking supports our efforts to bring more Nissan cars and trucks to our plant in Mississippi, and means more Mississippi jobs. Additionally, the supplier park will help make us more globally competitive in our Canton Mississippi plant.”
Earlier this year, Mississippi lawmakers approved a bill to allow the Madison County Economic Development Authority to use $100 million in bonds toward construction of buildings to be used by suppliers of the Nissan plant.
“In the 10 years since it began operations, Nissan has become the cornerstone for Mississippi’s automotive industry and has created a model for manufacturing in our state today,” said MDA Executive Director Brent Christensen. “It is a big part of our mission to assist great companies such as Nissan as they grow and create job opportunities for Mississippi’s residents, and we thank our partners in Madison County who worked with us to help make this project possible.”
Nissan employs more than 5,600 team members at its Canton plant. The company first announced plans to construct the manufacturing plant in 2000, and it began production in 2003. The facility has built more than 2.3 million vehicles, with current production of the award-winning Altima, Sentra compact sedan, Armada full-size SUV, Xterra mid-size SUV, Titan and Frontier pickup trucks and NV full-size commercial cargo and passenger vans.
Nissan’s crossover model, the Murano, will become the ninth vehicle produced at the Canton plant beginning in 2014.Nissan now makes seven vehicles: the Armada and Xterra SUVs, the Titan and Frontier pickup trucks, the NV van, the Altima sedan and the Sentra sedan.
Associated Press writer Emily Wagster Pettus contributed to this report.
