Honda alters job creation schedule

GREENSBORO - The number of jobs Honda Aircraft would create remains solid - up to 419 . So does the time frame over which they would be created - 2011 through 2015 .

But the rate at which those jobs would come on line has changed.

Honda now tells local officials that the majority of the jobs associated with its proposed $80 million expansion at the Piedmont Triad International Airport will come at the latter end of the five-year period, not at the beginning as originally planned.

Efforts Tuesday to reach a Honda spokesman for an explanation were unsuccessful.

Dan Lynch , president of the Greensboro Economic Development Alliance , declined to comment.

Honda has asked the Greensboro City Council and the Guilford County Board of Commissioners for a combined $1.29 million in incentives to expand its HondaJet operation at the airport.

The company also has asked the Piedmont Triad Airport Authority for $8.1 million in infrastructure improvement at PTI , where Honda Aircraft has its headquarters.

Local officials could not explain why the company has shifted its job creation schedule.

But County Commissioner Billy Yow anticipated in a recent interview that numbers associated with the proposed expansion would change.

"These numbers are all speculative right now," Yow said. "They are just doing their site work now. It could be more, it could be less when they get it all done."

Honda initially told local officials that the project would create 172 jobs this year, 126 next year, 67 in 2013 , 31 in 2014 and 23 in 2015 .

Now, the schedule calls for 54 jobs this year, 75 next year, 90 in 2013, 90 in 2014 and 110 in 2015 .

County Commissioner Kirk Perkins said the change in job creation would not dampen his support for the project.

"While it is better to have them front-loaded, they are still in the pipeline," Perkins said. "What I have seen with Honda, they tend to be a little bit conservative. They may create jobs faster than they estimate."

Perkins said the county pays incentives only as jobs are created, not on projections. The city pays incentives the same way.

As the first of the public hearings on the incentives request approaches Tuesday , more details about the project have emerged.

Honda initially told local officials that more than 370 of the proposed jobs will be associated with manufacturing- perhaps of wings, doors or windows - for the new HondaJet, which should begin production next year.

It could not be determined Tuesday whether that number also has changed.

Other parts of the project include a maintenance and repair operation with 25 jobs and a parts distribution center, which would provide 20 jobs. The latter addition likely would serve the four other HondaJet regions across the country.

The manufacturing and maintenance components would be completed in late 2012 or early 2013 . The parts center would be finished in early 2014 .

Local officials said PTI could land one , two or three parts of the expansion, or none of it.

In addition, Honda's $80 million investment in the expansion would include $30 million for new construction and $50 million for new equipment.

Contact Donald W. Patterson at 373-7027 or don.patterson @news-record.com

nExpansion plans now call for most jobs at the end of five-year period.