While Honda and Kubota represent victories for the Georgia Department of Economic Development, state officials know that those two projects would be small compared to the crown jewel of economic development: an automotive assembly plant.
      Georgia hasn't landed one since the early 1980s, but that could change if the state is successful in recruiting Japan's largest automaker — Toyota.

The landmark "king and queen" Concourse Center towers, completed just outside Atlanta's I-285 perimeter in 1991, were just part of an ongoing corporate development pattern that has fundamentally redefined the metro area.

      On Nov. 1, 2004, the chairman of Toyota Motor Corp. announced that the company had begun planning to locate a seventh manufacturing plant in North America. While no official word was given on when the site selection would take place or when it would be announced, Gov. Perdue said that Georgia is already "on it" and is working the project aggressively.
      Among the sites that have already been presented to Toyota officials is a 1,560-acre (631-hectare) tract at the intersection of I-95 and I-16 in Pooler, near the port city of Savannah in Southeast Georgia. Two years ago, Georgia officials offered the site to DaimlerChrysler as part of a $325-million incentive package to land the company's $750 million Sprinter van manufacturing plant.
      There was only one problem: The state announced the project before the company did. DaimlerChrysler's board of directors subsequently voted to scuttle the project, leaving Georgia officials with a fully assembled site that had already received $53 million in improvements.
      The question now is: Will state officials be willing to offer the same package to Toyota? Gov. Perdue has already questioned the wisdom of overly generous incentive packages, and some site selection experts feel that Georgia may need to work harder to craft the incentive package it will take to win.
      "In my opinion, Georgia should have a better than average chance of competing for a project like the new Toyota project, but the state is going to have to come up with incentives in the hundreds of millions to make it work," says Renzas. "They would have to provide all off-site infrastructure, including dual feed power and utilities. In addition, a property-tax abatement for at least 10 years is needed, which is weird in Georgia, since you have to have the development corporation own the facility to get a property tax abatement. A company like Toyota may not be comfortable having the local development corporation own a mission-critical facility like this."
      On the plus side, Renzas said, the Pooler area is strategically served by two railroad companies (CSX and Norfolk Southern), giving Toyota leverage and options in dealing with vendors.
      "With respect to electricity, Georgia is in good shape as long as the site offers dual feed service in sufficient kilowatts to supply an auto plant," he adds. "The ability to choose from different providers again is a strength. ... so, you can see there is a lot to do to attract a major user like this, but Georgia is better positioned than ever to do so."
      Another site consultant who says Georgia could win the Toyota plant — if the state is aggressive enough — is Mark Sweeney of McCallum Sweeney Consulting in Greenville, S.C.
      "Georgia has a full set of tax credits against income tax and manufacturing exemptions from sales tax," says Sweeney, who two years ago helped Nissan open a new factory in Canton, Miss. "They do allow counties to provide property tax relief as well. It was uncertain where Georgia would fall for a highly competitive auto project, but Georgia showed an ability to participate at high levels for a particular project with the Daimler Sprinter project.
      "However," says Sweeney, "post-Sprinter reactions and comments by the [Perdue] administration sustain a certain level of uncertainty as to how aggressive they may be for the next one."
      Still, Georgia has all of the critical infrastructure that a major automaker like Toyota would need, Sweeney notes. The consultant cites the state's "good presence of manufacturing across the state, good manufacturing labor force, excellent industrial training program, very good transportation infrastructure, and good, reliable utilities, especially electricity."
      In addition, Sweeney says Georgia has "a pretty strong group of economic development professionals at the state and local level and at utilities."