By Shannon Cavanaugh
Contributing Writer

At the heart of the DaimlerChrysler economic development activity is a 460,000-square-foot facility located at 8300 Palmetto Parkway in North Charleston in the Palmetto Commerce Park. 

Since it was built in 1999, its sprawling space has spoken to the spirit of entrepreneurs from across the world.

It was built by Western Star Trucks, a company from Kelowna, British Columbia, that designed and manufactured heavy-duty trucks. The facility stood alone as the anchor tenant of the Palmetto Commerce Park. Western Star’s first truck rolled off the assembly line in North Charleston in November 2000. 

President and CEO of the Charleston Regional Development Alliance David Ginn helped recruit the truck manufacturing company to North Charleston. 

“That project really drove the Palmetto Commerce Park,” he said, and the park is now teaming with a variety of industrial activity. It is home to seven companies, which have invested almost $187 million in their sites, facilities, machinery and equipment. 

The construction of the Western Star Truck facility resulted in Charleston County building the original 1 1/2 mile “spine road” into the park at a cost of $2.5 million

“The county is involved from time to time with important business climate initiatives, and one such effort in 1997 revolved around increasing the available business park product offering,” said Steve Dykes, economic director for Charleston County. “We realized at that time that Charleston County did not have a large acreage class ‘A’ park to attract recruitment prospects.” 

With great expectations, Western Star Trucks opened its facility and announced it would hire 400 employees. But the company never reached that number due to a slow market demand. DaimlerChrysler bought the company in 2000 and moved its production back to British Columbia.

The building sat vacant for 18 months before DaimlerChrysler subsidiary Freightliner LLC bought American LaFrance in 2002 and moved it into the facility.

For the past three years, American LaFrance’s 538 employees have used a small portion of the large space to assemble the company’s customized emergency vehicles. It, too, never reached the 800 promised jobs.

In September 2005, Freightliner announced it was selling American LaFrance but not the building. DaimlerChrysler is now making plans to hire 220 employees and invest $35 million in the facility in early 2006 to ready it for its new assembly plant for Sprinter vans.

DaimlerChrysler has agreed to allow American LaFrance to share the facility until mid-2007.

“It would be hard to overestimate the impact that the original relocation by Western Star has had on the park and the greater Charleston area,” Dyke said. “After Freightliner acquired the property and brought in American LaFrance, Mercedes Benz Lenkungen (now Thyssen Krupp) and MTU Driveshafts, two other DaimlerChysler subsidiaries, quickly followed.”

SUBSCRIBE | REPRINTS | CONTACT US

Phone: 843-849-3100    Fax: 843-849-3122