Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, July 24, 1993                   TAG: 9307240034
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: A-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: MEBANE, N.C.                                LENGTH: Medium

MERCEDES MAY NOT BECOME A VIRGINIAN, BUT BE NEIGHBORLY . . .

The sites believed to have made the short list for the $500 million plant are in North Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee and Alabama, according to reports in the Triangle Business Journal of Raleigh and The Business Journal of Charlotte.

Virginia is among 30 states that have been trying to woo the German automaker. Mercedes plans to build a plant that will employ 1,500 people. Production of a sport utility vehicle is scheduled to start by 1997.

The two business publications, quoting sources familiar with the project, reported Friday that Mercedes was believed to have put a Mebane site, near Interstate 85 in Alamance County, at the top of its list of North Carolina sites.

The Mebane property, adjacent to Interstate 85 east of Greensboro, is directly across from a 1,000-employee plant owned by Guest Keene Nettleford, an English-owned auto parts manufacturer that already is a Mercedes supplier in Europe.

According to the journals, the 1,000-acre parcel in Mebane is under option and includes a 204-acre parcel owned by Robert Bosch Corp., a German automotive supplier. Included in the parcel is the Arrowhead Golf Course adjacent to Mebane Industrial Park.

A Mercedes spokeswoman declined to confirm the reports.

"There were a number of sites submitted by North Carolina and we have evaluated each of them," Linda Paulmeno said Friday. "At this point, a narrowing has taken place and the process will go on.

"We don't expect to make a final decision until late September or early October. Until then we will continue doing community visits. Right now, we're not discussing any of the particular states or sites."

Paulmeno did take issue with the report's conclusion that the It's nice to be in the game instead of on the sidelines. Sonny Wilburn Alamance County Chamber of Commerce short list included only sites in Southeastern states. "The search is not limited to one region of the country," she said.

North Carolina has some stiff competition in its bid to win Mercedes.

A week ago, after a trip to Germany, South Carolina Gov. Carroll Campbell said he knew Mercedes-Benz did not have South Carolina atop the list of preferred sites.

On Wednesday, Tennessee Gov. Ned McWherter led Mercedes-Benz officials on a tour of a site in the eastern part of that state.

North Carolina Gov. Jim Hunt recently offered Mercedes a $35 million auto technology center to be built near any plant it puts in the state. Funding for the center, which would train workers for high-tech assembly lines, is being debated in the state Legislature.

State and local officials familiar with the effort to bring the Mercedes plant to North Carolina were keeping their thoughts to themselves Friday.

"We have asked people to be mum," Paulmeno explained.

In Alamance County, Chamber of Commerce President Sonny Wilburn confirmed the county had submitted a site that fit all of the criteria. He declined to discuss the proposal, but said: "It's nice to be in the game instead of on the sidelines."

Mercedes officials are scheduled to visit the site a third time Tuesday. They will be accompanied by senior officials from the corporate headquarters for Daimler-Benz, the parent company in Stuttgart, sources told the publications.

Terms of the financial package being put together on the Mebane property were not available, but a source working close to the deal said it will meet Mercedes' cost requirements, the publications said.

Mercedes pared the number of sites under consideration from an original 150 proposals by 30 states. North Carolina economic development officials in May submitted 30 sites that met all the requirements set out in a 20-page questionnaire by a Mercedes consultant.