Tennessee Town in Tizzy Over Selection as Saturn Plant Site : GM Puts Spring Hill on the Map

Telephone calls from real estate agents, news reporters and curious townsfolk kept Mayor George Jones awake until 11 o’clock Thursday night and ended his slumber prematurely Friday morning. He’s happy to talk to anyone, the harried official said, unless it interferes with his duties as one of this rural hamlet’s few firefighters.

“This town’s always been on the map,” he said. “Just no one noticed until now.”

But the world really began noticing Spring Hill on Friday, after General Motors confirmed that it will build its much-sought-after Saturn auto manufacturing plant, a $3.5-billion industrial plum, on an 1,800-acre tract just south of town. (See story, Part 1, Page 1.)

1,200 Residents

GM is planning to build a new-generation small car here starting in 1988, an expensive last-gasp effort to compete profitably with the Japanese in manufacturing small vehicles. After GM announced that it would construct an all-new assembly complex to accommodate Saturn, more than two dozen states attempted to land the project.

Even before GM made the announcement, reports that Spring Hill was a finalist set residents abuzz in this friendly town of 1,200, located in rolling farmland 30 miles south of Nashville.

This week, Spring Hill has been overrun by news reporters and TV camera crews and stalked by real estate agents looking to buy in on the ground floor. Some residents say it is more excitement than Spring Hill has seen since 1863, when a local physician shot a Confederate general for paying too much attention to his wife.

Town officials predict that Spring Hill’s population will quadruple as the Saturn plant--a high-technology facility with work rules similar to those in Japanese car factories--hires 6,000 workers. The surrounding area should also share in the boom as suppliers locate their plants nearby.

Officials are already forecasting that Tennessee will be forced to build a highway bypass around Spring Hill, which now consists of little more than Main Street and appears on only the most detailed road maps.

So far, GM has not officially said why it selected Spring Hill after an intense national competition. But the town’s location between Interstate Highway 65 and a Seaboard railway line undoubtedly helped. Local officials say GM has been satisfied by local utility officials that the factory could be supplied needed water and electricity at favorable rates.

And Mayor Jones said that GM officials were impressed by the success of Nissan’s U.S. plant in Smyrna, Tenn., only 30 miles away.

Also a plus is the area’s large pool of potential workers. Maury County once held the world’s largest deposit of phosphates, but, as the supply was depleted, such chemical firms as Monsanto and Occidental Petroleum have reduced their work forces.

The county’s unemployment rate is now 7.5%, but, during the last recession, it ballooned to 17%, and neighboring rural counties had even higher rates.

It is not yet known whether local or state officials offered GM tax abatements or other sweeteners to lure the plant, and the auto maker has said it won’t explain its decision until a news conference in Nashville on Tuesday.

Spring Hill’s tiny business community has been gripped by a fever of anticipation. In the parking lot of the Cedar Inn restaurant, filled every noon with farmers’ muddied pickup trucks, a new sign declares: “Welcome GM--We are glad to have you.”

Expects Values to Rise

Townspeople maintain that the value of many properties have doubled in the last three weeks, since Spring Hill was reported at the top of GM’s site-selection list.

A 140-acre property just west of town sold this week for $250,000, said Freeman Cowherd, a town alderman and owner of a Main Street gas station and grocery. Six months ago, an equivalent adjacent property sold for $140,000, he said.

“I’ve had two approaches this week from people who wanted to know what I’d ask for my store,” Cowherd said. He said he didn’t consider any offer, expecting that real estate values will rise further.

“It’s like a windstorm came through here and blew everybody’s deed away,” Jones said. “The past value of these properties just doesn’t seem to have any bearing.”

Others hope the new plant will keep families together by providing jobs for young people who are now forced to commute to Nashville or leave the area for employment.

“The way it’s been, young people didn’t have any opportunity unless they wanted to bag groceries,” said Jane Quirk, a city reporter.

Some Object

Not all in Spring Hill are enthusiastic, however. Two dozen local farmers and others met Monday to consider ways of stopping GM from carrying through with its plans. They fear a rise in property taxes and changes in an area where their families have raised dairy cattle and grown tobacco for generations.

“A piece of Detroit is the last thing we need here,” said one Cedar Inn diner who described himself as a “gentleman farmer” but declined to give his name.

Few here expect such opposition to have much effect.

“The fact is we in the town didn’t have anything to do with GM’s decision to come here,” the mayor said. “If we decided we didn’t want them, there’s probably not much we could do about that either.”