INDUSTRY : Former Textile Town Draws International Fare to the New South

SPARTANBURG, S.C. — Here in the northwest corner of this distinctly Old South state, grits and collard greens and barbecue pork are standard fare, but folks can also get Wiener schnitzel and sauerbraten.

They can run down to the Piggly Wiggly grocery store and find some luscious chocolate spread made in France as easily as white bread made just down the road.

This former textile town has quietly and without fanfare become an international city, luring more foreign investment over the last three decades than any city of its size in the nation.

And recently, the area won its biggest prize ever: BMW. The German luxury-car manufacturer soon will begin building a $300-million manufacturing plant on 900 acres in western Spartanburg County, giving work to 1,000 people by the time the factory opens in 1995.

Moreover, local industrial recruiters expect 19 more companies that supply parts to BMW to locate nearby, employing 2,000 more.

“We are the crossroads of the New South,” said T .D. Roche-Taegel, a spokeswoman for the Spartanburg Chamber of Commerce.

Spartanburg’s success, industrial recruiters say, has come both by design and by luck. Officials have aggressively marketed the area, but Spartanburg County has a prime location, midway between the Southeast’s two largest cities, Atlanta and Charlotte, N.C. In addition, two major interstate highways run through Spartanburg County. Interstate 85 connects Atlanta and Charlotte, and Interstate 26 winds westward toward the Blue Ridge Mountains and eastward to the Atlantic Coast.

Of the 160 foreign-owned companies that have built factories near Interstate 85 in South Carolina, half of them are in Spartanburg County. Many of the companies are textile-related, and 38 of them are German.

With a current population of 225,000, Spartanburg County’s foreign-investment drive began 25 years ago when John West, then South Carolina’s governor, and Dick Tukey, a Spartanburg Chamber of Commerce executive, saw that the local economy was in dire need of diversification.

At the time, 86% of the county’s workers were employed in textile mills, the very mills that were beginning an economic decline that continues today.

At a textile manufacturers exposition one year, Tukey noticed the large number of displays of European textile equipment makers. He set out to convince the companies that they needed plants in Spartanburg County.

The Europeans who came to the area then referred economic development officials to their friends back home. Before long, it wasn’t just foreign-owned textile companies coming here, but manufacturers of all kinds. Videotape, film, running shoes, all are made here now.

Today there are 8,000 German nationals living in Spartanburg County, and textile employment accounts for only 41% of the jobs here.

“Not only are the hard economic factors very important, but so is the quality of life and the cultural activity these foreign companies bring to this community,” said Ben Haskew, the executive director of the Spartanburg Chamber of Commerce.

Spartanburg stages all sorts of international festivals throughout the year, including Oktoberfest. When Germany was reunified in 1990, German-born residents gave speeches and fed German food to public school students. An energetic German-American Club helps keep European traditions and customs alive amid the customs of the South.

But Spartanburg residents say the foreign nationals are by no means outsiders. They have not formed their own churches but have joined existing ones. They work in a host of civic organizations, from garden clubs to hospital charities.

And the German restaurants attract as many down-home Spartanburgers as they do German-born ones, said Lisa Zietler, who owns Cafe Vienna.

When the restaurant was started, the owners ordered the International Herald Tribune for customers to read while eating.

But Zietler recently canceled it.

“It was a hard decision to make, but I watched it for three months and nobody read it.” she said.