2 firms will build new Boeing plant: Mobile Version

Photo by Wade Spees

The Post and Courier

Even as Boeing prepares to break ground on a 787 construction plant, local workers are staying busy joining fuselage sections that will be shipped to the final assembly site near Seattle.

Mike Siegel/Seattle Times/MCT

It is near these two 787 fuselage-assembly plants next to the Charleston International Airport where Boeing will build its factory in which complete 787 Dreamliner jets will be put together.

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The same construction team that built the two original 787 supplier factories in North Charleston will take on Boeing Co.'s bigger expansion.

The aerospace giant announced Friday that BE&K Building Group of Charlotte will link up with Turner Construction of New York to serve as the general contractor on the 584,000-square-foot aircraft assembly plant at Charleston International Airport.

BE&K's regional office in Greenville will spearhead the project and already has begun "mobilizing" the North Charleston site, according to the company.

Local construction businesses hoping to work on the Boeing project have been awaiting the general contractor's identity.

The new assembly plant, an investment of $750 million, is expected to employ 3,800 workers and is scheduled to open in mid-2011.

Boeing Charleston spokeswoman Candy Eslinger said the construction firms were picked because of their aerospace manufacturing expertise and their success with the two fuselage assembly plants built originally for Vought Aircraft and Global Aeronautica in 2006.

Those buildings measure roughly 342,000 square feet and 310,000 square feet, respectively.

Boeing acquired Vought's local operation over the summer in a deal valued at $1 billion. Boeing owns 50 percent of Global Aeronautica.

Mac Carpenter, executive vice president of the BE&K Building Group, said in a statement that the previous 787 construction project at the airport was under budget and finished early. At the time, BE&K was known as Suitt Construction Co.

"In fact, the first project was actually completed a week ahead of schedule, and we had an impeccable safety record, logging more than 500,000 hours worked without a lost-time accident," he said.

BRPH officials said the BE&K Building Group and BRPH architects and engineers have completed 24 projects together over the past 15 years with a total value exceeding $1 billion. BRPH also designed the local Vought and Global Aeronautica plants.

Though the firms are based outside of the Charleston area, Eslinger said the companies will rely heavily on the region's existing labor force.

"On projects like this, with this size of work, there's going to be significant opportunities created for local subcontractors and suppliers," she said.

Neither group would estimate how many construction workers will be needed, but state Commerce Secretary Joe Taylor said the building phase of the project could create up to 2,000 jobs.

Taylor said in a statement Friday that "Boeing's investment in South Carolina will transform our state, and today's news is an incredible sign of what is to come."

The Greenville News contributed to this report. Reach Katy Stech at kstech@postandcourier.com.