Continental Tire's 250 Sumter employees stand behind the plant's first sellable tire.
Continental Tire the Americas LLC’s (CTA) new manufacturing facility in Sumter, South Carolina, has received approval from central headquarters in Hanover, Germany to start production of passenger and light truck tires.
On March 28, 2012, Continental executives including plant manager Craig Baartman were joined by South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley for the groundbreaking ceremony at the Sumter site. Twenty months later, the site on Highway 521 now houses the fully functional one-million square-foot tire production facility on 500 acres.
“I speak for all of our Sumter team when I say how thrilled we are to have reached this important milestone in our new plant, and almost exactly two years from our initial announcement,” said Baartman. “Our thanks go to the Sumter community and the state of South Carolina for their outstanding support of this project.”
Continental Sumter Tire Plant will have an eventual production capacity of approximately five million units per year by 2017. A second phase in this announced project is expected to bring the plant’s full production capacity to approximately eight million units per year by 2021. Altogether, CTA will invest more than $500 million into the Sumter plant and will eventually create about 1,600 new jobs.
The plant’s grand opening ceremony is scheduled for Jan. 28, 2014.
