The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company has been awarded a Job Maintenance and Capital Development Fund (JMAC) grant to support the upgrade and addition of manufacturing equipment at its Fayetteville tire plant. As a result of this modernization project, Goodyear, one of Cumberland County’s largest private employers, will maintain its important role in the company’s operations and 2,000 North Carolina jobs will be protected.
The North Carolina Economic Investment Committee (EIC) approved the JMAC grant earlier today. Goodyear could receive up to $3 million a year over the life of the JMAC’s grant term, which runs for ten years. Under conditions of the grant, the company must also make at least $180 million in capital improvements at the site in addition to retaining jobs at the plant.
The Goodyear Fayetteville plant is approximately 50 years old. The modernization project will enable the company to manufacture high-value-added tires, generally defined as tires 17 inches in diameter and larger.
N.C. Commerce calculates the average annual wages associated with this project as $68,797; the average wage in Cumberland County is $36,425.
The JMAC Fund is a discretionary incentive program that provides sustained annual grants to businesses that meet the requirements of a major employer or a large manufacturing employer. The JMAC Fund is intended to encourage retention of significant numbers of high-paying, high-quality jobs and large-scale capital investment that will modernize processes and provide more globally competitive projects.
In addition, the JMAC program specifies that the business must either be in a Tier 1 county with at least 320 full-time employees or be in a Tier 2 county with a population of less than 60,000 and employ at least 800 full-time employees. Cumberland County ranks as a Tier 1 county under the state’s county distress tier system.