Club Car celebrates new manufacturing facility in Appling

APPLING, Ga (WJBF)- On Thursday morning, Club Car will celebrate the opening of a new manufacturing facility in Appling with a ribbon cutting ceremony.

The facility is located at White Oak Business Park just off of the I-20 Harlem exit.

The new production plant will make one particular type of product. They will begin making a fully electric, street legal vehicle called the Club Car Urban that, until now, was only built in Poland.

Before now, people had to order the Urban and wait for it to be built and then shipped overseas.

The new facility currently has one production line with 13 stations and room to add two more lines if needed.

Club Car’s Vice President of Global Operations, Jim Stevenson, tells NewsChannel 6 the new production plant will have a positive impact locally.

“It was an $8 million initial capital investment, but that’s just the first round of the investment. So we have 40 people out there working now, but once we put three lines in there, you can see that that’s going to be another 120 people,” he explained. “And plus it’s located locally. So the transportation of product coming in, it’s not just us, but the suppliers, the logistics movers. o it’s beyond just the 40 people that we’re currently employing. It’s the people who are supporting that facility as well.”

Stevenson adds that the benefit isn’t just to Club Car.

“Really the benefit is to our customers. So instead of having to build up the product in Poland and ship it here, at the time line that it takes for there, now we get to do it locally. It’s also a great representative, because one of the first customers we had was the University of Georgia, and they’ve been using the vehicles there,” he said.

The ribbon cutting ceremony will start at 10:30 Thursday morning.

Governor Brian Kemp and First Lady Marty Kemp are expected to attend.

Photojournalist: Dania Alawir.

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