Volkswagen Officials Back in the Scenic City

Volkswagen officials are taking a closer look at Enterprise South and firming up plans for their new $1 billion plant.

Jill Bratina is the Director of Corporate Communications for Volkswagen Group of America.  She explains why  several top execs are in town.  "This is the first real meeting of the hard work to look at the timeline: Immediate, near future and down the road."

One of the German visitors is an expert on building assembly plants after working in Russia and India.  A phase of the construction is complete- Volkswagen will be using this building.

Mike Beamish is the V.P. of Human Resources for Volkswagen.  He says he is excited about the "It offers us a lot of opportunities in terms of various office space. We also really like the storage spaces in the facility. Most important its right opposite the new site."

It was originally built for the a company known as IDSI . Eastside Utility District recently bought it and has spent the past three months renovating it as their base of operations.

Eastisde Utility District GM Don Stafford adds,  "We figured Claude would bring something in here one of these days. So we gambled and we won."

Stafford says he is still working out the details with city and county officials about lending his building.

"We will probably be here until the start of production which could be up to 2 years depending on what type of functions are here in the space," says Beamish.

Volkswagen plans to use the space for purchasing agents and some VW executives.  "Right now we are in the process of looking at what kind of labor force we will need in the initial days as we start up," explains Bratina.

The Corporate Communications Director says she expects the largest number of new hires here in the temporary facility to be from Hamilton County- as long as they are qualified.  "Our goal is to get the positions hired as quickly as possible and we're talking weeks, not months," she adds.

Volkswagen hopes to interview potential employees for the first 50 positions the beginning of August.

Bratina says since this past weekend's newspaper ads, the company's hiring website has already had more than 4,000 hits and they've received 625 resumes for the 50 available spots.