Toyota at Wellspring HISTORY TIMELINE - Pontotoc, Union & Lee County Alliance, Mississippi

Wellspring Project: How it all started

Pontotoc Union Lee (PUL) Alliance is the State of Mississippi’s first regional economic development alliance. A multi-governmental entity, the PUL Alliance was formed to actively locate a major automotive manufacturer in Northeast Mississippi, a region where over 30% of the labor force is employed in manufacturing.

This unprecedented partnership was formed in 2001 and approved in 2003 under state legislation allowing collaboration between multi-governmental jurisdictions for major economic development purposes. The PUL Alliance has spent the past four years combining the financial and technical resources needed to recruit a major automotive manufacturer to Northeast Mississippi. Since its inception, PUL Alliance officials have actively marketed the Wellspring Project site at automotive industry trade shows across the United States and Europe, and have engaged directly with automotive industry experts to promote the benefits of the Wellspring Project and the region’s workers.

Formation of the PUL Alliance is reflective of the longstanding, progressive local economic development efforts in Pontotoc, Union, and Lee counties. Once the most impoverished area in the United States, Northeast Mississippi is now the upholstered furniture manufacturing capital of the world and Lee County is the financial and retail hub of a multi-state area. This development is the direct result of strong regional partnerships between public bodies, private industry, and economic development entities.

In November of 2004, PUL Alliance officials secured land options with the site’s 21 landowners, providing full marketability of the 1,700 acre site. Almost a year later, the Wellspring Project site became the third certified “megasite” in the seven-state region of the Tennessee Valley Authority. These designations, coupled with full clearance of environmental, geological, wetland, and archaeological impediments reinforced the site’s “ready to go” characteristics.

PUL Alliance Members

Pontotoc County Board of Supervisors
Union County Board of Supervisors
Lee County Board of Supervisors
City of New Albany
City of Pontotoc
City of Tupelo
Three Rivers Planning and Development District
Community Development Foundation, Tupelo/Lee County
Pontotoc County Chamber of Commerce
Union County Development Association

Timeline:

SEPTEMBER 2001	Initial organizational meeting of Pontotoc, Union, and Lee counties
NOVEMBER 2001	Pontotoc, Union, and Lee (PUL) submit to Mississippi Development Authority for alliance approval
MARCH 2002	Initial site search and evaluations by PUL, MDA and Tennessee Valley Authority
MAY 2003	Blue Springs site identified and preliminary site development engineering begins
SEPTEMBER 2003	PUL Alliance approved by Mississippi Development Authority (MDA)
OCTOBER 2003	MDA awards the PUL Alliance a $250,000 preliminary site development engineering grant for the site
FEBRUARY 2004	Preliminary site development engineering complete on 1,200 acre core site
MAY 2004	Site submitted into the TVA’s megasite certification program
NOVEMBER 2004	Land options with the site’s 21 land owners and 1,700 plus acres secured
DECEMBER 2004	All environmental and cultural studies completed and cleared
JANUARY 2005	Site becomes the third, certified megasite in the seven-state TVA region
MAY 2005	Introduced the Wellspring Project to the automotive industry at the Automotive World Congress in Barcelona, Spain
JUNE 2005	SEDC Automotive Seminar
JANUARY 2006	The Alliance seeks an unprecedented new partnership between local and state governments to secure the ownership of the Wellspring Project site
NOVEMBER 2006	Began conversion on land options to purchase agreements and/or actual purchases
DECEMBER 2006	Updated engineering study, cost estimates, and all environmental reports
FEBRUARY 2007	Toyota selects the Wellspring Project to build a $1.3 billion assembly plant, its eighth in North America
APRIL 2007	Toyota breaks ground for Toyota Motor Manufacturing, Mississippi, Inc. (TMMMS) located in Blue Springs, Mississippi at the Wellspring site