Boeing selects site for interior fabrication facility

Boeing Co. has selected a site for the 787 Dreamliner interiors fabrication facility it announced in May, the company said today.

The new location, lot No. 9 on Patriot Boulevard in North Charleston’s Palmetto Commerce Park, doesn’t yet have a street address. But by early 2012, 150 workers will be busy inside a brand-new building that measures nearly 250,000 square feet.

There, they’ll produce interior parts for the 787, including:

* Multiple types of stow bin
* Closets
* Partitions
* Class dividers
* Overhead flight-crew rests
* Overhead sleep areas used by flight crew and attendants
* Video-control stations
* Attendant modules

The venture, called Interiors Responsibility Center South Carolina, will service the plane-maker’s 787 Dreamliner plant currently under construction in North Charleston. It will enable the company to more nimbly put the finishing touches on its new products, officials said.

Construction on the fabrication plant is slated to begin in the fourth quarter of 2010. Engineering firm BRPH is designing facility, and Pattillo Construction is slated to build it.

Boeing will purchase land for the project from Stone Mountain Industrial Park Inc.

Officials with the company want the plant ready before the first planes roll off its new 787 Dreamliner assembly and delivery line in the first quarter of 2012.

It’s unclear, however, whether parts in the first offerings will be produced here or at the plane-maker’s Interior Responsibility Center in Everett, Wash., according to company spokeswoman Candy Eslinger.

In May, Boeing officials said they were seeking a site within 20 minutes of the company’s 787 line, as part of the company’s plan to create an independent production line in Charleston.

“We chose this site because it is actually within 10 minutes,” Eslinger said.

The location at Palmetto Commerce Park, a thriving commercial business hub off Ladson Road, met size requirements, as well, according to Eslinger.

“The selected location for our new interiors facility will provide us with the continued flexibility we need to leverage our production capability and meet the needs of our 787 customers,” said Ray Conner, vice president and general manager of supply chain management and operations for Boeing Commercial Airplanes, in a release.

S.C. Gov. Mark Sanford, U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, State Senator Hugh Leatherman and Commerce Secretary Joe Taylor released a joint statement Thursday praising the interiors facility announcement.

“When our team sealed the deal with Boeing last fall, we knew that the spinoff effects would be monumental,” said Leatherman, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee.

“The ‘ripple effect’ isn’t just rhetoric it has real-world implications with regard to jobs and capital investment,” Sanford added.