MollerTech celebrates grand opening of manufacturing facility

On March 13, MöllerTech USA celebrated the grand opening of its $46.3 million manufacturing facility in the Scott G. Davis Industrial Park in Woodstock, Alabama. The plant is the German auto supplier’s third location in North America and will serve as a flagship production facility for the company.

MöllerTech’s facility will manufacture interior parts for the next generation of SUVs being produced just minutes away at the Mercedes-Benz assembly plant in Vance, Alabama and will create 222 local jobs. The company picked the location in Woodstock (population: 900) over several sites throughout the Southeast. State and local officials expect the new facility to have a significant economic impact on the rural community.

“We knew this industrial park would be special for our community and that we would one day attract world-class companies like MöllerTech and Mercedes-Benz,” Bibb County Commissioner Ricky Hubbard said at the grand opening ceremony. “We feel certain this is only the beginning for this park, as opportunities will multiply for Bibb County.”

GMC provided architectural and interior design services for the design-build project, which was led by Gray Construction. The facility encompasses approximately 155,000 square feet, including the manufacturing plant, technical laboratory, mechanical and machinery services, management offices and conference areas.

Prior to construction, MöllerTech’s North American President and CEO Steve Jordan said the plant would call for a “bright, clean, organized” interior, with white floors, white factory and white walls to represent quality. “We will be using some ideas and innovative methods that have proved successful in our European plants, but we won’t have to retrofit them. We can integrate them into it at the beginning.”

According to GMC’s design team, the “clean, organized” focus was clear from the start. “Due to the nature of the production process planned for this facility, the plan was organized to be flexible for an efficient operational flow and ease of access for regular maintenance,” Matthew Smith, one of the project’s designers, explained. “Wide clean aisles, color-coded utilities, open connections between functions and efficient layout of building systems all helped to achieve the owner’s goal.”

“This project was a fun one for our team. We were challenged to produce budget friendly and easily constructible details with typical materials but express the owner’s intent for a modern, premium-designed aesthetic,” he said. “This was done through the use of floor-to-ceiling glazing, canted recesses, highlighted material usage and specifically placed accent colors.”

GMC’s project team consisted of Jeffrey Miller, Matthew Smith, Alexa Turner, Mark Coyle and Katy Lucas.