Gov. Greg Abbott helps usher in the latest expansion of jobs and services for the San Antonio area as General Motors breaks ground on a new facility on the city’s West Side.
Just off Highway 151 on San Antonio’s West Side sits an open field that backs up to a wooded area of land; this will be the site of a new facility for GM’s Financial Services Division.
GM’s Financial CEO Dan Berce said the company is committed to initially providing 500 new jobs to the San Antonio job market and he says the city’s workforce is one of the main reasons the company wanted to expand to the Alamo City.
“We really like the workforce in San Antonio, it’s really perfect for the type of jobs we’re creating here, second of all it’s the Central Time Zone so whether we have customers on the East Coast or on the West Coast it’s nice to have a central location,” Berce explained.
Berce said the city, county, and state’s commitment to provide tax incentives for this expansion was another driving factor for the move to San Antonio.
Speaking in San Antonio on Monday, Gov. Abbott said GM’s expansion to the city is an example of the diversification of the Texas economy.
“A lot of people think of Texas as an energy state and we are, but we are so much more than that. Just look at San Antonio for example,” Abbott said.
Democratic Sen. Jose Menendez who represents this section of the city, said GM’s expansion on the West Side is really just the beginning.
“What we know is that it's going to be multi-millions of dollars in investment, when they set a footprint it’s a long-term investment and so just as we have discussed there is a possibility of more jobs down the road,” Menendez said.
Construction at the new GM facility is expected to be completed by spring of 2017.
