Toyota Moving US Base From Torrance To Texas
TORRANCE (AP/CBSLA.com) — Toyota is moving its U.S. headquarters from California to Texas, the Mayor of Torrance confirmed Monday.
The move is not expected to begin until 2017.
"I just sat down at the table and said to my husband, 'Oh my God, the landscape is going to change,'" Torrance resident Janet Payne said.
Toyota Financial Services "plans to relocate its headquarters to Plano in order to join Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A., Inc. (TMS); Toyota Motor Engineering & Manufacturing North America, Inc. (TEMA); and Toyota Motor North America (TMA) as the Toyota affiliates unify their respective headquarters there to create a single, state-of-the-art Toyota headquarters and pursue the One Toyota vision in North America," the company said in a statement.
Toyota says the new headquarters will bring together employees who are now scattered around the country. It will break ground in Plano, Texas, this year.
The automaker opened the 101-acre Torrance facility in 1982.
The company's 3,000 Torrance employees will be offered their jobs in Texas — that includes the mayor's son-in-law . The city will lose approximately $1.2 million from its annual budget with Toyota's departure.
"We've done everything we can to keep them here and we hope to attract another company like that," Mayor Frank Scotto said.
The mayor says California isn't as business-friendly as it needs to be.
"We need to change the attitude today, because 10 years from now, 20 years from now when we look back and say geez, we should have done something, it's going to be too late," Scotto said.
State Gov. Jerry Brown spoke in Lancaster Monday and addressed businesses leaving California, without specifically naming Toyota.
"We've got a few problems, we've got lots of little burdens, regulations and taxes, but smart people figure out how to make it. And like I always say: you get what you pay for," Brown said.
"Across all Toyota affiliates, approximately 2,300 associates will remain in California after the relocation is completed," officials said.
The company plans to operate an office in Anaheim as well as sales offices throughout the state.
Several local non-profit organizations, who Toyota generously donated to over the years, are worried by the news. The company has pledged millions of dollars to those charities, to be dispersed when they leave for Texas in 2017.
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