Work on Hyundai project begins
August 1, 2004 completion date target
BY BILL DEAVER
CALIFORNIA CITY - After months of waiting for the regulatory process to be completed, work has begun on a $50 million project to build Hyundai Motors' North American automotive test facility on newly-annexed land at the south edge of the city.
Monday morning City Manager Jack Stewart and the man who will oversee development of the project took this reporter on a tour of the site, pointing out the route of a new road that will connect the facility with Highway 58, the locations of several test tracks, and the site of the building that will house offices and other services.
August '04 completion
Mel Driscoll of J.T. Kruer & Company, the man responsible for enuring that every detail is taken care of, said Hyundai has set August 1, 2004 as the date for the facility's grand opening.
"They want to bring the 2005 cars here from their plant in Montgomery, Alabama, and begin testing them," Driscoll said.
That puts Driscoll and a team of engineers, inspectors, biologists, and construction companies under the gun but he and Stewart are eager to meet the deadline.
Stewart said the project will begin full-bore as soon as word is received that the last signature has been inscribed on federal biological permits.
In the meantime surveyors are punching stakes into the desert land and biologists are looking for wildlife.
Fencing is expected to go up soon, and grading contractor Sukut Contracting's crews are warming-up their earthmoving machines to begin carving-out roads, the tracks, and building sites.
Conex Development will build the buildings and a gaggle of engineering and environmental experts will track the work.
Moving Joshuas
A significant part of the work to be done involves moving some 400 of the desert's ubiquitous Joshua Trees.
"They'll be staked-out and marked for moving," Driscoll said.
Another 400 will be removed, most of them old-timers whose days of pointing their spiked arms like lonely sentinels are coming to and end.
"They will be taken to the city yard and turned into mulch," Stewart said.
Before any serious work begins, everyone working on the project will sit down for special classes on how to build the project with minimum impact on the critters that inhabit the site some nine miles east of Mojave and south of the main part of CalCity.
"We'll have classes on desert tortoises and ground squirrels," Driscoll said, adding that weekly safety meetings will include reminders that the speed limit on desert dirt roads is 20 mph. to keep down the dust.
Respecting the desert
Driscoll emphasized that every effort will be made to limit the impact on the fragile desert landscape, which will be left in its natural state except where necessary. All of the test tracks and other facilities on the property will be surrounded by tortoise fence, for example.
Around 70 to 80 people will be working on the site during the 10-month project, many of them living in California City and surrounding communities, Stewart said, adding that every effort has been made to hire locally.
When the project is completed, some 50 new jobs will be created, with up to double that number at the site in the summer, adding significantly and positively to the Southeast Kern economy.
By Bill Deaver Mojave Desert News
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