TORRANCE, Calif. (AP) — After more than a half-century in Southern California, Toyota announced Monday that it is moving its U.S. headquarters from Torrance to Texas.
Mayor Frank Scotto said he’s “saddened” by the decision, adding that officials did everything they could to keep the Japanese car giant in the city.
Scotto said Toyota contacted him Thursday and said they wanted to speak with him at 9:45 a.m. Monday, but he did not know what it was about at the time. Over the weekend rumors circulated in the business media and he grew more and more concerned.
“We thought it was going to be part of Toyota, not everything,” he said at a press conference. “They didn’t mislead us; they just didn’t answer the questions.”
Toyota said it would begin the move out of Torrance starting in 2017. It will break ground on a new headquarters in Plano, Texas, this year. The company said the new office complex will bring together employees who are now scattered around the country.
Toyota will offer relocation packages to the 1,000 employees who currently work at the Torrance site, which opened in 1982. Toyota’s first US headquarters opened in Hollywood in 1957.
Scotto said he didn’t believe there was anything Torrance could have done to dissuade Toyota, even if officials had known earlier.
The overarching issue, he said, was reforms needed at the state level to retain large businesses.
“We could offer up a lot of things, but we recognize that the deal they have is something that would take the state of California to match,” he said.
Scotto, however, said the city was actively search for a new company to occupy the 101-acre site and said the city already has a shortlist of automotive firms that it will court.
The departure would take 1.2 million from the city budget in business license fees, sales taxes, utilities and other taxes, he said. Torrance hopes to have plugged that hole by the time Toyota pulls out in three years.
Donna Duperron, CEO of the Torrance chamber of commerce, said she knows at least 20 people personally who work at Toyota and will be affected by the move.
“You look at it and in one way for me it was emotional at first … and then you think what could we have done as a community or as a state to keep them here?”
Toyota was a strong contributor to the city’s adopt-a-school program and also recently built a half-million dollar sports complex and park just down the street from City Hall. Many of their managers and leadership sat on local boards for arts and theater and education, Duperron said.
Residents were also dismayed by the news.
“When I opened the paper today I just went, ‘oh my gosh.’ It just blew me away,” said Janet Payne, 72, a 40-year resident. “It’s as if they’ve been here forever.”
___
Associated Press writer Christopher Weber contributed to this report.
