For the second time since August, Spartanburg County has landed corporate investment from South Korea.

Iljin Group of Seoul has picked a vacant industrial building near the Greenville/Spartanburg International Airport for its first U.S. manufacturing plant, an executive with the company said.

Harvey Kulka, vice president of operations for Iljin America Inc., said the $38 million plant would employ between 100 and 125 people assembling industrial bearings. It will be located in a 90,458-square-foot building off of the J. Verne Smith Parkway in Greer that was formerly occupied by a German textile machinery maker.

Kulka said he was ready to launch the plant in north Georgia until he saw the Greer building. He said he chose the Greer site in an "11th hour decision" because the building had characteristics suited for the bearings plant, such as 30-fooot ceilings and overhead cranes.

"It was a fluke really that we ran into the property in Greer," Kulka said. Ford Borders and Grice Hunt of NAI Earle Furman LLC, the Greenville real estate brokerage, helped Kulka explore the building.

Kulka said the U.S. economic downturn presents a good opportunity for Iljin to invest in America. "There's people available for the jobs. The dollar on the world market is low," he said.

The new plant will make large industrial bearings used in construction and mining equipment and is scheduled to open in September 2009. Kulka wouldn't say how much the machinist jobs would pay or identify the plant's customers.

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