GREAT EXPECTATIONS: Marsha Barbour watches as her husband, Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, doffs a Toyota baseball cap after a ceremony in Tupelo, Miss., in February 2007. The Japanese auto manufacturer had just announced its intention to build a $1.3 billion assembly plant in Blue Springs that’s still sitting idle. -- AP PHOTO/ROGELLO V. SOLIS

TUPELO, Miss. – Oh, what a wait. This month marks a year since Toyota delayed the start of operations at its new $1.3 billion vehicle manufacturing plant off U.S. 78 in Blue Springs.

The delay has put on hold nearly 2,000 jobs and an expected economic boom for Northeast Mississippians, who are biding their time as Toyota continues to reaffirm its commitment.

“We’re confident that it’s not a matter of ‘if’ (operations will start), but it’s a matter of ‘when,’” said Barbara McDaniel, spokeswoman for Toyota’s North American operations.

If Randy Kelley had his way, the plant would open tomorrow.

“I’m not the most patient person in the world,” said Kelley, the executive director of Three Rivers Planning & Development District Inc. in Pontotoc. But he said he believes strongly in Toyota.

“(Toyota has) never given any indication that it is anything but ‘when,’” said Kelley. “You can’t expect people to build cars and not sell them. I know people don’t want to hear that, but it’s factual.”

U.S. auto sales

Indeed, car sales will play a significant role in the future of the Blue Springs plant, which will produce next-generation Prius hybrids, a change from Toyota Highlander sport utility vehicles.

Domestic auto sales have been in a freefall since 2000, when 17.8 million cars and trucks were sold. Last year, only 13.5 million cars and trucks were sold, according to Ward’s Automotive Group. This year, even with the federal Cash for Clunkers program, total cars and trucks sold might end up around 10.5 million, according to reports.

In October, total U.S. car sales grew 0.8 percent from the same period a year ago, but in the same period year-to-date, car sales are down 23.4 percent, according to New Jersey-based Motor Intelligence/Autodata Corp.

For Toyota, October was a flat month for sales with no growth from the same month a year ago; sales are down 25.5 percent year-to-date.

As for Prius, one of the nation’s top 20 selling vehicles, its sales posted a 14.3 percent gain in October compared to a year ago; but that’s still down 16.9 percent year-to-date, according to the Web site.

“We will resume things just as soon as the market conditions allow,” McDaniel said. “No one is more eager to resume operations in Blue Springs than Toyota.”

Whenever it does begin operations, Toyota Mississippi, the plant’s official name, will be the automaker’s seventh U.S. auto plant.

Blue Springs was the eighth plant when Toyota announced it in 2007. However, the company is planning to shut down its oldest auto plant, Fremont, Calif.-based New United Motor Manufacturing Inc. (NUMMI), after General Motors withdrew from that joint venture in June; an estimated 4,700 jobs will be lost next spring. That plant produces Corollas and Tacoma trucks.

Meanwhile, if all had gone according to plan in Blue Springs, the first vehicles would have been rolling off the assembly line next spring. It’s still unclear when that will happen.

Glass half-full

In the meantime, the state continues to finish developing the roads that lead to Toyota’s $300 million building, which was completed earlier this year. There is no equipment inside.

Most of the 80 team members of Toyota Mississippi will be training at Toyota’s other North American facilities. Toyota is paying their living expenses; none of those employees are relocating from Mississippi, McDaniel said.

Still, in Union County, where the plant is, the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for October was 9.6 percent, up from 8.9 percent in September. Pontotoc and Lee counties – which formed an alliance with Union County to lure Toyota – had slightly higher unemployment rates at 10 percent and 10.1 percent, respectively, in October. Both are increases from the prior month, according to the state.

Clearly, the region could use the thousands of jobs Toyota and its suppliers would directly and indirectly create.

“We’re obviously disappointed that they did not start as soon as we anticipated. We would love to have those jobs,” said Gray Swoope, executive director of the Mississippi Development Authority. “The key is that the groundwork is laid. We have over 4,000 jobs in the pipeline that’s guaranteed when they (Toyota) come online and (those jobs) are really going to be helpful,” Swoope added.

Dennis Seid, business editor/columnist at the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal, Tupelo’s daily newspaper, said optimism also can be fueled by timing.

“If Toyota had announced Feb. 27, 2008, that they were going to build a plant, then there might have been the possibility that they would’ve pulled back,” said Seid, speculating what the effect of the global recession might have been. “(The announcement) was in 2007, not 2008. We’ve got time on our side.”

Seid also noted that the change from the Highlander to the Prius was a good sign, given the latter’s popularity in these times of high gas prices. Also, the U.S. is a growing market for the Prius. Toyota wants to build where its vehicles are sold, Seid said, adding that the value of the yen may make it too expensive to ship Priuses from Japan.

To that end, Seid sees some optimism for Blue Springs in the closure of NUMMI because the Corolla and Prius models have some design similarities. In a recent column, Seid also suggested the Blue Springs facility could be used to build Saturns.

The future

Optimism can be viewed as grasping at straws – any straws – but the reality is the South is still the future of automotive manufacturing, industry observers appear to agree. Nissan opened a manufacturing plant in Mississippi in 2003. Observers also noted that Toyota’s “stamp of approval” has raised the profile for the region as well.

Already, six Toyota suppliers have indicated they will build near the plant; two have already completed construction but have placed their operations on hold until Toyota gives the word.

So, in the end, the future of the Blue Springs plant and Northeast Mississippi – beyond its base in upholstered furniture manufacturing – comes down to Toyota’s word.

To reinforce its commitment, Toyota is still planning to give $50 million over the next 10 years to create an “education enhancement endowment fund” to benefit Pontotoc, Union and Lee counties and their eight school districts.

Mike Clayborne, president of CREATE Foundation, which will manage the fund, said an advisory committee soon will release its recommendations on how to invest the money.

The first $5 million installment is set to arrive in May. It was supposed to coincide with the first vehicle rolling off the assembly line in Blue Springs.

“I feel that Toyota is stepping up to keep that commitment,” said Clayborne. “Any reasonable person would have to understand that, when there is excess capacity in the manufacturing facilities that they have, that you wouldn’t want to proceed building additional capacity.”

Clayborne believes in Toyota but admits there’s a growing sense in the community that things might be too good to be true as the delay drags on.

Earlier this year, the Daily Journal posted a unscientific poll online to gauge local confidence in Toyota. About 43 percent of respondents were either moderately or strongly confident the company would eventually begin full production in Blue Springs. Forty-seven percent voted “not at all” confident.

What about today?

“It’s about half and half,” said Seid. “Toyota was seen as a savior (against job losses). Northeast Mississippi has gone from cotton to dairy to textiles to furniture. So, what was the next step? The next step, we still believe, is high-tech automotive manufacturing.”