State, city collaborated to land Airbus

MOBILE, Ala. (WALA) - CEO and President of Airbus Fabrice Bregier said the town, talent and time is right for this project that has been seven years in the making.

Photos: Airbus flies into Mobile

Mobile won the deal over a pool of candidate cities. While there are incentives involved, lots of local leaders say Mobile was chosen for more than that.

Landing a deal as big as Airbus takes big bucks. The Alabama Department of Commerce reports that the state will put up nearly $125 million and local governments will provide $33.6 million for the $600 million plant that was announced Monday.

Take a look at the incentives here.

Representative Victor Gaston said it's worth every penny.

"You have to be competitive with incentives. You have to be willing to make offers that are attractive to companies when they've got many, many offers from people willing to have them in their community. So the incentives are significant, but modest when compared to what the results will be," said Representative Gaston.

Mobile County contributed $14.5 million to secure the deal.

Mobile County Commissioner Connie Hudson said this project has been in the works for years and its code name was "Hope."

Hudson doesn't think it was incentives alone that made Airbus choose the Port City.

"I don't think it was all about the incentives because there had been such a good relationship. There was a true sense of loyalty on behalf of Airbus to carry this through," said Commissioner Connie Hudson.

Mobile Mayor Sam Jones said the incentives offered by the city of Mobile were similar to ones offered while trying to land the tanker deal.

Jones spoke to Fox Ten News about making sure the money was set aside when the time came.

"Both state, city and county had to hold those incentives for us to negotiate with them. Both agreed so we would be competitive enough to make this happen," said Jones.

Airbus officials said construction of the assembly line at Brookley Field will begin in the summer of 2013. Airbus anticipates the first  assembled plane to be  rolling out in 2016.

Airbus anticipates the facility will produce between 40 and 50 aircraft a year.

Former Alabama Governor Bob Riley said 72 cities were vying to become the first U.S. manufacturing plant for Airbus.