The City of Tulsa, Mayor G.T. Bynum and IC Bus announced that a new 20-year agreement has been reached to keep the IC Bus school bus manufacturing facility at Tulsa International Airport. The new agreement builds on the City’s efforts to grow and expand its economic base of manufacturing operations.
“This agreement establishes a win-win partnership between the City of Tulsa and IC Bus for decades to come,” Tulsa Mayor G.T. Bynum said. “The industry leader in school bus manufacturing will have a home to build products that are trusted all around the world, while local jobs are secured and the taxpayers’ facility is properly maintained for the long term. I am excited for the future of IC Bus in Tulsa.”
The nearly mile-long, 1-million-square-foot plant is the world’s leading producer of school buses. Bus production is currently at its peak, and approximately 75 vehicles are typically produced daily.
“We’d like to thank Mayor Bynum for his personal involvement in resolving these negotiations,” said Phil Christman, president of Operations for Navistar International Corporation (NYSE: NAV), the parent company of IC Bus. “Thanks to his leadership, we have a decades-long framework to stay, invest and grow the IC Bus plant and our supply chain in Tulsa and the state of Oklahoma. Tulsa is a great community with a talented workforce. We’re very pleased to be remaining in Tulsa, and look forward to keeping it what it is today – the school bus capital of the world.”
Mayor Bynum’s agreement with IC Bus retains the following economic benefits in Tulsa for years to come:
- More than 1,600 men and women have careers manufacturing and assembling the safest, most technologically advanced school buses ever made.
- Manufacturing jobs provide economic opportunity and stable careers for Tulsa families, and the IC Bus plant provides annual direct income of more than $60 million annually. The average team member has worked at the plant for 6.5 years.
- The IC Bus plant spends $750 million each year on vendors and suppliers, including more than 100 Oklahoma-based businesses.
- An IC Bus supplier, IMMI, is building a 45,000-square-foot greenfield manufacturing plant, specializing in the manufacturing of seating systems, in Tulsa to support the assembly of school buses at the IC Bus Plant.
- The new lease prioritizes current and long-term investments in plant maintenance and improvements and creates an automatic process for establishing a multi-year investment program every 5-years of the lease.
