Bridgestone Americas Tire Operations will invest $36.6 million in its Warren County, Tenn., plant to increase production capacity by an additional 900 truck and bus tires per day.


The expansion is expected to be complete in the first quarter of 2013 and is projected to create 50 new jobs.

The investment is part of a comprehensive expansion in U.S. manufacturing operations announced this week by parent company Bridgestone Americas Inc.

Site preparation and construction in Warren County will begin in the second quarter of 2012. Construction is expected to be complete by the third quarter of 2012, and the manufacturing equipment will begin to be installed in the fourth quarter of the same year. The additional production is expected to commence at the end of the first quarter of 2013, reaching full production in the fourth quarter of that year.

The Warren County facility, which began operations in 1990, earned LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Silver Certification from the U.S. Green Building Council in 2008, becoming the first tire plant in the world to do so. LEED is awarded internationally to buildings for excellent energy and water efficiency, indoor environmental quality and resource stewardship. It is rarely awarded to existing manufacturing sites.