German automotive supplier MollerTech will invest $46.3 million to build a state-of-the-art manufacturing facility in Bibb County, Alabama. The company plans to hire 222 associates.

MollerTech plans to construct a 150,000-square-foot facility in the Scott G. Davis Industrial Park, near Interstate 20/59 in northern Bibb County. It will manufacture interior parts for Mercedes-Benz’s next-generation SUVs, to be produced at the automaker’s Alabama assembly plant after a $1.3 billion expansion.

MollerTech’s North American President/CEO Steve Jordan said the Bibb County facility will serve as the company’s flagship U.S. manufacturing facility, incorporating new ideas and best practices from other operations in the company’s manufacturing footprint.

“After many months visiting various states as well as numerous counties in Alabama, we are pleased to settle in Bibb County,” Jordan said. “Our Moller Culture is very much centered on people and local communities and, because of that, we find that there is ‘a good fit’ between MollerTech and Bibb County.

“The help that we received both financially as well as personally from the state and the county helped us in making this decision,” he added. “So we would like to thank the State of Alabama as well as Bibb County in being patient and supporting us in this new venture of ours.”

Bibb County provided the company with 20 acres of land in the Scott G. Davis Industrial Park for the facility, as well as an abatement of non-educational sales and use and property taxes; The state provided jobs and investment credits and AIDT workforce training, all valued at $12.3 million over a 15-year period.

“Attracting investment and new jobs to Alabama’s rural counties is a key priority in our overall economic development strategy, and MollerTech’s manufacturing facility in Bibb County represents the kind of project that we have been targeting,” Governor Robert Bentley said.

The Bibb County Commission, the Alabama Department of Commerce, the Economic Development Partnership of Alabama, Alabama Power Co., and the Birmingham Business Alliance worked together to bring MollerTech to the Birmingham region.

The firm, which is the the automotive arm of Germany-based MollerGroup, has U.S. facilities in Elberton, Georgia, and Shelby Township, Michigan. The company hopes the Alabama facility — located just six miles from the Mercedes plant in Vance — will be at full production by the end of 2019.