South-central Indiana update: the region's top business stories.

• Author: Mayer, Kathy
• Position: Regional Report South Central

AUTOMOTIVE AND LIFE sciences are competing for the top-contender title in south-central Indiana's growth, with home storage and paper also making strong showings in the five-county region.

Auto industry cranks up. Weighing in with expansions on the auto-related side are Enkei America, Diamet Corp. and Toyota, all in Bartholomew County, reports Brooke Tuttle, president of the Columbus Economic Development Board.

Enkei, employing 650 who make aluminum wheels, spent $5.5 million to expand its plant and new equipment. Diamet spent $10.6 million on new equipment for its powdered metal plant. And Toyota, which makes forklift trucks, is spending $9.8 million on a new office facility in Columbus, where it employs about 700.

The one sputterer in the industry is Visteon Corp. in Lawrence Country, where 600 jobs are being eliminated. The county's largest employer, with about 1,500 on the payroll in Bedford, announced in April that it would move part of its operations to a different, unnamed location. The company makes transmission castings, windshield wiper modules, windshield solution reservoirs and other auto parts.

Jackson County's top auto industry news comes from Aisin U.S.A. in Seymour. The company announced a $17.7 million expansion in June that will create 50 new jobs by early 2005, reports James Plump, executive director of the Jackson County Industrial Development Corp. Currently employing about 1,800, Aisin makes automotive drive-train components.

Life sciences the new darling. In life sciences Monroe County holds the strong suit in the pharmaceutical industry, with growth at Bloomington's Cook Pharmica LLC, a spin-off of the county's own Cook Group, reports Linda Wllliamson, executive director of the Bloomington Economic Development Corp.

Cook Pharmica is spending $45 million on a new state-of-the-art drug-development facility that will employ 200 initially. It could grow to become a $200 million biotech manufacturing facility and bring 600 new jobs to the area in the next five years. The expansion is occurring in a 450,000-square-foot facility once occupied by Thomson Consumer Electronics in what is now known as the Indiana Enterprise Center. The company will do contract manufacturing for the biotech drug industry.

Jackson County's Schwarz Pharma in Seymour has invested another $8 million in its facility, Plump says. The contract...