Trane said Wednesday it will begin taking applications next week for its $30 million air conditioning plant near Blythewood that will employ up to 400 within five years.

The Trane plant is the first major new manufacturing employer in Richland County in more than a year, said Mike Briggs, executive director of the Central Carolina Economic Development Alliance.

Richland County's gain is coming at the expense of Trane jobs in four other states.

Production in a former auto parts plant will begin in May with about 50 workers, rising to as many as 400 within five years, company officials said.

Trane told workers in December it would cut jobs at six plants nationwide during the next few years.

The company says it will improve quality and efficiency by moving to a single site to build air conditioner coils for offices and other commercial buildings.

Ron Clements, vice president in charge of Trane's commercial air conditioner business, said the 400 jobs to be created in Columbia will replace an equal number now making coils at the six plants.

About 320 jobs are expected to be lost at two union plants in Lexington, Ky., and Clarksville, Tenn., union officials said. Other cuts are expected at a union plant in Rushville, Ind., and at non-union plants in Lynn Haven, Fla., Forsyth, Ga., and Macon, Ga.

The Killian Road plant is expected to pay starting wages of $9 to $12 per hour, said Cary McSwain, Richland County's administrator.

Workers at Trane's Clarksville plant start at $8 per hour with wages rising to $15 after three years, said Chuck Killebrew, president of the plant's Machinists union Local 1296.

Trane, a division of American Standard Cos. of Piscataway, N.J., announced the decision at the plant site in a ceremony attended by Gov. Mark Sanford and other political and business leaders.

Clements said Trane chose the 183-acre site because of the availability of a well-educated work force, proximity to area colleges, and relatively short trucking distances to the other commercial air conditioner plants.

Trane will spend $30 million on the plant through 2005.

The company is negotiating with state and county officials for standard tax breaks available to similar-sized businesses.

Richland County has proposed Trane pay a fee in lieu of property taxes that will net the county about $400,000 a year over 20 years, McSwain said.

Even with the breaks, McSwain said, the county will receive more tax money than it had received in recent years from the property.

Trane is moving into a plant opened in 1982 by United Technologies Corp. to make diesel fuel systems. Ambac Industries Inc. bought the business in 1987 and leased the property. After laying off about 150 workers in 2000 and 2001, it moved its remaining 100 workers to a vacant plant near Pontiac.

The Pontiac plant was home to a 140-employee chain saw parts plant closed by Deere & Co. in December 2001.