Union Tank Car Co. and General Motors are undertaking major expansion projects in Louisiana, investing hundreds of millions of dollars and giving a boost to the state’s manufacturing sector.

Union Tank Car Co. broke ground this month on a state-of-the-art railcar manufacturing plant in Alexandria.

The $100 million facility will be located on 160 acres at England Industrial Park, formerly known as England Air Force Base, and will employ nearly 900 manufacturing workers and additional contract service workers.

Union Tank decided to site the facility in Louisiana after a yearlong battle between the state and Texas.

Union Tank will receive a $65.2 million incentive package from Louisiana, including $19.1 million in job creation tax rebates over a 10-year period, $2 million in job training funds and $30 million for site development.

The company expects the facility to be operational by 2006.

Meanwhile, GM selected its Shreveport facility to manufacture the new Hummer H3 sport utility vehicle.

Manufacturing is scheduled to begin next year.

GM will invest $250 million to upgrade the facility. The automaker has invested more than $1 billion in upgrades to the plant in recent years.

The Shreveport plant currently produces the Chevrolet Colorado and GMC Canyon pickup trucks.

The state is also revamping its approach to dealing with existing businesses — especially if they start site shopping elsewhere.

Such was the case with Roy O. Martin Lumber Co., a third-generation family enterprise that operates an oriented strand board (OSB) facility near Lemoyen.

After learning that a city in Texas was courting the company, the state put together an incentive package to keep it in the Pelican State.

The package included a volume cap bond allocation of about $8.2 billion to finance air pollution control equipment and a partial tax equalization of $20 million for 10 years.

As a result, the company chose Allen Parish for its new OSB manufacturing facility, which will be home to 170 new manufacturing jobs. The company will also open a dry veneer plant in Chopin, where more than 40 workers will be employed.

“It was apparent to us that [officials] wanted to keep a Louisiana company in Louisiana, and they put the right package in front of us,” said Roy O. Martin III, president of Roy O. Martin Lumber.