Irvine-based Kia Motors America Inc. is adding a $17 million design center to a headquarters complex the automaker is building in Irvine.
Kia, the U.S. arm of South Korea’s Kia Motors Corp., plans to build a 65,000-square-foot design center housing about 100 people, Peter Butterfield, Kia Motors America chief executive, said Friday.
Most of the workers are coming from an existing Irvine design center Kia shares with Fountain Valley-based Hyundai Motor America Inc. Seoul-based Hyundai Motor Co. and other units of Hyundai own a majority of Kia.
Kia also plans to add designers as needed, Butterfield said. The automaker hopes to draw from the area’s pool of auto designers, he said.
Hyundai is expected to take over Kia’s space at the automakers’ joint design center in the Irvine Spectrum.
Butterfield detailed plans for the design center during a groundbreaking for Kia’s 236,000-square-foot campus going up near Jamboree Road and the Santa Ana (I-5) Freeway.
Kia is looking to differentiate itself with the design center, according to Butterfield.
“Designers working on Kia and Hyundai models, they have their own biases of design,” he said. “There’s a good chance that they are going to look the same.”
In April, Kia announced plans to build its $70 million headquarters complex. Architect firm Skidmore, Ownings & Merrill LLP, which drew up plans for the headquarters, is set to work on the design center.
Kia Chief designer Tom Kearns is set to head the design studio. It’s slated to open in early 2007.
