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WINSTON-SALEM (MCT) — The city will offer Caterpillar Inc. a total of $14.35 million to entice the company to build a manufacturing plant on the eastern edge of town.

The Winston-Salem City Council voted unanimously Monday night in favor of the incentives.

The figure includes $3.75 million to help the company buy 100 acres next to the Dell Inc. plant off Union Cross Road and $9.6 million in cash incentives. It also includes $1 million in equipment, which the city plans to buy using a grant from the Golden Leaf Foundation, then lease back to Caterpillar. The city does not have that grant yet.

"In this time of unprecedented unemployment, we're looking at over 500 new jobs," Bob Leak, the president of Winston-Salem Business Inc., told the council last night. "We're going to make money on this project, not lose money on this project."

Forsyth County already approved a $10.15 million incentive offer to Caterpillar, which has said it will choose a site for the plant in August. Spartanburg, S.C., and Montgomery, Ala., are also in the running.

North Carolina law requires that incentive offers be made public; neither South Carolina nor Alabama have such a requirement.

Montgomery Mayor Todd Strange told a reporter for the Montgomery Advertiser that he does not expect Montgomery to be able to match Winston-Salem's incentive offer.

Winston-Salem will use $3.75 million from the money repaid to the city by Dell to help Caterpillar buy land. The city will use part of the property taxes paid by Caterpillar to cover the rest of the incentives.

Council member and Mayor Pro Tempore Vivian Burke, who represents the city's Northeast Ward, said she hopes that Caterpillar would try to hire residents of Winston-Salem and Forsyth County, should the company choose Winston-Salem for its plant.

The Golden Leaf Foundation's board of directors is likely to vote Aug. 5 on whether to award the grant to the city. The Golden Leaf Foundation is a private grant-giving organization that was created by the N.C. General Assembly to help areas affected by the decline in tobacco production.

The city could use the money Caterpillar pays to lease the equipment on other economic-development projects, said Dan Gerlach, the president of the foundation.