AURORA, Ill. -

Toyota dealership employees will have a new place to train, as the OEM broke ground last week on a new classroom and service bay facility.

Executives and associates at the Chicago Regional Office of Toyota Motor Sales, USA broke ground on the $4.9 million training center in Aurora, Ill., as part of a campus-wide building project for Toyota’s regional sales office.

The new center will be “instrumental” in training employees of the company’s 112 dealerships in the Chicago Region, Toyota officials said, which includes sales and service operations in Illinois, Indiana, Minnesota and Wisconsin.

The training center will also serve many of Toyota’s 70 local associates, the company said.

At approximately 15,000 square feet, the new training center will house three classrooms and 12 high-tech service bays, and is scheduled for completion next summer.

“We’re excited to be adding this vital training facility to our regional headquarters in Aurora,” said Kevin Fletcher, general manager of Toyota’s Chicago Region. “It’s a significant investment that will ultimately benefit our company’s technical efforts as well as those of our dealer body.”

The automaker also said it will invest an additional $1.9 million in renovations to its main office building the 50-acre campus.

Latest announcement

On the production side, Auto Remarketing has reported on other Toyota announcements in recent months.

In May 2012, the company revealed it plans to increase annual engine assembly capacity of four-cylinder engines by more than 100,000 at its plant in Georgetown, Ky. That increase is scheduled to begin in August 2013, and will create about 80 new jobs, officials noted.

The plant — Toyota Motor Manufacturing, Kentucky (TMMK) — currently assembles engines for the Avalon, Camry and Venza, all built on site. The planned capacity increase will supply engines for the plants Camry and Camry Hybrid and RAV4 in Woodstock, Ontario, and will increase engine production at the Kentucky plant to more than 500,000 annually.

With the capacity increase, the plant will raise its total employment to approximately 6,700, officials shared.

This announcement was one of a string of production increase announcements from the OEM since February, including Toyota plants in Indiana, West Virginia and Canada. The cumulative investment is approximately $565 million, and nearly 1,000 jobs are being added, the company said.