KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (WVLT/AP) – An internet publication is reporting that General Motors may shift production of the Cadillac Escalade to the soon to be idle Spring Hill plant in Middle Tennessee.

The report comes just days after the nations largest automaker passed up the Maury County facility in favor of building its new small car at the Orion, Michigan plant.

Gov. Phil Bredesen announced Wednesday that the state had offered GM a $20 million cash incentives package to move production of the new vehicle to Spring Hill. The package specified that most of the money go toward jobs training and the governor admitted it was obviously not enough to sway the Detroit automaker into keeping the plant open.

Spring Hill currently makes the Chevrolet Traverse, but production is scheduled to shift to another plant in late 2009, leaving about 2,500 Tennesseans out of work.

GMInsideNews.com has since reported that GM is considering using the plant to build produce the next-generation Escalade. According to the publication, the new luxury SUV will be built on the automakers smaller Lambda platform. Lambda happens to be the same platform the Traverse is built on and is also shared by the Buick Enclave, GMC Acadia and Saturn Outlook.

The 19 year old Spring Hill plant is one of GM’s newest and was originally built to manufacture Saturn vehicles. It was completely retooled in 2007 to produce the Traverse.

According to GMInsideNews.com, the plant is highly flexible and would be capable of building virtually any vehicle using the Lambda platform.

GM has not commented about the online report and the publication even warns that readers should not make career decisions based on it because “General Motors is notorious for changing their minds.”

If true, it’s unclear if Tennessee would have to put together another incentive package to lure Escalade production away from its current plant in Arlington, Texas. In addition to cash for job training, the Spring Hill package would have made GM eligible for long-term tax breaks that would have brought the total incentives package to a much higher figure.

The Associated Press reports GM executives told the governor that if the auto industry rebounds and the company starts producing more vehicles, then they would need to expand capacity. Bredesen said Tuesday that if they have to, he is “confident Spring Hill will be on their short list.”

(The Associated Press contributed to this report)