Where did Ford's Blue Oval City project rank among top North American deals for 2021?
Ford Motor Co.’s $5.6 billion Blue Oval City project in Haywood County recently tied for first place in Site Selection magazine's “2021 Top Deals in North America."
Site Selection ranked the top 20 North American deals in its May 2022 edition. Site Selection indexed capital expenditure and job creation data maintained by the magazine’s publisher, Conway Data, to determine the top deals from 2021.
Location location location! The locations of @Ford's new mega-sites— #BlueOval_TN in West Tennessee & #BlueOval_KY in Central Kentucky—have been named the 1st & 3rd top locations by @SiteSelection Magazine. We're excited to be joining these communities! https://t.co/ykqKRWfP5e
— Ford's BlueOvalCity (@blueovalcity) May 19, 2022
Site Selection ranked the projects for the first time, instead of listing them in alphabetical order. Ford’s Blue Oval City jointly occupied the top spot with Rivian Automotive’s $5 billion project with 7,500 proposed new jobs in Social Circle, Georgia.
Ford officials, along with South Korean company SK On, announced plans in September for a $5.6 billion project to produce electric trucks and electric vehicle batteries at a 4,100-acre site in Stanton. The project is expected to create about 5,800 jobs.
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Blue Oval City construction is set to begin later this year with production scheduled for early 2025.
Ford's partner SK On, part of SK Group — South Korea’s third-largest conglomerate, is a spinoff EV unit from SK Innovation that began in October. SK On plans to employ about 2,500 people with Ford hiring the remaining 3,300.
Greg Christen, Ford’s Electric Vehicle Footprint Director and Blue Oval City project manager, told Site Selection the search for Blue Oval City’s site “took a number of months.”
“We were comprehensive in our look at over 20 states,” Christensen said. “We looked at nearly 100 potential sites. We looked at the land and physical characteristics of the site. That’s the starting point when you’re doing something of this scale. It was hard for states to meet the minimum requirements of this site. We need shovel-readiness.”
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He also added in comments to Site Selection that power supply and sustainability were also factors in the site selection search.
Ford’s announcement in September ended years of uncertainty on whether the then-Memphis Regional Megasite would land a tenant. Now, there is renewed optimism Blue Oval City's impending arrival could benefit the region for decades to come.
Ford and SK’s $5.8 billion project in Glendale, Kentucky, was ranked third on Site Selection’s list of top North American deals for 2021. Between the two projects, Ford and SK are investing more than $11 billion and nearly 11,000 jobs at new plants in Kentucky and Tennessee.
Omer Yusuf covers the Ford project in Haywood County, residential real estate, tourism and banking for The Commercial Appeal. He can be reached via email Omer.Yusuf@commercialappeal.com or followed on Twitter @OmerAYusuf.
This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: Ford's Blue Oval City named one of top North American deals for 2021
