MEMPHIS, Tennessee — People who helped bring the $5.6 billion BlueOval City project to Haywood County believe it will transform our region's economy.
In Sept. of 2021, when Ford Motor Company announced the BlueOval City project in West Tennessee, many wondered if the company would be an economic gamechanger for the only major Tennessee city that seems stuck, especially when it comes to the Memphis metro area's need to grow its middle class.
The mayor of Brownsville does not need convincing about what BlueOval City will mean to West Tennessee. Though it took 200 years for the Tennessee town to reach the population of 10,000 it has now, Mayor Bill Rawls said the project will bring a population explosion.
"We're looking to double our population in the next 10-20 years, and that's a conservative number," said Mayor Rawls.
He also said plans are already being drawn-up and permits are being issued.
"We talk to developers on a daily basis, and we're just looking to pull the trigger. We want to see some dirt moving and see some houses coming out of the ground," he said.
What is already coming out of the ground is a massive new Ford truck assembly plant as well as another plant, operated by BlueOvalSK, to make batteries for a new generation all-electric pickup truck, codenamed "T-3."
ABC24 crews had a drone to try and capture what 14 million square feet looks like under one roof. The buildings stretched for blocks and blocks, roads were being widened, water towers were going up, and there were acres of trailers to temporarily house the thousands of construction workers, contractors and sub-contractors already on the site building Tennessee's and Ford's largest-ever project.
"It is the greatest thing that's ever happened in my career," Mark Herbison with Tipton County Community Development said. "I can tell you we never expected to get something like this. It's truly a miracle for our region."
Herbison was with the Greater Memphis Chamber of Commerce when Tennessee first created what twenty years ago was known as the Memphis Regional Megasite, which he helped spearhead, eventually convincing Ford to literally build a new city at a record pace.
"They're building the most sophisticated, most technologically advanced, most sustainable facility they've ever built." he said.
The 3,600-acre Blue Oval City campus will soon be hiring as many as 6,000 workers, not including several major suppliers that will build their own facilities and hire up to 3,000 more workers. Projections are that the whole project could draw up to 30,000 direct and indirect jobs.
The federal government estimates every auto assembly line job will bring in an additional 6-8 jobs because of the need for restaurants, coffee shops, clinics, day care centers and hotels. The growth will extend many miles in each direction, benefitting both Memphis and Jackson.
"This is a very significant project for Ford. It is our first all-new plant in the United States in over fifty years," said Gabby Bruno, Ford Community Relations Director.
Bruno said the company has a lot riding on this project. Since the announcement, and largely behind the scenes, Ford started listening to citizens. The company is working diligently to see what barriers might keep potential workers away from access to childcare to transportation.
She said Ford wants a workforce ready to go when the hiring starts.
"We are working closely with area schools and colleges to develop a robust pipeline of local talent and Ford's training programs will be comprehensive. We'll have classroom training, hands-on experiences as well as online opportunities," Bruno said.
The opportunities will be on a scale the Memphis area hasn't seen in decades.
Ford is still being somewhat elusive when it comes to exactly when the massive hiring will start, what kind of jobs it will be filling and how much those jobs will pay.
Right now, the company will only say the mass hiring will start sometime next year. However, BlueOvalSK has already started its mass hiring. It's on the same site, but not operated by Ford. So far, it's hired 300 people with 2,200 jobs needing to be filled in the coming months.
Positions include maintenance technicians, production operators, quality control technicians and different kinds of engineers and specialists.
Depending on the position and a person's experience, the pay is between $21 per hour to $37.50 per hour, or between $44,000 and $78,000 a year. Industry sources said Ford's pay scale will likely be higher than that.
Despite some modest softening of the earlier sky-high demand for all-electric vehicles, the company is building full steam ahead.