RANDOLPH COUNTY, N.C. — North Carolina offers opportunity for advanced manufacturers with mega sites across the state. There are six megasites across the state and officials say they help businesses coming in and the surrounding communities.
There are major changes coming to the fields of Randolph County.
“Leaders in Greensboro and in Randolph County imagine this, dreamed about this years ago and then set about to make it happen,” Brent Christensen, President of Greensboro Chamber of Commerce said.
Christensen is talking about the Toyota Battery Manufacturing plant being built at the Greensboro-Randolph Megasite.
“North Carolina didn’t have an automotive assembly facility when all of the other southeastern states had one,” Christensen said.
The megasite was built to be able to bring an automotive assembly to the Piedmont Triad Area over a decade ago. The prep work included all the infrastructure needed and being able to reroute water and sewer from Greensboro.
“Big power, rail that runs along the northern edge. If we were to go that way about a mile and a half, I think you’d run into 421, a four-lane interstate quality highway,” Christensen said.
This isn’t the first time officials fought to get Toyota to come to the Triad. The region lost an earlier bid and the Toyota Mazda project picked Huntsville, Alabama. But, the silver lining was, Toyota helped them make the mega site more competitive.
“We would meet on a monthly basis and make progress on all those items. And in about once a quarter, we just send them out. Here’s an update, here’s our progress,” Christensen said.
He says megasites are a major victory for the region and the state.
“You don’t get as many at bats swinging for the fences. Typically, in economic development, you’re working on singles and doubles and triples. Every once in a while you get a homerun or a grand slam home run like we’ve got here. But if you don’t have a site like that, you don’t ever get that opportunity to swing the bat,” Christensen said.
The megasite project is now going to offer an economic boom to the area.
“Jobs are the most important thing to provide for the folks that live in our community, to be able to work right here in the community in which they live,” Kevin Franklin, President of Randolph County Economic Development, said.
Franklin calls it a transformational project.
“That is going to have such an impact not only in this community, but across Randolph County and across this region and even across the state of North Carolina. People’s lives, I think, are going to be changed,” Franklin said.
The Toyota battery plant is scheduled to open in 2025.