2,800 New Jobs Announced for Greater Nashville Area

By Eliza Theiss, Associate Editor

Several projects worth hundreds of millions of dollars each have been recently announced for the greater Nashville area and they’re projected to create several thousand new jobs.

Early this week the Tennessee Governor’s Office announced that global tire manufacturer Hankook Tire Co., Ltd. has selected Clarksville, TN for the location of its first US manufacturing facility. The $800 million state-of-the-art plant will create 1,800 jobs in Montgomery County—an impressive boost for the local economy as well as for the state’s reputation as an auto industry hub.

Hankook will construct the manufacturing facility on a 469-acre site at the Clarksville Corporate Business Park, becoming its largest tenant. Development is expected to begin by the end of 2014 and will result in 1.5 million square feet of advanced manufacturing space. The plant is expected to become operational in 2016. Hankook will produce high-end performance tires in Clarksville, its eighth global production site.

Tennessee boasts the largest automotive industry in the Southern US in terms of jobs: 113,148 Tennesseans are employed at 910 automotive companies. The automotive industry has been the largest post-recession job-recovery booster, creating 12 percent of jobs in the state.

The Governor’s Office also announced that Great Lake Cheese, an award-winning manufacturer and packer of cheeses will also be opening a manufacturing facility in the Nashville area. The Hiram, Ohio-headquartered company will construct a 330,000-square-foot factory in Manchester Industrial Park in Manchester, TN, becoming the industrial park’s first resident. The $100 million facility will be the company’s first in the Southeastern US, and its ninth global location. Great Lake Cheese will start hiring in fall 2014 and will create 200 new jobs by 2019.

In addition, according to the Nashville Business Journal, Nashville-based Asurion, a provider of cell phone insurance services, has announced plans to create an 800-job new support center in Antioch, TN. The facility will occupy 122,000 square feet on Crossing Boulevard, leased from American Health Properties, Inc. Set for an early 2014 opening, the support center will become Asurion’s fifth location in Davidson County.

Photo courtesy of Tennessee Governor’s Office