Thermo Fisher Opens $105M Nashville-Area Tech Plant

1200 Darrell Waltrip Drive. Image courtesy of Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc.

Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. has opened an approximately 400,000-square-foot bioprocessing production plant in the Nashville area as part of the long-term expansion of its bioprocessing production infrastructure.

The $105 million, build-to-suit property in Lebanon, Tenn., a development project of Panattoni, marks the scientific technologies provider’s largest single-use manufacturing site in its portfolio, and one of the largest such facilities in the world.

Sited roughly 35 miles southeast of Nashville’s central business district, Lebanon may not be known for its music, but it is a draw for industrial users. Cracker Barrell maintains its North American headquarters in the area and Amazon operates a 1 million-square-foot fulfillment center nearby. Thermo Fisher’s new plant is sited within Panattoni’s Speedway Industrial Park, a 1,400-acre logistics and bulk distribution complex located on the former Nashville Superspeedway along Interstate 840.

Carrying the address of 1200 Darrell Waltrip Drive, Thermo Fisher’s new plant delivered in the third quarter of 2021, and is also known as Speedway Building. The facility’s opening resulted in the creation of 300 new jobs and upon the plant’s completion, it will accommodate as many as 1,400 workers in various positions. Further development at the property will include the addition of a 92,000-square-foot clean room.

Nashville evolution

Nashville is expanding its horizons beyond the Music scene and is moving up on the list of the leading life science hubs in the U.S., having recently ranked in the top 25 of CBRE’s Life Sciences Research Talent 2022 report. The metro area is home to notable densities of data scientists, biochemists and biophysicists and is also home to Vanderbilt University Medical Center, which received $462 million in funding from the National Institutes of Health in 2021.

“There are several emerging clusters of research talent growing faster than average,” according to the CBRE Life Sciences Research Talent 2022 report. “Some of the outsized growth in these markets is due to their world-class research institutions such as Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, where National Institutes of Health funding grew by more than 50 percent between 2016 and 2021. These smaller life sciences clusters also benefit from larger, demographic tailwinds as some of the fastest growing regions in the U.S. and saw a boost of in-migration in 2020 as the COVID-19 pandemic arose.” All of the aforementioned conditions apply to Nashville.