Growth: 2023 was just the beginning
♦ We’re looking for continued booms in 2024 for Northwest Georgia.
As roll further into 2024, we do so with the optimism akin to a perfect opening day at a baseball spring training site.
We don’t see any direct connections to the biggest fish locally, SK On/Hyundai electric battery plant, the at least not yet. But the wild card in all of this: The second- and third-tier businesses that will arrive to support these larger projects — something we’ve already seen with a multimillion-dollar investment in a Qcells supplier in Cartersville.
In three contiguous counties — Floyd, Bartow and Polk — we’re counting more than $9 billion in investments and 6,000 additional jobs. Construction is well underway on most of it with production due later this year and in 2025.
Here’s some of the things we’re looking at: The EV battery plant: Every day, as you drive by the SK On/Hyundai electric battery campus, you see new steel, new roads, new everything. The $5 billion plant should be operational in 2025 but what we’re also watching is which second-tier companies will be announced nearby over the next 12 months. The Rome-Floyd County Development Authority has placed a big bet off U.S. 411 in landing some of those support companies.
Qcells revs up later this year: Qcells solar factory is well underway in the Highland 75 industrial park off I-75 in Bartow County. The $2.5 billion campus will employ 2,000 people producing solar ingots, wafers, cells and finished panels. At last report, “Things are moving smoothly and we are still aiming to produce there in (the fourth quarter of) 2024,” says Qcells’ Marta Stoepker of the Bartow campus. The Dalton locations are doing just that.
Microsoft moves: This one isn’t due for a few years but we’ll be watching what happens in 2024 in terms of preplanning, site prep on the 347 acres in West Rome, and other moves. The company’s billion-dollar data center will employ up to 150 people.
SOLARCYCLE shines: Solarcycle announced in February a plans for a $344 million, 600-job solar glass manufacturing/recycling center in Cedartown. That came a day after Qcells announces a partnership with Solarcycle.