Ford Announces Investment, Expansion, and a new Electric Vehicle for the Ohio Assembly Plant
06/02/2022 – On Thursday, June 2, Ford announced that as part of a nationwide investment in its facilities, the Company will invest $1.5 billion in the Ohio Assembly Plant, add 1,800 new union jobs to that plant, and make it the new production site for an all-new electric commercial vehicle. Ford’s announcement today pertained to more than just the Ohio Assembly Plant. The massive plan calls for a $3.7 billion investment in Ford facilities nationwide and 6,200 new union manufacturing jobs in Ohio, Michigan, and Missouri. Ford’s Ohio Assembly Plant sits in three different cities: Avon Lake, Sheffield Village, and Sheffield Lake. Currently the plant employs about 1,740 employees, so Ford’s announced job creation will roughly double the number of employees at the plant. Ford has not announced yet how much of the building expansion will be in each city. Estimates of how much income tax and property tax revenue from this announcement will have to wait until Ford provides that information.
But according to Ted Esborn, Avon Lake’s Economic Development Director, focusing tax revenue misses the much larger picture. “Today’s announcement is first and foremost about the future of the Ohio Assembly Plant. How many times in the last 40 years have Avon Lakers faced the threat of the plant’s closing? Any investment bodes well for the future of a plant, but this investment is special. Ford is giving Ohio Assembly Plant the ability to produce electric vehicles, which are a huge part of the company’s plan for the future. That gives us reason to celebrate, today, the safeguarding of the plant into future decades. We will benefit from tax revenue, but that doesn’t come close to the benefit we will continue to receive from having Ohio Assembly Plant in our community as a significant source of jobs and an excellent corporate citizen.”
“This is wonderful news for the city of Avon Lake and all of Lorain County. We are all fortunate for this major commitment by Ford to stay in Northern Ohio and grateful they should be here for many years to come,” said City of Avon Lake Mayor Greg Zilka. “We have worked closely with Ford Motor Company over the years and Jobs Ohio worked hard to make it a reality. The United Auto Workers have also played a major role in working with Ford to help make it all happen. It has been team effort with so many benefitting. The plant is scheduled to begin putting out a product sometime in the middle of this decade.”
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