scale of this project is just
extraordinary Factory construction has
doubled across the United States in the
past year with hundreds of billions of
government dollars pouring in to boost
domestic manufacturing the work on
Hyundai's first ever electric vehicle
plant is now underway it's a $5.5
billion investment called The Meta plant
America and people are watching their
towns and neighbors change
quickly wow some people are really eager
about the land rush that's going on a
lot of people frankly don't know what to
expect we have a high demand and a low
Supply and it's definitely dangerous for
our communities to keep on this Gold
Rush Warehouse speculation when we don't
know if we need
it
in 2022 the Korean car maker Hyundai
broke ground on a new electric vehicle
plant in Brian County Georgia just west
of the historic city of Savannah the
plant will cost $7.6 billion to build
and employ 8,500 people and create
thousands of more jobs around it it's an
example of a trend across the United
States where f construction has nearly
doubled in the past year fueled by
legislation pushed through by the Biden
Administration that provides hundreds of
billions of dollars in subsidies for
clean energy and
semiconductors this site is almost 3,000
Acres that's about half the size of a
small City pretty extraordinary timeline
here they want to be up and running
actually crank out automobiles in
October 2024 why are they on such a a
tight timeline what you're seeing in the
competitive race in the electric vehicle
world you're seeing every company
wanting to gain as much market share as
possible and whoever gets the cars on
the road the fastest
winds why the south I mean it is there's
an extraordinary number of plants it's
still affordable in the South you know
cost of living cost of do business we've
got great Transportation networks we got
the world's busiest airport in Atlanta
we got the fastest growing port in
Savannah it's the sixth fastest growing
county in the United States there's just
a lot of attention in what's going on
here and U it's a good time to be
here here in downtown Pembrook Georgia
which has around 2500 people a lot of
people are apprehensive about the coming
Hyundai plant that's around 10 miles
away but a lot of people are are eager
as well the small businesses up and down
Main Street of Pembroke are seeing a
little bit of additional
business will you see any additional
business and are you already seeing any
additional business over the past
several years it's grown faster and
faster especially with the development
of the Hyundai plant coming here several
of the I believe to be upper management
eat here now I've got to work on my
Korean um for sure but yeah I see a lot
of it
already a local Economist at estimates
the factory will spawn 20,000 jobs 8,000
to work at the plant 5,000 to supply it
and more for the restaurants and
businesses that will pop up to serve
them while local business spending might
Trend upwards locals worry about where
the thousands of new Factory workers
will live and the town is stirred by
gosip about Gold Rush land
sales so Sarah tell me how how much has
changed since the last year and a half
or so since Hyundai announced this plan
you've got a lot of interest from a lot
of land owners that are closer to the
plant for the commercial aspect of it
they're
definitely looking to sell and you know
make money on land that they never
thought they could get near to what
prices are going for
now tell me about the just the housing
stock here now it seems like there's
just not enough for what's coming down
the pike right yeah we have a high
demand and a low Supply we have a lot of
people that's working to provide that
with communities and going through the
the Hoops to do that it seems like
there's a a lot of money waiting to be
deployed in this area you're already
talking with investors want to build
neighborhoods right but there's a little
bit of a hurdle with seems like the
infrastructure specifically the water
and sewer is not place yet they're
working on getting it to that point
there's really nothing that the
construction owners or the developers
can really do without the assistance of
the
municipalities surrounding Brian County
temporarily slowed development until
they better understand it placing a
moratorium on applications to rezone
until the end of the year the chief
concern is water and wastewater capacity
Brian County and the three neighboring
counties are building a massive
wastewater treatment plant to prepare
for the
plan with this rapid ability to
transform areas the environmental
concerns are also there and savana's
beautiful landscape is definitely seeing
an increase in
warehousing about a year ago we could
have stood here and it was a nice
country road we would have heard the
birds chirping in the back ground but as
you can see in our background we have
both the warehouses and an incredible
amount of truck
traffic the growth that it's going to
Spur is also uh it's going to be far
reaching and wide and it's going to be
population growth so we're going to see
a lot more subdivisions a lot more
housing a lot more Wastewater uh some
storm water issues there we're really
concerned potentially about uh the the
waste from manufacturing batteries uh
there's a lot of heavy metals and other
chemicals that you know pretty nasty we
want to keep add the environment
America's factories are building fast
and some cities are trying to catch up
here in Savannah despite efforts to
address a shortage of water sewer and
housing Hyundai's extraordinary building
Pace leaves many issues unresolved at
least in the short
term but it's clear Savannah's economy
will see a much bigger mix of
manufacturing jobs added to its
traditional Reliance on tourism and at
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Seaport other Southern towns have seen
rapid expansions with the entry of
automakers like Chattanooga Tennessee
after it got a Volkswagen Plant
Chattanooga was inundated with hotels
and apartment complexes and the same
happened in West Point Georgia whose
downtown's boom is linked to the Kia
plant
nearby so for the surprisingly bare area
around Hyundai things will will soon
change quickly as investors line up to
build around the factory as soon as they
get the green
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