Toyota is conducting pre-production trials at its Randolph County factory in the completed building that’s scheduled to start churning out batteries for its hybrid-electric vehicles by the early spring.
That’s the word officials at the N.C. Department of Transportation have received. They are in a position to know because the agency coordinated site-preparation work on the massive facility in Randolph County.
“Currently they are up to 1,400 jobs they have hired and [have] in place,” said Reuben Blakley, the chief engineer for DOT’s Division 8.
Blakley is NCDOT’s point man in dealing not just with the Toyota factory, but two additional state-incentivized industrial projects in Chatham County, Wolfspeed and VinFast.
So he was the person the State Board of Transportation’s economic development committee wanted to hear from on Tuesday for a progress report.
The $13.9 billion Toyota battery factory is the largest of three in terms of the state’s involvement and its expected economic impact. In return for state incentives, the Japanese carmaker pledged to create at least 5,100 jobs.
DOT’s involvement in the site work for Toyota is unique to that project, as on Chatham megasites it’s sticking to its more usual road-building role.
But state help with leveling and prepping 1,200 acres of site was integral to the original incentive package that got embedded into the budget bill legislators and former Gov. Roy Cooper agreed to in late 2021.
Toyota’s stance was “we’re not dirt movers, we’re car builders,” Blakley said of the leverage the company exerted to get the state to lend a hand.
He added that the work has cost “close to $1 billion for what we’re dealing with.”
Legislators and the Golden LEAF Foundation have channeled $225 million to the agency for road work to support the project. The General Assembly also allotted $100 million for site work.
Toyota’s supplied another $510 million, though it’s in line to get a state reimbursement for some of that. The 2021 budget bill allowed the company to claim as much as $185 million in repayments for “site work, roadwork and wetlands mitigation.”
Blakley said Toyota was wiring DOT “25, 50, 75, 100 million dollars at a time as we needed it.”
Legislators allowed DOT to use its construction manager/general contractor procurement process to run the project, a move that Blakley said “saved us money because it reduced a lot of risk.”
But it didn’t eliminate risk entirely.
For example, the agency made sure it got new airborne photogrammetric surveys of the site every month or two, and has worked with Terracon to make sure the site’s new topography is stable and conforms to plan.
“One of the biggest challenges and fears of mine was just the liability of the state being involved with a project like this,” Blakley said. “If you build a road and it settles a half inch in an embankment in 10 years, maybe it’s OK. But if a building slab settles a half inch in 10 years, it’s not OK, especially if you got precise equipment [sitting on it].”
It’s nerve-wracking enough that at least one Board of Transportation member isn’t keen on seeing the state do this again.
“I’m glad we didn’t do the earthwork for the other two sites,” said Stephen Rosenburgh. “It’s better if the legislature just puts up a fixed amount and says, ‘Here, boys, you go to it.’”
“Whether or not it’s a good investment — I think it is — [it’s] scary if you look at all the costs,” added board member Leo Daughtry, a former House majority leader.
