Rain, heavy mud and even smudged bus windows couldn’t hide the substantial construction progress on display Friday morning at Ford and SK On’s BlueOval City.
Gloomy skies (and a brief downpour) hovered over seven still-under-construction buildings, as a media bus slogged through the mud and along several roads on a nearly 40-minute tour of the 4,100-acre site in Stanton, about 40 miles northeast of Memphis.
As rain poured heavily onto dirt hills, some construction workers at BlueOval City moved quickly to shelter in unfinished buildings.
Fordland’s Construction Project Manager Donna Langford led the bus tour around the construction site where the seven partly done buildings towered high. It was the first look at the site since construction started about a year ago.
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“So every day we have about 1,000 contractors come through this gate that we’re going through right now,” Langford said as the tour started. “The other side of the site has almost 1,000 subcontractors working on their side. So almost 2,000 total (each day.)”
Piles of steel beams, big metal cylinders, rock and dirt covered the land at the future Ford Motor Co. site where the automaker will build its all-new electric truck, which is code named Project T3.
Mud puddles developed quickly on the site as the rain came in fast but workers in white hard hats and neon yellow vests moved around in golf carts and trucks to keep construction going.
Dozens of excavators and bulldozers moved dirt for future parking lots and truck-building sites. Steel beams outlined future buildings including Ford’s BlueOval SK Battery Plant, Battery Plant Assembly, Body Shop, Stamping, Paint Shop, Final Assembly and Supplier Facility.
Ford and South Korean company SK On plan to invest $5.6 billion and create approximately 5,800 new jobs at BlueOval City. The future electric vehicle and battery manufacturing in Haywood County will be capable of producing 500,000 EV trucks a year at full production.
As attendees entered the site Friday, a Ferris wheel stood outside the main tent with red and green lights shining, which was one of the entertainment options available for Ford’s BlueOval City Live event. As the rain eventually subsided, some could be seen riding the Ferris wheel in the early afternoon.
More than 900 attendees, including Gov. Bill Lee, State House Speaker Cameron Sexton and University of Memphis President Bill Hardgrave, mingled among the crowd inside a tent.
In addition to the Ferris wheel, vendors offering macarons, tea and the BlueOval City’s milkshake entertained guests as Ford officials spoke to the crowd about the West Tennessee facility. Guests signed a white steel beam placed in the back of the tent and children from elementary, middle and high schools in the region walked around.
Ford President and CEO Jim Farley told the audience Friday that production is expected to begin in about 30 months, or about September 2025, which is on track with Ford’s previous updates.
“We are going to make history here and the progress we’ve made already in such a short time is really incredible to us,” Farley said. “We’ve been in the car business for 120 years. We’ve built a lot of plants and to see the progress here is really something. It’s a testament for me to (Ford Executive Chairman) Bill Ford’s personal vision for the company for all the hard work for all the people here today.”
Friday’s media tour of the site represented a stark contrast to the then-Memphis Regional Megasite’s unknown future as recently as 24 months ago. The tour began on the BlueOval SK battery plant side of the campus and concluded at the Tennessee Electric Vehicle Center, which required a few minutes of travel through multiple gates and roadways showing how large the area is.
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For more than a decade — until the BlueOval City announcement in September 2021 — the 4,100-acre industrial site stood in an empty grassland as tenants passed over the area on several occasions.
The narrative had slowly shifted from when to if a company (or companies) would select Stanton to house its latest investment.
That’s all changed now. Stanton will soon be home to one of Ford’s key efforts to firmly establish itself in the electric vehicle industry and a project larger than any of the others that considered the area previously.
Construction is expected to reach its peak this summer with an estimated 6,000 workers at BlueOval City each day.
Omer Yusuf covers the Ford project in Haywood County, FedEx, tourism and banking for The Commercial Appeal. He can be reached via emailOmer.Yusuf@commercialappeal.comor followed on Twitter @OmerAYusuf.
Dima Amro covers the suburbs for The Commercial Appeal and can be reached atDima.Amro@commercialappeal.comor on Twitter @AmroDima.
