A new plant has brought thousands of jobs to Putnam County, courtesy of two companies expanding in the area.
City and county officials toured the new Ficosa North America plant in Cookeville Tuesday.
The 270,000 square foot facility located in the Highlands Business Park will eventually provide 900 jobs for area residents. The company currently supplies several major automotive companies with rear view mirrors. The new facility will have the capacity to produce around 5 million units per year.
“This plant will be from a manufacturing standpoint, the highest level of manufacturing technology,” said Frederick Zicard, Vice President of Ficosa North America. “Complete state of the art processes.”
City and county officials said facility was the result of years of work, and they were excited to see it come together.
The tour came on the heels of the grand opening of the Academy Sports and Outdoors 1.6 million square foot distribution center. The center will eventually employ around 750 people.
City and county officials said the business park still has 300 available acres, and they hope to see other new businesses move into the area.
“We have about five or six other companies looking at us strongly,” said Randy Porter, Putnam County Executive. “Hopefully, we will have more announcements like this in the future.”
“In the past 18 months we have been able to announce over 2,000 new jobs for the area, so we are very excited,” said Ricky Shelton, Mayor of Cookeville.
The Ficosa plant will be online in October. The company plans to move 400 jobs from its current facility in Crossville, and add 550 jobs for a total of 950 positions.
