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A new bridge, the new Ford plant and the state of economic development in Memphis.

Tonight, on behind the headlines.

I'm Eric Barnes with The Daily Memphian.

Thanks for joining us.

I am joined tonight by Gwyn Fisher, chief economic development officer for the Greater Memphis Chamber.

Thanks for being here again.

Thanks, Eric.

Along with Bill Dries, reporter with The Daily Memphian.

We had booked you to be on the show before the announcement of the bridge.

I have some feeling that you maybe knew that was coming or were involved in that.

But let's talk about the new old bridge.

The proposal or the state is putting money forward we'll walk through the dollars, but it would replace the I-55 bridge that Memphians typically know as the old bridge.

What-- I assume it was a priority for the chamber.

I assume you're very happy.

It's been talked about for a long time.

What is-- It's more than just a new fancy bridge.

There's a huge economic impact that this could have.

You're absolutely right, Eric.

The chamber has been working towards America's river crossing for literally decades.

And this is one of the best announcements we could have hoped for.

The replacement of that bridge.

As we all know, Memphis is America's logistics and distribution powerhouse.

So our ability to move people and products across that river is critical to the national economy and overall national resilience.

This bridge project is more than just an investment in new infrastructure.

It's an investment in the entire national economy.

We'll bring up a map of the potential locations.

We don't exactly know what's going to go, but am I right in saying that that the map people are seeing, the red box in the middle?

There is basically the location of the current bridge.

Other, you know, crossing points have been talked about over the years.

But I believe we think it's going to go in that center part there labeled five-A or five-B, is that right?

You're correct.

This is a replacement bridge.

It is not going to be a third crossing.

And so we anticipate the engineering really finding the fastest path forward.

This is infrastructure that our region and our country have needed for a long time.

So we're just going to replace in that same general area.

And that's what we've zoomed in on five, eight and five B is in that area.

There's also currently a whole lot of work going on in that interchange.

Does that how does that come into play?

I mean, that work continues and will match up with the bridge, right?

I mean, we're not we're not doing anything with the big interchange infrastructure work that's already going on over there.

Correct.

Everything is intended to supplement work already in the pipeline.

Our ability to move goods and people across that river is critical.

So we just want to keep building on the investments that have already been made.

State of Tennessee, in partnership with the state of Arkansas and the federal government, really see this as a national priority.

Let me bring in Bill.

So on these transportation projects, they are notorious for having a lot of boxes to check, a lot of studies that have to be done, environmental studies and and things like that.

So and we should also point out the federal funding, which is about half of this, is an application at this point for for a grant on this, which has been talked about in transportation subcommittees just about a week before this in Washington.

So the other routes that we saw are are they still viable at this point or have they been ruled out?

Because I think one of them was to cross over and connect with Memphis on President's Island, which is also not too far from this.

You're right.

It's not too far.

And quite frankly, I think that's a question that TDOT and ARDOT and our federal partners are all working together collectively to solve.

We want to find the best path forward, literally and figuratively, so that we have the most successful application for the funding.

Right.

So this is a replacement bridge.

There had been some talk about about having three bridges, a new river crossing, keep the Memphis-Arkansas bridge, the I-55 bridge, and of course, keep the I-40, Hernando de Soto Bridge.

Is-- is replacing this better than trying to do a third bridge, do you think?

Absolutely.

It's my understanding that the permitting and administrative process of a third brand new bridge would have turned this into a 20 year project with a price tag far beyond anything.

We really want to put on the table.

But when we focus on replacing and expanding the capacity of the existing bridge, it's a much shorter timeline and a smaller price tag.

Hmm.

I think this is going to be a six lane bridge.

Am I correct on that?

That's what I've seen.

But again, engineers much smarter than you and I are going to figure all that out as we move forward.

Right.

And of the three bridges that the cross Memphis of that part two of them are are rail bridges.

And the third one, the the southern most is the Memphis-Arkansas bridge that truck and cars where that where they come across on that bridge.

So is there any thought at all to trying to include some combination of rail with with what you've got.

I'm sure.

I'm certainly sure that's under consideration.

You know, when you're going to make investments this big, we want to get the biggest bang for our buck.

And I think multimodal is obviously going to be looked at very closely.

Let's talk about the price tag.

I think we skipped over that.

It's estimated to be an $800 million project.

The money coming from what, buckets?

Right now, Tennessee and Arkansas are responsible for a little over 200 million of that.

Each, right.

It's my understanding, yes.

And then looking to the federal partners to make up the rest.

So it's really going to be a multiparty investment in America's infrastructure.

We'll move on some other infrastructure.

But last two questions on this bridge, because it is just a huge impact and talked about for so long.

What-- does this take a third bridge off the table forever or just for the time being?

I never say never in our world, but right now we are focused on getting what our region and our country need.

That is added capacity across the river in the form of a replacement bridge and the cost the the exorbitant cost of building somewhere else.

Did you say that was the studies and the permitting and all the other things?

Because it wouldn't be any more.

It's still be a bridge, right?

Why?

Why this one 800 million and a new new bridge would be potentially a billion or 2 billion.

Because we're an entire region.

So to plan, permit and construct an entirely new piece of public infrastructure is simply a larger undertaking, both administratively and for a price tag.

And replacing what you already have in roughly the footprint you already have was a faster path forward.

Well, there's there were some other announcements in in the governor's big multibillion dollar infrastructure plan.

And we'll walk through these relatively quickly, 106 million for Lamar Avenue.

Talk about that that project.

Lamar Avenue, is incredibly important corridor that connects to federal Highway 22, unfortunately, headed down towards Atlanta.

Correct.

So picking up that entire southeastern portion of the United States.

Unfortunately, when you enter Memphis proper, it grinds to a halt and becomes a city street.

Every minute trucks spend idling at a stoplight costs money to those companies and has an environmental impact.

So the more we can invest in Lamar to keep that freight moving quickly without stopping, the more we're saving area businesses money, which translates to more jobs and reducing the environmental impact of that road.

Another one-- 142 million for the exit onramp offramp right at I-240.

And Airways, Basically, if you're going to the airport via Lamar or the highways, it's a mess, to say the least.

That's to start in 2027.

The Lamar project is to start in 2027.

I should have said that the bridge is estimated to start at 2026, which is really pretty quick.

And then the last part that is there's 57 million for widening and improvements on parts of I-40 in this area.

But we're not exactly clear where those parts are.

I think we're going to see a lot of work on I-40 in the coming year.

So for most of all of our lives, folks have traveled westward to come into the city for work.

And with the opening of Blue Oval City, we're going to have more than 6000 people a day, could be upwards of 10,000 people a day heading to that site at exit 42 off of I-40.

So it's imperative that that infrastructure be as robust as possible to get those folks to work.

Let me bring in Bill.

All right.

And speaking of Blue Oval construction continues there, that there is there is all kinds of discussion about the coming of electric vehicles and what that means and the specifics of it and charging stations.

How confident are you at the chamber that that this adheres to the original timeline from Ford when they made this announcement?

We're not only incredibly confident, we're extremely impressed.

It has been a massive team effort for Blue Oval City to come up out of the ground if you haven't seen it.

It is probably one of the largest structures anywhere in our region or series of structures.

So they set an aggressive timeline and and have been working so hard to keep to it.

It's amazing what's happening here in terms of support industries for that plant, because the campus is going to include some of that there in in and at the site where this is all going to happen.

But there's been some talk about maybe the Firestone, the old Firestone plant site in North Memphis.

Where are the Memphis support possibilities?

And this you know, we have a number of possibilities.

The chamber this year launched what we call MemReady, and that is our site development program to have a place for these suppliers to go.

And over the course of the year, we have identified more than 100 industrial sites throughout our region totaling over 30,000 acres.

So any supplier to blue Oval city that isn't already designated for the campus has an amazing array of options throughout the Memphis region.

For people who say and I've asked you this question before, I think, but just to ask again, you know, for people say, well, yeah, but all this work is happening out in Stanton.

It's not even in Shelby County.

It's really not going to have a big impact on the city of Memphis or even, you know, the kind of core of Shelby County.

Do you see it that way?

Not at all, Eric.

I really think that Blue Oval City is going to have a significant impact on the entire region reaching not only into Memphis but into eastern Arkansas as well.

We'll have suppliers that choose to locate in the area, and those are real high quality jobs that we want to drive to the entire region.

And a lot of our workers, our families, friends, neighbors, they're going to get jobs at Blue Oval City or at their suppliers and be traveling out there every day.

I mean, I see I don't know if you're an answer, but I'll ask the question anyway.

There's there's always a hope when when an area gets a big employer like this, in this case, an electric vehicle plant with a battery, you know, facility, that that can cause other, you know, auto related industries to come in.

It happened in the Nashville area.

It's happened in South Carolina.

It's happened in Mississippi.

Are you I guess I can ask it this way.

Are you all pursuing another auto plant, another electric auto plant to kind of feed into the synergy of Blue Oval and the Ford plant there?

Absolutely.

You know, it's had a significant impact on our overall pipeline.

The way I explain it to people, the advent of Blue Oval City is essentially adding a western lane to the south eastern automotive corridor.

And with our seven mega sites that we have available, sites over 1000 acres or more, we're actively courting another OEM or automaker to the region.

We firmly believe that as a region we have the talent, the infrastructure and the business climate for them to be successful.

Walk through some numbers that that you all put out recently in 2023 in terms of big projects that came to the Memphis area, there were 11 projects representing 1700 jobs, a billion dollars in investment and $81,000 average annual wages.

And you're looking next year in terms of project the pipeline, not that all of them will come through.

54 projects representing 15,000 plus jobs, 16 billion investment, average wage, more in the $15 an hour.

What you're not going tell me what those what those companies are.

Right.

But what kinds of companies are you looking to bring here and how has that changed over the years?

I mean, there was a time when it was sort of everything's a distribution warehouse to feed into the FedEx complex and and all that.

But you've talked about advanced manufacturing.

You've talked about other types of companies coming and potentially coming to Memphis.

So the vast majority of our pipeline right now is extremely advanced manufacturing, driven by federal programs like the IRA and the CHIPS Act.

So we're looking at and working with companies not only in the automotive and electric vehicle space, but also in semiconductors, solar cells, microchips, really, really high tech manufacturing.

And they're looking at this area.

One, we've got the sites, but too, we do have that logistics infrastructure that is so critical to today's economy.

We need our world tomorrow.

We all expect it to be delivered tomorrow.

Whether that is the microchip for your cell phone or the new pair of kicks you just ordered from Nike.

So it's a really robust pipeline.

It's very high tech.

It's predominantly recruitment to the area, and it's a lot driven by federal programs.

Bill.

Meaning the workers come here to the area that.

What do you mean by recruitment?

No, the businesses don't currently exist in this area.

So they're coming looking to come here.

Okay.

And and so every I think everybody, when they hear a recruiting to the area, they mean, okay, this is this is a sales job.

You've got you've got to sell them on the Memphis area.

And I think most cities probably look at that and go, oh, man, we've got this vulnerability and we've got that vulnerability.

As I understand it, from from past discussions we've had around this very table, these companies aren't looking for a perfect place to come that has absolutely no problems, no potholes in the roads, you know, no crime, nothing.

They're-- They're realistic about this, right?

Absolutely.

Companies are running very sophisticated, long range financial projections.

So when they're considering our area, they're running the cost of doing business here for the next 20 to 30 years.

If you're invest investing a billion dollars you're going to be here that long.

So they're running very sophisticated models.

And every city that's under consideration is always a unique mix of their past, present and future.

And companies are taking that into consideration.

But what's primarily driving the decisions right now are speed to market.

How quickly can they get up and then production and do we have the workforce to get them there?

Because it sort of doesn't matter what you make if we can't give you the workforce.

Go ahead.

And and where would you say we are in terms of our workforce being prepared for these advanced manufacturing jobs?

Because we're not talking about putting a bolt in something and then screw it on.

These are these are skilled jobs.

They are highly skilled jobs, highly technical.

The factories of today are not the factories that your grandfather worked in.

They are clean and bright and robotic, and a lot of times they feel like playing a video game more than actually constructing anything.

As a community, we are making incredible strides forward on the workforce front.

The Chamber of Commerce has led the way in bringing in federal funding.

We've brought in more federal grant funding towards workforce development than in any time in our history.

We recently launched the Prosper Memphis, its Accelerated Skills Training Center.

That's going to be critical to our long term success is our ability to upskill the folks that we already have here.

So, so does that skill center that does a business say, "“we have workers we want you to train,"” or how does that work?

It can work a lot of different ways.

As soon as we begin talking to a company that's considering Memphis, we do a deep dive on what skills they might need and begin working ahead of time to make sure we have the programs and pathways in place for our residents to get those jobs.

Sometimes we have companies that are already here and they say, "“You know what, we want to upgrade our equipment"” or "“we want to expand our production.

Can you help us upgrade our existing workforce?

"” It is such an amazingly agile opportunity to upskill more than a thousand Memphians every year.

We had Doug McGowen, the CEO of MLGW, on the show a couple of weeks ago and talked about there was a kind of fits and starts idea that the MLGW would would build these power generating units that in part would be for big industrial, large scale kind of customers, the kind of folks that we're talking about because TVA had Tennessee Valley Authority had at one point said they weren't going to be able to hook up any new big users, big industrial users.

They backed off that plan, I believe.

They said we do have the capacity to hook up big industrial users.

Where does all that stand in terms of and this is the wonky, boring stuff, but it's critically important.

Electricity, water and sewer to getting these big employers and these big companies to make these investments.

It really is.

And that's a radical change from what we saw in economic development two or three years ago.

Prior to that, most projects were maybe one megawatt, two megawatts.

Now, it's nothing to get a request for 60 to 100 to 150 megawatts.

That's massive.

That's more than an entire neighborhood.

So we have continued to work extremely closely with MLGW and TVA to not only make sure that the generation assets are there, but also the distribution and the certainty.

A lot of these things, if you think about a solar manufacturing facility.

A lot of it is glass, it's molten glass.

So if there's an interruption to the power, all of that glass hardens again and that factory loses every bit of product inside the factory.

In the same vein, a lot of this highly sophisticated advanced manufacturing equipment is designed to never be turned off.

It's designed to run all the time.

So if we interrupt the power and it goes off, it can literally blow the equipment.

And that's why at the chamber we work so closely with both MLGW and TVA to get the energy there and make sure the power stays on.

Let's talk about water.

Memphis, unlike many, many communities around the country, has abundant water, has abundant clean water that doesn't take a lot of treatment that can be used for bottling and so on.

At the same time, there are concerns about industrial users really can, you know, they can drill into the aquifer, pay $100 fee.

I think it is, or it's a very small amount and just take as much water as they want.

Do you all support, I assume on the one hand, that's a great benefit to have abundant water to a lot of these industrial sort of users existing and potential.

But do you think there is a need for more regulation about how industrial users tap into the water, into the aquifer?

You know, when we talk to companies about our water, you're absolutely right.

It's a huge recruiting tool.

The abundance, but also the clarity.

It's very clean water.

And many of these companies come to us with some incredibly advanced recycling technologies.

So it's not a constant pull.

They'll pull once and then recycle over and over because our water is so clean.

And right after we have that workforce discussion, we're having that water, electricity and infrastructure discussion, because whether it's a resource we're trying to develop, i.e.

additional electricity or a resource, we already have and want to preserve-- our water.

It's an important discussion we want to have out on the table early on.

And the last one is, again, you know, super fun to talk about it on Friday night before Christmas is sewer.

But sewer is incredibly important.

Getting Blue Oval, I mean, getting that.

What was known as the Memphis Mega-Site before is known as Blue Oval.

One of the limiting factors for years was that there wasn't a sewer line, essentially a wastewater line from that location out to towards the Mississippi.

And finally, that was part of what I believe got the Ford plant done, or it was a requirement of getting that project done.

Does the area have the sewer capacity to bring in these industrial customers?

You know, inside Shelby County, sewer continues to remain an obstacle to growth.

There are limits on the sewer capacity within Shelby County.

The sewer capacity of our entire region as a whole is something that we are working with our regional partners to understand and really plan for.

Sewer is not fun to build.

It's really hard to raise money for it from a government perspective who wants our taxes to go up so the toilets will flush.

But we've got to do it.

And so in partnership with the state of Tennessee, the counties that surround Shelby County and the city of Memphis, we're hoping to figure that out in the near future.

Let me bring in Bill with about 5 minutes left.

And Mayor Jim Strickland made made the decision to not have any new connections to the city's sewer wastewater treatment facilities beyond some evergreen agreements that were there.

It sounds like you're saying we need to get all of the players in the region around it, around a table and figure this out.

Pretty much I'm saying, one, they're already around the table.

They're talking they're figuring it out.

Two, we can certainly build a factory in Shelby County.

They just have to do a little something extra on the sewer so that it's not flowing at our high usage times.

They can build retaining systems, things like that.

So we're 150% open for business, ready to build new factories here, and we're having those important discussions and making the tough decisions.

Now, is it the kind of environment where where each entity, each government entity, each local government has their own capacity or is it a coordinated plan?

Yes, to all.

It's a little bit of everything.

We have some municipalities that may partner together on sewer.

Sometimes it's a county sewer system, sometimes at the city sewer system.

It's such a sort of crazy patchwork.

And that's why it's why I say economic development is an absolute team sport.

We're going to all have to come together and figure it out.

What are some of the some of the issues that you see that Chambers see all across the country at at this point?

So I travel around the country and around the world meeting with other chambers and site selectors.

The utility and infrastructure discussion is one that every community is having.

Also looking at workforce the advent or growth of industry credentials.

So things like a Microsoft certification or a Siemens certification, much of this equipment comes with certifications.

Those are discussions and issues.

Our ability to upskill our existing workforce and really deploy those assets quickly.

Those are the two biggest discussions we're having around the country.

So obviously you're competing with those other chambers, but at some point I would imagine you try to find common ground nationally.

We always try to find common ground nationally in order to advocate for the resources needed to grow our entire economy.

What I love about this job is that we are also constantly learning from each other.

I may go to another city and do a deep dive on an innovation program that they've launched that's been very successful in growing high quality jobs.

So that co learning opportunity is really great in economic development.

With just a minute left, we have a new mayor coming in.

You may have heard Paul Young.

I imagine you've met him.

You're you're what does you in the chamber?

What do you want to see from Paul Young in terms of economic development?

You know, we're super excited for Mayor Young's administration and congratulate him on a on a well run race.

We are excited to continue the momentum we've already begun.

More than 54 projects in our pipeline.

That's a lot.

So we're excited that our incoming mayor is already an economic developer.

We don't have to train him up.

He's out there.

He's already doing it.

He gets it.

And we can't wait to see what we do in '‘24.

I imagine crime is going to be on the agenda for him and other public officials.

I mean, and how much is that a limiting factor?

We kind of I meant to come back to that.

Yeah, Crime is just not something that companies are really asking us about.

As I've said, they want to know about our workforce, our people, our quality of life.

We're going to partner with Mayor Young to address public safety.

And from the legislative session that starts your list of priorities.

Those are going to come out next month.

Stay tuned.

All right.

We will leave it there.

Thank you very much, Ken Fisher.

Appreciate it.

And thank you, Bill.

We this our last show of the year coming up in January.

We've got Mayor Lee Harris County certainly Harris.

We bet U.S. Attorney Kevin Ritz talking about crime and those initiatives.

A group of legislators looking ahead at the new legislative session.

And we are planning to get Paul Young.

He was just on recently after the election, but we'll try to get him on in January, February.

Also, new city council members and much more.

But thank you for joining us.

If you missed any of the show today, you can go to WKNO dot org and get the full video or you go to YouTube and search for Behind the Headlines.

Have a great holiday and we'll see you in the New Year to.