NEW ALBANY, Ohio (WCMH)–Speculation has increased since Thursday night when NBC4 first reported a large manufacture of computer chips will build a plant in a newly annexed portion of New Albany.
“I’m glad you stopped by because there’s been whispers so to speak but nothing concrete,” Mike Sides said.
Sides lives in the 3,200-acre portion of land that New Albany annexed from Jersey Township last week.
JobsOhio and Governor DeWine’s office declined to comment on the potential plant.
A spokesperson for New Albany sent NBC4 a statement:
“What City Council approved last week was an annexation agreement that defined an area that can potentially be annexed and spelled out a financial arrangement between the city and township should annexation occur in the future. Anything beyond that is speculation.”
NBC4’s partners at Columbus Business First have reported that the company behind the project is Intel, and it could be worth billions of dollars. Intel also declined to comment on our reporting.
Senator Sherrod Brown toured Ohio State’s COVID testing facility at CAS Friday, and would not elaborate on the news.
“I’m not at liberty to talk about the company and any decision they make, any announcement they make is there’s to make,” Senator Brown said.
Brown added that if the reports of the project were true, it would be a big deal.
“We do not make nearly enough chips in this country. We used to make a preponderance of the world’s chips. Now we make a small minority of the world’s chips and it matters in healthcare, in matters in the production of cars, it matters in darn near everything,” Sen. Brown said. “Any potential announcement here could be terrific news, both for the country as we become more competitive and could be, obviously, especially terrific news for central Ohio.”
Sides said he’s not as excited.
“I’m not shocked. I’m not happy about it because I don’t want to live around all of that. But you know if it happens, or it sounds like it will happen, we’ll probably speed up our process of looking for houses. It’s hard to find houses right now. Easy to sell but hard to find houses,” Sides said. ” I’m not thrilled about it. I’m really disappointed in the fact that no one knew about it, they didn’t talk to the landowners. Seems like something they just went and did it and figured that everybody’s maybe going to be happy it about cause they can get more for their property. But I’m not happy about that.”
A source close to the project told NBC4 an official announcement is expected next week.