The Honda and LG joint venture selected TYK as the general contractor for its $3.5 billion electrical vehicle (EV) plant in Jeffersonville.
According to multiple media reports, TYK is a joint venture between Turner Construction Co., Yates Construction and Kokosing Industrial.
The two other partners are Westerville-based Kokosing, a civil construction company and Yates, a Mississippi-based company with a history of work in the auto sector and battery projects. Yates built the Nissan North America Electric Vehicle Battery Plant located in Smyrna, Tenn.
The three firms will work together to build Honda’s EV plant on an accelerated schedule.
Site work and evacuation work began on Nov. 14, with construction work set to begin during winter. The plant is scheduled to start production of EV batteries in 2025.
“We are extremely excited to be part of the team that will deliver this plant, which will support Honda’s goals to electrify its entire fleet of cars sold in North America,” said Tom Manahan, senior vice president of Turner and principal in charge of the project, in comments emailed to The Broadsheet.
“Everyone involved in the construction of this plant is contributing to something extraordinary,” he said. “The results of their hard work will be a plant that will employ so many members of the community in new green economy jobs.”
The announcement means members of Sheet Metal Workers Local 24 are one step closer to building the facility, as Local 24 members helped build, maintain and upgrade Honda’s Ohio manufacturing plants.
Executive Secretary-Treasurer of the Columbus/Central Ohio Building and Construction Trades Council, Dorsey Hager, estimates the project will create about 4,000 construction jobs, including hundreds of jobs for members of Sheet Metal Workers Local 24.
Construction of the EV plant in Jeffersonville will be conducted under a Project Labor Agreement, which Hager said Honda/LG signed in order to secure a highly skilled and trained workforce in the midst of Ohio’s building boom.
Manahan told The Columbus Dispatch he recognizes the EV project will face stiff competition for construction workers and sheet metal workers.
“We certainly want to make the site an attractive site, not only to the subcontractors but to the individual tradespeople as well,” he added.