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An electric vehicle company has put up tens of millions of dollars to buy the land for its massive manufacturing facility in the Triangle.
VinFast has closed on the purchase of 1,765 acres in Chatham County slated to be home to a 7,500-person manufacturing facility. The Vietnamese carmaker bought the land for just under $44 million, according to a deed filed Tuesday.
The land sits within the Triangle Innovation Point megasite in eastern Chatham County near Moncure. The seller is an LLC run by local developer Kirk Bradley of Lee-Moore Capital Company out of Sanford.
The purchase represents a significant step in the company's ambitious development timeline. When VinFast announced earlier this year it had selected Triangle Innovation Point as the site of its new U.S. manufacturing plant, local and state leaders touted it as a huge boon for North Carolina. The factory represents the largest economic development project in state history.
READ MORE: VinFast is coming. Chatham and the Triangle are racing to be ready.
This will be the company's first manufacturing plant outside of Vietnam as it eyes a big North America expansion. The company will produce the VF 8, a mid-sized SUV that can hold five people, and the VF 9, a full-sized SUV that can hold seven people, at the Chatham factory.
VinFast has set an aggressive construction timeline – the company wants to start pumping out its electric vehicles in July 2024, under two years from now. VinFast Global CEO Le Thi Thu Thuy said in a Bloomberg television interview this summer that construction on the plant could begin in September.
A VinFast spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment about whether the construction timeline is still on track.
“We would like to have the SUV and bus by July 2024,” VinFast Global CEO Le Thi Thu Thuy previously told TBJ. “So I had to beg the governor, ‘Please give us the permit quickly so we can start building, because it's like two years away.’”
Michael Smith, president of the Chatham Economic Development Corporation, said he's holding meetings with VinFast representatives every other week, and he believes the company can stick to its July 2024 timeframe.
"They've got meetings that are happening very frequently with a large number of folks, as you might well imagine, because it's going to take a lot of people to make this work," Smith said. "We know that is an aggressive timeline, but that is still a timeline VinFast wants to hold to. We're going to do everything we can to help them get there."
Smith added that several VinFast executives are moving to North Carolina this month.
At 7,500 employees, VinFast would vault into the Top 10 largest employers in the Greater Triangle, according to TBJ research. But documents obtained by TBJ say the 7,500-job figure could "be the launching point" for a facility that could eventually employ up to 12,000 people. If VinFast does employ 12,000 people, they would be the third-largest employer in the Triangle behind only Duke University and Health System and Walmart.
Evan Hoopfer covers real estate and economic development in the Greater Triangle, focusing on the counties outside Wake and Durham. Have a tip? Reach him at ehoopfer@bizjournals.com or (919) 327-1012.
