Company may bring 900 jobs, $27.1 million investment to Baldwin County

Baldwin County officials have been negotiating for months with a large, start-up manufacturing company that would create up to 900 jobs and make a $27.1 million investment.

The company is known as "Project Sparta" while negotiations are underway, and Matt Poyner, executive director of the Development Authority of the City of Milledgeville and Baldwin County, said he was prohibited by a confidentially agreement from responding to any questions.

The county has filed a Development of Regional Impact request with the Middle Georgia Regional Commission, which would determine if the company would impact adjacent counties.

The company is looking at moving into the former Rheem Manufacturing Corp. air conditioning plant, which is a 677,000-square-foot building on 94 acres in unincorporated Baldwin County, according to the DRI form. The building, which is still owned by Rheem, has been vacant about five years.

The company is expected to open next summer if it moves to this location, the DRI form states.

If the company locates in Baldwin County, it would make a huge impact on an area that has lost a number of manufacturers.

In early 2009, Rheem announced it was closing and consolidating its operations in Arkansas and Mexico. At the time it had about 800 permanent employees and 400 seasonal workers.

About the same time, Shaw Industries announced it would close letting about 150 workers go. T&S Hardwoods, which employed 95 workers, announced in March that year it would stop production. In August 2009, the Frank C. Scott Jr. State Prison in Harwick, with 281 workers, closed. And in September, state officials announced it would close the Bill E. Ireland Youth Development Campus, affecting 300 employees.

The unemployment rate in Baldwin County was 16 percent in March 2010, and while the rate has improved to 7.6 percent for last month, the state average was 5.9 percent.

Poyner was unable to say when the company is expected to make a decision about its location.

Information from The Telegraph archives was used in this story. To contact writer Linda S. Morris, call 744-4223, or follow her on Twitter@MidGaBiz.

This story was originally published October 29, 2015 at 6:31 PM with the headline "Company may bring 900 jobs, $27.1 million investment to Baldwin County ."