Hyundai, others expected to increase Bryan County tax base by $7B

Shown is a representation of what the Hyundai megastie will look like once it is completed. Photo provided

Hyundai plant — Shown is a representation of what the Hyundai megastie will look like once it is completed. Photo provided

By Jeff Whitten, Bryan County News

Bryan County’s booming growth spurred by Hyundai was the topic during the Richmond Hill Bryan County Chamber of Commerce’s 2023 State of the Community breakfast.

Ralph Forbes, a Thomas & Hutton engineer who has long moderated the annual breakfast at the Richmond Hill City Center, said the South Korean automaker’s 2022 decision to build its $5.45 billion Metaplant America in Black Creek in effect “injected a steroid shot into what was already the fastest growing county in the state.”

Bryan County Administrator Ben Taylor said the Hyundai plant and related projects, including the Hyundai Mobis manufacturing facility in Richmond Hill and an LG battery plant slated for the Mega-Site, will over time add some $8.5 billion to the county’s tax rolls – a figure six times higher than the county’s 2022 tax base of around $1.5 billion.

Taylor said taxes from Hyundai will “trickle down to the digest over the next few years as abatements end,” and help the county fund everything from infrastructure and transportation to emergency services to meet growing demands on services.

While Hyundai’s presence has sparked billions of dollars in manufacturing investment into the four-county Savannah Harbor Interstate 16 Corridor Development Authority, which includes Bryan, Bulloch, Chatham and Effingham counties, the Metaplant won’t begin at full production when the first EV rolls out in 2025, officials said.

Hyundai officials have said it will employee 8,100 workers at the Metaplant alone, but Development Authority of Bryan County CEO Anna Chafin told the chamber it will take several years to ramp up to the 8,100 jobs.

As for where workers will come from, Chafin, who said the JDA is currently involved in a workforce study, listed everything from a program aimed at attracting retired military and veterans to initiatives in the local school system and Hyundai’s recent agreement with Savannah Tech to provide training.

Chafin said workers also will come from out of the region.

In the meantime, Chris Smith, who is chief project implementation officer and general counsel for Hyundai Motor Group Metaplant America, said the automaker couldn’t be happier with its relationship with the JDA and local government, which he likened to a marriage.

Smith said work on the Metaplant has been slowed down by recent rains, but “we’re so far ahead of schedule we can take some speed bumps.”

The 2020 U.S. Census ranked Bryan County as the sixth-fastest-growing county in the nation and the fastest-growing county in Georgia. Census projections put Bryan County’s population at around 44,000 residents two years ago and only 30,233 in 2010. It now has approximately 50,000 residents, according to Taylor, who said projections have coastal Georgia with more than 1.3 million residents by 2030.

The resulting demands on infrastructure – from roads and water and sewer to schools – is in part being addressed through state funding. Georgia has promised hundreds of millions of dollars for work on roads in North Bryan near the Mega-Site and the Interstate Centre industrial parks on Highway 280, and a new I-16 interchange at Old Cuyler Road is also in the works.