Photo provided The Toyota Material Handling entrance is shown.
A local employer is breaking ground on a new 295,000 square-foot manufacturing facility today, growing its footprint in Columbus since first arriving more than 30 years ago.
Toyota Material Handling is investing nearly $100 million into the expansion of its headquarter campus with the new facility set to be located on the east side of Interstate 65 and County Road 225W, between Deaver Road and County Road 300s, north of Toyota’s current facility.
Toyota Material Handling Senior Vice President of Operations, Engineering and Strategic Planning Tony Miller said the factory will focus on making electric products, specifically electric forklifts, with a goal for the start of production beginning in June 2026. Miller said Force Construction will work as contractor on the project and in the last couple of weeks they’ve begun moving some dirt and knocking down a farmhouse and outbuildings that were on the site.
The expansion will create 85 jobs at an average wage of $28.88 and retain the current 1,883 workers, according to Toyota. The new employees are expected to be hired by 2026, company officials said.
Columbus City Council members on April 2 approved the second reading of two ordinances that annexed and rezoned property where the new facility will be. At that time, council also approved the accompanying fiscal plan, which indicated that there will be little or no additional cost to the city as a result of the annexation.
During the council’s next meeting on April 16, members voted to approve a confirmatory resolution designating 2914 Deaver Road and two adjoining parcels to the north, with I-65 and County Road 225W to the west, as an Economic Revitalization Area (ERA).
The ERA designation qualified the company for a 10-year real property tax abatement on the $51,884,315 cost for construction of the facility and a 10-year personal property tax abatement on the $44,215,685 cost of the installation of new equipment.
Just last week, the Columbus Redevelopment Commission voted to approve a resolution to amend the city’s central allocation declaratory resolution to include three parcels on the site of the new facility in the central tax increment financing (TIF) district. The resolution also designated Toyota as a designated taxpayer, attorney Bradley Bingham, who helped with the resolution, told the commission on May 20.
Bingham said the resolution is “really the first step” in the process of amending the TIF area.
“Part of the whole rationale of expanding this central TIF to pick up these three parcels is that there are some improvements needed,” Bingham said. “So means of ingress and access to these parcels, as well as sewer line extension. There’s local public improvements that are needed to serve this area and it’s only really by designating it as a TIF area that you’re able to capture the revenue to pay for these improvements, essentially, over time.”
Bingham said the resolution amending the central TIF will come before the planning commission during its June 12 meeting. If approved, it goes before Columbus City Council on July 2. Then, after giving public notice and sending out a tax impact statement to all overlapping taxing units, Bingham said they will look for the matter to come back to the redevelopment commission on Aug. 19.
On May 20 the commission also executed a letter of intent with Toyota that outlines infrastructure improvements needed for the expansion that the city will undergo using central TIF dollars, according to the resolution.
These include road frontage widening along Toyota’s frontage on Country Road 225W and the realignment of County Road 225W to match the entrance to Toyota’s current facility at 5559 Inwood Drive. There will also be a new pedestrian cross walk along Deaver Road, the resolution states.
Other changes are intersection improvements at County Road 175W and Deaver Road and County Road 175W and County Road 450S. The city will align County Road 150W to County Road 175W.
Toyota Material Handling has been in Columbus since 1990, and the expansion will represent a total of $400 million invested in the campus since that time, the company said.
