For the communities surrounding the new BlueOval City project in Haywood County, Tennessee, proactive preparation for expected explosive growth is a challenge.

Municipalities in West Tennessee are beginning to consider how to address the anticipated change to the region from the demands on infrastructure to transportation needs and controlled development. For example, Arlington and Lakeland are in the process of updating land development regulations that will help to manage future growth.

On Tuesday, Feb. 21, a group of municipal leaders and planners associated with the BlueOval project south of Stanton, Tennessee, hosted a panel discussion arranged by the Urban Land Institute regarding the Ford Motor Company development.

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On hand at FedEx Shelby Farms Event Center were the mayors of Arlington, Brownsville, Lakeland, and Stanton as well as the head of the Greater Jackson Chamber and representatives from ULI and the Tennessee Valley Authority.

“Several years ago, there was a distinct shift. I think a lot of ULI members realized that if we looked regionally at Smart Growth that a rising tide would actually raise all boats,” said Brandon Herrington, ULI Memphis chairman and Montgomery Martin Contractors director of marketing and business development.

Brown Gill, the vice president of Gill Properties, and Cameron Ross, the economic and community development director for the City of Germantown, moderated the discussion. Both sit on the ULI Memphis Management Committee.

Much of the discussion dealt with infrastructure like power, sewers, roads and public transportation needed as the area around the $5.6 billion electric vehicle center and mega campus grows.

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Ford is committed to bringing 6,000 jobs to the site by 2026, with a new the Tennessee College of Applied Technology facility planned for training.

“I have to say the state’s done an incredible job of pumping new money and new resources into all kinds of training and education, but specifically vocational training,” Mark Herbison, HTL Advantage president and CEO, said. “I think Tennessee’s doing as good as anybody in the country with that, and that’s one of the reasons (Ford) came.”

Once fully operational, BlueOval is expected to require 30,000 truck trips a day and 10,000 people who will commute to the area for work. He thinks ultimately Interstate 40 will need to be expanded from Mason, Tennessee, to Jackson.

“I think in five years, we’re going to have one of the greatest advanced manufacturing workforces in the world,” Herbison said.

Work is progressing quickly at the BlueOval site since the groundbreaking less than a year ago. Some plant areas are already under roofs and more than 9 million cubic yards of dirt have been moved.

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TVA will deliver the first 60 megawatts to the site this July, according to TVA senior consultant Aaron Stewart.

Communities like Jackson are proactively and selectively recruiting companies that will serve the BlueOval site.

“We’ve spent decades preparing our industrial parks,” Kyle Spurgeon, president and CEO of the Greater Jackson Chamber, said. “If we could tell you the projects we’re working on right now, we’d make headlines for weeks. We’re in a position we’ve never been in before.”

Brownsville, Tennessee, sits closest to the BlueOval site, and the city’s mayor, William “Bill” Rawls Jr. is focused on building infrastructure as well as temporary and permanent housing.

“We’re going to up our capacity for sewer. We’re going to up our capacity for electricity. We are currently not waiting for what’s going to happen, but being proactive,...having vision and looking down the road,” Rawls said.

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Brownsville will double its sewer capacity from 1 to 2 million gallons per day, and a new electrical substation will be completed in October.

“It’s scary, kind of, for us with some of the growth coming because we know that, as far as MLGW is concerned, we’re on the end of the grid,” Arlington Mayor Mike Wissman said. “Technology-wise, as far as sewer and infrastructure, we’re pretty good there. We’ve got room for growth, room for expansion.”