The hammer was dropped yesterday with the announcement of Ficosa North America moving its operation from Crossville to Cookeville investing $58 million in the new Putnam County facility and adding 550 new jobs. Ficosa’s existing Tennessee plant in Crossville produces mirror assemblies for Nissan, Ford, Volkswagen, Fiat Chrysler, General Motors and other auto manufacturers.

This news wasn’t really news to many.  Crossville City and Cumberland County leaders have been in contact with Ficosa for the past few years trying to give them a better reason to stay in Crossville over moving to Cookeville.    At the same time, Ficosa has been negotiating with both Cookeville and Crossville leaders seeking the best deal with big tax breaks, free industrial park land and buildings, cheap utilities and other big freebies or almost free stuff.  Crossville had offered some pretty lucrative financial incentives to Ficosa that, in some measure, exceeded Cookeville’s incentive packages. But as the old saying goes, success for business requires three things – location, location, location.

According to sources close to the negotiations, Ficosa was partly swayed by Putnam County having a larger, more affluent population and a college which, at least in the eyes of Ficosa, provided a much larger, more educated labor force to draw from. Cookeville has more industry, more restaurants, more shopping, more everything.   But when you add in the mix an unstable City government, chances get even slimmer attracting major industry. Even though no one is openly commenting, there was a sense that Ficosa felt the continued unrest and dissension among Crossville City Council members was risky business to say the least. Turmoil among City Council members over the past few years sent a very dangerous message to Ficosa and any other industry considering locating in Crossville for that matter.

Ficosa has announced publically that the 550 plus employees at the Crossville location will be transferred to the new Cookeville plant.  However, many employees don’t feel that will be the case and even so, they will not be willing to move or make the drive to Cookeville.  But it isn’t just Crossville which will be affected – almost 20 percent of Ficosa’s Crossville Plant workers live in surrounding counties such as Bledsoe, Morgan, Roane and Fentress.  For the hundreds of Ficosa workers in Crossville, it’s going to be a ‘wait and see’ game.  Will Ficosa offer incentives (perhaps fuel allowances) to the Crossville workers to make the longer drive to work or even move to Cookeville?  And what will happen to those who ultimately leave Ficosa for one reason or another?  Is there another industry knocking on Crossville’s door wanting in? Is Crossville headhunting for new industry to replace Ficosa?  Stay tuned.