ROANE COUNTY, Tenn. — A boat manufacturer is looking to open a $75 million facility in Roane County, to hire 770 people to make a line of luxury boats.
Malibu Boats LLC. said it would relocate some of its Cobalt boat production to the Roane Regional Business and Technology Park. The new Lenoir City location will be the company's second plant outside of its headquarters in Loudon, according to a previous release from state leaders.
"We need somewhere else to be able to meet the demand. We couldn't make it in Kansas. So this product here will be the smaller Cobalt," said Ritchie Anderson, the Chief Operating Officer of the company. "It's a quick pace, and they're moving. But they all know what job they have to do."
The company is one of the largest employers in East Tennessee, with around 3,000 people working for it. The new facility is expected to start production in the first quarter of 2024. Hiring for the new location is expected to start at around the same time.
"There's opportunities there for people with a degree and for people that do not have degrees to be very successful," said Anderson. "We could draw from Knoxville. We could draw from Oak Ridge. We could draw from Kingston or Rockwood."
He said workers at the company will be able to make up to $20 per hour. The company plans to start operations in Roane County in January.
Wade Creswell, Roane County Executive, describes this economic advancement as the "holy grail" of business development. Creswell said it's the largest private jobs announcement in Roane County history.
"While not everybody wants to be an engineer or a scientist in Oak Ridge, a lot of our young people today are going into trade or craft labor," said Creswell.