Fayetteville Wooing Ukrainian Drone Company to Build Factory, Headquarters

A Ukrainian drone company is considering whether to move its U.S. headquarters to Fayetteville and build its first American factory here.

It would employ 162 people with an average pay of $70,759, Robert Van Geons, president of the Fayetteville Cumberland County Economic Development Corp., has told elected officials. The lowest-paid position would be paid $50,000, he said, which is slightly above the county’s median wage of $49,382.

Fayetteville is competing against sites in Nevada and Oklahoma, Van Geons told the Fayetteville City Council and Cumberland County Board of Commissioners.

The drone maker would open its plant in a 28,478-square-foot building on the campus of the former Black & Decker power tools factory on Dedication Drive, according to documents Van Geons presented to the council on June 8 and county commissioners on July 20. The campus is off Black & Decker Road and Gillispie Street, near the Fayetteville Regional Airport and Freedom Christian Academy.

Van Geons is keeping the company name secret. He calls the proposal “Project Odesa.” Odesa is a city in Ukraine.

“The company has two decades of manufacturing experience in the Ukraine, originally producing fixed wing aircraft and then transitioning into the [unmanned aerial vehicle] space after the Russian invasion,” Van Geons said.

The aircraft are made from machined aluminum and fiberglass, he said. “The product is used for data gathering, images, radio linking, and creating airborne Wi-Fi networks and the like,” he said.

“They want to hire as many local people as they possibly can, and all positions in this 162 would be new hires,” he said. Students from Fayetteville Technical Community College and soldiers transitioning out of the Army at Fort Bragg should meet the company’s need for skilled workers, he said.

“I think importantly, worth noting: The product will not be exported, and the CEO of this division is a U.S. citizen,” he said.

To persuade the company to pick Fayetteville, the City Council and Board of Commissioners voted to offer it $243,000 in job creation incentive grants—$121,500 from each—to be paid in three installments. The grants total $1,500 per job, $750 each from the city and county. The City Council approved the incentives in a 9-1 vote, with Councilmember Shaun McMillan opposing it. The Board of Commissioners unanimously approved it, though Commissioners Jeannette Council and Glenn Adams were absent.

The city and county “will recover the cost and the public will benefit through future property and business taxes, stimulation of the economy, promotion of business, and the creation of new jobs,” said legal ads for public hearings that the city and county held for the grants.

The state government is also considering a grant to attract the drone maker, Van Geons said.

The money can be clawed back if the drone maker fails to meet its job goal.

New Uses for Shuttered Black & Decker Factory

The Black & Decker factory opened in 1967 and at its peak employed 2,300 people, The Fayetteville Observer reported in 2006. But Black & Decker later downsized and the plant was at 675 workers when it announced in 2005 that the factory would close in 2006, and the jobs would move to Tennessee and Mexico.

Now, the site belongs to a national company that owns industrial sites, said Neil Grant of Grant-Murray Real Estate. Grant-Murray is handling leasing for the property.

The drone maker would move into the smaller of the two buildings, Grant said, which is a 28,478-square-foot facility where Black & Decker workers used molds to make the plastic components for the power tools.

The larger building, listed in county records at 365,607 square feet, is where the tools were assembled, Grant said. That building has since housed multiple businesses and operations that used part of the space. Some of them have been defense contractors providing services to Fort Bragg, he said. And the federal government converted 100,000 square feet into training rooms, he said, but it later vacated.

Ukraine a Leader in Drones

In the Russian-Ukraine conflict, which dates to 2014, Ukraine has made advances in drone warfare to attack Russia’s invasion forces and strike targets deep inside Russian territory, according to news accounts.

Meanwhile, officials announced on June 29 that Ukrainian Defense Drones will build a factory in northwest Ohio that will employ 300 people and make drones for the Pentagon. And an American boat-maker in Oregon and a Ukrainian-connected company announced on Tuesday they are partnering to build unmanned combat watercraft for the United States military.

Senior reporter Paul Woolverton can be reached at pwoolverton@cityviewnc.com.

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