Martin Marietta helps with historic Kentucky factory construction

With help from Martin Marietta, Envision AESC is constructing an over 500-acre facility in Bowling Green, Kentucky.

Martin Marietta is working with Envision AESC, an industry-leading international electric vehicle battery technology company, to create an over 500-acre facility and thousands of jobs in Bowling Green, Kentucky. 

This project, which invests $2 billion towards building a lithium-ion battery plant in the city’s newly developed technology and engineering park, is the second largest economic development in the state’s history. 

“This project is a great example of both state and local leadership working together to make a positive impact that will be felt for generations,” said Nick Phelps, a Central Division sales representative who helped manage the sale of materials for the new development. 

Sitework for Phase 1 started in the summer of 2022, with work scheduled to continue through 2024. Battery production is scheduled to begin by 2025. 

This new factory plans to create approximately 2,000 new, permanent jobs that can produce 300,000 vehicle batteries a year by 2027. 

“The Bowling Green area has an outstanding automotive workforce today, as well as the future pipeline of talent needed, and we are excited to support this with new jobs in the high growth electrification segment,” said Envision AESC U.S. Managing Director Jeff Deaton in a statement. “The addition of this new facility will make Kentucky the new gigafactory capital of the U.S., well positioned to meet the forecasted growth of EVs and attract future investment.” 

Throughout the project, both Bowling Green North and Bowling Green South limestone plants helped in providing materials to the construction crews. 

And these crews are working hard to get a large amount to this site. 

When the initial site work consisted of constructing a 1.5 million sq. ft. building, for this portion, Martin Marietta supplied overburden material used to fill in multiple sinkholes on the 512-acre site. 

To date, about 10,000 tons of overburden has been used to fill sinkholes, approximately 60,000 tons of course limestone aggregate for ready mix, 60,000 tons of limestone base material under slab and paving along with 65,000 tons of course limestone aggregate for various utility work relating to sewer, water and electric. 

“Bowling Green was already considered one of the fastest growing areas in the state and region and this project will only help continue that trajectory for years to come,” Phelps said. “The opportunities that will become available as a result of this investment will continue to snowball.” 

In total, the economic impact of this project is estimated to generate $20 billion over the next decade and, once at full employment, will generate over $233 million in new spending in the community. 

And a project of this scale required a lot of collaboration. 

Working with several contractors – including Scotty’s Contracting, Jay-Ton, Edwards Electric, Scott & Ritter, Smyrna Ready Mix and Green Mechanical – Phelps said there was “constant and frequent communication” between service providers and the operations team to coordinate shipping schedules, plant capacities and inventories to ensure material availability throughout the project.

“The message we wanted to communicate and stress to contractors early on during the bidding and quoting phases is that we want to be part of the solution and not part of the problem for this project,” he said. “And the best way to do that would be to overcommunicate pertinent information regarding the needs and the timing of the aggregates.” 

Phelps said, overall, the accomplishment of this project is not something to be taken lightly and says those involved deserve high praise. 

“The Envision battery plant project has been a rewarding opportunity and project for the Bowling Green area with hope for residual growth because of it for years and years to come,” he said. “The operations teams at Bowling Green South and North deserve a lot of credit for their work producing high volumes of quality aggregates safely. And as a result, they are having a direct impact on the growth in our Bowling Green community."