Three months after acquiring Coil Design Co. in Dayton, Tennessee, Baltimore Aircoil Co. announced Wednesday it is investing $16.5 million to boost production of the heating and cooling coil production plant.
The expansion will add 63 more employees to the growing company and is needed to keep pace with the sales growth of its dry coil and adiabatic cooling equipment, company officials said.
"With recent customer orders, we have an opportunity to make further investments in this site," Dave Klee, general manager for Baltimore Aircoil Co., said in a telephone interview Wednesday. "We've grown to a point where we are filling this facility with the demand to meet customers with new equipment and capacity."
Within the next few months, the plant staff is likely to top 180 workers as Baltimore Aircoil Co. taps into the growing market for data centers, electric vehicle and battery manufacturers and advanced refrigeration systems, Klee said. The company is adding manufacturing equipment, material handling capability and additional cranage along with making facility and site improvements at the 188,000-square-foot plant.
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Growing county economies
The Bureau of Economic Analysis estimates the real domestic product in the United States grew 1.8% last year, down from 5.8% the previous year to a record of nearly $21.7 trillion dollars. The economic growth of most counties in the Chattanooga region outpaced the national growth rate last year, and Rhea County boasted the fastest economic growth of any county in Tennessee in 2022. The real economic output of area counties, ranked by their growth rate last year, were:
1. Rhea County — $2.44 billion, up 28% from the previous year after a 22.7% gain in 2021.
2. Polk County — $376.6 million, up 12.6% from the previous year after a 15.1% gain in 2021.
3. Bledsoe County — $232.6 million, up 7.5% from the previous year after an 8.3% gain in 2021.
4. Hamilton County — $29.1 billion, up 6.2% from the previous year after a 6.2% gain in 2021.
5. Dade County — $439.5 million, up 6.2% from the previous year after a 5.1% gain in 2021.
6. Walker County — $1.62 billion, up 5.8% from the previous year after an 8.8% gain in 2021.
7. Marion County — $853.1 million, up 4.5% from the previous year after a 4.6% gain in 2021.
8. Grundy County — $248.3 million, up 3.7% from the previous year after a 6.4% gain in 2021.
9. Whitfield County — $5.84 billion, up 2.1% from the previous year after a 4.6% gain in 2021.
10. Bradley County — $4.81 billion, up 0.9% from the previous year after a 4.2% gain in 2021.
11. Catoosa County — $1.71 billion, up 1.5% from the previous year after an 8.6% gain in 2021.
12. Meigs County — $265.5 million, up 1.1% from the previous year after a 9.3% gain in 2021.
13. McMinn County — 2.27 billion, up 0.9% from the previous year after a 4.8% gain in 2021.
14. Jackson County, Alabama — $1.48 billion, down 2.4% from the previous year after a 4.6% gain in 2021.
Source: U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, real domestic product by county
In a statement Wednesday, Tennessee Economic Development Commissioner Stuart McWhorter said Dayton and Rhea County "have the skilled workforce, central location and infrastructure needed to propel this company forward, supporting future expansions."
Despite such growth by Baltimore Aircoil Co., staffing at the Dayton plant is still only a fraction of the 705 employees who once worked in the same facility when it was operated by Goodman air conditioning. Goodman, which built the Dayton plant in 1994, shut down its Tennessee plants in Dayton and Fayetteville in 2016 and moved production to Texas.
In the same year, Fujifilm closed its 84-employee plant in Dayton and TVA completed work on the newest reactor at the Watts Bar Nuclear Plant near Spring City, where thousands of workers had been employed during the plant's construction. Two years later, the Kaiser Hosiery Mill shut down, ending a century-old business that began as the Dayton Hosiery Mill in 1913. The mill once had more than 500 employees.
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But after its string of manufacturing setbacks in the previous decade, Dayton has bounced back in recent years, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis.
Nokian Tyres, a Finnish tire maker, opened a $360 million tire production plant in Dayton in 2020 with more than 400 employees, and La-Z-Boy has also expanded production and opened a research and development center in Dayton with more than 125 employees. J.M. Huber Corp. also reopened its plant in Etowah with 140 employees.
In a report released this week, the Bureau of Economic Analysis said the new Dayton investments help boost the real domestic product in Rhea County by 22.7% in 2021 and an even stronger 28% last year to a record high $2.44 billion. Rhea County had the strongest economic growth rate of any of Tennessee's 95 counties in 2022, government figures show.
Contact Dave Flessner at dflessner@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6340.
Staff photo by Olivia Ross / Nokian Tyres employees work in the warehouse Jan. 11. Nokian Tyres opened its tire production plant in Dayton in 2020 and has helped turn around the local economy and made Rhea County the fastest growing economy of any county in Tennessee last year.