FE Named Top Utility for Economic Development
September 10, 2019
FirstEnergy has been named by Site Selection magazine as one of the nation’s leading utilities in promoting economic development, helping to attract nearly 11,000 new jobs and $3.9 billion in third-party capital investment in our service area in 2018.
| Site Selection Honors
The magazine recognizes utility companies that complement reliable power delivery to their customers with a hands-on approach to encouraging business development in their operational areas. Recipient utilities are chosen based on a mix of objective and subjective criteria, including what the utility does to help create jobs and facilitate investment in its area; website tools and data that can be used to help business development; and survey responses from customers and potential customers. |
“Site Selection magazine’s award demonstrates that our results-oriented efforts to promote job creation continue to enjoy success and recognition in the industry,” said Patrick Kelly, director, Economic Development. “While much of our economic development activity involved projects in the West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Ohio shale gas regions, we also had economic success stories in all of our utility service areas.”
Some of the larger projects fostered by FirstEnergy’s collaborative economic development activities in 2018 were:
- Nearly $600 million in investments by MarkWest and Antero for shale gas facilities in Doddridge County, W.Va.
- A $700-million Cleveland Cliffs hot-briquetted iron facility in Toledo.
- Pilkington’s $265-million floating glass plant to support First Solar’s thin film photovoltaics facility in Wood County, Ohio.
- Two Amazon fulfillment centers being built in the Cleveland area and one recently announced in Akron.
- Nearly 40-million square feet of proposed, under construction or just completed speculative distribution center projects in our eastern Pennsylvania service area.
Check the Sept. 5 news release for more on our Economic Development group’s efforts.