Tressie Corsi sits June 20 with her great-great-granddaughter, Amelia Hollis, on the porch of the house she has owned in Johnstown, Ohio, since 1972. She is giving up the house to make way for an Intel manufacturing plant.
AP Photo/Paul Vernon
JOHNSTOWN, Ohio — When President Joe Biden applauded a decision by Intel Corp. to build a $20 billion semiconductor operation on “1,000 empty acres of land” in Ohio, it didn’t sit well with Tressie Corsi.
The 85-year-old woman has lived on 7 acres of that land since she and her late husband, Paul, built a house there 50 years ago. They raised four children there and welcomed multiple generations of grandchildren and great-grandchildren, including some who lived right next door.
“You can see it’s not vacant land,” Corsi said on a recent warm summer day as she sat on her porch.
Corsi and more than 50 other homeowners on the Intel site aren’t being forcibly removed. Two holding companies working on behalf of Intel have spent millions on offers to homeowners, often well-above market rates. The companies paid Corsi just over $1 million, and Intel is putting her up in a house rent-free before she moves to her new home.
But money was never the issue, Corsi said.
“It was the happiness that we had,” she said. “That’s what really hurts.”
Intel announced the Ohio development in January as part of the company’s efforts to alleviate a global shortage of chips powering everything from phones to cars to home appliances. It’s the largest economic development investment in Ohio history.
“Silicon Heartland — a new epicenter of leading-edge tech!” Intel CEO Patrick Gelsinger tweeted about the announcement. An Ohio clothing company quickly followed suit with T-shirts declaring Ohio “The Silicon Heartland” with computers superimposed onto the state seal.
Construction of two factories, or fabs, is expected to begin this year, with production coming online at the end of 2025. Total investment could top $100 billion over the decade, with six additional factories down the road. The project is expected to create 3,000 company jobs with an average salary of $135,000 and 7,000 construction jobs. Dozens of Intel suppliers will provide more jobs.
Intel says it expects 2,000 of its 3,000 workers to come from Ohio and the Midwest, The Columbus Dispatch reported. They will be trained at the company’s Chandler, Arizona, facility in suburban Phoenix for 12-18 months, then sent back to Ohio in time for the new plant’s opening. Recruiting is set to begin this fall with job offers coming in the spring.
Backers promote both the project’s economic development potential and its national security benefits. The U.S. share of the worldwide chip manufacturing market has declined from 37% in 1990 to 12% today, according to the Semiconductor Industry Association, and shortages have become a potential risk.
Biden has pushed for the passage of the federal CHIPS for America Act, currently stalled in Congress, that would provide billions for semiconductor research and production. The “scope and pace of our expansion in Ohio will depend heavily on funding from the CHIPS Act,” Intel spokesperson Linda Qian said, though there’s no indication the project won’t go forward.
To win the project, Ohio offered Intel roughly $2 billion in incentives, including a 30-year tax break. Intel has outlined $150 million in educational funding aimed at growing the semiconductor industry regionally and nationally.
