Noblesville recently celebrated the announcement that BorgWarner had chosen our community as the location for its new Indiana Technical Center focused on automotive propulsion system solutions for combustion, hybrid and electric vehicles.
Steve Cooke
Most Hoosiers are familiar with the BorgWarner name as the venerable BorgWarner trophy is hoisted by the winner of the Indianapolis 500 every year at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
To the automotive world, BorgWarner is known as a Fortune 400 company, a leader in powertrain solutions headquartered in Auburn Hills, Michigan and with locations in 17 countries. Its products are manufactured for passenger cars, sport-utility vehicles, vans, light and commercial trucks, buses, as well as agricultural and off-highway vehicles. And someday in the not-too-distant future – to power self-driving cars.
For Noblesville, our own victory comes after months of work by the city’s administration, economic development, engineering and planning departments. And thanks as well to our city attorney and members of the Noblesville Common Council, the terms of our development agreement with BorgWarner were unanimously approved.
As for our trophy? By spring 2018, Noblesville will be home to a new, $15 million tech center buzzing with more than 300 employees conducting research and development, testing, prototype building, engineering and design work on the automotive advances of the future.
We are rightfully celebrating this victory because it represents another achievement of Mayor Ditslear’s vision for Corporate Campus – to attract companies with high-wage jobs from a variety of industries that complement the health, life sciences and advanced manufacturing already present.
According to BorgWarner, we were the right fit for its workforce in terms of our location, the amenities our community offered and the terms of the city’s contribution of $3.8 million toward the company’s $28 million investment.
For our part, the city will make improvements to 141st Street and extend a new private road south onto the property in addition to extending the necessary infrastructure to serve the project. But these improvements also mean we will have other “site ready” parcels surrounding BorgWarner that we can use to attract even more investment to the Exit 210 area just off I-69.
And yet, city and company officials are not the only ones who should be celebrating.
Attracting a company of this caliber represents an opportunity for all of Noblesville. Restaurants and retailers, automobile dealerships and repair shops, realtors and home decorators, movie theatres and golf courses – the list goes on – but all will benefit as BorgWarner employees live and work in our community.
The city also is proud to welcome BorgWarner knowing how important it is for them to give back to the communities in which they do business. The company actively supports numerous nonprofit initiatives around the world.
As the father of two school-aged children in Noblesville Schools, I’m probably most excited about what BorgWarner represents for the future of Noblesville. We need to leverage the advanced education that Noblesville Schools is providing our children and create more internship opportunities while they are in high school, and employment opportunities for them when they get out.
With BorgWarner, we can help ensure that Indiana’s brain-drain problem is not Noblesville’s problem. Attracting an advanced technology company such as BorgWarner means that more Noblesville Schools students will have the opportunity to live and work in our community as they grow into adulthood.
Please join with the City of Noblesville in hoisting this significant trophy and celebrating this victory with us.