EV giant Tesla to open Greenville County distribution facility

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Tesla will open a regional distribution center in Fountain Inn in Greenville County in early 2024, according to a news release from the Greenville Area Development Corp.

The center is believed to mark Tesla’s first major investment in operations in South Carolina, the release stated.

The facility will be located in Fox Hill Business Park — the Class A business and industrial park that came online in 2020 as the first major business park developed in Greenville County in well over a decade, according to the release.

Fox Hill Business Park, located on 172 acres in the city of Fountain Inn, is being developed by The Sudler Cos., a family- and veteran-owned and operated development firm based in Chatham, N.J., according to the release. The Tesla facility in Greenville County will mark the second such venture between Tesla and The Sudler Cos. in 2023, the duo having announced a similar project near Tampa in 2023.

“Tesla’s commitment to Fox Hill Business Park in Greenville County is a testament to the continued strength of our company’s partnership with Tesla and to the indisputable drivers that make the park and the Upstate a force in the logistics world,” said Brian Sudler, principal with The Sudler Cos., in the release. “Access to world-class labor, a friendly business environment, quality of life and proximity to more than 90 million people within one day’s drive combine to make Greenville County the vital and dynamic area it is known to be.”

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Tesla’s work in Greenville will focus strictly on distribution of vehicle parts regionally and will not include manufacturing, officials report, the release stated. Tesla will absorb all of Fox Hill’s Building 3, comprised of 251,100 square feet. Depending on final development strategies, the Fox Hill Business Park campus can accommodate up to 2.5 million square feet of manufacturing, distribution, and warehousing activity across multiple buildings.

Total investment and planned job additions by Tesla have not been made public. Late in 2023, Tesla posted a hiring notice for a training leader to support and train employees at the new facility in Greenville County.

A company focused on accelerating the world’s transition to sustainable energy, Tesla is committed to building a world powered by solar energy, running on batteries, and transported by electric vehicles that charge with clean energy, the release stated. Tesla operates six vertically integrated factories across three continents and employs over 100,000 employees who design, build, sell and service Tesla products in-house.

The Tesla announcement is the latest major announcement for Fox Hill, which also saw the recent addition of Sage Parts Plus, a global leader in replacement parts for aviation ground support equipment, according to the release. Sage Parts opened new distribution operations in Fox Hill Business Park in mid-2023, leasing a 103,049-square-foot building to accommodate distribution operations along with its new global headquarters that houses its leadership team, purchasing, finance, customer service, HR, product management and other support departments.

The Sudler Cos. are a vertically integrated development firm that includes construction and property management departments and owns and manages over 12 million square feet of commercial real estate across America, according to the release.

“The addition of the Tesla brand to Greenville’s business ecosystem is another example of the important role that speculative development plays in today’s competitive environment, and exactly why Greenville County was so supportive of The Sudler Companies and Fox Hill Business Park,” said Kevin Landmesser, interim CEO of the Greenville Area Development Corp. “Our market is extremely strong thanks to quality investment by organizations like The Sudler Companies, and we will continue to support site development to attract more high-quality companies to Greenville County.”