Italian Automotive Component Manufacturer Makes Largest New Location Announcement in Botetourt History

eldor jobs botetourt virginiaELDOR Corporation, an Italian manufacturer of automotive components, will invest about $75 million to establish its first North American production plant at Botetourt Center at Greenfield, creating 350 new jobs over the next five years. 

This is the largest announcement of jobs and investment in Botetourt County history. The company will begin construction immediately on a 250,000 square foot facility on approximately 53 acres.

Roanoke Regional Partnership staff worked with ELDOR executives for nine months as they evaluated more than 160 sites in six states.  The Partnership staff connected the company with the resources that would make this project work here, such as Botetourt’s pre-graded site, Virginia Tech, the mechatronics program at Virginia Western Community College, and business services. “ELDOR recognizes our region’s good market access, higher education assets, low costs of doing business, and productive work force,” said Beth Doughty, executive director of the Partnership. “In Greenfield, they liked that it was close to services, housing, and recreation. Livability matters in today’s world.”

Headquartered in Orsenigo, Como, Italy, ELDOR is the industry leader in the research, development and production of ignition coils, engine control units and combustion management systems as well as electric systems for hybrid and electric applications. Annual revenues are $300 million and growing.

The company has three research and development operations in Italy, production plants in Italy, Turkey, China and Brazil, and technical offices in Detroit, China and Germany. ELDOR customers include most of the world’s automotive manufacturers and contracts to supply customers in the U.S. prompted the need for a U.S. manufacturing operation.

This announcement expands the region’s automotive cluster which includes Altec Industries, Dynax America, Graham White, Metalsa, Virginia Forge, Yokohama, and others. ELDOR also increases foreign direct investment in the region, already home to companies from 15 nations. The motor vehicle manufacturing industry typically is a high-wage industry that creates additional indirect jobs and economic benefits. Economic impact modeling by the Roanoke Regional Partnership indicates this project will have an overall annual economic impact of $246,519,714 by 2021 and spur creation of more than 500 secondary jobs. The impact will extend beyond Botetourt County and across the Roanoke region.

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