Montgomery County and Maryland hit the snooze button again, and Virginia picked up another economic development victory while their rivals across the Potomac slept. Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace announced this week that it has chosen Virginia as the location for a new cruise missile production facility. The 150,000-square-foot complex will be constructed in James City County, and will manufacture Kongsberg's Naval Strike Missiles and Joint Strike Missiles. Both are anticipated to remain in high demand, and the Norwegian firm believes it is likely to win another contract from the U.S. Department of Defense soon.
A press release from the office of Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin said Virginia beat out two unidentified states in the competition for the Kongsberg facility. Youngkin made his winning case to Kongsberg during his trade mission to Europe this past April. While Youngkin was sealing the deal in Europe, the Montgomery County Council was passing legislation regulating hours for hookah lounges.
The factory will create more than 180 high-wage jobs. And this is actually the second Kongsberg production facility Maryland has lost out on; Pennsylvania won the first one in 2008, and the firm announced it will be expanding its Johnstown operation to handle the increased demand. It seems Kongsberg factories are dropping out of the sky everywhere around us, but landing everywhere but here. Such high-wage job creation is desperately needed not only in Montgomery County, but across Maryland from Cumberland and Hagerstown to Baltimore and Salisbury.
"Kongsberg's decision to establish its first U.S. defense assembly facility in Virginia reaffirms our status as America's top state for business," Youngkin said in a statement Tuesday. In contrast, a January report from the Maryland Comptroller's Office "found that Maryland is behind neighboring states and the nation in gross domestic product, personal income, real wages and population growth," the Associated Press reported.
Photo courtesy Kongsberg
19 comments:
To be fair, the leaders in MC & Annapolis will cut their nose off to spite their face in that they would gladly sacrifice economic development and grandstand their virtue signalling values, (which also vary with the audience like Harris). It’s going to get built somewhere but like AOC & Amazon, leaders here can't see the forest from the trees.
This post has such a ridiculous 'sky is falling' framing.
- Suddenly it's Montgomery County vs. the whole state of VA
- Fairfax County (the author previously stated we are in an all-out competition with) didn't win this contract either
- Two deals almost 20 years apart make the "falling out of the sky" statement more than a little disingenuous
- It's 150 jobs over multiple years, chill.
- Regulating Hookah Lounge hours may be more relevant in the near term to constituents than this deal on a day-to-day basis
- For all your hype about VA, this is just a reminder that MD continues to have a higher per Capita Income than VA (https://apps.bea.gov/itable/?ReqID=70&step=1#eyJhcHBpZCI6NzAsInN0ZXBzIjpbMSwyOSwyNSwzMSwyNiwyNywzMF0sImRhdGEiOltbIlRhYmxlSWQiLCIzNiJdLFsiTWFqb3JfQXJlYSIsIjAiXSxbIlN0YXRlIixbIjAiXV0sWyJBcmVhIixbIjI0MDAwIiwiNTEwMDAiXV0sWyJTdGF0aXN0aWMiLFsiLTEiXV0sWyJVbml0X29mX21lYXN1cmUiLCJMZXZlbHMiXSxbIlllYXIiLFsiMjAyNCIsIjIwMjMiXV0sWyJZZWFyQmVnaW4iLCItMSJdLFsiWWVhcl9FbmQiLCItMSJdXX0=)
This is such a dumb thing to complain about. Of course a defense contractor picked VA. Do you also have a VA blog that moans every time a biotech company picks MD?
Comparing apples to apples and Governors to Governors, ours was probably at the gym now that he can't get in the spotlight for fear of eclipsing Kamela, plus she wouldn't like it.
6:25: It's Virginia vs. Maryland. It's also Montgomery County vs. every other county in the region. We lost on both counts. Nestle HQ is in Arlington, not Fairfax, and guess what? We also lost that race, like so many others.
Income doesn't rely on the economic health of the county or state you live in. It's where your job or income generating assets are, and those are increasingly not in MoCo or Maryland.
6:26: News flash - NoVa has biotech, too.
Robert, Maryland also has the defense industry. Ever heard of Lockheed Martin? What's your point?
6:25 Exemplifies liberal thinking in that those stats tell only part of the story. While upper income MC residents continue to do well, killing off middle-class and lower income jobs so you can brag about how well you're doing at the Club mixer only lasts for so long before they start bringing in cheaper labor from abroad and subsidies to support them. Oh wait!, the left is already doing this so nevermind.
And MoCo has defense contractors. The obvious point is that each jurisdictions have their own strengths. And we all live in MoCo because that's where we want to live. If I wanted to live in a factory town and put together weapons then, yeah, maybe I'd move to southern VA.
Was Maryland or MoCo even a consideration? Might it be possible that they only looked at locations close to the naval bases in Newport News? Please investigate and get back to us so we understand the full context of this decision.
I looked at the title of this article and thought, here we go again with the MoCo missed opps whine. So I searched for the 'winning' location James City County VA and thought WTF? This facility wanted/needed to be located near military uses for the specific purpose of serving their use. The Yorktown Naval Weapons Station, and Norfolk Ship building area are in this vicinity. This is more in the realm of the market they are serving, not the paper pushing government agencies of the DMV. STOP THE PATHETIC WHINNING.
SS: Maryland has very little defense and aerospace industry besides Lockheed and Hughes. Lockheed is even downsizing its operations in Montgomery County. We have tremendous room for growth in this area.
9:55: This isn't an issue of where you or I want to live. It's an issue of what even Gov. Wes Moore acknowledges is a moribund economy in Maryland and MoCo, and how we turn that around.
10:15: At least two other states (not identified) were in the running. Kongsberg's PA factory is much farther from Newport News than Maryland, so we didn't lose on geography.
10:25: Johnstown, Pennsylvania is closer to Norfolk than Hagerstown, Germantown, or Salisbury? That's where Kongsberg's other production facility is.
Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren is literally across the Potomac from Charles County, Maryland, where there is no shortage of land, and we have numerous other bases in Maryland itself.
We're not losing these prizes on location alone.
Maryland has very little defense industry if you ignore the biggest defense contractor the world has ever seen...........
5:18: We have the Lockheed HQ, but not their research and production facilities. Many people are thinking about the past success of the County, which was decades ago, and has long since shifted to Virginia. We blew it.
"Montgomery County Secures Triple-A Bond Ratings for 2024, Extending 50+ Year Streak"
Chew on this fact. Who needs a blue collar, missile factory wasting precious space.
The AAA rating, as we have seen, does nothing for us in economic development nor in avoiding a structural budget deficit. AAA rating is earned solely on observation by agencies that MoCo can raise taxes each year without revolt by taxpayers, including big hikes as needed. General John Kelly says the agencies privately call MoCo taxpayers "suckers," and "losers."
AAA rating simply means that the government can borrow money at a cheaper rate, and failed politicians can crow about their AAA bond rating for another year.
Howling into the jet engine of NoVa dominance.
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