Dave Ricks speaks in front of a rendering of Lilly’s $5 billion Goochland facility. (Jackie DiBartolomeo photo)
A year after announcing its plans for a massive pharmaceutical manufacturing campus in Goochland County, Eli Lilly is officially underway on the project.
The pharma giant held a ceremonial groundbreaking Thursday for the $5 billion facility that will span roughly 1 million square feet at full build-out at 12575 West Creek Parkway, within the West Creek Business Park.
Lilly CEO David Ricks, Gov. Abigail Spanberger, Goochland County and state officials and others donned hard hats and tossed some dirt at the event to kick off construction on the project, which is set to bring roughly 650 permanent jobs and 1,800 construction jobs to the region. The plant is expected to produce bioconjugate and monoclonal antibody medicines, which are used to treat cancer and autoimmune diseases.
The groundbreaking comes not long after Lilly’s July purchase of the 227-acre project site for $38.39 million, or $169,000 per acre.
Lilly announced the project last September, saying it selected Goochland County from over 400 responses across 46 states to house the first of several plants the company plans to open in the U.S. as part of a total $50 billion investment.
The company has announced 10 manufacturing sites across the U.S. as in the works since 2020, according to Lilly officials at Thursday’s event.
The groundbreaking also comes soon after Dominion Energy received approvals to install a $98 million transmission line and substation that would run 6.5 miles from near Interstate 64 and follow the eastern side of Route 288 southward to bring power to the West Creek site.
Gov. Abigail Spanberger, Lilly CEO David Ricks and others tossed dirt at the Thursday groundbreaking. (Jackie DiBartolomeo photo)
According to plans filed with the county by Lilly, project construction will include two phases: an initial, 600,000-square-foot phase and a later, 340,000-square-foot expansion.
Per Lilly, the facility will hopefully begin manufacturing by 2030.
Lilly has tapped company executive Eric Arocho, previously based in New Jersey, to serve as the head of the Goochland center. Arocho, along with CEO David Ricks, spoke at the event Thursday.
“Last September, we gathered in Richmond and announced a plan to build a new kind of manufacturing facility here in Virginia,” Ricks said. “Today, this plan becomes a place. This is a $5 billion investment, part of Lilly’s $50 billion commitment to expand manufacturing in the United States.”
In her remarks, Spanberger added that the facility is the first of its kind for Lilly.
“This will be Lilly’s first dedicated, fully integrated facility for its emerging bioconjugate platform and monoclonal antibody portfolio,” the governor said. “That is exciting, because it means the technologies and the medicines of the future will be built right here in Virginia.”
The seller of the West Creek land where the Lilly project is rising was Henrico-based insurance company Markel, which had owned the property since purchasing it for roughly $18 million in 2005.
The site had most recently been used as a field complex for local soccer club Richmond United before it was closed last year after the announcement of the Eli Lilly project.
Lilly is also the first company breaking ground on a major project within Goochland’s recently created, controversial technology overlay district.
Also anticipated to build a project within the data center-friendly district is Denver, Colorado-based developer Tract, which is planning for a 900-megawatt data center campus within TOD West, a 900-acre western portion of the overall TOD. As part of TOD West, the Tract project will need to obtain a conditional use permit from the county.
Advanced manufacturing operations are by-right projects under the TOD.
Tract’s application will next be considered by the Goochland Planning Commission, which has not yet publicly put it on an agenda.
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