Governor Spanberger, Avio USA Break Ground on $500 Million Manufacturing Facility in Pittsylvania Creating 1,500 Jobs

HURT — Governor Abigail Spanberger joined Avio USA executives Tuesday to break ground on a roughly $500 million solid-rocket-motor manufacturing plant in Pittsylvania County, a Southside project now projected to create more than 1,500 jobs as the Italian aerospace company’s U.S. subsidiary builds its first American factory.

The facility is planned at the Southern Virginia Multimodal Park in the Town of Hurt — an approximately 900,000-square-foot campus on more than 1,200 acres that will produce solid rocket motors for defense, tactical propulsion, missile systems, and the commercial space sector. Construction is already under way with HITT Contracting as general contractor. Public timelines point to completion in late 2028 or the first quarter of 2029, with production expected to begin in early 2029 and employment ramping over subsequent years toward a full-workforce target above 1,500.

Spanberger first announced Avio USA’s selection of Pittsylvania County in February, when the Commonwealth described an investment of more than $500 million, an 860,000-square-foot plant, and more than 1,000 jobs. Tuesday’s groundbreaking raised the publicly stated footprint to about 900,000 square feet and the job count to more than 1,500 — figures that align more closely with earlier economic-development briefings that described a long ramp to roughly 1,546 direct jobs by the mid-2030s.

“I am thrilled to welcome Avio to Pittsylvania County and look forward to the opportunities this investment will create for generations of Virginians to come,” Spanberger said. She cast the project as proof of what happens “when an innovative company, a skilled workforce, and committed state and local partners come together with a shared vision,” arguing it will advance critical manufacturing capabilities and reinforce Virginia’s standing in aerospace and defense.

Avio USA CEO James Syring said the company is “building an American company and workforce” to bring Avio’s propulsion expertise into the U.S. defense market as an independent merchant supplier able to support multiple customers and programs. More domestic rocket-motor capacity, he argued, means more competition and resilience in a supply chain that has been a recognized bottleneck for munitions and space launch. Secretary of Commerce and Trade Carrie Chenery credited years of site preparation, workforce planning, and regional partnership for putting Pittsylvania in position to win a project of this scale.

The deal’s public incentives have been substantial. Subject to General Assembly approval, Avio has been described as eligible for a Major Employment and Investment Commission special appropriation of up to about $97.7 million tied to the investment and job thresholds. The Virginia Economic Development Partnership worked with the Staunton River Regional Industrial Facility Authority, Pittsylvania County, the City of Danville, the Southern Virginia Regional Alliance, the Virginia Tobacco Region Revitalization Commission, and MEI Commission partners to land the project.

For Hurt and the Danville-Pittsylvania corridor, the plant is more than a ribbon-cutting photo. Southside Virginia has spent decades chasing advanced manufacturing to replace lost textile and tobacco employment. A rocket-motor factory that eventually employs more than a thousand people would reshape local housing demand, community-college training pipelines, and the region’s pitch to other defense suppliers. Spanberger’s July trade mission stop with Avio leadership in Milan — referenced in the administration’s release — underscores how the pursuit stretched from site marketing in Virginia to relationship-building abroad.

Skeptics of large incentive packages will watch whether job milestones are met on schedule and whether the MEI appropriation, if approved, is structured with clawbacks. Supporters counter that solid rocket motors are a strategic industrial base item the United States has struggled to expand quickly, and that capturing Avio’s first U.S. plant locks Virginia into that expansion rather than watching it leave for another state.

Near-term milestones are concrete: finish vertical construction, hire and train the initial few hundred workers expected at startup, and prove production quality for defense and commercial customers. Longer-term, the question is whether Hurt becomes a durable propulsion hub or a single-plant outpost. Tuesday’s groundbreaking does not answer that. It does mark the moment when a February announcement became dirt moved, steel ordered, and a Southside community’s economic bet entered the construction phase in plain sight.

Pittsylvania County is a county in Southside Virginia. Its county seat is Chatham.

Danville is an independent city in Southside Virginia.

Email Abigail Spanberger at:
abigail.spanberger@governor.virginia.gov

Staunton is an independent city in the Shenandoah Valley.