Ford Ohio Assembly Plant Expansion, Avon Lake

The Ford Ohio Assembly Plant expansion added 2.66 million square feet to a 3.7 million-square-foot truck plant in Avon Lake without stopping the line. Then Ford changed what the building is for.

The company announced the project in June 2022 as a $1.5 billion investment to build an all-new electric commercial vehicle, with 1,800 jobs attached. In December 2025 it cancelled its planned electric van and said a new gas and hybrid commercial van for North America would be built at Ohio Assembly instead.

Project Scope

Rudolph Libbe Group delivered the job design-build, with SSOE Group as lead designer and structural, civil and MEP engineer. ENR named it the Midwest’s best manufacturing project of 2025.

The addition consolidates the body shop and final assembly in one structure, on trusses RLG says were engineered for future flexibility. That turned out to matter. The 246-acre site spans three municipalities, each with its own permitting, and the new building went up over existing roads, parking lots and stormwater systems while the plant ran around the clock.

RLG’s numbers: 18,000 tons of steel, 75,000 cubic yards of concrete, 1.7 million labor hours and more than 2,100 workers. The contractor self-performed concrete, HVAC, plumbing and electrical work through its own companies, including GEM Inc. Crews prefabricated 375 pipe racks and restroom modules. ENR’s account mentions helicopter lifts and rerouted roads.

Electrical equipment arrived eight months late. RLG says it still energized the building two months ahead of schedule and gave Ford early access for production tooling. The contractor also claims $64.8 million in savings from redesign and tax strategies, a figure nobody outside the project has checked.

Why It Matters

Ohio Assembly opened in 1974 to build the Econoline van. Today it makes Super Duty chassis cabs, F-650 and F-750 medium-duty trucks, and E-Series cutaways, and Ford says it wants the site to be the hub of its Ford Pro commercial business.

Two cost figures are in circulation. Ford’s announcement and RLG’s project page say $1.5 billion. ENR’s awards listing says $1.75 billion. Neither source reconciles them, and one may count tooling the other doesn’t. No completion date has been published either, beyond ENR’s note that the job finished on time and within budget.

The more useful lesson is about hedging. An automaker committed to an EV line in 2022, the market moved, and three years later the building is still worth having, because a long-span assembly hall doesn’t care what powertrain goes down the line. Battery plants and dedicated EV centers elsewhere haven’t been so lucky.

Owners planning single-purpose plants should take the point. Flexibility cost Ford some truss steel. The alternative was 2.66 million square feet with nothing to build in it.

Project Team & Details