General Tool Company has flipped the switch on a new 56,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in Evendale's AeroHub, and it is already humming. The plant will assemble and test naval power-generation equipment, including Rolls-Royce AG9160RF gas-turbine generator sets used on Arleigh Burke-class destroyers. Company leaders say the build-out will let General Tool boost output for the Navy and add dozens of skilled manufacturing jobs to the local economy. Village officials and development partners spent years lining up a pad-ready site and incentives to land the project in Evendale.
Built for the Navy's power needs
The expansion allows General Tool to scale production of the AG9160RF generator set from supporting two ships a year to three, the company said. In a press release via PR Newswire, GTC President Bill Kramer III called out "The successful completion and full operation of our Evendale Naval Power Generation Facility." The same release notes that the project added 47 new jobs and generates about $4.1 million in payroll.
Local incentives and AeroHub context
The Village of Evendale sold a roughly 6.4-acre pad in the AeroHub district to General Tool in 2023 and approved a 10-year, 75 percent property tax abatement tied to the 47 new jobs and an estimated $8.57 million capital investment, according to the Village of Evendale. The new building is now the third major addition to the AeroHub innovation district, joining The Modal Shop and Kinetic Vision, as reported by the Cincinnati Business Courier. For a campus that has quietly been filling in around GE Aviation, it is a noticeable new piece of hardware.
Ownership and regional impact
The Evendale project follows General Tool's inclusion in Aeron Defense after Ventus Industrial Partners and its partners announced the acquisitions earlier this year, a move that gives the company deeper capital backing for growth, as reported by Business Wire. Regional development groups, including REDI Cincinnati and JobsOhio, also partnered to support the project, the company said in its press release via PR Newswire. For a sector that lives and dies on long-term defense contracts, that kind of backing is no small detail.
What it means for local manufacturing
Evendale's AeroHub sits next to GE Aviation and markets itself as a pad-ready advanced-manufacturing campus aimed at keeping and attracting supply-chain work in the Midwest, according to AeroHub. With the General Tool building now online, village officials say they are hoping it helps pull more aerospace and defense suppliers into the corridor, turning what was once a collection of open pads into a tightly knit cluster of high-spec manufacturers.
