Construction crews are hard at work on a 400-acre stretch of Midway Business Park along Thorngrove Pike in East Knox County, where Greenheck Group is putting up two 200,000-square-foot plants as the first phase of a $300 million manufacturing campus. The Wisconsin-rooted HVAC manufacturer is only months away from opening a damper plant and a separate architectural products plant on the site, with plans to employ 440 people in Knox County by 2029. Six more buildings are already in the works beyond those first two facilities.
Those figures come from the Knoxville News Sentinel, where reporter Mariah Franklin covers technology and energy. Franklin's reporting notes that Greenheck already employs several workers in Knox County and received a tax break from the county's industrial development board in exchange for promised investment there. The company has said its Knoxville expansion shows it is winning customers away from competitors and reflects confidence in its products and its people.
A Long-Fought Site Finally Lands Its Tenant
The ground Greenheck is building on has a complicated backstory. Knox County bought the 354-acre Midway Business Park site in 2006, then spent roughly 15 years fighting community opposition and legal challenges from residents trying to preserve the rural character of East Knox County before the park officially opened in April 2021, according to the Knoxville Chamber.
That long runway gave the county time to build out serious industrial infrastructure before landing a tenant. Midway Business Park includes an adjacent Tennessee Valley Authority electric switch yard and a Knoxville Utilities Board substation, giving it the power capacity heavy manufacturers require, Compass Knoxville has reported.
Zoning Rules Rewritten for a Single Corporate Campus
Greenheck's arrival reshaped the park's fundamental design. In October 2024, the Knoxville-Knox County Planning Commission approved revised design guidelines shifting Midway Business Park from a multi-tenant park into a single-user corporate campus built around Greenheck, adjusting rules on outdoor screening, landscaping, lighting and signage, according to Knoxville-Knox County Planning Commission records.
Why Greenheck Chose East Tennessee
Logistics drove much of the decision. Greenheck Group has said nearly 80% of its East Coast sales — which account for 83% of the company's total sales — fall within a one-day drive of Knoxville, according to a Greenheck Group company update.
The full build-out dwarfs the two plants now rising on Thorngrove Pike. Greenheck's $300 million master plan calls for four manufacturing facilities and three professional support buildings, including a dedicated employee training center, product testing space and a research and development center, per WBIR. The company officially broke ground on the campus on May 9, 2025, roughly 13 months after first announcing the project. Founded in 1947 in Schofield, Wisconsin, Greenheck is one of that state's largest privately owned manufacturers and now employs more than 5,400 people across the United States, Mexico and India, according to the Knoxville Chamber.
Local Job Numbers Keep Climbing
Economic development officials expect the payoff to ripple well beyond Greenheck's own payroll. The Knoxville Chamber estimated in April 2024 that the campus's initial phase would generate 520 indirect jobs on top of the 440 direct positions, a combined local impact of 960 jobs with average annual pay of $75,300, according to Compass Knoxville. Knox County Mayor Glenn Jacobs has said he expects the campus workforce to grow to nearly 2,000 employees over a 10-year period, per the same report.
Part of a Larger East Tennessee Investment Wave
Greenheck's expansion is one piece of a broader regional trend. Between 2020 and April 2024, the Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development backed more than 50 economic development projects across East Tennessee, representing about 9,700 job commitments and $2.9 billion in capital investment, according to the Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development.
Some details haven't been made public. Neither the exact terms of Greenheck's tax agreement with the county's industrial development board nor a completion timeline for the remaining planned buildings at Midway Business Park have been disclosed.
