The company that provides third-party and export logistic services to Kubota Manufacturing of America is expanding its operations in Hall County with a new logistics center, local business leaders said last week.
Tatsumi Intermodal USA officials are planning a 112,000 square foot facility on 35 acres in the Gateway Industrial Centre on Ga. 365, according to the Greater Hall Chamber of Commerce.
The expansion will be Tatsumi's fourth in the county since establishing itself here in 2000. The company will remain in its current 320,000 square foot facility on White Sulphur Road with the new building about two miles away.
"They (Tatsumi in Hall County) currently have 60 employees. They'll add probably six to seven more jobs I'm told, but they really need the square footage and the space, so it's more capital investment for Gainesville and Hall County than it is necessarily jobs, chamber Vice President of Economic Development Tim Evans said.
As the project moves forward, Pattillo Construction is handling the new building, and Rochester and Associates is providing the civil engineering and site plan, according to the chamber.
"The connectivity of road, rail, port facilities and our business partners are second to none in the Southeast, but it is the highly skilled and dedicated workforce and the community support that has convinced us this is the right place for our long-term business growth," Tatsumi Intermodal USA President Satoshi Nishino said in a news release from the chamber.
The effort to help Tatsumi find a site for the expansion began in 2015 and included the company itself, Industrial Properties Group, the chamber's Economic Development team, the Gainesville and Hall County Development Authority and Georgia Department of Economic Development.
Chamber officials, on a visit to Japan in July, met with Tatsumi executives in Osaka.
"We found really good mutual understanding of what Tatsumi's needs were and just furthered the relationship, and they committed to us that they were ready to go ahead and expand here in Gainesville and Hall County," Evans said.
Thursday evening's announcement of the expansion came a few hours after the company won an Industry of the Year Award from the chamber in its size category.
