SEATTLE — Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space company will build its next-generation BE-4 rocket engines in Huntsville, Ala., bringing the prospect of more than 340 manufacturing jobs and $200 million in capital investment to that city.
Several states had been competing for the business.
Huntsville and the state of Alabama have not yet disclosed how much money they will provide Blue Origin. Officials said many economic-development partners contributed to the effort to successfully recruit Blue Origin to the state.
Announcing the city’s win on Monday, the Huntsville Chamber of Commerce said, “Blue Origin awaits the final public approval processes of the local package by the City and County governments” in their council meetings next month.
That approval seems a mere formality as officials across Alabama cheered Huntsville’s selection.
Huntsville already is called “Rocket City” because it’s where the U.S. government after World War II established a home for the team of former Nazi rocket scientists led by Wernher von Braun that helped develop the U.S. space program and the Apollo missions that landed on the moon.
As a result, Huntsville is the location of NASA’s largest spacecraft research facility, the Marshall Space Flight Center.
Dale Strong, commission chairman of Madison County, where Huntsville is, said in a statement, “Jeff Bezos and Blue Origin will build on the legacy of the German rocket team and the Marshall Space Flight Center to power the growing commercial rocket business.”
Huntsville Mayor Tommy Battle said the city is “proud to be the nation’s propulsion center of excellence.”
And Alabama Governor Kay Ivey commended Blue Origin “for choosing to make Alabama its home sweet home!”
Meanwhile, Washington, the home of Blue Origin, was not even a finalist in the state-versus-state location selection process, said Brian Bonlender, director of Washington’s Department of Commerce.
“We were considered in the first or second round,” Bonlender said.
But when Gov. Jay Inslee met in January with Blue Origin President Rob Meyerson and asked what Washington state might do to match upfront incentive offers from other states, he didn’t get very far.
“The response was that we weren’t even close enough to have that conversation,” Bonlender said.
“The incentive packages other states offered were a big determinant,” Bonlender said. “We were unable to come close to the types of offers they were getting from other states.”
