Two resolutions on Thursday’s agenda of the Jefferson County Commission brought JeffMet North, the latest industrial park of the Jefferson County Economic and Industrial Development Authority, to the brink of fruition.

“All the due diligence has been completed on JeffMet North and we’re ready to move forward with the engineering, with the roadway utilities and the final layout,” JCEIDA Executive Director Othell Phillips said. “Basically today, the commission approved the firm that they vetted would be best suited to handle that, and they approved the contract for that as well.”

The commission authorized a loan agreement with JCEIDA for JeffMet North property engineering. Commissioners also agreed to hire AECOM Technical Services for engineering of the JeffMet North project. That project includes a master plan and a utilities master plan for the long-term development of the industrial park.

“We’ve got to finalize the agreement, but it’s proposed for six months of planning and engineering, and then another two months for finalization of the deliverable plans,” Phillips said. “You’re probably looking at hopefully putting out for bid and breaking ground in the middle of 2027.”

The executive director continues to be excited about the huge potential of the project.

“We’ve got close to 1,100 acres to work with in JeffMet North,” he said. “If we take the average job compared to what we have in our other large (industrial) park in McCalla, you’re probably looking at 4,500 jobs or more. The workforce numbers are fantastic in the area. It’s good that we’re developing on northside because we have developments in central and have developments on the western side. Now we’re tapping into the workforce on the northern side.”

And not just in northern Jefferson County.

“It could pull employees from Blount County and Cullman County as well,” Phillips said. “It has great potential for workforce numbers, actually great potential for the entire central (part of) Alabama because the location is right on I-65 on a large tract of land. There are not very many large tracts of land like that left in Jefferson County to create jobs.”