Just south of the Rickenbacker International Airport in Columbus sits the future construction site of Anduril Industries’ new 5 million square foot facility.
The site marks much more than buildings, it symbolizes new jobs in Ohio and advancement in military defense manufacturing.
Anduril, an American defense technology company specializing in autonomous systems and products used by the military, is landing in Pickaway County.
The $14 billion defense company is based in Costa Mesa, California, and was founded by Palmer Luckey. Luckey is an entrepreneur mostly known as the founder of Oculus VR, which is now owned by Meta.
By 2035, Ohio will experience its largest job creation in the state’s history as Anduril plans to hire over 4,000 production and service workers, according to JobsOhio.
The facility was dubbed “Arsenal-1” and is considered Anduril’s “first hyperscale manufacturing facility,” according to the corporation’s website.
Connor Brogan runs Anduril’s business operations and strategic real estate team and was project lead for Arsenal-1. He says Ohio was chosen by Anduril because it could provide workforce resources, project timeliness and the necessary “site component.”
“It becomes a pretty obvious choice,” Brogan says. “Every single phone call, every single person we met with [in Ohio] was extremely helpful. These are really hard deals to negotiate, and it’s as much quantitative fact-based as it is qualitative.”
Construction of the facility will begin immediately after state and local officials give their approval, according to the Columbus Dispatch. Anduril plans to start production in July 2026.
Anduril plans to manufacture its Fury drones as its first product at the facility. Fury drones, according to Anduril’s website, are “high-performance, multi-mission group 5 autonomous air” vehicles “delivering an unfair advantage for unrivaled deterrence.”
Brogan says as more factories are developed at Arsenal-1, more products will be developed such as Roadrunner, Anvil and Ghost. Roadrunner is another Autonomous Air Vehicle and has a variant known as Roadrunner-M: “built for ground-based air defense that can rapidly launch, identify, intercept, and destroy a wide variety of aerial threats,” according to Anduril’s website.
Similarly, Anvil “intercepts potential drone threats,” as written on Anduril’s website. Meanwhile, Ghost is an Unmanned Aircraft System in which Anduril’s website has labeled as “expeditionary, quiet, and modular.”
Because the facility will be near the Rickenbacker Airport, this “provides direct access to two 12,000-foot runways and a 75-acre private apron capable of supporting military-scale aircraft, ensuring rapid delivery of components and systems to our customers,” according to Anduril’s website.
Ohio and Anduril announced their partnership in January 2025. J.P. Nauseef, JobsOhio president and CEO, is an U.S. Air Force veteran who sees Anduril in Ohio as somewhat symbolic.
Nauseef says the work being done at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Greene County, along with other military development happening in the state, makes Pickaway County an important place for Anduril to be.
“The great thing about Ohio is that you have that work that’s happening there,” Nauseef says. “It’s been happening in the actual same location that the Wright Brothers learned how to fly.”
Anduril “invested $900 million in capital into the surrounding area,” according to JobsOhio. The other expected economic benefits of Arsenal-1 include:
- $2 billion in annual economic output.
- $1 billion generated from in-state labor income.
- $1 billion added to the state’s gross domestic product (GDP).
“We’re going to be opening a bunch of different types of roles,” Brogan says. “We’re going to have more of your bread-and-butter manufacturing roles, technicians, assemblers [and] fabricators. You’re going to have a ton of work that’s going to be needed on the supply chain side, warehouse management, inventory management.”
As Anduril settles in Ohio, Brogan says more job opportunities and types of roles will emerge. Brogan explains how Anduril, in order to support job development, wants to build training programs in the K-12 system, vocational schools and universities.
“You have engineering, mechanical engineers, electrical engineers, you have world class organizations, universities [like] Ohio State and others,” Brogan says. “And we’re not going to be able to be successful unless we have partnerships in the community.”
However, more than just one region in Ohio will benefit from Anduril’s presence. “Southeast Ohio will have opportunities from that,” Nauseef says. “There’s going to be opportunities for capital investment and new companies that’ll be sprinkled around the state, but a lot of them in Southeast Ohio.”
While Anduril will bring in money for Ohio, the state is also providing incentives. On Jan. 27, Gov. Mike DeWine and Ohio Department of Development Director Lydia Mihalik approved a 30-year Job Creation Tax Credit worth nearly $500 million to support Anduril’s manufacturing facility.
On Feb. 13, Gov. DeWine and Mihalik also announced that the state would use $92 million from the All Ohio Future Fund “to advance infrastructure at locations in Gallia, Guernsey, Muskingum, and Pickaway counties,” according to the press release. The funds will also be used to support Anduril, with $70 million being allocated to the manufacturing site.
Tim Colburn, the economic development director at Pickaway Progress Partnership, explains how the incentives given to Anduril are meant to ensure Pickaway County and surrounding areas receive benefits and are taken care of through the partnership.
“The jobs, high paying jobs, will take care of our community, but we’re going to make sure that Anduril will work with us in the negotiations to make sure we leave some dollars in the community to benefit the community,” Colburn says.
The average annual salary for Arsenal-1 employees is expected to be $132,000, the Columbus Dispatch reported. Regarding job recruitment, for the new facility, Colburn says during his visit to Anduril in California, he observed a commitment to developing within the company and hiring locally.
In recent years, Ohio has welcomed large manufacturing corporations Intel and Honda to create more jobs and economic growth.
Intel is developing two factories in New Albany while Honda seeks to make Ohio its electric vehicle hub in Marysville.
Ohio has become a state equipped to welcome large corporations, which Nauseef says is due to the state’s preparedness.
“We have really figured out how to create a, not only welcoming and hospitable environment, which we’re known for, but we move quickly,” Nauseef says. “Like a business, we’re able to go from a global, state level perspective to a local perspective very quickly through our relationship with all of our partners.”
As Ohio prioritizes bringing jobs to the state by welcoming large manufacturing corporations, the true effects and projected benefits wait to be fully seen. The partnership between Anduril and Ohio is meant to facilitate mutual advantage, and both Nauseef and Colburn expect Anduril to fulfill their promises to the state.
“Optimism and success breed more optimism,” Nauseef says. “When there’s optimism and opportunity, capital tends to flow, and entrepreneurs tend to take risks and build things and drive things. That’s what you’re going to see happening, starting to flourish and starting to flower now.”
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