Dive Brief:
- Kore Power has shelved its plans to build a $1.25 billion battery plant in Buckeye, Arizona, after its slated production site was quietly listed for sale in recent weeks.
- Kore did not immediately respond to requests for comment, however, the company told the Phoenix Business Journal that its 1.8-million-square-foot project “will not move forward at this time.”
- Additionally, Kore’s founder and CEO Lindsay Gorrill recently posted on LinkedIn that he is stepping down from his current role, but will remain on the company’s board of directors.
Dive Insight:
The Koreplex facility, slated for production this year, would have produced lithium-ion technology for the transportation and energy storage sectors and brought thousands of jobs to Maricopa County. The Idaho-based developer of battery cells is considered a leader in the renewable energy space with operations in Buckeye and Waterbury, Vermont.
In addition to the shelved plans, Kore hired Jay Bellows as CEO to take the company in a new direction with Gorrill stepping down.
“This decision was not made lightly, but I’m confident it is the right time for the company to embrace its next chapter,” Gorrill said in a LinkedIn post.
Plans for the Koreplex campus unanimously received support from the Buckeye Valley Chamber of Commerce last year, and it was supposed to be the centerpiece of Kore’s growth strategy moving forward.
However, after years of hype and construction delays, the site was quietly listed for sale in mid-January, real estate trade journal Azbex first reported. The city’s chamber of commerce did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Plans for Koreplex date back to May 2021, when Kore was weighing where it would locate the facility. The company eventually chose Buckeye. But over the years blueprints expanded, costs grew and dates kept getting pushed back.
Questions remain about what exactly happened, however, the Arizona Republic reported that Kore never received taxpayer money for the project. In the summer of 2023, Kore received a conditional commitment for an $850 million loan from the U.S. Department of Energy. But the funds never reportedly materialized, and little to no movement was made on the Koreplex facility.
Around the same time the site was listed for sale, general contractor Yates Construction filed a lien against the Koreplex property for nearly $10.4 million to secure payment of debt or services rendered.
The plant would have added to the manufacturing boom happening in and around Phoenix. Federal funding from the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act has spurred the construction and development of high-tech manufacturing facilities focused on renewable energy, microchips and more. The Phoenix metro area saw 14 major project announcements between 2020 and 2023.
