ArtiCast Jackson will invest $10.3 million and create 100 jobs at a former Pace Industries plant in Madison County, putting a recently closed manufacturing site back into use and giving West Tennessee a new supplier to several advanced-manufacturing sectors.
Gov. Bill Lee, Deputy Gov. and Economic and Community Development Commissioner Stuart McWhorter and company officials announced the project September 15. The Michigan-based company plans to make high-pressure die-cast components for aerospace, drones, defense, humanoid robotics, automotive, commercial-truck, industrial and agricultural customers.
The state announcement did not provide an opening date, hiring schedule or wage range. It said ArtiCast’s equipment can apply up to 1,800 tons of pressure, allowing the Jackson operation to handle a range of component sizes and production programs. For prospective workers, those missing timing and pay details remain important: the commitment is for 100 jobs, but recruitment information was not included in the announcement.
A closed plant gets a new operator
ArtiCast will occupy the Pace facility at 825 Lower Brownsville Road in Jackson. Pace notified the Tennessee Department of Labor and Workforce Development in February that it would permanently close the site on April 26, according to the state’s worker-dislocation memorandum. That closure affected 59 employees, and the Southwest Local Workforce Development Area was assigned to coordinate rapid-response and dislocated-worker services.
The new project’s 100-job commitment is larger than the number of layoffs reported at the address, but the figures should not be treated as an automatic one-for-one replacement. ArtiCast has not said how many former Pace employees it will hire, and the state announcement did not identify job classifications or a timetable for reaching the promised total.
The site also has a recent public-incentive history. Tennessee’s FastTrack grant database lists a $100,000 award to Pace Industries tied to a 2023 Madison County expansion that projected nearly $2.9 million in capital investment and 49 new jobs. The database explains that it covers located projects since 2018 with one or more contracted FastTrack grants; it does not list projects that received only capital grants or no FastTrack award.
Public assistance has not yet been detailed
The ArtiCast announcement did not disclose whether the new project will receive a FastTrack grant, local tax abatement or other public assistance. No ArtiCast entry appeared in the state database when the announcement was issued. That does not establish that no incentives will be offered; it means the public terms, if any, were not yet identified in the materials released with the project.
ArtiCast is part of ArtiFlex Manufacturing. The company’s published organization and facility roster shows design, tooling, automation and manufacturing operations in Michigan and Ohio, an automation operation in Spain, and a separate aerospace, defense and prototype group. State officials said the broader company employs more than 1,000 people globally.
For Madison County, the immediate significance is reuse of specialized industrial property months after a permanent closure. The longer-term measure will be execution: when production starts, what the jobs pay, how many are filled locally and what public support is attached to the $10.3 million investment.
