Inside JST's green plans for Guntersville
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The lakeside site is among the last available acreage at Conners Island Business Park. Image: Courtesy RAA
A Japanese manufacturer is doubling down on its operations in Guntersville.
Why it matters: Electronic connector manufacturer JST Corp. is investing $500 million to construct a next-generation advanced manufacturing facility.
The big picture: Designed intentionally to fit the lakeside site, the 540,000-square-foot facility is set to be completed in early 2029 on 240 acres at Guntersville's Conners Island Business Park.
- The facility will hire at least 80 workers, JST sales manager Phillip Mosley told Axios. It's been in the works since at least late 2024.
Context: Per the state Department of Commerce's Made in Alabama report, all of Marshall County saw $130.2 million in investment from new and expanding companies in 2025, and $134.7 million in 2024.
Zoom in: The project will highlight the company's focus on environmental stewardship, plant manager Kevin Lauret said in an announcement.
- "Our plans include keeping the bulk of the property in its natural state," Lauret said.
- Mosley noted that a detailed inventory of insects, animals, trees and more has already been conducted for the site.
- Green roofs, as shown in the architect's rendering above, have been found by the EPA to reduce stormwater discharge and lessen the urban heat island effect.
What they're saying: JST leadership's "vision for the property is to go back to the way the property would've been seven generations ago," Mosley said.
- It's not a data center, as some online have speculated, he said, and the facility will not draw water from Lake Guntersville.
- The design, by Ryuichi Ashizawa Architects (RAA), minimizes impact to trees and maximizes existing farmland areas, hence the curved shape, Mosley said.
Case in point: The firm designed JST's facility in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, an award-winning timber building with a sprawling design resembling a branching tree.
- RAA is also working on JST's facility under construction in Detroit, described in one headline as potentially "the most sustainable project ever built in Michigan," where Mosley says harvested wood was used to make furniture.
Catch up quick: Osaka-based JST makes cables and harness assemblies for electronics in Guntersville, having operated there since 2003.
- The company has two locations there, and they will be consolidated into the new facility, Mosley said.
- The Guntersville operation makes multiple products, filling such big orders as all of the cable assemblies for the Sphere in Las Vegas.