JONESBOROUGH, Tenn. — Nuclear manufacturer BWXT is scaling up its Washington County campus with a $714.5 million build that state leaders say will add 181 positions and more than double the payroll already working there.
Governor Bill Lee and Stuart C. McWhorter of the state economic development department unveiled the agreement alongside company managers. The Jonesborough plant will turn out high-purity depleted uranium metal for the National Nuclear Security Administration. A decade-long federal award worth $1.6 billion, handed down in September 2025, underwrites the work. Officials say that once the line is running, this will be the only active domestic site able to handle that process for the government.
Tennessee is pairing the private investment with a Nuclear Energy Fund grant routed through TNECD. Lawmakers first seeded the fund in the 2023-24 budget and have since raised it to $95 million. Agency tallies credit the fund with 12 assisted projects, nearly 4,000 promised jobs and capital pledges above $10 billion. For BWXT, Jonesborough is the third Tennessee package under the program after a 2025 Oak Ridge plan for 60 hires and $45 million and an Erwin growth plan for 198 hires and $122 million.
Jeff Messaros, who manages BWXT Ordnance Tennessee, thanked Lee and McWhorter for the grant and said the community payoff should stretch for decades. State and company spokespeople framed the deal as another brick in a northeast Tennessee nuclear manufacturing corridor that has drawn repeated federal and private money since the fund launched.
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