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The
Shoals is committed to economic
growth, which for many years has
been based on
manufacturing. However, local elected officials
and community leaders are
pro-business and have supported not only
the recruitment of new industry and
the retention and expansion of
existing companies, but they have also
worked to grow the service and
hospitality sectors.
Working
as a region has enhanced The Shoals’
economic picture as evidenced by a number of major
projects that have selected The Shoals in
recent years:
National
Alabama Corporation
North American
Lighting
Walgreen’s
Health Initiatives
SCA Tissue
RSA Project
National
Alabama Corporation
 In
July 2007, National Alabama
Corporation (NAC) announced that it would build
its two-million-square-foot,
state-of-the-art railcar
manufacturing facility in the Barton
Riverfront Industrial Park.
Construction of the facility is now
complete and approximately 115 NAC employees supply top-quality rail cars to the
North American market. As the
national economy improves, the
facility is expected to ramp-up to upwards of 1,800
employees over the next several
years. To find out more about
National Alabama Corporation,
download
this video.
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North American Lighting
  In
December 2005,
North American
Lighting, Inc. (NAL), a wholly owned
subsidiary of Koito Manufacturing
Co., Ltd., headquartered in Tokyo,
Japan, announced that it would
invest approximately $22 million to
build a facility in the new Shoals
Research Airpark, located adjacent
to the Northwest Alabama Regional
Airport in Muscle Shoals.
The facility began operations in
June 2007 and now employs in excess
of 240 people.
NAL is a
leading manufacturer of automotive
exterior lighting, supplying the
world’s most advanced automotive
lighting products to virtually every
automobile manufacturer in the
United States.
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Walgreen’s Health Initiatives
 In
August 2004,
Walgreen’s Health
Initiatives (WHI) chose the City of
Muscle Shoals as the home of its
technologically-advanced customer
service center, due in part to the
availability of a customer-oriented
workforce.
WHI began operations in October 2004
with 30 employees. As of December
2009, employment stood at
322.
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 SCA
Tissue
 In
the last quarter of 2002, the
Swedish company,
SCA
(Svenska Cellulosa Aktiebolaget), chose the Barton
Riverfront Industrial Park as the
location for its
1.3-million-square-foot converting,
papermaking, and distribution plant.
The company invested $240 million
initially, followed by a $150 million
expansion to the Barton facility in
2008,
which added 30 new jobs
and an additional production
capacity of 70,000 tons per year.
Approximately 500 employees work at
the tissue plant.
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RSA Project
  The
construction of a 36-hole
Robert
Trent Jones Golf Trail @ The Shoals golf complex on the
Tennessee River and the
Marriott
Shoals Hotel & Spa provided the
perfect complement to Florence’s
existing conference center.
The
first of the 18-hole golf courses,
Fighting Joe, opened in August 2004;
and, the second course, The
Schoolmaster, opened in June 2005.
The 200-room Marriott Shoals Hotel
had its grand opening in June 2005.
The
University of North Alabama’s
economic impact study of the golf
course and hotel project indicated
an economic impact of $181 million
and 400 jobs.
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