CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA (CVILLE RIGHT NOW) – As work continues to get the region ready for AstraZeneca’s new plant, the pharmaceutical giant might not be the only tenant coming to the Rivanna Futures site in Albemarle County.

Albemarle County’s Director of Economic Development Emily Kilroy said that a $9.7 million state grant the county received in 2025 to get the property ready for the AstraZeneca’s $4.5 billion manufacturing facility could help attract a neighbor.

“Albemarle County actually also got a $9.7 million dollar site readiness grant from the commonwealth of Virginia to do some site prep work out at Rivanna Futures,” Kilroy said. “Part of that work is happening where AstraZeneca will eventually locate, and part of that work is happening on another portion of the property that we are hopeful will be the new home to something else really exciting in the next few years.”

Kilroy appeared on WINA Morning News and gave an update on the project, that launched with considerable fanfare last fall, including a groundbreaking that included Gov. Glenn Youngkin, Dr. Oz and AstraZeneca’s CEO. The facility, which is bringing 600 new jobs to the area, is expected to open in late 2029 or early 2030.

“AstraZeneca is working really hard on finalizing their layout, their site layout and beginning to work through the entitlement process (with) the county administers and while that’s happening, sort of in parallel, Albemarle County sort of got lost in the exciting announcement about AstraZeneca in the fall,” Kilroy said.

Aside from site planning, there are a number of other steps that need to be completed to support the necessary workforce that will staff the plant, including new homes, the construction of a new elementary school and various other aspects of community infrastructure, Kilroy said.

“One of the things that’s really nice about the long lead time for when AstraZeneca made their announcement to when they actually open their doors, which right now is looking like 2029 at the earliest, is that we have several years to respond and get ready and react,” Kilroy said. “I think we’ve seen some new and interesting interest in the housing market, multi-family folks coming back and looking at old, approved plans and looking to increase density, swap out housing types. I think part of that is in response to the AstraZeneca announcement and we’re also seeing a lot of great interest from our education community.  The public school system, the community college and University of Virginia, looking at how can they prepare the workforce of the future. It’s a little bit of a pivot from sort of generally thinking about what jobs are available to knowing kind of specifically we’ve got 600 jobs at AstraZeneca, we’ve got 200 jobs at Afton Scientific, which is a local company that has announced a large expansion right here in Albemarle. So that’s 800 life sciences technical jobs that don’t  require PhD’s, a lot of these jobs do hire folks directly out of high school or with some sort of certification from a community college and so there’s a great opportunity with the 3 or 4 years that we have ahead of hiring to really work hard to get folks minimally qualified so that they can be successful candidates for those jobs that we know are coming.”

Of course, the excitement around that level of economic opportunity for careers in the life sciences is enticing, especially when the average starting salary for a position at the new AstraZeneca facility will be an annual compensation of $125,000.  However, one of the big questions looming in the background is how can the county ensure that local community members will be prioritized to gain most if not all of these high paying jobs?  Kilroy addressed that concern as well.

“A lot of that has to do with getting folks interested in taking advantage of some of the educational opportunities that are coming,” Kilroy said. “One thing that happened at the state level shortly after AstraZeneca’s announcement was that Eli Lilly who is locating in Goochland and Merk, who is expanding their footprint in Elkton, and AstraZeneca each put forth $40 million dollars to seed what’s being called the Virginia Advanced Pharmaceutical advanced manufacturing network, and that is a true workforce development initiative that is private sector funded, that is targeted to the jobs that those companies are going to need to be hiring for and they’re looking to partner with local community colleges to fund those programs with that seed funding and that’s all because they want to hire from the localities that they’re locating in as well as we do.”

Even in the midst of AI disrupting typical job tracks, it seems as if the future holds opportunities for those who are interested in being trained in biotechnology and the life sciences.  Rivanna Futures and the AstraZeneca plant will be located a few miles north of the urban ring of Albemarle near the Greene County line once again testing the boundaries of growth and infrastructure planning and expansion.