Fit Precast, an industrial concrete company, is dropping $102 million on a new facility in Gastonia, North Carolina, creating 125 new jobs for workers throughout the area. Pharmaceutical giant Becton Dickinson is putting $110 million into a manufacturing expansion in Columbus Ohio — 120 jobs. A new automotive venture in Orangeburg, South Carolina is investing $120 million into a new plant, bringing in nearly 400 jobs.
Now meet Ark Data Centers, an Iowa firm building a $136 million campus expansion in Northeastern Ohio. The project costs more than any of the above, yet its final job count won’t be in the hundreds, or even the dozens: instead, it’s exactly ten.
The Ark project was one of eight developments rewarded with a multimillion-dollar tax break by the Ohio Tax Credit Authority — not on its own initiative, but on the recommendation of JobsOhio, an economic development nonprofit in the state…