Mahoning & Trumbull County - From Kimberly-Clark to Amazon and other major proposals, including Graphite One and Foxconn’s regional footprint, millions of dollars in development projects are either under construction or in planning in the Mahoning Valley.

Local manufacturing leaders and an economist told 21 News those projects signal long-term momentum.

“I feel like we are definitely moving in the right direction. I mean, you see the investment, the ones you just called out are huge," said Alex Hertzer, executive director of the Mahoning Valley Manufacturers Coalition, "Companies like Kimberly-Clark...global companies that are setting roots here in the Mahoning Valley." 

Dr. AJ Sumell, economics professor at Youngstown State University, said it's still to be determined just how many jobs other potential projects could bring long-term, which is one key indicator to understand the economic outlook. 

"Foxconn, with open AI, and AI manufacturing production could be a really, potentially transformative deal in terms of the number of jobs that are created, but that's still unknown," Sumell said, "because we still don't know exactly how many jobs would be associated with that, how much of it's going to be a data center versus manufacturing facility and so, there's a number of positive developments, but the one that we know definitively is going to result in hundreds of high paying jobs, potentially thousands, is Kimberly-Clark."

With that progress, have also come some setbacks.

Ultium Cells announced layoffs coming in early 2026, and the Village of Lordstown recently voted to block data centers, an effort to prevent a proposed technology development project from moving forward.

Sumell said those challenges do not necessarily indicate a long-term slowdown.

“There has been a short-term change in terms of the EV subsidies being repealed, and that has had a significant effect in EV demand," Sumell said, "So we are going to see a short-term impact, but long term, I expect that to rebound and we'll still have a positive trajectory. It's not as if EVs are just going away and EV production will go away." 

Hertzer and Sumell said another reason for optimism is that the new projects are spread across multiple industries, not just electric vehicles or manufacturing.

“What is exciting about the projects that are on the move right now is that they are pretty well diversified,” Hertzer said.

Sumell added that diversification strengthens the Valley’s long-term outlook.

“The more diversification we have in our economy, the more resilient our economy will be, and over the long term, the more it will grow,” He said, "So I do think diversification is the right descriptor that we are seeing, with these new developments."

He added that the number of projects announced, and the potential jobs tied to those projects, still point to positive.

“If you just look at the number of big development projects that have been announced and the potential of those development projects, it is still a net," he said, "It looks like a net positive and even relative to Ultium Cells, not to downplay it, but there's a number of positive things that over the long-term, we should still be trending in the right direction."