NEW ALBANY — Despite reported delays, those living near the Intel Ohio One site will be seeing more activity there in the coming days.

“Intel Delays $20 billion Ohio project, citing slow chip market,” said a Feb. 2 headline in The Wall Street Journal. “Construction on two factories now slated to be finished in late 2026 as company also waits for government incentives.”

When ground was broken in late 2022, the original timeline was to have the two fabrication plants producing semiconductor computer chips in 2025. Company spokespeople have said construction has continued unabated since the groundbreaking.

“Since we began construction on the Ohio One campus, crews have worked more than 1.6 million hours without a lost time incident, have poured more than 32,000 cubic yards of concrete and installed 210,000 linear feet of underground conduit (equivalent to just over 700 football fields),” stated the latest Intel Ohio newsletter. “We’re building the Ohio One campus from the ground up, starting with the underground utility level. Electrical panels that support the fab are located here, along with the “mains” — large utility pipes and ductwork that feed up to the lateral pipes in the clean subfab. Also here are chiller and compressor systems.”

Emily Smith, Ohio community relations director for Intel Corporation, said in the newsletter, “Happy anniversary, Ohio! It’s hard to believe it’s already been two years since we announced plans to invest more than $20 billion in the construction of two leading edge semiconductor fabs in the Buckeye State. We are proud of the progress at the Ohio One campus and around the state. We’re so excited to be building in Ohio, and we’ll continue to make considerable progress on the construction of our factories and supporting facilities this year.”

By the end of the week, the first of several months’ worth of oversized loads of heavy equipment should have made their way across the state to the site, local media reports have stated. The 200-foot-long trailers will be carrying such large items that they will have to use back routes instead of going underneath overpasses. Delay notices will be put on message boards along Hamilton Road.

At an “Intel on Intel” event held last week, a planning consultant not associated with the company told a Sunbury audience that equipment working at the site includes “Carl,” the world’s largest crane, which is twice the height of the Statue of Liberty.

“Sounds like a huge facility,” read an Intel-related post on the Nextdoor app. To give an idea of just how huge, in an Axios Columbus article dated Jan. 22, co-author Jessica Boehm said she grew up across from the Chandler, Arizona, Intel fab. She said Chandler’s population was about 30,000 in 1980 and grew to 180,000 in 2000, due to Intel.

In another comparison, it took Intel 28 years to build four fabs in Chandler.

Assistant Editor Gary Budzak covers the eastern half of Delaware County and surrounding areas. He may be reached at [email protected].