Samsung Highway ribbon-cutting: Gov. Abbott, WilCo officials speak
TAYLOR, Texas - Another milestone was reached for the semiconductor chip manufacturing facility in Taylor.
On Friday, a ribbon-cutting was held to celebrate the completion of Samsung Highway and several adjacent road improvement projects.
"Texas was the birthplace of the microchip, and now those chips permeate literally everything that we use every single day," said Gov. Abbott. "And we are proud that much of the chips that will be running our future will be made in Texas by Samsung."
But with new, booming industries comes the need for basic infrastructure.
"A project this enormous needs enormous transportation infrastructure. That need gave rise to Samsung Highway," said Gov. Abbott. "Samsung Highway will be the gateway to the largest foreign direct investment in the history of the state of Texas."
A year ago, Samsung Highway was a cornfield.
"One of the reasons why this road is so important is because where we are had kind of a patch of different, established county roads that weren't very well planned. And farmers, we heard it loud and clear, they needed to get their equipment from one field to another. And so as those roads went away, we worked hard. We worked at a record pace to get this open," said Russ Boles, Williamson County Commissioner for Precinct 4. "And I suspect here, once we open it back up sometime this afternoon, you're going to see farm equipment moving up and down this road."
With an ear tuned to agricultural needs, the new and improved roadways will also benefit the community as a whole.
"The most important thing with the completion of the roads is we've got thousands of construction workers coming in and out, thousands of engineers coming in and out. The number one priority is public safety. We need to get people in and out safely. That's important. We're also near Taylor High School, and there's nothing I care more about than our kiddos and protecting and taking care of our kiddos," said Williamson County Judge Bill Gravell. "But I also love the idea that the Samsung complex literally is out the door of Taylor High School, because kiddos see an opportunity for them locally, and they see something that they can achieve with completion of high school and with education."
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The road improvements come after $6 billion in federal funding was recently infused into the Samsung facility.
"My goal is not for us to have the largest semiconductor manufacturing complex in Texas," said Judge Gravell. "I want to have the largest complex in the world, and I want to drive the semiconductor industry from right here in this cornfield in Taylor, Texas."