Tesla heads to Hutto with $1.5M planned for expansion
HUTTO, Texas - Tesla is expanding out of its massive factory in Austin and heading to a much smaller Central Texas town: Hutto.
"I like it when this was just a little country town, and this was it," said Louis Guillaud. "This downtown area here was it."
Downtown Hutto still has that small Texas town charm, but if you drive a few miles east, rural farm land is turning into a construction zone.
"There's so much happening in Hutto right now," said Judi Smith, owner of the Downtown Hall of Fame in Hutto. "There are so many people moving to Hutto. We're seeing, like, a lot of industrial things come through, and it's nice to see how quickly it's growing and changing."
Tesla will be the next major company expanding into Hutto.
"I just wish they would have a better way of charging cars, you know, other than sell fossil fuels," said Guillaud. "It's not going to stop, so it's good for the area. It's going to bring business and jobs."
The City of Hutto said Tesla recently began occupying a building off of U.S. 79 and County Road 199, just in sight of the Samsung facility.
The company expects to spend more than 1.5 million on improvements to the existing building.
Construction could start as soon as this month, pending permits.
The news is welcome to Hutto businesses and shoppers.
"The more businesses like Tesla that come into the area, it brings more people to live and stay, and now they can work here instead of working somewhere else," said Smith.
"I think it's really cool," said Layla Cancino, a Hutto shopper. "It's bringing like more technological advances up here."
"With the substantial technology investments continuing to come to Hutto and our neighbors, East Wilco is becoming the place to be for future-focused development," said Ashley Bailey, the director of development services for the City of Hutto.
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Whatever the future holds for Hutto, longtime residents said there are some things that won't change.
"We only have so much landscape, so even though we have all these people coming in, it still has this small town feel," said Smith. "We've got all the old buildings, you know, we have the hippos in everybody's yard. There's such a community feel. I really don't think we're going to lose it."
The city said it is waiting for some final inspections before sharing what Tesla's new facility will offer.
That could happen in the next week or so.