Cartersville: Bartow County | Managing Success

Destination City: Cartersville Mayor Matt Santini at the Savoy Museum. Photo credit: Joann Vitelli

For much of the past decade, Cartersville-Bartow County has been in Georgia’s economic fast lane, fueled by new jobs, industrial investment and a steady influx of residents. The challenge now isn’t generating momentum – it’s channeling it. Community leaders remain eager for growth, but are increasingly focused on ensuring that roads, utilities, housing and quality of life keep pace with the region’s success.

Located 45 miles north of Atlanta and 65 miles south of Chattanooga in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains, Bartow County occupies an enviable position along Interstate 75. Its location has long made it attractive to manufacturers and logistics companies, but today it’s evolving into something broader: a regional economic engine that’s simultaneously investing in industry, infrastructure and the amenities that make people want to call the community home.

“We’re a destination city as well as an industrial city,” says Cartersville Mayor Matt Santini. “So, it does become that balance of where do you manage or when is enough enough?”

City and county leaders are not suggesting Bartow County should stop growing. Instead, leaders consistently describe a community in a new phase – one in which success is measured not only by new jobs or buildings but by how thoughtfully growth is managed.

That philosophy is shaping everything from economic development strategy and tourism marketing to infrastructure planning and housing discussions.

Within the last few years, Hanwha’s Qcells with a $2.5 billion investment, Yakult U.S.A. with a $305 million probiotic beverage production facility and Hyundai-SK Battery Manufacturing America with a $5 billion EV battery facility all announced or launched significant operations.

Location of Choice: Melinda Lemmon, executive director of the Cartersville-Bartow County Department of Economic Development. Photo credit: Joann Vitelli

After the EV battery project was announced in 2022, the facility launched initial production in June and will gradually scale up, ultimately employing 3,500 workers.

“HSBMA will quickly be one of the county’s largest employers, taxpayers and corporate citizens,” wrote Melinda Lemmon, executive director of the Cartersville-Bartow County Department of Economic Development, in an email. “HSBMA’s investment is also creating opportunities for local utilities, contractors and service providers, helping strengthen Bartow County’s economy and position as a hub for electric vehicle, energy and advanced manufacturing sectors.”

Suppliers are following the new manufacturing initiatives.

Team Bartow

If there’s one word that city and county leaders often repeat, it’s collaboration.

Santini credits decades of cooperation among the city of Cartersville, Bartow County, and neighboring municipalities, including Euharlee, Emerson and Adairsville, for creating an environment in which companies can move quickly while still working through local government processes.

“When companies are looking for quick answers and speed to market, we lay the groundwork with the joint development authority,” he says. “You get the commissioner and the mayor in the room at the same time, and you can really keep the ball moving.”

Creating Opportunities: Hyundai-SK Battery Manufacturing America is a joint venture between Hyundai Motor Group and SK On. Photo credit: Contributed

Lemmon puts it even more simply.

“We informally call ourselves Team Bartow.”

She says prospects often expect to hear local entities competing with one another, but instead find utilities, the development authority and elected officials working in concert to solve problems.

“This is going to sound cliché,” Lemmon says, “but I think we’re known for our collaboration among state partners in the way that we all work together.”

That spirit has helped make Cartersville-Bartow what county leaders call a “location of choice” for manufacturing for more than 185 years. Today, more than 140 manufacturers call the county home, including established employers such as Anheuser-Busch, Shaw Industries and Toyo Tire North America.

Recent additions are equally impressive.

“The impact that they’ve had on the secondary and tertiary level of economic impact is pretty significant, too,” Lemmon says. “Their suppliers want to be close.”

Cindy Williams, president and CEO of the Cartersville-Bartow County Chamber of Commerce, says that growth extends beyond manufacturing.

“The healthcare industry is one that I see a lot of growth in,” she says, along with financial services and other businesses that support an expanding population and industrial base.

“For me,” Williams adds, “it’s all about taking care of the folks who have already chosen Bartow County as their place to do business.”

More Than An Industrial Story

While manufacturing remains central to the local economy, community leaders increasingly emphasize that economic development is about much more than recruiting factories.

Museum City: Cartersville has seven major museums, including Tellus Science Museum, which features a planetarium. Photo credit: Contributed

“Economic development here means a lot of things,” Lemmon says. “Tourism, film, entertainment, small business and downtown are all doing well – sports tourism in particular and heritage tourism.”

That philosophy is particularly visible with Cartersville’s embrace of its identity as a museum city.

Steven Schumacher, president of Cartersville Museum City, says the organization deliberately leaned into the brand in recent years, even securing a federal trademark for the phrase.

“Word has gotten out into Metro Atlanta and into the whole Southeast and the state of Georgia that we have a lot of museums,” he says.

The community boasts seven major museums – including the Booth Western Art Museum, Tellus Science Museum, Savoy Automobile Museum and Bartow History Museum – and roughly an additional 12 historic sites, by the tourism organization’s count.

But Schumacher is quick to point out that the museums are only part of the story.

Visitors can hike at Red Top Mountain State Park, paddle the Etowah River, enjoy Barnsley Resort in the north of the county, browse downtown shops and restaurants or attend youth sporting events that draw families from across the country.

Nice Place to Visit: Barnsley Resort, above, and the Booth Western Art Museum, right, draw tourists each year. Photo credits: Contributed

Tourism officials have intentionally broadened the county’s image from a place people pass through to a place where they spend time.

Schumacher says that strategy has included using visitor movement data to understand how families attending tournaments at LakePoint Sports in Emerson in the southeast corner of the county spend their time. LakePoint’s campus includes 12 basketball courts, 24 indoor volleyball courts, 10 sand volleyball courts, eight baseball fields and more.

Tourist Destination: Steven Schumacher, president of Cartersville Museum City. Photo credit: Eric Sun

Early analysis revealed many visitors stayed near the complex without venturing 12 minutes north into downtown Cartersville. In response, tourism officials partnered with LakePoint to promote downtown attractions through an initiative called Community Corner & Kiosk. It added two welcome centers at LakePoint that encourage visitors to explore beyond the sports campus.

The effort appears to have paid off. Schumacher says Cartersville went from not making the top 10 destination list among LakePoint visitors to No. 3 today.

“While I don’t get to announce big billion-dollar warehouse deals like Melinda [Lemmon does], we get to kind of fill in the gaps of those other smaller dollars that are super important to the industry,” says Schumacher.

Investing in Residents

The emphasis on quality of life is also evident in public investments that have little to do with industrial recruitment but a great deal to do with attracting and retaining residents.

Athletic Campus: LakePoint Sports in Emerson includes eight baseball fields, indoor and outdoor volleyball courts and more. Photo credit: Contributed

The county and city have multiple recreation facilities, including Splashville Water Park, which opened in May, and a modern recreation complex featuring basketball courts and fitness amenities, expected to open this month or next.

Those projects complement an expanding network of walking trails and outdoor recreation opportunities that county leaders believe improve everyday life while also enhancing tourism.

County Administrator Peter Olson notes that Bartow County has added kayak launches along the Etowah River, mountain bike trails and other recreational amenities by borrowing successful ideas from elsewhere.

Good Ideas: County Administrator Peter Olson, at Splashville Water Park. Photo credit: Joann Vitelli

“When we see a good idea,” he says, “I’m not afraid to steal it.”

The emphasis on amenities reflects a broader understanding that employers increasingly follow talent, and talent increasingly chooses communities based on lifestyle.

As Lemmon puts it, “People can pretty much determine where they want to work anywhere in the world. Employers will follow that talent. We’ve been a beneficiary of that.”

Making Waves: Splashville Water Park Photo credit: Contributed

A Strategic Pivot

If manufacturing established Bartow County as an economic powerhouse, data centers may define its next chapter.

The construction of Switch Atlanta North’s campus in Cartersville, known as The Keep 2.0, represents more than another marquee project. Local officials see it as evidence that the community can diversify its economic portfolio while minimizing some of the challenges associated with traditional development.

Amended Data Center Ordinance: County Commissioner Steve Taylor. Photo credit: Eric Sun

County Administrator Peter Olson describes data centers as attractive because they generate significant taxable value without bringing the traffic volumes or demands on public schools that often accompany large residential developments or distribution centers.

“It’s basically a warehouse with computers,” he says. “You don’t have hundreds of employees coming and going every shift or trucks lined up at loading docks.”

Officials say Switch worked with local leaders and held community meetings to address concerns about water consumption and visual impact. The facility’s cooling system is designed to recycle water rather than rely on continuous withdrawals, and extensive landscaping and setbacks help buffer neighboring properties.

In July, County Commissioner Steve Taylor signed a text amendment to the county’s Data Center Ordinance, which addresses water usage and sound. It says each data center must provide its own power source, use a closed loop water system, obey a strict noise ordinance and turn lights off at 9 p.m.

The Switch project eliminated about 2,000 single-family homes slated for future phases of a residential community, replacing them with a use that local leaders say better aligns with long-term planning goals.

Olson says there are at least three additional centers approved or proposed in other areas of the county. They’re being careful, he says, to study other cities and states where the centers have proliferated and generated community pushback.

“We’re trying to learn from their mistakes and be prepared and proactive about what we’re doing,” says Olson. Ultimately, he says, the hope is that data center revenues could eliminate property taxes. “Five years out, we should be seeing really almost a bonanza of revenue from these data centers.”

Not everyone agrees on that. A proposed data center along the Etowah River in the Etowah Valley Historic District, listed in the National Register of Historic Places since 1975, has sparked heated community meetings, protests and petitions. A data center on the site would require rezoning.

Marty Knight, a fourth-generation Bartow County resident, is spearheading opposition to the proposal.

Warehouse with Computers: Switch Atlanta North’s data center campus in Cartersville is also known as The Keep 2.0. Photo credit: Contributed

“I don’t know anybody who wants a data center,” says Knight, who’s opposed to the rezoning and fears a negative impact from a center on the threatened Cherokee Darter, a fish found only in the Etowah River. “You start taking away the habitats of endangered species,” says Knight, “and then you start saying, well, we took away that fish; we can just take away this and that and that and that.”

“I want to see a moratorium,” says Bella Bautista, a 23-year Bartow resident who’s running for the Georgia House District 14 seat and who’s concerned about data center proliferation. “I definitely think that we need to require more extensive environmental and water studies. I would like to see more regulation.”

Amy Lipscomb, senior attorney for the Southern Environmental Law Center, says data centers have become one of the SELC’s highest priorities.

“Data centers really are a problem that touches on just about every environmental concern you can think of,” says Lipscomb. “We’re talking about energy use, air quality, water consumption, land use, noise impacts, impacts on species fragmentation for wildlife. It really is just a massive, massive issue that we’re trying to tackle.”

The bottom line today, says the economic development department’s Lemmon, is that the conversation has shifted from “Can we recruit this project?” to “Is this the right project for Bartow County?”

“Each economic opportunity has its own unique requirements on what makes it successful,” says Lemmon. “Analyzing that project and offering a bespoke solution for that project has always been what we do well. And either it’s a great fit here, or it’s not.”

Staying Ahead of Growth

Perhaps more than any other issue, local leaders emphasize the importance of infrastructure investment before capacity becomes constrained.

“We also want to do what we can to stay ahead of growth,” Mayor Santini says, citing water planning as one example.

The city of Cartersville is adding capacity to its water treatment infrastructure to keep up with demand while Bartow County continues exploring long-term supply strategies that include existing withdrawals from Lake Allatoona, groundwater resources and additional storage opportunities, according to Sole Commissioner Taylor. He says the community currently uses only a portion of its authorized water allocation, giving leaders confidence that capacity will continue to support responsible growth.

The county’s roads tell a similar story.

The Old Alabama Road extension to improve Interstate 75 access, improvements to key transportation corridors and ongoing intersection upgrades may not receive the publicity associated with billion-dollar economic development announcements, but they’re viewed as equally essential.

“Roads aren’t sexy,” Olson says, “but they matter.”

Downtown infrastructure is evolving as well.

A new parking deck, construction of a new City Hall and expansion of county administrative facilities are intended to accommodate increasing activity while preserving the accessibility and walkability that have become hallmarks of downtown Cartersville.

Housing: An Ongoing Conversation

Economic growth has raised housing questions across the state, and Bartow County is no exception.

City and county officials say affordability remains a top issue, but the real challenge is maintaining the right mix.

As manufacturing, healthcare and service industries expand, employers increasingly ask where workers will live and whether housing options exist across a range of income levels.

Peaceful Pursuit: Residents and visitors enjoying kayaking in the Etowah River. Photo credit: Contributed

“It wasn’t that many years ago we were asking, ‘Where are the jobs?’” Santini says. “Now employers are asking, ‘Where are the people?’”

Developers have responded by bringing a wider variety of housing products to the market, including apartments, townhomes and smaller-lot single-family homes that complement traditional subdivisions.

Olson says he’s also excited to add some higher-end communities in Emerson and Aubrey Village in the northeast part of the county.

“We noticed when we land a company, the executives might tend to want to go live in Cobb,” says Olson. “So, we’re trying to make it so that they want to live in Bartow, too.”

County officials acknowledge public concerns about preserving Bartow County’s character. Commissioner Taylor says many complaints about growth come from people who themselves moved to the area seeking relief from congestion elsewhere.

“They come here, and they find out that we’re growing too,” says Taylor. “It’s just happening. We’re in that donut, that circle around Atlanta that’s just in that growth area.”

Although Bartow County has experienced strong population gains – adding roughly 11% more residents since 2020 according to U.S. Census estimates – it has not grown as rapidly as some of Georgia’s hottest exurban markets, including Jackson, Forsyth and Barrow counties.

The goal, says Taylor, is not to stop growth but to guide it in ways that protect quality of life while supporting economic opportunity.

Building the Workforce

Maintaining that opportunity requires people as much as projects.

Chamber CEO Williams says employers increasingly discuss workplace flexibility, generational expectations and employee retention alongside traditional recruiting concerns.

“There’s so much more focus on work-life balance,” she says. “You have to understand what different generations are looking for.”

The Chamber has responded by strengthening internship opportunities, expanding work-based learning partnerships and connecting students with local employers earlier in their educational journeys.

Work-Life Balance: Cindy Williams, president and CEO of the Cartersville-Bartow County Chamber of Commerce. Photo credit: Contributed

Those initiatives complement collaborations with Georgia Highlands College, Chattahoochee Technical College and Georgia Quick Start, helping ensure workforce pipelines evolve alongside industry needs.

Williams says the effort recognizes that economic development is not measured simply by ribbon cuttings but by whether companies can continue finding skilled employees after they arrive.

Looking To the Future

For all the discussion of batteries, manufacturing and technology, many of Bartow County’s leaders return to the same aspiration: maintaining livability and the county’s charm.

That objective explains investments in Splashville, expanded recreation facilities, trails and parks just as much as investments in utilities and roads.

It explains why tourism officials devote as much energy to encouraging families to spend an extra afternoon downtown as economic developers devote to recruiting new employers.

And it explains why local governments continue investing in infrastructure before it becomes an emergency.

“My mantra has always been we don’t have to be like the rest of the world,” Mayor Santini says. “We can be the example for the rest of the world to follow.”

The region has already demonstrated it can attract world-class manufacturers and transformative investment. The next challenge is more nuanced: proving that prosperity can be managed with the same discipline that created it.

“You want to provide a community that people want to live in, right?” says County Administrator Olson.