Whirlpool expands in Ohio

Whirlpool isn’t building from scratch in Ohio. It bought a 252,600-square-foot former solar-panel factory in Perrysburg and is spending more than $60 million to turn it into a parts plant for washers and dryers over the next two years. (whirlpoolcorp.com, toledoblade.com) The new site is not a showroom factory making finished appliances. Whirlpool says Perrysburg will make appliance components and subassemblies, which are the built-up parts that feed its washer plant in Clyde and dryer plant in Marion. (whirlpoolcorp.com, toledoblade.com) That helps explain why the job number is smaller than the dollar figure might suggest. Whirlpool says the plant will use advanced manufacturing technology and automation, and it expects the project to add about 100 to 150 jobs rather than the 400 to 600 jobs tied to last year’s much larger Ohio expansion. (whirlpoolcorp.com, whirlpoolcorp.com) Perrysburg is the sixth Whirlpool factory in Ohio and the company’s eleventh in the United States. The location matters because it sits close to Clyde and Marion, two long-running laundry plants that Whirlpool is already expanding. (whirlpoolcorp.com, whirlpoolcorp.com) Clyde has made washers since 1952 and Whirlpool calls it the largest washing machine plant in the world. Marion’s dryer factory marked 70 years of operation in 2025, so the new Perrysburg site is being dropped into an existing laundry corridor, not a blank map. (whirlpoolcorp.com) The sequence matters. In October 2025, Whirlpool announced a $300 million investment in Clyde and Marion to add a production line and 400 to 600 jobs for next-generation washers and dryers; in April 2026, it added Perrysburg as the parts-and-subassembly hub that supports that bigger push. (whirlpoolcorp.com, whirlpoolcorp.com) Whirlpool is framing all of this as domestic capacity, not just local real estate. The company says about 80% of the major appliances it sells in the United States are made domestically, compared with a 25% competitor average cited in its October announcement. (whirlpoolcorp.com, whirlpoolcorp.com) It is also leaning on supplier depth as part of that pitch. Whirlpool says it spent more than $6 billion with United States suppliers last year, uses domestically sourced steel for 96% of the steel in its United States plants, and has spent $23 billion on United States manufacturing, labor, and logistics over the past decade. (whirlpoolcorp.com, whirlpoolcorp.com) The building itself tells a second Ohio story. Perrysburg’s new Whirlpool site was previously used for solar-panel manufacturing, so one industrial shell is being repurposed from one kind of factory work into another instead of sitting idle. (whirlpoolcorp.com, toledoblade.com) Local officials are treating the move as a corridor play as much as a single plant opening. Perrysburg Mayor Mark Weber told The Blade the city wants more industrial development along State Route 25, and Whirlpool’s facility on Progress Drive gives that stretch a large anchor tenant with a two-year buildout already on the clock. (toledoblade.com) The final piece is that some of the economics are still pending. Whirlpool says assistance from JobsOhio and a state tax credit still need final review and approval, and the company expects a formal ribbon-cutting ceremony later in 2026. (whirlpoolcorp.com)