Summary
BorgWarner plans to invest $100 million and add 378 jobs in Hendersonville, North Carolina. The jobs pay about 24 percent more than the county average. With the 193 jobs announced in October 2025, that is 571 new jobs. New neighbors in a limited apartment supply could increase rents and demand for everyday shopping.
The Announcement
BorgWarner announced on May 26, 2026 that it plans to invest $100 million to expand in Hendersonville, North Carolina. The company will add 378 jobs with an average annual salary of $67,047.
BorgWarner Inc. supplies technology and systems to major automakers. The Hendersonville expansion is a new 140,000-square-foot manufacturing facility. The plant will make parts for a new line of microturbine power generators, which are small turbine generators that run on natural gas, diesel or hydrogen.
The investment is at least $95 million in equipment and $5 million in real property, spread over five years, 2026 through 2030. The 378 jobs are added over three years, 2027 through 2029. This expansion adds to the Hendersonville site announced in October 2025: a 220,000-square-foot plant, at least $74.9 million and 193 jobs.
Hendersonville and Its Housing Market
Hendersonville is the county seat of Henderson County, in the Blue Ridge Mountains of western North Carolina near the South Carolina border. It is about 25 miles south of Asheville and 38 miles from Greenville, South Carolina. Interstate 26 connects it to Asheville to the north and Spartanburg, South Carolina to the southeast. Henderson County borders Buncombe County, where Asheville is. The county had an estimated 122,375 residents in 2025, and the town of Hendersonville had an estimated 15,867. Henderson County is the top apple producer in North Carolina.
Henderson County has 51,067 households. Three in four own their home and one in four rents. The median home value is $351,400, compared with $288,900 for North Carolina.
Apartments in Hendersonville average $1,601 a month as of October 2026. A 2024 city study found that about 3 percent of Hendersonville’s market-rate apartments were vacant.
The average wage in Henderson County is $54,118. The new BorgWarner jobs average $67,047. That is $12,929, or 24 percent, higher.
What This Could Mean for Housing and Retail
BorgWarner’s two announcements add up to 571 new jobs: 193 announced in October 2025 and 378 announced in May 2026. If each job brought one new household to the area, that is up to 571 households. Some jobs will be filled by current residents of the area, and those add no new households. New residents also create jobs in retail, restaurants and other services, and those can add more. An additional 571 households would be about a 1 percent increase in the county’s 51,067 households.
The new jobs pay more than the typical wage here, so these employees can pay more for housing than the typical household in the county. Those new community members would arrive in a market that was nearly full in 2024, when a city study found about 97 percent of Hendersonville’s market-rate apartments occupied.
Retail demand follows housing demand. More households mean more shoppers, and higher incomes mean more spending.
Why We Watch
We love wins for North Carolina, and this is one. BorgWarner is adding 571 jobs in Hendersonville that pay more than the county average. Western North Carolina is rebuilding after Hurricane Helene, and the company chose to keep growing there. Hendersonville gets a growing employer and new neighbors. Local businesses may get new customers.
We follow announcements like this across the state because jobs bring people, and people need places to live and shop. This increases demand for our target investments, housing and daily shopping retail.
We will keep watching how it unfolds.
Sources:
- North Carolina Department of Commerce, Governor Stein Announces $100 Million Expansion for BorgWarner in Hendersonville, 2026-05-26
- City of Hendersonville, Notice of Public Hearing, Project Vert, 2026-04-02
- North Carolina Department of Commerce, BorgWarner Selects Henderson County for $75 Million Industrial Operations Expansion, 2025-10-28
- Census county population estimates, July 1, 2025
- Census city and town population estimates, North Carolina, July 1, 2025
- American Community Survey 5-year 2024, Henderson County, 2020-2024
- Henderson County, Henderson County Farmland Preservation, 2026 farmland report, 2026
- City of Hendersonville, Residents & Visitors, 2026-11-07
- City of Hendersonville, Housing Needs Assessment, Strategic Housing Plan Steering Committee, 2024-11-18
- RentCafe, Hendersonville rental market trends, 2026-10-30
Eddie Coleman, CCIM, is the Principal Investment Officer at NC Capital Group. With over 40 years of experience in Commercial Real Estate in North Carolina and South Carolina, his experience spans multifamily, retail, office, historic adaptation, etc. In addition to advising clients and brokering transactions, he has extensive knowledge of North Carolina through experience in corporate site acquisition, development, capitalization, HUD financing, etc. He holds the prestigious Certified Commercial Investment Member (CCIM) designation.