Rochester Is About to Become America's Rare Earth Capital — What the $375M Phoenix Tailings Facility Means for Our City
The Short Version
- Phoenix Tailings is building a $375 million rare earth separation facility at Rochester's Eastman Business Park — operations start in 2027, full production in 2028.
- Most rare earth separation today takes place in China, making this plant a direct answer to a national security vulnerability the US has struggled to address for years.
- The facility will process 18,000 tons of rare earth material per year, producing the metals that go into electric vehicles, smartphones, and defense systems.
- Phoenix Tailings has committed to at least 90 jobs at launch, with projections of 200-plus direct jobs in New York as the facility scales.
- The Rochester plant is the centerpiece of the Freedom Project — Phoenix Tailings' $1.2 billion or more total US investment program.
Eastman Business Park in Rochester has been reinventing itself since Kodak's contraction, one tenant at a time. Phoenix Tailings has announced it is bringing a $375 million rare earth mineral separation facility to the former Kodak campus — a plant that will process materials the entire US industrial economy depends on.
The Massachusetts-based clean materials company selected Eastman Business Park for its flagship US production operation. The choice puts Rochester at the center of a supply chain problem that has worried American industry and defense planners for years.
What Phoenix Tailings Is Building at Eastman Business Park
What Phoenix Tailings Is Building at Eastman Business Park
The facility will occupy 500,000 square feet and is designed to process approximately 18,000 tons of rare earth material each year — enough to produce around 3,000 tons of finished rare earth metals annually. Operations are set to begin on-site in 2027, with full production following in 2028.
Rare earth metals power the motors in electric vehicles, the speakers and vibration systems in smartphones, and navigation and targeting equipment in defense systems. The Rochester facility won't mine them. It will separate and refine them from raw material — the step in the supply chain where American industrial capacity has been nearly nonexistent. That gap is what this facility is built to close.
Why America Needs This Plant — and Why Rochester Is Getting It
Why America Needs This Plant — and Why Rochester Is Getting It
Most rare earth separation currently takes place in China. That concentration has become harder to ignore as competition over semiconductor supply chains, advanced manufacturing, and defense industrial capacity has intensified. The US and its allies have built industries in electric vehicles, advanced electronics, and defense systems that all run on materials processed almost entirely outside their control.
Phoenix Tailings co-founder and CEO Nick Myers has put the stakes plainly:
"America and its allies cannot build the next generation of advanced manufacturing on a rare earth supply chain they do not control."
— Nick Myers, co-founder and CEO, Phoenix Tailings
Eastman Business Park already carries the infrastructure a 500,000-square-foot industrial operation requires — utilities, footprint, and workforce access. The former Kodak campus was built for exactly this scale of production.
What It Means for Rochester: Jobs, Investment, and a New Industrial Chapter
What It Means for Rochester: Jobs, Investment, and a New Industrial Chapter
Phoenix Tailings has committed to creating at least 90 jobs as part of its New York State agreement, with projections of more than 200 direct jobs in New York as the facility scales toward full capacity. New York State has offered up to $3 million in performance-based tax credits tied to that employment commitment.
The Rochester plant is the centerpiece of what Phoenix Tailings calls the Freedom Project — a total US investment of $1.2 billion or more across multiple operations. That scope makes clear this isn't a regional outpost. Phoenix Tailings is placing its most consequential facility in Rochester.
Eastman Business Park has attracted real tenants since Kodak's decline — operations that have kept the campus productive and the industrial workforce nearby employed. None of them arrived with $375 million. Operations start in 2027. Full production in 2028.
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