Delta Township’s LG battery plant and a new Grand Ledge health center are among the Lansing chamber’s 2026 growth honorees

DELTA TOWNSHIP, Mich. — LG Energy Solution’s new battery plant in Delta Township is one of four winners of the Lansing Regional Chamber of Commerce’s 2026 Celebration of Regional Growth Awards, the chamber announced Oct. 12.

The awards will be presented Thursday, Nov. 12, from 5 to 7 p.m. at the Kellogg Hotel and Conference Center in East Lansing. This is the program’s 20th year, and the chamber said it is the first time its Lansing Economic Club program will be held in the evening.

The chamber described the plant as a $2 billion-plus investment that began production this summer. It makes batteries for energy storage systems and for Toyota electric vehicles and is expected to employ about 1,700 people at full capacity, according to the chamber.

A second honoree has a project just down the road. University of Michigan Health-Sparrow was recognized for three facilities worth about $175 million combined, among them the $32 million UM Health Sparrow Grand Ledge Health Center. The chamber said the center will open to patients in early 2027 with urgent care, primary and specialty care, advanced imaging and a pharmacy.

Sparrow’s other two projects are a $60 million surgery center in downtown Lansing, which is to add operating rooms and an MRI in late 2027, and the $83 million Janice M. Granger Behavioral Health Building. The behavioral health building is expected to open in 2028 with more than 60 psychiatric beds, including the region’s first inpatient beds for children and teens, who the chamber said are often sent more than an hour away for care now.

The other two winners are the Gillespie Co. and Michigan State University, for a nearly $5 million MSU Child Development Lab on Lansing’s east side, and the City of Lansing, for its new City Hall and its $175 million public safety and district court complex.

“Investments like these are what keep talent and employers in the Lansing region,” chamber President and CEO Tim Daman said in the announcement. The chamber says the 100 businesses it has honored since the program began have invested nearly $7.5 billion in the area.

The LG plant has also drawn questions about emergency planning. A WILX News 10 investigation published Sept. 24 found that local first responders had not held a live or tabletop drill inside the 2.8-million-square-foot plant. Delta Township Fire Chief John Kahler told the station his department spent two years building a site-specific response plan that crews can pull up on their trucks’ computers while en route.

LG told WILX that the township fire department has toured the entire facility and that the company reviews production processes, chemicals and hazards with the township on an ongoing basis. After the report aired, the township said in a news release that it believes local firefighters are prepared to respond to an emergency at the plant, the station reported.

Registration for the Nov. 12 awards is available through the chamber at LansingChamber.org.

Sources:
Lansing Regional Chamber of Commerce, “Lansing Regional Chamber Announces 2026 Celebration of Regional Growth Awards Recipients,” Oct. 12, 2026 (date, time and venue, honorees, project costs and timelines, LG plant jobs and products, Daman quote, program history), https://www.lansingchamber.org/2026/10/12/lansing-regional-chamber-announces-2026-celebration-of-regional-growth-awards-recipients/
WILX News 10, “No first responder drills held inside Delta Township LG battery plant, investigation finds,” Sept. 24, 2026, updated Sept. 25 (drills, emergency plan, Kahler, LG response, township release, plant size), https://www.wilx.com/2026/09/24/no-first-responder-drills-held-inside-delta-township-lg-battery-plant-investigation-finds/
Photo: UniEnergy Technologies, “1 MW 4 MWh Turner Energy Storage Project in Pullman, WA.jpg,” May 22, 2015, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/), cropped and color-adjusted; derivative under the same license, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:1_MW_4_MWh_Turner_Energy_Storage_Project_in_Pullman,_WA.jpg

Delta Township

Tags: Delta Township · News · LG Energy Solution · Economic Development · UM Health-Sparrow · Eaton County