Recap of recent good news for the Mobile metro area.

As a followup to a previous post, here is some good news about the Mobile area.

Excerpts are from the Mobile Register and other sources:

Inc. magazine included two local firms, telecommunications provider Southern Light LLC and Hargrove & Associates Inc., an engineering and construction company, as part of its 2007 annual list of the 500 fastest growing private companies in America.

Mobile has been on a hot streak since the May 11 announcement that ThyssenKrupp AG had chosen a site north of the city for a proposed $3.7 billion steel mill. News about the massive project spanned the globe, earning references in more than 300 publications over the past three months, according to computer research firm LexisNexis.

"When you land the largest economic development project in America, that's news wherever you are," Mobile Mayor Sam Jones said.

The city also drew an international spotlight at the Paris Air Show in June. Mobile is home to an Airbus engineering center and could add an aircraft assembly plant if it can win a lucrative contract to build aerial refueling tankers for the U.S. Air Force.

High-profile articles about Mobile's aerospace ambitions appeared in the New York Times and the International Herald Tribune, among other news outlets.
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Austal USA's parent company, Austal Ltd., said this week that its Mobile facility was a key driver of growth during a fiscal year that saw revenue jump by almost 40 percent.

Vessels completed in 2007 include the Mobile-built Hawaii Superferry, which was substantially finished in late 2006 and delivered to its owners in Honolulu in June.

A second superferry and work on a combat ship for the U.S. Navy has Austal's Mobile River shipyard on a fast track. Employee count there has topped 1,000 -- a 75 percent expansion during the fiscal year, the company said.

Bob Browning has taken the helm as Austal USA chief executive, and the company has expansion plans in the United States, the company said in its annual report.

A component of that expansion could have a large impact in Mobile in the form of a $200 million, modular manufacturing facility that would employ a minimum of 1,200 people, according to Bill Pfister, Austal USA's vice president of government programs.

Pfister said the Blakeley Island is in the running for the facility. There is one other out-of-state site under consideration, Pfister said, adding that a decision is "very, very close."
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Producers of the HGTV show "My House is Worth What?" will be in Mobile this fall to find homeowners and Realtors to appear on the show, according to Holly Schwartz of HGTV.