Business View Civil and Municipal | May/June 2022

86 CIVIL AND MUNICIPAL VOLUME 3, ISSUE 5 LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE PLANNING URBAN DESIGN 40 YEARS 214 871 0568 mesadesigngroup.com HISTORIC DOWNTOWN ENNIS IMPROVEMENTS advanced manufacturing to some warehousing and distribution.” Ennis has recently added FreshPet, a $1 billion fresh pet food manufacturing facility that will be the largest of its kind in North America. FreshPet will be going into production this summer and will employee an estimated 600 at full build out. As a testament to the local workforce, Freshpet has already hired well over 100 employees and are adding more weekly as they ramp up to their opening. Wehmeier acknowledges, “Every city in America is having some workforce challenges, regardless of size, as this seems to happen more in cycles with our economy and changes in national policy and that type of thing.” With that in mind, the city has formed a strong relationship with Texas State Technical College, Navarro College, and the Ennis Independent School District to offer more trades-related pathways, and the