Eli Lilly Breaks Ground on a $5 Billion West Creek Plant in Goochland: What BizSense Reported and What It Means for Home Searches

Published October 26, 2026 | Written by the Mission Realty Team.

Eli Lilly held a symbolic groundbreaking on Thursday, October 22, 2026, for a $5 billion pharmaceutical manufacturing site at 12575 West Creek Parkway in Goochland County, according to Richmond BizSense. Reporter Jackie DiBartolomeo covered it in an October 23 article. This post is our own summary, with local context added. More coverage lives in our Richmond area news posts.

The numbers BizSense reported

Lilly announced the project in September 2025 and bought the 227-acre site in July 2026 for $38.39 million, about $169,000 per acre, per BizSense. The seller was Markel, the Henrico-based insurer, which acquired the land around 2005. At full build-out the site is planned at about 1 million square feet in two phases, an initial 600,000 square feet and a later 340,000 square foot expansion. BizSense reports about 650 permanent jobs and 1,800 construction jobs, with manufacturing expected to begin by 2030.

The plant will make bioconjugate and monoclonal antibody medicines for cancer and autoimmune diseases. Lilly CEO David Ricks and Gov. Abigail Spanberger spoke at the event; Ricks said, “Today, this plan becomes a place,” per BizSense. Dominion Energy has approval for a $98 million, 6.5-mile transmission line and substation to serve the site.

Where the site sits

West Creek Business Park is in eastern Goochland County, next to Henrico County. Our Goochland County hub covers the county as a whole, and our Henrico County hub covers the neighboring county, where many people who work in West Creek already live. The Goochland County website is the official source for planning notices and agendas.

This is the same business park at the center of a separate data center dispute, which we covered in our post on the technology overlay district lawsuit. The two stories are unrelated projects, and BizSense does not tie the Lilly plant to that dispute. BizSense covered the dispute in an October 22 article.

What it means if you are house hunting

BizSense reports jobs and construction timing. It reports nothing about home prices or housing demand, and we have not seen data tying the plant to either, so we are not predicting any change. What the article does give you is a timeline: construction jobs come first, and manufacturing is not expected before 2030. If a commute to West Creek matters to you, our post on neighborhoods near large employer campuses and our guide to West End office park commutes explain how to test a drive at your own hours.

If you want more land, our homes with acreage page filters listings by lot size, and our Short Pump page covers a Henrico area west of the city. Ask the county what is approved or pending next to any parcel you like, because what will be built nearby is a question for the public record, not for a listing description.

If you are weighing a move, our buy with us page explains how we work with buyers, and our preferred lenders page lists lenders who can answer financing questions.

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