Stellantis NV’s massive Belvidere Assembly Plant is expected to reopen by early 2027 and build a new Ram midsize pickup, but two other projects previously slated for the factory in the northern Illinois city — a battery plant and large parts distribution hub — are no longer moving forward, local officials and union leaders say.

The Belvidere factory employed as many as 5,000 people several years ago, but it closed in early 2023 after Jeep Cherokee production ended. Only a skeleton crew overseeing the building’s upkeep and a small parts distribution operation remained. But there are now signs of life at the 5 million-square-foot complex as the automaker prepares to remodel and restaff it.

Belvidere’s reopening begins just as Stellantis and other automakers face increasing pressure from President Donald Trump to ramp up their domestic production and avoid paying higher tariffs. The automaker announced the plant’s revival within days of Trump taking office in January — after it had scuttled those plans last year — and a company executive noted late last year that the empty Illinois factory could be used to help Stellantis respond to Trump’s promised import taxes. But Belvidere’s reopening timeline, currently about two years away, underscores just how long some of these efforts to rebuild U.S. manufacturing capacity could take.“Trump being elected and threatening tariffs early on, I’d be lying if I said that wasn’t a factor,” Kevin Gotinsky, who oversees the United Auto Workers’ Stellantis department, said of Belvidere’s reopening.

But he said the union’s pressure campaign last year, which included filing grievances and threatening to strike over the company’s refusal to reopen the plant as promised, had also played a major role: “Our members standing up, pushing out former CEO Carlos Tavares, definitely was a game-changer. Without that, who knows where we’d be today.”

Top Stellantis and union officials, including North American manufacturing head Tim Fallon and UAW President Shawn Fain, visited Belvidere earlier this month, and plans are in the works to overhaul the facility’s interior and start staffing up.

Several hundred workers who were indefinitely laid off or transferred to other far-flung Stellantis plants will likely return to work by next year, and once a $1.2 billion overhaul is complete, more than 1,500 are expected to be back on the job and working in two production shifts by 2027. The return of at least several hundred workers to Belvidere is expected to open up positions at factories in Metro Detroit and Toledo.

Yet two key projects that Stellantis initially planned for Belvidere — a $3 billion battery plant and a $100 million Mopar parts mega hub, which was to combine other regional parts facilities into one starting last year — are no longer moving ahead, according to the city’s mayor and union leaders. Both had been mentioned in the 2023 labor pact between the union and automaker. Stellantis spokesperson Jodi Tinson said the company has “no updates to share” on those projects.

The joint-venture battery plant was expected to be built across the street from the car factory. But Gotinsky said it doesn’t appear Stellantis will need more battery production in Belvidere any time soon, given slower-than-expected EV demand and the company’s existing capacity at a joint-venture battery facility in Kokomo, Indiana. Meanwhile, Stellantis is expected to continue distributing parts from its other existing sites, including near Detroit, he said.

But Gotinsky said the union did recently secure other benefits for laid-off Belvidere workers as they wait for the plant to reopen. One allows them to find a job and still receive supplemental unemployment checks from Stellantis — “so at least they can now sustain, and be able to pay their bills, while they’re laid off and until we get them back to work.” The laid-off Belvidere workers were also recently offered $75,000 buyouts or retirement incentives by the company, which is more than workers in the Detroit and Toledo areas received.

Belvidere Mayor Clinton Morris said he remains hopeful the battery and parts projects could be revived in the future. But for now, he said he’s thrilled that vehicle production, at least, will be returning to his city.

The assembly plant was Belvidere’s top employer before it closed. Morris said it’s reopening should bring multiple benefits back to the city, from busier local restaurants, to attracting some more auto suppliers back to town, to cheaper water rates for residents since the plant is such a large user.

Matt Frantzen, the president of UAW Local 1268, which represents members at Belvidere, said work is underway to clean out the inside of the plant, and the company has also begun mapping out a renovation that appears likely to include a new roof.

Frantzen and Morris said their current understanding is that the plant will produce a Ram midsize truck that could offer hybrid and gas-powered variants. Stellantis has only confirmed the truck would use the company’s “multi-energy” options. The automaker abandoned the midsize truck segment in 2011 when the Dodge Dakota was discontinued.

Sam Fiorani, vice president of AutoForecast Solutions LLC, said the pickup is expected to be based on the automaker’s STLA Large platform, which would give it the ability to be configured in gas, hybrid and fully electric options. He added the pickup is expected to compete with existing offerings such as the Toyota Tacoma, Ford Ranger and Chevrolet Colorado.

“It doesn’t matter what they bring us,” Frantzen said of a particular vehicle. “Just get us going.”

Among the workers eager to get back home to Illinois once the plant reopens is Kim Ross. The 55-year-old single parent was forced to relocate, along with her two teenagers, to New Jersey so she could keep her job with Stellantis at a parts distribution facility in New York.

Ross said a long commute and an “insane” cost-of-living continue to weigh on her family. But she’s trying to temper her expectations: She thought Stellantis was set to reopen Belvidere once before, but the company later pulled back and now has reversed course yet again.

“We’ve been listening to these promises and these words for so long,” said Ross, who noted that sometimes it feels like she and other Belvidere workers are political pawns. “It doesn’t mean anything to us until we see some action.”