Column: A hothouse farm in an industrial park?
The Roanoke Times
Last week, the New River Valley Commerce Park announced that it finally had landed its first tenant — more than 15 years after the 1,000-plus acre park was conceived by local pooh-bahs.
I couldn’t wait to share this news with the greatest expert I know on this subject.
His name is Paul Dellinger, and for 44 years he was a reporter for The Roanoke Times. He retired in 2007, and by that time he was a legend. He still lives in Wytheville.
The last 10 years of his career, Dellinger spent covering — among other things — Commerce Park. A news database search of his name and Commerce Park yields more than 250 articles.
Commerce Park’s long-running saga had more twists and turns than a pretzel factory. It had more wrinkles than your average Shar-Pei puppy.
Dellinger covered most of them.
READ THE REST OF THIS COLUMN HERE.
March 19, 2013 - 6:00 AM
Very exciting! I wish them luck and good fortune.
Speaking of hothouses, see the article linked below. If you think the costs of the Iraq & Afghanistan wars end when we withdraw our troops, you need to think again.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_COMING_HOME_COSTS?SITE=VAROA&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
There can be little doubt that the origins of the Commerce Park and its subsequent lack of development have been a sore spot for the NRV. Getting this first initial tenant into the park could, hopefully, spur additional development going forward. The reality is that landing a single mega tenant is largely a pipedream to begin with. It can happen, but waiting around for one to show interest is not a wise proposition…and perhaps why it’s still vacant.
Christiansburg has experienced something sort of similar with their Falling Branch Industrial Park. They had Sierra Nevada looking at the site, and Back Country came along with a more firm proposal to actually build, rather than extending feelers…so Back Country constructed their distribution center and Sierra Nevada wound selecting Ashville instead. Whether the acceptance of Back Country influenced Sierra Nevada or not may never be known, but had the Town held up Back Country in order to land Sierra Nevada, they very well could have gotten neither.
With the Commerce Park, getting one tenant to occupy 20-50 acres of a nearly 1000 acre park certainly doesn’t ruin the potential of landing a significant signle tenant for the site, but it at least gets something in there to start. It will start generating property taxes and employ people in the area. Hopefully it leads to more…be it additional agri-business ventures, something high-tech, heavy industrial manufacturing, warehousing and distribution, etc. Whatever else locates there will be an asset to Pulaski County and the NRV.
This Pulaski County resident is welcoming Red Sun Farms, and not with a yawn or a sigh.
Another example of nitwit government types throwing away the people’s money. 15 years to attract one tennant? How much of Pulaski County’s meager wealth went into this boondoggle that could have been spent on their so-so schools? And now the taxpayers have to pony up another $800K? How much real estate tax has been lost by having those 1000 acres owned by the government? Or is the land still privately owned but taxpayers paying for the marketing?
Encourage private investors to develop industrial areas, but with their own money. They work much harder and more effectively with their own skin in the game. Corporate welfare is welfare at its worst.
One of the external community service positions I hold is as a member of the board of directors of a local economic development corporation. I’ve been on that board for six years. I’ve learned some interesting lessons in the process.
Trying to recruit new businesses into a locality is a very complex and sometimes tricky exercise. Let me give just one example. The board I serve on had a company brought to us that had been working with the Indiana Economic Development Commission. We were told that the site we had was perfect for the company seeking to expand. We understood that the company had visited other potential sites in the state, but particularly wanted to look at our site. We were told that we were the top site on the list. The tap dance which followed was interesting. Ultimately, the company chose not to locate in our area. We discovered that, in fact, a different site had been the preferred site all along and that visiting our site and giving it all the positive press etc. was a smoke screen. That smoke screen was put up to convince the actual # 1 site to provide a more attractive set of incentives than was originally offered. The company’s ploy worked. The real #1 community offered them the tax and other incentives they wanted and they are now safely ensconced in their new home there.
I share this story to let bloggers know that industrial recruitment is complex and often devious. I am not aware of all the details behind the efforts to recruit Sierra Nevada to Pulaski County, but details that appear on the surface don’t always tell the whole story. I would also add that the last five years have been very difficult times for industrial recruitment. Our economy is just beginning to dig out of the deep hole created by the economic meltdown in 2008.
Yes, few right-wingers ever complain about that kind of “welfare” Ron. The kind that feeds kids and gives them a roof is hard for right-wingers to stomach, but the kind that lines the pockets of some business, often past the point of any return, well not so much.
Ron, thanks for sharing that experience. I’m not surprised by it, honestly. I’m aware of a similar sort of story, but it had to do with the Walmart north of Charlottesville.
It used to be that the Walmart off Route 29 was just a regular Walmart. They wanted to renovate and expand the store to create a Super Center, but Albemarle County officials had balked at the plans, keeping them from moving forward. Walmart owned the land required, and the property zoning would have allowed it.
So, then came a proposal to construct an entirely brand-new 220,000 SF Super Center a mile away on land zoned rural. The potential developer even threw in some sweeteners and proffers for giving the County some land and whatnot, and the County really balked at that proposal.
So then, Walmart was granted approval to expand their existing structure by 35,000 SF to bring it to about 155,000 SF, smaller than a typical new Super Center, but still substantially larger than their old store.
Much like other things in life, sometimes it can be boiled down to a game of poker…trying to figure out if someone is bluffing or not. Albemarle County folded…whether or not Walmart was bluffing, we’ll never know.
It’s all about playing the odds and trying to get the best deal possible. Sports athletes do it to negotiate better contracts…businessed do the same. Heck, even a regular employee can do that by interviewing with a new company and getting a favorable offer. They may not have any intention of leaving, but they can use the new offer to negotiate a better deal with their existing employer. That practice is surprisingly more common than I thought, but isn’t always successful.
And now we have 3 Wal-Mart Super-centers. one for every 20 miles of interstate. Thankfully I don’t have to drive way up Big-Box Alley (Rte 29) too often. Just to get to DC.
First of all Sierra Nevada never seriously considered Pulaski County as a location….never.
The Commerce Park was a project promoted by the NRV, mainly Pulaski County, and it was a boondoggle from the start. The land did not have direct interstate access or adequate utilities, nor was it located with an adequate educted and available labor market. No “mega site” user as was targeted by the government developers of this park would have ever considerd it for these reasons. But under the misguided feel good excuse of “regional cooperation at any cost” this newspaper touted it as a project that local governments could not afford to pass up and editorialized ad nauseum about it’s future benefits for both the Roanoke and New River Valleys. Bev Fitzpatrick relentlessly lobbied Roanoke City Council into this deal, and then shamed Roanoke County into following suit while Salem saw the obvious and declined to invest in the project. Both Roanoke City and County would love to exit this “deal” today as they know that their localities will most likely never, and I mean never see a return on their investment. Both localities are also contractually obligated to investing millions more over the next few decades to retire debt. Most local governments in this 13 member partnership see it for what it is and they are still smarting from being snookered by Pulaski County. My guess is that is the reason only Pulaski County participated in the local incentive package offered to this “technology” company as the top man for the Virginia Economic Development Partnership described it. Pulaski County is the only one who has much to gain, as they are the majority owner and the park is locted within their boundaries. If John/Jane Doe citizen saw a balance sheet of public dollars that have spent on this project (Federeal State and Local) along with an analysis of an anticpated Return on Investment they might just be tempted to join the Tea Potters. But I guess that was too much for ol Bob for Jobs to get into yesterday.
Still learning
Lots of these boondoggle industrial parks in the area. The kinds of businesses that years ago might have located here to tap into the relatively cheap labor pool, now simply go to China. And there aren’t enough skilled workers for a higher tech company to locate here.
One of the problems the Commerce Park has is has very, very indirect access to VT. I wonder if some of the reasoning behind it was to have something somewhat akin to the Corporate Research Center at Virginia Tech to locate out there next to the NRV Airport, like is by the VT Airport. The NV airport is, in many ways, far superior for many things…given the length of the runway, they can land much larger craft for moving freight. But, having it a solid 45 minutes away does it no favors. Interstate access is a couple miles away (and Route 100 between 11 and 81 can get somewhat congested due to the traffic signals and truck traffic already in that stretch), and there’s no rail access to the site either.
The best hope for the site is these sorts of smaller operations, taking up bits and chunks of the available space. But, large-scale manufacturing is unlikely due to labor costs compared to China and elsewhere. Smaller scale operations are more likely, or something like distribution…but the lack of more direct access to I-81 is likely why that’s still not present. And honestly, the potential for turning the NRV Airport and some of the Commerce Park into an air freight hub for Fedex or UPS is highly unlikely, given that such operations alreayd happen in Roanoke, closer to mosre people.
But at least now the park won’t be empty. It’s a start. The County and much of the NRV outside of Montgomery County and Radford have had a hard time with jobs and economic growth as older industries like textiles, furniture, mining, etc have closed shop. James Hardie locating near Pulaski was a big score…so was Phoenix Packaging. My hope is that as the costs to do business overseas increases (and it will, workers there are now realizing how much they are being screwed), that we cna bring back some of the jobs previously lost and start filling up empty industrial parks and reactivating shuttered plants.
If I’m not mistaken, the Pulaski Commerce Park hoped to draw manufacturers and suppliers for the Volvo Truck Plant. Volvo acquired Mack Trucks in 2000 and closed a Mack Truck plant in 2001 bringing that production to Dublin. Mack produced their own engines and the merger gave Volvo a distinct advantage in the hotly contested truck manufacturing industry. And then we went to war…
While it has taken some time to get a tenant it’s my view that the hothouse might be good for that area. Should it choose to grow organic vegetables or just vegetables it will be a source of fresh, locally grown produce for the New River Valley. That’s a plus for that part of Virginia.