Walker County buys land to lure industry

Call it the factory that got away.

In 2002, LG Chem was ready to manufacture countertops in Walker County, Ga., according to Sole Commissioner Bebe Heiskell. But the Korean company instead chose Calhoun, Ga., on Interstate 75 about an hour north of Atlanta.

We lost that, because we didnt have any place to put em, Heiskell said. Thats when I started hunting land.

On Thursday, Walker County closed on property that Heiskell has been eyeing all that time: 423 undeveloped acres fronting U.S. Highway 27 in the unincorporated community of Noble that, combined with 40 acres the county already owned, will create space for a 463-acre industrial park.

The county Economic Development Authority bought the land for $4.23 million $10,000 an acre from Joe Swanson and his son David Swanson. Funding came from bonds backed by the special purpose local option sales tax, a levy of 1 cent per $1 of sales that voters renewed in November by a roughly 2-to-1 margin.

Ive been looking at that property since 2003 and really didnt have any way to acquire it until we looked at the [SPLOST money], Heiskell said.

Three manufacturers whose identities county officials decline to disclose have expressed interest in locating there, development authority Executive Director Larry Brooks said.

The largest factory, dubbed Project Eagle by county officials, would provide some 200 jobs at build-out, he said. The second would provide 200 jobs and the third prospect proposes employing 50 people, for a total of 450 jobs if they all pan out.

Were still trying to bring them all across the finish line, Brooks said.

The business park land, now used to graze cattle, is on a rail line that runs alongside Highway 27. It already has sewer service, Brooks said, and super-high-speed fiber-optic Internet cables through the Appalachian Valley Fiber Network out of Rome, Ga.

Read the original:
Walker County buys land to lure industry