March 16, 2006
Partners?
Council says ‘yes’ to tri-county park concept
Live Article
While there are times that the Clarendon County Council stirs tensions to try men’s souls, Monday night’s meeting was a veritable love fest, with Council finding consensus on every agenda item.
Most important on Monday night’s agenda was a presentation by John Truluck, executive director of the Clarendon County Economic Development Board.
His message to Council was regarding the possibility of a tri-county – Clarendon, Sumter and Lee – industrial park at a proposed site along the Hwy. 527/I-95 area in District 3.
Currently, Clarendon County is owner of 99 acres in the area, known as the Alderman-Shaw site, with an option on another 1,164 acres for a total site of 1,263 acres.
With that acreage, the Alderman-Shaw site could be used as a “mega-site.”
“A mega-site is generally any site over 1,000 acres and in baseball terms, is the grand-slam, home-run of industrial sites,” said Truluck. “A mega-site is the ultimate in land usage and would generally be classified as a site hosting one entity such as an automotive plant or large chemical plant and generally creating 1,000-2,000 jobs.”
Truluck sited the Honda plant in Timmonsville, the BMW plant in Greenville or the Eastman Chemical plant in St. Matthews as examples of mega-site development.
“That’s not to say that there aren’t a lot of opportunities for base hits with this site,” he added. “It’s just that there are not a lot of this size sites available in the state, so that does make this site attractive.”
The tri-county concept appears to be a win-win plan for all involved.
According to Truluck, Lee County simply does not have a piece of land large enough to host any industrial development. The Lee County line is just seven miles from the site’s border.
Sumter County will benefit be being able to put their product right on I-95, as well as provide jobs in a part of the region that most needs them.
“Regionalization is the hot trend right now,” explained Truluck. “All of out state and federal legislators are telling us not to bring them anything unless it involves more than one county.”
Though the disadvantages seem few, Truluck conceded that in any joint venture, each party has to give up something.
“I’ve had my folks asking me why we don’t want to keep all of (the site) for ourselves,” said District 3 council member Benton Blakely.
“I tell them I would rather have 30 percent of $50 million than 100 percent of $2 million,” he continued, referring to the proposal of splitting tax revenues on a 30-30-30-10 basis, with each county receiving 30 percent and 10 percent going for maintenance of the site’s infrastructure.
With Clarendon County being the last of the three counties to endorse the concept, Truluck said the next step is for the three counties and their respective attorneys to draw up some agreement documents so that the three counties can “get married on this deal,” or formalize the relationship.
Simultaneously, Truluck said the three counties will begin Phase 1 of the site project and that will be to secure funding to begin infrastructure work.
“We anticipate Phase 1 to cost about $1.4 million and we have verbal commitments for about half of that,” Truluck said. “We will be seeking additional funding from outside sources such as state and federal grants or utility grants.”
Water and sewer will be the largest hurdles to overcome in moving the marketability of the site forward, according to Truluck, and all three Development Boards have been working diligently to make sure that the Alderman-Shaw site is included in any future infrastructure development.
“As a Development Board, we have worked to ensure that the 527 site is a part of all the pending water/waste water plans currently under consideration,” he said.
