A long, arguably agonizing, wait is over — a Mount Airy company that had considered moving out of Surry County, and taking along its 60-plus jobs, will remain here.
“Project Vista has chosen to locate in Surry County at the Westwood Industrial Park,” local economic-development official Ron Sutphin announced Thursday afternoon, referring to the code name given the company during a negotiation stage.
This outcome transpired after “a very competitive site-selection process,” said Sutphin, who disclosed that development at the end of the annual meeting of the Surry County Economic Development Partnership (EDP) at Cross Creek Country Club.
Other communities had been vying for the expansion of the manufacturer, said to be a well-established local entity in operation for more than 40 years.
The Project Vista effort is motivated by the fact that the company lacks its own building, now leases one and needs to move — whether that was locally or elsewhere.
However, with Thursday’s positive announcement to that effect, its identity still remains a secret due to the company not being ready to divulge this at present.
“They want to tell their own people first,” explained Blake Moyer, the president and CEO of the Economic Development Partnership, who spent much effort trying to achieve the eventual outcome.
“It was a heck of a project to get through,” Moyer acknowledged. “It required a lot of creativity.”
That included engineering a set of incentives from both Mount Airy and Surry County government officials.
The Mount Airy Board of Commissioners approved an incentive package on June 20. It includes a property tax abatement amounting to 80% of new levies that would be paid annually over eight years, in addition to donating 25 acres of land at the city-owned industrial park to the company.
That’s based on a capital investment of at least $70 million, possibly as much as $80 million, by the industry for the expansion/relocation.
The city’s action was on top of an incentive deal approved by the Surry County commissioners including a cash grant to the company of about $2.6 million, to be recouped through property tax revenues over a period of nearly six years.
For its part, the company will build a 140,000-square-foot facility at Westwood Industrial Park at the northern end of town.
The Project Vista company will be identified soon, EDP officials say.
“A full announcement will come later, in September,” Sutphin said Thursday, pledging that this disclosure will be worth the wait.
“This is going to be big.”
Most Popular
Comments / 0