Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, January 24, 1993 TAG: 9301260405
SECTION: NEW RIVER VALLEY ECONOMY PAGE: 29 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: FAIRLAWN LENGTH: Long
PULASKI COUNTY INVESTS IN AT&T SITE
The 743-acre AT&T plant site in Pulaski County may play another key role in the economy of the New River Valley.It had provided upwards of 1,000 jobs until 1990, when the plant closed and turned from an economic blessing into a blow from which the region has yet to recover.
Now people in the region are hoping the acreage will draw new industrial tenants.
The former AT&T building and about 80 surrounding acres were purchased last year by New River Industries. Officials there said they needed more space, but no new jobs are immediately expected.
This month, the Pulaski County Board of Supervisors bought the rest for future industrial development.
"Ever since AT&T closed their factory, there has been interest by Pulaski County as well as other localities for the future of that site," said Jerry White, chairman of the Pulaski County Board of Supervisors.
The Pulaski County industrial park is filling up. It is not in the best interests of the county, White said, to wait until all existing resources are gone before readying other sites.
"When industries and businesses go out looking for sites, they're wanting available sites," he said. "And we have to be prepared to accommodate industries that come into our community."
Otherwise, he said, they will move on to the next county, or the next state, "and we need to get them to stop here."
Following the AT&T pullout, Pulaski and Montgomery counties and the city of Radford had explored buying the property jointly to use as a regional industrial park.
But Pulaski County voters had just defeated a $2 million bond issue referendum in 1990 for industrial site acquisition and development.
AT&T then was refusing to sell the property piecemeal, asking $14.25 million for the entire sitewith its 549,000-square-foot building. With the failure of the bond issue, Pulaski County did not feel it could afford to participate at that time.
But since then, AT&T did sell its building separately to New River Industries. The Radford-based fabric manufacturer announced the purchase Oct. 26 for an undisclosed amount. That made the rest more affordable and the Pulaski County Board of Supervisors voted Jan. 5 to buy it.
The former AT&T building has been renamed, for now, as New River Industries' River Bend facility.
Larry Maust, plant manager for New River Industries, said the company would continue to operate its Radford plant, but the River Bend addition will provide space for larger looms bought by the company.
Contractors in early January were doing electrical, plumbing and other work needed on the building so it could be occupied by New River Industries.
"They're on target," Maust said then.
The first new weaving machines for use at River Bend were due to be shipped by mid-January. Maust said new looms would be starting up as the company receives them.
"We bought that to be positioned for future growth in the textile industry over time," Maust said. When markets dictate, he said, the company will need to move quickly rather than scramble. "That's how the textile industry works."
Pulaski County could have let AT&T continue owning the rest of the property, instead of spending $1.3 million to buy it. But there are advantages in local government ownership.
Other localities throughout the country, competing with the New River Valley to attract new industry and jobs, are offering developed industrial sites. Pulaski County hopes to work with other New River Valley localities to get this one developed.
The other reason is that local governments can qualify for grants and loans to develop industrial parks, and private companies can't.
In the 1980s, Pulaski County was able to draw on state and federal funds for its Corporate Center near Dublin for roads, water and sewer lines.
The county paid $336,000 for the nearly 258 acres in that industrial park, a little more than $1,300 an acre.
An industry in the town of Pulaski, Bond Cote, put a facility in the corporate center and paid $783,726 toward overall park development costs. The potential new jobs generated money from state and federal sources: a $700,000 Community Development Block Grant, and $364,937 from the Appalachian Regional Commission.
That left $48,877 to come from Pulaski County, instead of the total cost of nearly $1.9 million.
The county also had one-time road construction costs of nearly $60,000 to serve the center. Annual costs such as street lights and mowing amount to $16,200.
Was it a good investment?
Well, the property is now occupied by 14 industries with 364 employees making more than $1.28 million a year. Its real estate value is more than $6.7 million, and it generates annual taxes of $166,818 - with more anticipated when the rest of the property is sold.
"So you can see it's paid for itself . . . and over and over again, it'll keep doing that," said Assistant Pulaski County Administrator Peter Huber.
Fifty acres have been set aside for an industrial shell building, to give prospective industries that much more incentive to locate here. Pulaski County is seeking state money for it.
Initially, the state was to fund six shell buildings and Pulaski County was fifth on the list. Then budget cuts shortened the list to three. One of those three has now been sold. When another one sells, Pulaski County should get back on the funding list.
Not counting the shell building acreage, the center has roughly 100 acres still unused. About 40 of those acres are unlikely ever to be developed because of their terrain or the way they are broken up into tiny parcels.
That still leaves a 52.7 acres for new industry, White said, but a locality should not be satisfied with just one site.
"What suits one tenant may not be what another industry is looking for," he said.
"It takes more land nowadays to generate fewer jobs than it used to," said White, so having more industrial acreage becomes increasingly important.
Jobs developed to date in the county Corporate Center average 2.33 jobs per acre.
Water, sewer and roads are not that important to big industries, which have the capital to fund them, Huber said.
"However, a smaller company, maybe they have less than a million dollars in their building. Together, the cost of those utilities and roads is going to be a fairly substantial part of their overall development costs."
Public ownership makes it easier for smaller companies to locate in a region and provide a variety of jobs. Individually, the small companies would not employ as many people as one large company, but together they might and they also would not be subject to the business fluctuations of one large company.
With the AT&T closing in 1990 and the layoff of 730 workers Wednesday at Radford Arsenal, the New River Valley has gotten some hard lessons in what job vagaries in big industries can mean.
A variety of smaller companies can provide a more stable job market, allowing for some give-and-take. When one company is down, another might be up. But when a major employer is down, the effects are widespread.
"The whole point is to try and provide jobs for folks, and hopefully jobs that'll last," Huber said.
Pulaski County had not been sitting back waiting to see what might happen with those 50 acres or the AT&T site.
The Board of Supervisors has also been working on developing an industrial site on county property around the New River Valley Airport outside Dublin.
Again showing the benefits of public ownership, the board secured a $700,000 U.S. Economic Development Administration grant, which it had to match for the development.
The match mainly covers the cost of a sewer line from the Cloyds Mountain landfill, which the county needed to build in any case.
But the industrial property around the airport, good as it would be for an industry using air transportation, amounts to 50 acres. If the average of 2.33 jobs per acre holds up, that would be fewer than 120 jobs.
It will take more than that to come anywhere close to balancing the layoffs that have happened in the New River Valley.