ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, March 21, 1996 TAG: 9603210076
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV7 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: PULASKI
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER STAFF WRITER
The town of Pulaski has approved more than 20 local incentives aimed at attracting new or expanding industries to its recently designated 320-acre enterprise zone.
They include waiving rezoning and building-permit fees; offering several local tax incentives; support on utility improvements; temporary office space; and real estate search, architecture design and landscape design assistance.
Town Council approved the incentives Tuesday night.
They also include a tool that Pulaski has used effectively in bringing new businesses into its downtown area - a business loan program using federal Urban Development Action Grant funds originally secured to help two local businesses expand, and which the town is allowed to keep as they are repaid. The town has earmarked those funds for economic development, part of which includes this loan program.
Its funds can be used in buying or renovating buildings, buying machinery and equipment and for part of the working capital needed by a business.
Such loans would be limited to 45 percent of the total financing for a project, with the borrower providing at least 10 percent, and one job created for every $10,000 lent.
Barry Matherly, the town's economic development director, will be the enterprise zone administrator. Enterprise zones also carry a number of state incentives to encourage businesses to locate within them.
New state requirements allow only new businesses or jobs brought in from other states to qualify for enterprise zone incentives. The only exceptions would be when an industry from within Virginia moves into an enterprise zone and expands its number of employees. The additional numbers would count in figuring state and local incentives.
The reason for the new requirement, Matherly said, is that some Virginia businesses left and moved into other communities that had gotten enterprise zones, to qualify for the incentives. Enterprise zone requirements now carry an "anti-pirating" provision, he said.
But entrepreneurs opening new businesses in the zone would qualify, and that is how practically all of downtown Pulaski's growth in recent years has come about.
LENGTH: Short : 48 linesby CNB