ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, May 17, 1996 TAG: 9605170049
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-8 EDITION: METRO
BOTETOURT County's good fortune in landing three major industrial prospects in the past month and a half is cause for celebration not just for that county, but for the economic region of which it is a part.
Skilled industrial jobs are a welcome import, providing opportunities for good-paying work to Botetourt residents and their neighbors. And county homeowners should benefit from the expanding industrial tax base needed to help pay for expensive services that Botetourt's booming residential growth will require.
"If you build it, they will come," the voice in the mysterious baseball movie "Field of Dreams" intoned. That may or may not be true of baseball parks, but Botetourt has found it's true of industrial parks - especially if they happen to be located conveniently in a Virginia county with a major north-south interstate running through it, well-situated between automobile plants in the North and the expanding automotive industry in Kentucky and Tennessee.
When Dynax, a Japanese automobile transmission manufacturer, this week announced plans to build a plant at the county's EastPark Commerce Center, it became the third auto-parts maker to come to Botetourt in the past year. It took the last site in the soon-to-be-expanded industrial park, right next to York International, an air-conditioning and refrigeration-equipment manufacturer that plans to move into a shell building at the park and begin operations Aug. 1.
Meadville Forging Co., another automotive-parts manufacturer, is the third new industry coming to Botetourt - not to an industrial park but to a site in the job-starved town of Buchanan. The flood-prone site is not ideal, and the county is taking a risk to give an economic boost to a community much in need of one. Company and county officials should take care to ensure the development does not harm neighboring property.
That instance aside, the county's foresight (going a number of years back) in acquiring and preparing land for industry is paying off handsomely - with the help of regional cooperation. York looked only at sites with existing buildings. The EastPark shell was developed last year by the county and the Greater Roanoke Valley Development Foundation. This is an example of what can be accomplished if arbitrary political boundaries aren't barriers to the region's common economic interests.
Working cooperatively to recruit industry has been a giant step forward for the Roanoke Valley. How much more advantageous it would be for all if its balkanized parts could act in concert, not just to attract industry but to plan, as a region, for:
* The best placement of businesses and industry, with sites well prepared and revenue shared by localities.
* The preservation of its most prized natural and cultural features, for the pleasure and prosperity of all the localities.
Botetourt has built a reputation for willingness to cooperate with neighbors as it copes with rapid residential development - and the county has benefited. Truly regional planning would help it far more, offering revenue alternatives that might allow it to invite more industry while preserving more of its beautiful countryside.
LENGTH: Medium: 61 lines KEYWORDS: JOBCHEKby CNB