Daniel Prince
No site currently available to market to a large industry
The Union County Council Committee on Administration and Finance met Tuesday afternoon to talk about funding options for a proposed industrial facility and for the detention center expansion project. Union County Development Board Director Dolton Williams told the committee that currently there is not a site that is marketable to a large industry. He said two years ago, there were four empty buildings, but now all of them have been filled. The Trakas Industrial Park still needs industrial sewer, the Cudd industrial site has not been developed yet, and Midway Green doesn’t have an area that is construction-ready yet. Williams said the Development Board has been looking at getting the Cudd site up and running:
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Williams said the preliminary cost estimate of the proposed building pad comes in at $1.5 million. He said the county has been approved for a $300,000 reimbursable Commerce Department Site Enhancement grant. He said Lockhart Power tax credits will total $350,000, with Bryan Stone slated to present the second check to the county at next week’s council meeting. Williams said two new state funds have opened up, as well. He said the state designated 14 rural counties to apply for certain funds. While Union County is not one of the 14, it borders Fairfield County, which is one, and because of that, the county can apply for money from the Rural Initiative Fund. He said it appears the county will receive $575,000 from that fund, though it hasn’t been officially announced yet. He said the county will also be a pilot county for a new grant program that could be as much as $250,000 with a 10% match. He said the match could come from any funding source, including grants, so he said the county wouldn’t have to spend anything toward the match requirement. He said council members, the city administrator, the city utilities director, and a couple of others would be contacted for a survey by the grant committee, as they are trying to make sure this is the highest and best use of the funds. If the county gets all those grants, which Williams said is likely to happen, the total is $1,475,000 of the projected $1.5 million cost for the building pad. He asked the council committee to recommend to the full council at the next meeting that they spend $25,000, which is the equivalent of a 1.6% match for the project. The money would come from the economic development account, which Supervisor Phillip Russell said would still have more than $2 million available in it. The Administration and Finance Committee voted unanimously to make that recommendation at the next council meeting. The other half of the meeting dealt with the jail expansion, and we will bring you those details in tomorrow’s newscast.