County applauded for industrial growth
The federal co-chair of the Appalachian Regional Commission, Gayle Manchin, toured Marshall County’s industrial sector Thursday and announced a grant of $740,331 supporting site development at Springs Industrial Park in Holly Springs.
The park, containing 3,000 acres, has a prime site with Burlington Northern Santa Fe railroad access that is ready for occupancy.
ARC has already contributed $1 million toward site development on the north side of Highway 178, which helped build an access road into the park and get utility service to the site.
“Marshall County has done an excellent job in planning and moving forward,” Manchin said. “They had a vision to push the vision forward – that’s what we look for, a good plan and working together. I am very impressed.”
It appears economic growth comes in baby steps, Manchin said.
“Marshall County has done the hard work and heavy lifting all along,” she said. “It started with a goal, a plan and then comes vision and great leadership – collaboration to move forward.
“These things don’t happen accidentally. The fact you already have limited availability for housing, for broadband and you have access to rail, aviation – if you can put these together in a specific way, great things can happen.”
Manchin said ARC was created “to bring parity to the Appalachian Region, to assure every citizen, child and family can have a quality of life, good jobs and a great life.
“We found out in COVID, life in the big city is not all it’s cracked up to be,” she said.
Manchin visited Marshall County as part of her tour of the 13 states in the Appalachian region.
Supervisor Charles Terry kicked off the occasion with a joke, as he is wont to do, by introducing Gladys Dunn, the church lady who makes sure every item large and small is taken care of before, during and after the service.
“I’m glad it’s done,” he said, to laughter.
Terry called the county “the Industrial Capitol of North Mississippi. “We are going to continue to grow. We are a partnership that couldn’t have happened without every one of us.”
Marshall County Industrial Development Authority executive director Justin Hall welcomed visitors and said it took a unified front to make it happen.
“ARC helped leverage our assets to work toward this goal,” he said, with local, state and federal dollars contributing to building the industrial park. “Our existing industries are our number one salesmen.”
Marshall County IDA was created in 1984.
He presented some statistics:
• the assessed value of the county increased by 75 percent over the last two years, making Marshall County the fastest growing county in Mississippi.
• total investment in 2022 comes to $296 million. The total investment in industrial development to date comes to $1.3 billion.
• 5,000 new jobs have been created in the last five years.
• there are 800 new housing starts this year.
• ARC-funded projects total $10 million.
• currently, there are $4.2 million in ARC-supported projects under construction.
• maintenance of existing roads with overlays sustains the infrastructure in the industrial areas.
• TVA has built a $39 million switching site in the industrial north to support new and existing growth.
• the first to build in Chickasaw Trail Industrial Park were Exel, ASICS and Roxul (Rockwool).
• Chickasaw Trail Industrial Park started its first site in 2015-2016.
• a 1,200-acre BNSF certified site in Springs Industrial Park is the only BNSF certified site in the northeastern United States.
• Northwest Workforce Solutions, a One-Stop-Shop, is an important partner in developing the workforce and keeping the workforce trained for careers in welding, forklift and electric trades.
Those attending the occasion held in the new Marshall County Workforce Training Center at Cayce Road and Wingo Road included partners who helped push industrial growth. They included Mike Armour, executive director of ARC; Michael Heindl, president of Northwest Community College; Amy Tate with the Tennessee Valley Authority; Sharon Gardner, Wanda Christian and Angie Duvall with Northeast Mississippi Planning and Development District; Bill Renick with Three Rivers Planning and Development District; members of the Board of Supervisors, Eddie Dixon, Charles Terry and George Zinn III; Holly Springs Mayor Sharon Gipson, charter members of the Marshall County Industrial Development Authority Rodney Whaley and William Scott; Holly Springs School District Superintendent Irene Turnage; Byhalia Mayor Debby Weathers; Representative Bill Kinkade; Kevin Doddridge, CEO, Northcentral Electric Cooperative.