Burke County awarded $697K to extend natural gas into Burke Business Park

Burke County is set to receive $697,019 from the N.C. Department of Commerce's Rural Infrastructure Authority (RIA) to build more than 2,500 feet of natural gas pipeline in the Burke Business Park, according to a Thursday press release from Gov. Josh Stein's office.

The RIA approved a total of $1.8 million in grant funding for local governments across the state. Burke County's grant request falls under the state's Industrial Development Fund - Utility Account program. These grants are given to local governments located in the 80 most economically distressed counties of the state.

Each year, the N.C. Department of Commerce places counties in three tiers called the "county distress rankings." Tier 1 counties are the most economically distressed counties. Tier 3 indicates a less economically distressed county.

Burke is a Tier 2 county, making it eligible to apply for Industrial Development Fund grants, said County Manager Brian Epley. The funding may be used for publicly owned infrastructure projects that are reasonably expected to result in new job creation. 

Epley said the grant funds 75% of the gas line extension into Burke Business Park.

"It's the last remaining utility that needed an improvement. There's already water and sewer and power availability there. Road infrastructure is there. And so this was kind of the last arm of developing that infrastructure component," Epley said. "It'll be able to serve not only the building that's just about complete, but the industrial shell building ... that we were working on jointly with Burke Development."

Burke Business Park has one tenant. Unix Packaging is expanding its presence in the county with a 500,000-square-foot distribution facility that should open soon. County officials also plan to have a speculative building ready to market in early 2026.

"It (gas line extension) makes that park so much more marketable, and it's really the next step for the business park to be able to support the vision of economic development, job creation, and capital investment in Burke County," Epley said. "I think it's a big step in the right direction."

Read more about progress on the county's speculative building at Burke Business Park in a story by county reporter Mica Banks in Saturday's edition of The Paper.