Shovels in the ground: Drexel honors past, prepares for future industry

Elected officials, government employees, and community members gathered around shovels and heavy equipment Wednesday morning to celebrate a groundbreaking that has the potential to provide a million square feet of manufacturing space in Drexel.

For years, the town has been working to start clearing the old Drexel Heritage Furniture site. Now, with about $6 million in funding secured, the contractor — Clary Hood Inc. — is ready to begin moving dirt to prepare the site for industry.

Mayor Dennis Anthony said the project has been his top priority since he joined the board of aldermen 10 years ago. The same is true, he said, for his colleagues who served on the board during that time. Town Manager Bill Carroll echoed his sentiment, having grown up in southern Burke County and returning home to work for Drexel after graduate school.

“This project here is the reason why I wanted to come back home and come to Drexel,” Carroll said. “Not many towns have such a transformational potential with an economic development project.”

Carroll noted that the site, when developed, could potentially increase the town’s electric revenue ninefold and double the town’s general fund tax base.

Drexel Alderman Tim Franklin said the project hits home for him on a very personal level, with his grandfather, Dell Franklin, taking part in the groundbreaking. “He has moved more dirt in this county than probably anyone else,” Franklin said, honoring his grandfather’s construction service. Franklin followed in his footsteps, now managing development projects for a living.

Bringing industry back to Drexel is of utmost importance. Drexel Heritage Furniture elevated the small town into a leading manufacturer of traditional and modern furniture. People traveled from all over the world to visit the company’s showroom in Drexel, and its furniture, made by the hands of generations of Drexel and Burke County residents, was in various hotels, the U.S. State Department, and government agencies across the world.

After the plant closed in 2001, the site has been sitting and waiting for something new. That something, Carroll said, could equate to 400-500 new jobs for Drexel and Burke County residents.

“It’s so good to see so many faces throughout the entire county here supporting our town of Drexel that I know many years ago, before my time here in Burke County, we had to say goodbye to this lovely industry here, and so many people lost jobs,” said Tonia Stephenson, president and CEO of Burke County Chamber of Commerce.

Alan Wood, president and CEO of Burke Development Inc., who has officially worked on the project for about 10 years, said economic development is a process that takes time.

“People say, well, ‘why aren’t you doing something?’ Well, believe me … it was going on even though you didn’t see it,” Wood said.

Funding sources include an Environmental Protection Agency assessment grant, North Carolina Department of Commerce, North Carolina General Assembly, Community Development Block Grant, the Town of Drexel, and Burke County. The project has the potential to be transformative not just for the town, but for Burke County as a whole.

Wood said that Burke County has thousands of residents who leave every day to work somewhere else. According to the N.C. Department of Commerce, about 19,000 people commute out of Burke for work.

“My goal is to help keep these people home and give them jobs that pay a living wage so they can live and work in Burke County.”

“This is not something Drexel’s waiting on,” Carroll said. “We’re pushing forward. We’re ready to get started. We’re ready to see all the progress that’s going to happen here, that’s not only going to make the site a more pretty site, but it’s also going to allow for the opportunity for serious economic development in the future.”