Small wins matter

Project Arlington represents something more than 64 jobs, additional tax revenue, and the direct and indirect economic benefits that come whenever a new employer arrives.

Its importance may lie in what kind of economic development project it is.

An established American manufacturer, not formally identified, is considering turning a vacant former textile mill in Valdese back into a working industrial property.

The company projects approximately $7 million in net new taxable investment, about $15 million in total capital expenditures, and 64 jobs paying an average of $58,984 a year, about $10,000 higher than Burke County’s median wage.

Those numbers will not transform Burke County’s economy by themselves. But Project Arlington may offer something Burke needs nearly as much as another major industrial announcement. It could provide a practical model for how economic development should work.

It leverages Burke’s existing assets.

It pursues smaller numbers of good jobs rather than waiting exclusively for hundreds of them.

It puts a former industrial property back into productive use.

It asks the county, a municipality, Burke Development Inc. (BDI), and state economic development officials to assemble their respective pieces around one objective.

And the local incentive under consideration is tied to performance. If the investment does not materialize as promised, neither does the full incentive.

Burke County is competing against a location in southern Virginia for the company. The manufacturer does not particularly care about our municipal boundaries, institutional histories, or which local official gets credit if the deal succeeds.

It cares whether Burke County can deliver. In this case, collaboration is the first deliverable.

Burke has collaborated before, and often.

When Sypris Technologies announced a major Morganton expansion in 2008, the effort involved the City of Morganton, Burke County, Western Piedmont Community College, state economic development officials, and the organization that preceded today’s BDI.

American Roller Bearing, Continental Automotive, VEKA, Unix Packaging, and other projects likewise required combinations of local government, state government, education, infrastructure providers, and economic development professionals.

For much of the past quarter-century, communities across America have chased the economic development home run. An enormous factory, the thousand-job announcement, the corporate campus carrying a capital investment measured in hundreds of millions or billions of dollars.

There is certainly nothing wrong with pursuing those projects. But economic development, especially in communities like Burke County’s, cannot consist solely of waiting for the next industrial giant.

Sometimes great progress looks like 64 jobs. Sometimes it looks like a vacant textile mill with machinery humming inside it again. Sometimes it is an existing manufacturer adding 25 employees.

Sometimes the smartest economic development investment is not creating a new industrial site at all. It is taking something the community already built generations ago and making it productive again.

That is one of Arlington’s most appealing characteristics.

The story of Burke County’s economy is written across buildings just like the one Project Arlington is considering.

Furniture factories and textile mills once provided thousands of jobs and enormous portions of the county’s tax base. Morganton, Valdese, Drexel, and other communities developed economic identities around those industries. Suppliers, trucking companies, restaurants, retailers and small businesses grew around them.

Then globalization changed the equation. No single project will determine Burke County’s economic future. Economic development is cumulative.

Sixty-four jobs here. Thirty there. A $7 million investment here. A $25 million expansion there. A vacant building returned to the tax rolls. An existing employer convinced to expand in Burke rather than somewhere else. Infrastructure installed today that makes another project possible five years from now.

The county is considering reimbursing up to 50% of the additional property taxes generated by the new investment for as many as four years. Based upon the projected investment, the maximum estimated county reimbursement is approximately $61,050.

If the company invests less, the reimbursement falls.

That is considerably different from simply writing a check and hoping the promised economic activity follows.

And recognize that a win for Valdese is also a win for Burke County.

Project Arlington may come here. It may go to Virginia. But the model is worth repeating either way: compete for good jobs, use the assets we already have, cooperate across jurisdictional lines, and make public incentives contingent on private investment.

Sixty-four jobs won’t transform Burke County. Enough wins like this one can.