Exciting things happening in economic development in Burke County

2023 was a very exciting year in economic development for Burke Development Inc.  It started with the much anticipated ground-breaking for Project “It’s About Time;” a 525,000 sq. ft. distribution center in our Burke Business Park. 

The building will support UNIX Packaging, a beverage co-packing company which located a facility in Burke County in 2021.

It is anticipated the building will be complete in Q1 2025 and will have a total employment of approximately 100, when fully built out and staffed. This building is the first of what will eventually be multiple tenants for the Burke Business Park. 

Much of the rest of the year was about building capacity in our community in preparation for future growth.

BDI, along with Burke County Public Schools, Western Piedmont Community College, Work-In-Burke and other partners completed year 2 of our OPT-IN summer internship program for graduating High School Seniors.

Twenty-two interns completed the eight-week program and almost all of the graduates either took a full-time position or continued their education.

The partners were pleased with the results and planning is well under way for year 3, with a goal of offering 40+ graduating seniors the chance to participate in 2024. 

Other projects that required much of our focus Included continued development of a 105-acre rail-served site in Drexel.

The Drexel Business Park, the location of a former Drexel Furniture Plant, has been the focus of a long-term effort to rehabilitate the site, clean-up environmental issues and prepare the site for future use.

The Town of Drexel and multiple partners, including: Electricities, Golden Leaf, N.C. Department of Commerce, Appalachian Regional Commission, EPA and others have provided funding to take this site from a location that has been less than appealing to a very valuable asset for the community.

 It is anticipated that clean-up and grading of the site should be completed by the end of 2024.

The Great Meadows Mega-site has gotten a considerable amount of attention recently. This 1353-acre site located in Burke and McDowell Counties includes 13 contiguous parcels of land that has the potential to be the key for long-term growth, not only for our counties but the entire region.

The property (much of which has been zoned industrial or used for industrial purposes for over 20 years) is considered to be one of the best large industrial sites in the state.

 It has good logistical access, can be served by all needed utilities (including rail) and has significant power infrastructure near-by.

The power infrastructure is in place, largely due to the efforts in the early 1900s to create the impoundments on the Catawba River, which created Lake James to provide power for Western North Carolina and support economic growth in the region.

Much careful and thoughtful planning continues around this location, to ensure that it is developed properly, providing the maximum economic value with the minimal amount of environmental impact to the area. 

With our release of information on Project Fern in December (Building Reuse Grant to support Chaddock Furniture) BDI has announced 13 new projects, accounting for over $212M in new capital expenditures and the creation of over 840 jobs by the companies supported in these announcements (since 2020).

We anticipate more in the future and to support our continuing efforts, have recently commissioned a report on the feasibility of a speculative building in the county. The results of the study will be reviewed and used to determine what might be needed to support our industrial community.

We feel very fortunate to have had the amount of success we have seen but we understand we cannot let down our guard.  We must continue to facilitate growth with our current industrial partners and provide locations for them and new businesses to succeed in Burke County.

Alan Wood is President and CEO of Burke Development Inc.