The Wythe County Joint IDA says interest in Progress Park is expected to rise with the turnaround of the economy.

Progress Park began as an idea that could help Wythe County attract industry and boost the local economy. According to Alan Hawthorne, Executive Director of the Wythe County Joint Industrial Development Authority, as the economy begins its turnaround, Progress Park will see more industry showing interest.

The creation of the site was originally an answer to question raised by industry leaders eager to take advantage of Wythe County’s many assets, “where can we build?” After months of debate, the Wythe County Board of Supervisors purchased 1,210 acres just east of Wytheville in 1999 for Industrial Development.

The “mega” site, first in this region, would be serviced by rail, road, dual electric service, fiber optics and gas service. The site is said to be one of a kind in Southwest Virginia and is being marketed directly by the State of Virginia and the Governor’s staff all over the world as part of Virginia’s trade missions.

The projected development cost of the park was estimated at roughly $50 million. The portion of the funds Wythe County itself endured has turned out to be much less.

The county applied for and received a $1.5 million Industrial Facility grant, a $500,000 ARC grant, and a $450,000 Industrial Access Road grant to develop a lot, build a road and provide wastewater service to the Park.

The county’s largest expense came in the onsite construction, which was also substantially funded by the Tobacco Region Opportunity Fund (TROF). However, the offsite preparation resulted with Wythe County funding only 1.14% of the $4.35 million required.

Funding for offsite construction came from grants from third party sources including TROF, the Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC), and the Major Employment and Investment (MEI) Project Site Planning Grant fund program for a total of $3,650,000. The latest funding was a grant from the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles, which was requested by the Board of Supervisors on Oct. 25, 2011, in the amount of $650,000.

The Board of Supervisors suggested that when occupied, the site would generate over $3,000,000 annually in new taxes to pay for schools, law enforcement, services to seniors, plus 400 potential jobs to the County.

Today, the board’s current annual expenses in Progress Park are less than $300,000 and the current tax payments by the Industries located in Progress Park are over $1,800,000.

Work to prepare the park began shortly after the land was purchased in 1999. Now, 12 years later, Wythe County, the town of Wytheville and the Joint IDA added a rail spur into the southern portion of the park, built a step-down pressure station for natural gas, installed 16-inch water lines coming into both the northern and southern ends of the park and upgraded the capacity of the county's regional wastewater treatment facility. The park has the potential to provide six lots that are nearly graded and ready for construction.

Hawthorne believes the completion of these infrastructures make Progress Park look more appealing to industry as the country comes off of a recession. While the recession slowed industry interest, it created a financial saving opportunity for Wythe County.

“We were fortunate enough that when the great recession started it cut construction prices about in half which opened up the opportunity to do a major project, the grading, which we are in the middle of,” said Hawthorne.

Now that the question of where to build has been answered, Hawthorne feels the interest will pick up stream. “When we pick up that extra traffic [from the end of the recession] we will be in the position to answer the last question that was missing before, this is where you would build,” he added.

In 2000, before all of infrastructure was complete, Progress Park sealed a deal with its first industry representative, Wytheville Technologies.

A division of Japan-based automotive parts manufacturing firm Somic Ishikawa, Wytheville Technologies announced it would invest $5.3 million in a 67,000-square-foot structure and hire 25 skilled workers.

Soon after it located in the park, Wytheville Technologies expanded to encompass two other automotive manufacturing companies Atsumi Car Equipment and Brewer Automotive Components.  The building was expanded to 160,000 square feet with an additional 102 employees.

In June 2005, PepsiCo Inc. announced plans build a $140 million facility for production of its sports drink Gatorade. The introduction of this facility was to add an additional 250 jobs.

Gatorade's existence in Progress Park was a major boom to the locations interest base. It not only caught the attention of prospective employees, but also of Amcor PET Packaging, one of the company's major suppliers.

Six months after Gatorade's announcement, Amcor announced it would invest $105 million to move alongside Gatorade, bringing 144 new jobs.

Tom Elliot, Executive Director of Virginia’s aCorridor, believes it was Wythe County’s ability to see what could come in the future that brought these two major industry contributors. “Every one of the eight localities in my region has heard me refer to Wythe County and Progress Park as a good model of ‘Readiness,’” Elliot said.

He continued, “I can assure you that Gatorade and Amcor, representing $265 million in capital investment and 442 jobs, would never have landed in Wythe or anywhere in this region if the County had not started developing Progress Park back in 2000.”

In 2007, Lane Enterprises, Inc. broke ground on the construction of its new facility in Progress Park. According to Patrick Collings, company president, Progress Park drew Lane to Wythe County because of its proximity to major highways, rail service and a strong community.

Early on in the process of construction and completing infrastructure, Progress Park made an impact on Wythe County’s unemployment rate. Between 2000 and 2005, Wythe County saw a more than 6 percent increase in employment levels.

At the time, this was significantly more than both the statewide employment growth rate for that period. These figures did not include jobs created by Gatorade, Amcor and Lane.

According to the September 2011 unemployment reports, the Wythe County employment rate is on the rise once again. With an unemployment drop of 1.5%, the county rates in the top five Virginia counties in the state with an employment rate of 93%.

A summary of the past decade shows that the investments in Progress Park have resulted in over 750 direct jobs and hundreds of other jobs required to support the industries located in Progress Park.  Every year over $1,800,000 is directly added to the Wythe County tax base excluding the support jobs, salaries, and purchase power of the employees.