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Southern Virginia site upgrades credited with attracting major manufacturers, including Microporous
Summary
The Go Virginia board heard from Southern Virginia Regional Alliance Executive Director Linda Green about site-certification work that she said helped raise sites’ readiness, leading to new investments including Microporous and Cambridge Paving Stones.
The Go Virginia State Board on Nov. 20 heard that regional site-certification and engineering work in Southern Virginia helped raise site readiness, a move the region credits with attracting major private investment.
Linda Green, executive director of the Southern Virginia Regional Alliance, told the board the region used Go Virginia funds, matched by the Tobacco Commission and locality contributions, to study and upgrade 11 industrial sites and parks across Southside Virginia. "You helped us with due diligence that helps us evaluate the site readiness in terms of engineering and due diligence," Green said, describing utility upgrades, grading and studies that raised many sites from lower business-ready tiers to tier 4 or tier 5.
The increased readiness has yielded concrete results, Green said. She told the board that Cambridge Paving Stones announced a project last week creating 55 jobs and a roughly $47.35 million investment on a Ringgold Industrial Park East pad site that had been raised from tier 2 to tier 5. The region also attracted Microporous, a lithium-battery separator company, which Green said will bring about 2,015 jobs and roughly $1.3 billion in capital investment as an anchor tenant at a certified mega site.
Board members and staff noted the gains at multiple parks. In Halifax County, Green said the Southern Virginia Technology Park increased utility capacity and moved several sites from tier 2 to tier 4 or 5 after engineering work. In other parts of the region, grading and certification work opened sites to prospects and led to an adjacent shell-building expansion.
Green summarized the region's cumulative outcomes since the investment: 16 sites upgraded from tier 2 to tier 4, seven sites raised from tier 2 to tier 5, and, she said, roughly 7,823 jobs and about $3.145 billion in capital investment attributed to activity in the region during the timeframe she cited. "What may seem like a drop in the bucket is just the drop at the time that these rural localities need the rain to make this thrive in their communities," Green said.
The presentation credited multiple partners: the Virginia Economic Development Partnership provided market screening and marketing support; localities supplied match and infrastructure work; and Go Virginia funds paid for engineering, environmental, grading and other readiness steps.
Board members praised the regional results during the meeting, with Go Virginia chair noting the partnerships among the alliance, VEDP and Go Virginia as an example of the program working as intended.
The board took no separate vote on Green’s presentation; it was delivered as an informational update during the meeting.
