Iredell County has been among the biggest winners in Charlotte’s industrial real estate market in the last two years. Leaders there are working to continue the county’s roll in landing big investments.
Last night, the Iredell Economic Development Corp. held its annual meeting at Statesville County Club with 200 people in attendance. Jenn Bosser, Iredell EDC’s president and CEO, touted the significant amount of activity in the county, particularly with industrial projects in the pipeline and significant existing industry expansions this year.
The event featured a panel discussion on the N.C. and Charlotte-region economy, and where Iredell fits into that picture. It’s clear that the events of the past two years have paved the way for a flurry of activity there.
“Really, from Covid, I would have to say that Iredell County has been discovered,” said Kathleen Rose, president and CEO of Davidson-based real estate and economic development consulting firm Rose & Associates. “From a land cost standpoint, Mecklenburg County became unaffordable from an industrial manufacturing standpoint. You have Union County, which struggled with water and sewer infrastructure. You have Cabarrus County that saw a lot of what (Iredell County is) seeing now, but then they made the policy decision to kind of say, ‘Well, we’ve got enough of that warehouse distribution stuff. We’re going to close the door on that from a policy perspective.’ So that opened the door for Iredell County in many respects post-Covid.”
Christopher Chung, CEO of the Economic Development Partnership of North Carolina, spoke on the panel. He emphasized that industrial product development, including large sites and buildings, are a key reason why N.C. is winning big economic development projects across the state. Iredell County has seen a slew of new industrial product development projects, spurring hopes that more wins and significant job creation are on the way.
Bosser said yesterday that since July 2021, six industrial development projects have been announced in the county totaling 7.2 million square feet of new space. Those projects equal $540 million of total investment, and more are in the pipeline.
Industrial projects being teed up in the county include significant developments from Williams Development Group, TPA Group and NorthPoint Development. The long-planned Larkin Regional Commerce Park is also under construction after years of planning, as The Sherwin-Williams Co. has been secured as the park’s first tenant with a large, build-to-suit facility.
The county also has its Mooresville Business Park East, which spans several hundred acres and is home to the $177 million BestCo expansion that was announced earlier this year.
Caleb Moore, NorthPoint’s regional vice president, said the county’s location along major interstates is among the factors that makes it a strong industrial location. NorthPoint has begun construction on the first building at its 3.85 million-square-foot industrial park off interstates 40 and 77 in Statesville. The project is one of the largest industrial parks in the Charlotte region.
Bosser said her team is monitoring another 15 million square feet of industrial product development projects considering Iredell County.
“There are really two keys that we look at when we’re evaluating sites and our tenants are evaluating sites: location and labor,” Moore said. “The labor up here is really fantastic. They have a great workforce up here, a surplus of workforce actually. … It’s a really prime candidate to be able to build a project of our scale.”
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