Anson Economic Development Corporation

In October of 2016, John Marek took the reins of the newly formed Anson Economic Development Partnership (AnsonEDP). We checked back in with him to see how things were going after his first full calendar year on the job. So, we're in the final days of 2017 and you've been on the job for 15 months; what are your general impressions of Anson County? I came into the job with few preconceived notions. Although I'd driven through here a few times on my way to the coast and actually had some business with the then Coffing Hoist back in the late 90's, it was pretty much a blank slate. The thing that stood out to me and still does is how welcoming the people here have been. Everyone's just been fantastic to work with. From an economic development standpoint, I have been pleasantly surprised by how much structure was in place. I was tasked with building AnsonEDP from the ground up and was prepared to start from nothing, but found that some key pieces were already in ...

Starting around the first of the year, I began to notice a trend; there were for more "sold" and "sale pending" signs on homes around Wadesboro than there were six months earlier. Initially, I thought it might be a case of randomness or sample size, but conversations with two of our local real estate agents confirmed that, indeed, home sales in Anson County have accelerated significantly in 2017. The agents offered a couple of possible explanations, including a relative shortage of available properties in neighboring counties and the fact that real estate prices in Anson County offer prospective buyers more bang for their buck. While I think those are both factors, I think there are several other reasons why home sales in Wadesboro are surging: A lot of the county's housing stock, especially around Uptown Wadesboro, was built pre-1960. The proliferation of home "fixer-upper" shows have made buying an older home with a lot of character and restoring...

North Carolinians sometimes take the quality of our community college system for granted, but as an Ohio native who has worked with companies from all over the U.S. and the world, I can attest that what we do here in terms of technical training and education is the envy of nearly every other state, and the handful of states who are on a par with us are in that position largely because they have copied our model. Community colleges were the engine that propelled a mostly agrarian North Carolina economy into the Industrial Age and created factory jobs for hundreds of thousands of workers during the post-war boom of the 1950's and 1960's. As the global economy changed in the 1980's and 1990's, our community college system kept pace, diversifying into technology, medical and advanced manufacturing training. There are currently 58 community colleges serving the 100 North Carolina counties. Virtually every person living in the state is within a 30 min...

As Americans, we tend to take the availability of safe, clean drinking water for granted, but water is an extremely important resource, not just for individuals and families, but for industry, as well. As recent drought conditions, both across the country and more locally, have demonstrated, water is literally the lifeblood of our economy. I was working in another community in 2007 when a summer long drought brought the heavily-stressed Catawba River, that community's primary source, to near-crisis level. A series of fall rainstorms alleviated the situation just days before mandatory conservation measures were scheduled to go into place, potentially impacting several industries. Although the planet is about 2/3 water by surface area, freshwater makes up only 3% of that total. Only 1% is stored as groundwater and surface sources, while an additional 2% is locked up in the polar ice caps. Around the world, more than 1.2 billion people struggle daily to find enough water to ...

The U.S. Government officially lists the population of Anson County at 26,948. Many here believe that figure is a slight undercount, but even the most generous accounting puts our population somewhere around 30,000, making Anson the least populated county in the immediate Charlotte metro region. Being somewhat sparsely populated offers residents and businesses real advantages in terms of lower property costs, availability of land, abundance of resources and expedited zoning and permitting, but Anson's differentiating factor is that despite our rural population, we have an effective workforce that is as large as many of our metro neighbors. All of our available industrial properties are within a 30 minute commute of at least 259,000 individuals and offer an effective workforce of at least 68,500. More than 30% of those potential employees have a degree or vocational certificate; workforce figures more typically associated with larger micropolitan or small metro regions. Even more ...

A couple of weeks ago, I got a call from a man who was interested in buying a local business. He said that he had gone to the bank to try to open a line of credit, but that the bank had asked for more information about the local economy before making a decision. He asked if there was any information I could provide to the bank to get them to support is venture. I told him there are five specific reasons why there has never been a better time to start a business in Anson County: We are about to reverse our declining population figures. Since 1980, Anson County had lost about 5% of its population. This is not ideal, certainly, but compared to other counties in the state that have lost as much as 25% of their population over that time, it’s not all that bad. The better news, though, is that the declining population trend is almost certain to reverse over the next 5 years, when the Monroe Expressway opens up the western part of the county to residential and commercial development. It is...

By the end of 2018, cars, trucks and the occasional motorcycle will be able to bypass the snarl of stop lights that has choked traffic on U.S. Highway 74 through Union County for the past two decades and travel unimpeded from southeast Mecklenburg County to near the Union-Anson county line. The impact of the Monroe Expressway, long-delayed due to environmental issues, will be huge for already booming Union County, but transformational for Anson County, which has to-date not participated in the economic growth radiating out from metro Charlotte. Beginning near the I-485 interchange, the Expressway runs 20 miles across Union County, ending just before Marshville, less than five miles from the Anson County line. The road, which will cost nearly $750 million, will charge an as-yet-undetermined toll in exchange for the opportunity to cross the county 30-40 minutes faster than is currently possible. Those minutes are critical for Anson, because they put most of the county within a one-ho...