Anson Economic Development Corporation

For AnsonEDP and Anson County in general, 2019 was a year of growth and change. Personnel-wise, the organization said goodbye to its existing industry coordinator who left to take a position with North Carolinas Southeast, our regional economic development organization. Rather than replace her, we contracted with the Chamber of Commerce to provide the front-end for those services going forward, a natural fit that will ultimately benefit both organizations. The impact of the Monroe Expressway, which opened in late 2018, was felt throughout the year in the form of increased interest in residential and commercial development, especially in the western part of the county. One of the major stumbling blocks for the Anson economy has been the perceived distance from the county to crucial business locations such as Uptown Charlotte and Charlotte Douglas Airport. The Expressway cuts travel time from Peachland to these destinations to about 45 minutes, and from Wadesboro to just under an hou...

As our society becomes increasingly dependent on the internet for shopping, communication, entertainment, education and even health care, the “digital divide” between urban/suburban areas with good internet connectivity and rural areas with limited connectivity has become a major stumbling block to the continued development and economic progress of these communities. In Anson County, the areas in and around our larger towns have reasonably good broadband service available, but outside of these areas – sometimes just a mile or two down the road – service can be expensive, unreliable or even completely unavailable.  Earlier this year, the N.C. legislature loosened regulatory impediments to rural energy cooperatives providing broadband service to unserved and underserved parts of the state. Our local co-op, PeeDee Electric, has expressed an interest in providing such service and is partnering with Anson County, AnsonEDP and RiverStreet to study how such a plan might be implemen...

The latest figures from local real estate sales show definitively that the Anson County market is trending up. Through the first ten months of 2019, 110 single family homes were sold with an average value of $127, 673, compared to 123 homes sold at an average value of $118,966 in all of 2018. Extrapolated out to a full year, that's a 7+% gain in both sales and price year-over-year. Perhaps even more telling is the change since 2015 when 110 houses were sold at an average price of just $77,444. That's an 18% gain in the number of houses sold and a whopping 65% increase in the average sales price.    When compared to average home values in neighboring counties--$237,000 in Union, $142,000 in Stanly--it is clear that Anson still provides an excellent home ownership value for this part of the Charlotte market, but the strong sales figures and increasing home values demonstrate a robust economy and improving economic situation that bode well for future growth and development....

If you follow business news around the region, you will probably see that October 5th is being celebrated by many area communities as Manufacturing Day, which begs the question; why doesn’t Anson County participate in this? By percentage of workforce engaged in manufacturing, Anson County, at 23%, is one of the strongest manufacturing centers in the state. We value and celebrate industry... just not exclusively on October 5th. Those who are familiar with the event calendar in the county know that the next several weeks are PACKED with traditional activities, Turn Back the Clock last week, the Oyster Roast on Saturday, EDPNC’s Rural Conference, NC Works Workforce Conference, the Chamber’s annual dinner and many more. The fear is that putting Manufacturing Day in the middle of all these other events takes away from the focus on manufacturing and leads to “event burnout.” Instead, Anson County celebrates Manufacturing Day on the Thursday and Friday after Labor Day. There are fewer e...

On Friday, September 20th, hundreds of students from Anson County elementary schools will converge on Uptown Wadesboro for the inaugural K-5   Uptown Tour sponsored by Atrium Health. Students will tour uptown businesses and museums, as well as learning about proper nutrition through Atrium's 5210 program, and how to safely maneuver the town's stoplights, crosswalks and streets. The tour was envisioned by Anson County Schools and local businesses as a way to promote the uptown and its wide variety of cultural and entertainment activities to a new generation of Ansonians. Families from the more rural parts of the county may not be familiar with all the opportunities available to them right here in Wadesboro, and this is a way to expose them to things like the Ansonia Theater, Anson Historical Museum, Boggan-Hammond House and Ashe-Covington Medical Museum, along with historic uptown businesses such as the 110-year-old H.W. Little Hardware Store and 100-year-old Parsons Drug S...

AMI Machining, Inc. owner Todd Treadaway was named the 2019 Energizing Anson Award winner at the Anson County Industry Appreciation Breakfast held Friday, September 6th at Allen's Restaurant in Peachland, N.C. In 2018, Todd moved AMI from a small leased space in Polkton to a larger building which he built on a plot of land on US Highway 74 just west of downtown Peachland. In making the move, Treadaway more than doubled his manufacturing space to 18,000 square feet, retained the jobs of 17 Ansonians and created two new jobs along with an investment of more than $750,000. In presenting the award to Treadaway, Duke Energy (who sponsors the award) representative Tammy Whaley noted that while the AMI expansion may not have been the largest in the county in terms of job creation or investment, that there was nothing "small" about the business, and lauded Treadaway for his continuing commitment to improving the Anson County economy. Treadaway was the second Energizing ...

Shortly after he first of the year, every household in Anson County received a postcard from South Piedmont Community College announcing a program that has the potential to positively change the lives of thousands of Ansonians while simultaneously helping us to build the workforce we need to compete for economic development projects down the road. Called the Anson Advantage, this program offers free tuition and fees to any Anson County resident in one of more than 30 practical work skill programs the college offers. Offerings include such in-demand fields as HVAC, Culinary Arts, Electrical Systems, Industrial Maintenance and Welding, and range in duration from 10 weeks to 10 months. Different communities have gone about bridging the workforce gap in different ways. In Iredell County, I was involved in the development of a very good, but very elaborate, program called the North Carolina Manufacturing Institute. The idea behind the NCMI was that companies would join the organization, p...