Anson Economic Development Corporation

  It’s been a while since any new second-story story residential has been developed in Uptown Wadesboro, but we are pleased to report that the 124/126 West Wade studio apartments project is moving along and should be ready to lease by summer. Second-story residential is a difficult nut to crack due to all of the federal and state regulations, but kudos to Chipper and Mike for their determination to make it work.

Exciting morning at the new Dunkin ribbon-cutting in Wadesboro. Folks were lined up around the block to be one of the first 50 cars to go through the drive-through and win free coffee for a year.

This morning, AnsonEDP participated in the ribbon-cutting for the new Centralina NextGen Services office in Burnsville. NextGen provides workforce development programming for youth and young adults. Under the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) it outlines a broader youth vision that supports an integrated service delivery system and provides a framework through which states and local areas can leverage other Federal, state, local and philanthropic resources to support In-School Youth (ISY) and Out-of-School Youth (OSY). Notably, WIOA shifts the primary program focus of the youth formula programs to support the educational and career success of OSY.

For all of us at AnsonEDP, the ongoing and ever-changing pandemic has played a significant role in the past 12 months, and likely will in the coming year as well. 2021 was a year of both concern and determination. While we have learned to adjust and change, one thing has remained constant: our commitment to improving the quality of life for the residents of Anson County.  So much has happened at AnsonEDP since last December that it would be impossible to recap it all in one email—so let me focus on three major things I believe will have a lasting impact on the Anson Economy: Product Development: When Big Toys Direct acquired the former Walmart building in July, we celebrated a major win for the community, but we also lost our last marketable industrial building of more than 25,000 square feet. In fact, the day that deal closed, our active projects list decreased by nearly half because those projects were also considering that building. In today's world, a community without a viable...

Over the past 18 months, AnsonEDP has announced nine new projects in the county, creating 114 new jobs and more than $33 million in new capital investment. As we approach the end of the year, let's take a look at the current status of some of those projects: The Pee Dee Electric Cooperative HQ at Atlantic Gateway is finished and open for business. All employees from the former Wadesboro and Rockingham facilities are now in place.  The new Dunkin/T-Mobile/PNC at Anson Station was originally targeting a November opening, but delays in equipment and signage have pushed that back until early 2022. The building is finished and the PNC drive-up is operating. Both Dunkin and T-Mobile are currently hiring. This is Big Toys Direct' s busy season, so all hands are on deck at their California facility and progress has slowed somewhat on renovations at the new Wadesboro facility. There are still contractors there every day and the company expects to begin hiring in early 2022, with logis...

The 2021-2022 North Carolina budget sets aside $8 million for AnsonEDP to establish a revolving loan fund for the design and construction of speculative or "spec" industrial buildings in the county. This has been hailed as a game-changing development, but what is a spec building and why is it so important to the future of Anson County? A spec building is an industrial or warehouse space that is built by a local government, economic development agency, or private development firm for the purpose of attracting a tenant who will bring jobs and investment to the community. Some relate spec buildings to model homes, and there are definitely similarities, but the purpose of a model home is to give potential buyers an idea of the type of home they can build in that neighborhood, not necessarily to sell that particular dwelling. While it can occasionally work like that with spec buildings, far more commonly the end goal is to sell the building itself.  While spec buildings are someti...

AnsonEDP Executive Director John Marek was a featured speaker at the ACT Virtual Workforce Summit this past week. His presentation on "Redefining Rural for a Post-Pandemic Economy" was viewed by more than 100 of the nation's top workforce and economic development professionals, representing organizations from Maui to Maine.  Marek's presentation focused on how rural areas can make the most of several trends resulting from the pandemic to bolster their economic positions. Remote work, broadband expansion, restoring, and evolving priorities were noted as four trends that rural communities need to consider in their economic development strategies coming out of the pandemic.  As examples, he explained how Anson County has worked to create collaborative spaces, make education and training less expensive and more accessible, improve broadband accessibility, and promote the county's proximity to all the amenities of a major city without many of the headaches of urban liv...