Roane Industrial Development Board Presents Million Dollar Check
Friday September 28, 2007
Roane Industrial Development Board Presents Million Dollar Check
Friday, September 28, 2007
The Roane County Industrial Development Board presented a million dollar plus check to Roane County Executive Mike Farmer today - the proceeds from land sales collected recently for five industrial projects.
"This check for $1,013,750 represents the land sales from projects that this board has approved for Roane Regional Business and Technology Park over the past several months," said Industrial Development Board Chairman Steve Kirkham.
"Those projects alone are expected to bring 100 new jobs; up to $15 million in private investment and more than $140,000 a year in increased tax collections for Roane County - I think this proves beyond a doubt that Roane County and especially the Roane Regional Park has come into its own."
The projects include:
- Diesel Engine Parts - a Knoxville company that is relocating its operations so that it can manufacture, remanufacture and do the final machining on engine parts cast overseas in their plants in China, India and Turkey.
- Saginaw Control & Engineering - a Michigan-based manufacturer of both standard and custom-designed enclosures for electrical equipment that is opening their first distribution center in the Southeast.
- Blue Bell Creameries - A 100-year-old Texas-based company that makes ice cream products is going to be building a transfer station which is expected to grow into a regional facility over the next three years.
- Plateau Metal Roofing Sales - a metal roofing company that is located in Cumberland County since 1996 is going to expand into Roane County
- C.R. Barger & Sons, Inc. - a home-grown Roane County family-owned company that has outgrown its present facility and needed to consolidate its operations in one place. They manufacture pre-cast concrete products.
"I am pleased to accept this check on behalf of the Roane County government," County Executive Mike Farmer said in the presentation which took place at the Roane County Chamber's annual elected officials barbecue at The Roane Alliance's offices in Kingston.
"This is exciting at two different levels. One, it assists with the debt service payments that we are required to make on an annual basis on Roane Regional -- but more importantly it represents the dynamic focus that we are seeing in Roane County. I feel that this is an indication of all the hard work put into our industrial focus over the years," I am excited about Roane County's future," Farmer said. "And as we can see, these new industrial neighbors are also responding to the energy that is being generated in Roane County."
The five new projects at Roane Regional have all closed in the past six months and are in various stages of development. Diesel Engine Parts bought the first speculative building after it was completed earlier this year. Saginaw purchased the next one in the series - and it was just completed a few weeks ago. Blue Bell, Plateau Metal Roofing and Barger & Sons have all closed within the past few weeks and all expect to break ground in the near future.
These new industries join the four other industries that already call Roane Regional home for their businesses: The H.T. Hackney Co (one of the nation's largest wholesale food distributors); Protean Instruments Corp. (manufacturer of alpha beta counters); Dienamic Tooling Systems (DTS) (southernmost operation of a group of tool and die makers headquartered in Grand Rapids, Michigan); Pegasus Technologies (an independent home-grown local firm that designs wireless systems for companies all over the world).
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Contact:
Leslie Henderson
865-376-2093
