County moves ahead on hub


Vance County commissioners took the next step toward establishing the Kerr-Tar hub Monday night when they approved a nonbinding letter of intent and appointed Commissioner Danny Wright to represent the county in the nonprofit organization overseeing the project.

Vance may have been the first of four counties to commit to the project, albeit with a way out. Warren County’s commissioners also were expected to approve a letter of intent Monday night, and the commissioners in Franklin and Granville are scheduled to act during meetings next week.

“It tells us the intent of Vance County … that you are still in the ballgame at this time,” COG Executive Director Neil Mallory said.

The fifth county covered by the Kerr-Tar Regional Council of Governments, Person County, did not join the other four counties in submitting a site for hub consideration, and Mallory said he does not expect Person to continue with the project.

The Vance commissioners acted with little discussion after Mallory and Rocky Lane of the Sanford Holshouser Business Development Group made a presentation on the site selection process that rated a combined 1,000-acre Vance-Granville as the top choice to be the center of the multicounty economic development.

The five counties in the Kerr-Tar region — Vance, Granville, Warren, Franklin and Person — embarked on the joint economic project in 2003. It is envisioned as a way to share across county lines the costs and revenues of a mid-tech industrial park. The region’s location will allow it to feed off the high-tech research and development in the Triangle.

Lane recounted that using more than $400,000 in grants, the COG and its consultants embarked on the site preparation and selection process last spring. Vance, Granville and Franklin each submitted a site of about 500 acres, while Warren offered an 860-acre site.

All four sites meet state standards for industrial certification, have sufficient size, utilities and infrastructure, and are close to highways. When they are fully certified, Lane said, they will double the number of large, certified, industrial-ready sites in the state.

The Kerr-Tar site selection committee couldn’t resist combining the Vance and Granville sites, which are on opposite sides of Interstate 85 and basically meet at the main campus of Vance-Granville Community College. The Granville site, in fact, runs into Vance as it stretches between Exits 206 and 209 along the interstate. The Vance site stretches north and east from the Triangle North Corporate Park at Exit 209.

“The original concept was to develop the Hub, then at some future date move on to developing satellite hub sites” in a hub network, reads a Sanford Holshouser report distributed to the Vance commissioners. “Because of the quality of the sites in Franklin and Warren Counties, the research and analysis gone into these sites should not be tabled.”

Instead, the consulting firm recommends, the main hub and the other two sites should be developed simultaneously. Lane said the sites are complementary, not competitive: The central hub is perfect for a mix of big and small buildings that can provide good-paying, mid-tech manufacturing; the Franklin site, because it is closer to Raleigh and Research Triangle Park and is home to a better-educated work force, is good for high-tech companies; and Warren’s huge site, between I-85 and U.S. 1, is ideal for warehouses and distribution.

Vance County will have to move ahead with ensuring it has options on the 500-plus acres in its site for years to come, allowing the purchase and development of the property to be done in phases, the consultant‘s report says.

The report estimates the cost of purchasing and developing the full Vance site at $58,121.16 per acre, or roughly $29.2 million in all. Financing that cost will be one of the tasks of the nonprofit organization.

Meanwhile, “Vance and Granville Counties’ economic development programs will forever be tied through the Hub site,” the report says. Combining the two counties’ hub sites will allow them to form a “unique partnership.”

The nonbinding letter of intent will make all four counties into partners in a 501(c)(3) nonprofit group to purchase, develop and run the hub sites. It will be up to Wright and the representatives of the other counties to work out the final form of the partnership and how the costs and revenues will be divided, and they will create binding papers for each county board to consider.

“You will speak for us?” Commissioner Deborah Brown asked with a smile.

“I’ll represent the county and commissioners to the best of my ability,” Wright said.

In another COG-connected economic step Monday night, the commissioners held a public hearing on the concept of establishing a pilot program of individual development accounts and voted unanimously to schedule a second, final public hearing on the plan.

The IDA program is a proposal of Team Vance. The COG’s Rick Seekins presented what he acknowledged was still a rough idea Monday night, while fellow Team Vance members Marolyn Rasheed, Sara Wester and Bill Edwards watched from the audience.

The idea is that 30 to 35 people will be signed up to take a series of homeownership classes, get credit counseling and work with a support team of agency experts to prepare to buy homes. A person who completes the educational requirements and saves $1,000 in the IDA over two years will get $2,000 in matching grant money and will receive guidance in the process of turning that $3,000 into a home.

If the county approves the program, Team Vance will have grant money to match 20 of the individual accounts. Other counties’ experiences indicate that Vance will have to start with at least 30 participants to get 20 who complete the program.

Board of Education member Robert Duke was the lone opponent of the plan during the public hearing. He said he shares Team Vance’s belief in the need for more homeownership in Vance County, but to him the numbers indicate that some people could be asked to spend more on their monthly mortgage than they’re asked to save each year of the program.

The marketing plan, Duke said, sounds a lot like that of Creative Real Estate, which suckered marginal buyers into spending more than they could afford on overpriced homes.

“We have no intention of being part of a program that further discourages people,” Seekins said.

Edwards, the president of the Henderson-Vance Chamber of Commerce, spoke in favor of the proposal. “I wish we had a program for five times this number, but the funding is there for 20.”

Commissioner Tommy Hester wants assurances that those 20 who get the matching grant money will use it to buy houses in Vance County. Seekins said such a provision could and should be added to the working agreement participants would have to sign.

Brown is worried that the program participants will not reflect the population of the whole county — not necessarily in terms of race or ethnicity, but place of residence. “Be sure to include people who live outside the city.”