Transcript:

Andrea Schruijer:  Andrea Schruijer, Executive Director of the Valdosta Lowndes County Industrial Authority.  A few years ago the community had the foresight to approve a mill that they would set aside for the Industrial Authority to provide for economic development.  And because the community did that, the industrial authority is able to better plan for the future in growing our opportunities for economic development.  One of the things that we noticed a few years ago is that we didn’t have enough land for development.  And we didn’t have the right sized tracks in case we had a large user coming in looking at the community, where would we put them? 

So the Industrial Authority had the foresight to purchase two new industrial parks.  And we’ve invested 5.2 million dollars to bring those parks up to shovel-ready status.  Meaning they have all infrastructure in place and are cleared and ready to go.  And another step that we’re taking to help market these properties is working through the Georgia Ready for Accelerated Development Program, which is headed up by the Georgia Allies.  And what this does is make this property a lot more marketable.  Throughout the state of Georgia, there are hundreds of industrial parks.  And with the grad certification, this raises our visibility. 

For instance, there’s only 18 certified industrial parks within the state.  So we’re looking to bring our industrial parks up to that status.  And what this does is, prospects who are looking to develop within the state of Georgia, can pull these certified industrial parks and have all of their technical information, utility verification done, and it just speeds up the process for us to get that project here.  The grad designation is done via Sight Consultant that specializes in product development that helps make this product more marketable.  And because we have the product, we started doing the target market analysis to make sure that we recruit the right industries to help us maintain a sustainable economy here in Valdosta Lowndes County and our region.  For more information please contact Andrea Schruijer at (229) 259-9972.