Martinsville Bulletin, Inc.
P. O. Box 3711
204 Broad Street
Martinsville, Virginia 24115
276-638-8801
Toll Free: 800-234-6575
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Sunday, December 6, 2009
By DEBBIE HALL - Bulletin Staff Writer
After Tultex Corp. closed, the area put “building blocks” in place to attract new businesses and industries.
“It is a testament to the community that the building blocks were put in place” to attract new businesses and industries, said Mark Heath, president and CEO of the Martinsville Henry County Economic Development Corp. (EDC).
RTI International Metals is among the companies to “come out of the ashes of this” decline, Heath said, referring to the firm that is moving into the Patriot Centre industrial park and expects to create 150 jobs.
There are several others, according to Henry County Administrator Benny Summerlin.
After Tultex closed in 2000, its service center near the main entrance to the Patriot Centre industrial park was for sale, Summerlin said. Nautica was looking for a new site and came to Henry County after seeing a magazine ad with the Tultex building, he said.
That building did not meet Nautica’s needs, Summerlin said. But the former 5-B’s building, which had been a shell building, did.
The county allowed Nautica to use the 5-B’s building rent-free while it constructed a new building in the Patriot Centre, Summerlin said.
“Ultimately, we got Nautica, and when the Tultex building was sold, HanesBrands” moved in, he said.
Before Tultex filed for bankruptcy, company officials asked the county to buy some land that was located around its service center, Summerlin said. The county agreed and used the land to create new industrial sites in a revenue-sharing project with the city, he said.
“That land transfer provided some new opportunities in the county,” Summerlin said, and added that Arrington Industries is located on one of the sites.
Also, then-governor Jim Gilmore gave the county another enterprise zone at the time.
“In the short term, that meant nothing,” Summerlin said. Long term, however, it has benefited the county, with portions of the Patriot Centre and Commonwealth Crossing industrial park, which is being developed on the state line, incorporated into the enterprise zone, which has incentives to get companies to locate here.
The Virginia Economic Development Partnership (VEDP) “tried to send as many prospects” to the area as possible, Summerlin said. “They gave us extra attention” to help deal with the job loss.
Improvements have been done or are planned to enhance the quality of life, retrain the work force and ensure the area has the “right products, such as utilities and rail access” to attract companies to Henry County, Summerlin said.
Training/retraining of the work force also has been a priority, Summerlin said.
Despite the progress made on development, “we’re still struggling, make no mistake about that,” said Heath, who was not in Henry County when Tultex and many other industries closed in 1999 and 2000.
However, he has been in the economic development field for more than 30 years, and during that time, “we’ve all been in communities” that were affected by job losses, Heath said. “But to have this many things happen that close together in that period of time” is difficult to imagine. |
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