Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, May 4, 1994 TAG: 9405040120
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV4 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: PULASKI LENGTH: Medium
The county had already announced it would provide a $3 million loan to the Industrial Development Authority for construction at the plant. The loan will be forgiven once the company's proposed $200 million capital investment is complete and jobs have expanded.
The county also agreed to provide fill material for site preparation use, valued at $1 million, using excess dirt from the neighboring Corporate Center industrial park to fill in the steep topography at the expansion site.
The state Industrial Access Road program will provide $450,000 and the county will add $150,000 to improve access roads to the Volvo facility. The county also agreed to work with Volvo and the state Department of Transportation on road improvements likely to be required by increased traffic from the expansion.
All this was on top of the estimated $20 million in state incentives announced Friday in Richmond by Gov. George Allen.
Supervisors Bruce Fariss and Pete Crawford were concerned about whether the further road improvements would cut drastically into the county's secondary road funds, and hamper other road projects in its six-year plan. The county will seek additional money for the work from the Transportation Department, Community Development Block Grant program and other sources.
It will take a while for traffic count and other information to be gathered so the nature of future road improvement needs can be known.
Fariss moved to accept the agreement during Monday night's board meeting and Crawford seconded it. Chairman Jerry White joined them in voting for it, and Mason Vaughan cast the lone dissenting vote. Supervisor Joe Sheffey was not at the meeting.
Vaughan had not taken an active part in the discussion over the agreement, and had no comment afterward on why he voted against it. ``Just the way I felt about it,'' he said.
The plant employs 1,440 people, 1,356 of whom live in Pulaski County. It supports another 353 associated jobs indirectly at supply and support firms such as Keal Drive Away, Wackenhut, D&S, Fontaine Modification Co., Long Airdox, Flexaloy, Beach Manufacturing, ASC and others.
The total payroll to direct and indirect workers is estimated at more than $60 million. The company's investment in expanding the plant will generate an estimated $6 million in county property taxes over the next 10 years.
County officials had learned in mid-January that Volvo GM had been evaluating options for expanding or relocating its plant and that other states were offering financial incentives to try and get it.
The county commissioned an economic analysis by Thomas Johnson, an agricultural economist at Virginia Tech who had made an assessment of the impact of the AT&T plant closing at Fairlawn several years ago. The accuracy of that assessment had impressed county officials.
His new study indicated that, if Volvo expanded outside Virginia and eventually closed its Pulaski County plant, a total of 2,500 regional jobs would be lost along with more than $1 million annually to the county in tax revenue and more than $31 million in retail sales. Statewide losses were projected at 23,000 jobs, $18 million in state sales tax revenue, and $320 million in other state revenue over the next five years.
Johnson's study indicated that the $200 million expansion at the existing plant would result in a $1.3 million increase in property taxes and other income to the county and $1.9 million more in fiscal cash flow to the county over five years. The statewide impact would be 6,100 new jobs, $3.7 million more in annual state sales tax revenue, and a total of $59 million more in citizen income over the next five years.
by CNB