Anson County, North Carolina

met the government’s specifications, and they have been turning out as much of it as they can make over the last few months.” Marek goes on to note some recent developments in Anson County that have propelled its economic agenda forward. “The first thing was the development of what we call REV Uptown,” he begins. “It’s a business incubator and co-working space in Uptown Wadesboro, the county seat. We felt like we wanted to do a couple of things with the 5,000 square feet that we have available. We wanted to create a one-stop-shop for all of the quasi-governmental organizations – the Chamber of Commerce, Economic Development, Uptown Development, and Tourism Development, and we successfully did that. “Then, we wanted to provide a place for new businesses trying to get their start, mainly where service and information technology businesses could come in and have some non-dedicated space to collaborate with others and have access to high-speed internet, printing, and shipping capabilities. In the co-working space, we already have a company that’s working with big data for agricultural innovation, as well as a local entrepreneur who’s doing marketing and graphic design work. “And we wanted an incubator aspect to it, as well, so a larger, more developed company could come in and we were very successful in bringing in a company called Borgstena. The division that we work with here is actually based in Portugal, although the company, itself, is based in Sweden, and the parent company is in South Korea. They’re an automotive supplier that makes headliners for various trucks and vehicles. They’re very interested in establishing a manufacturing presence here, but as a precursor to that, they wanted to open a sales and engineering office. So, we provided that space for them. Unfortunately, they were forced to head back to Portugal because of the pandemic’s