Business View City & Municipal | August 2022

69 CIVIL AND MUNICIPAL VOLUME 3, ISSUE 7 CHESTER COUNTY , SOUTH CAROL INA which include wood products, metal products, and rubber, plastics, & chemicals, as well as an emerging food & beverage sector. “We’ve got a really stable workforce,” says Robert Long, Director of Chester County Economic Development. “There’s always going to be ebbs and flows to the economy. Having a wide variety of sectors in our community that are doing well, I think whenever that next recession or bump in the road comes, we will be able to ride out the storm probably better than some other communities because of our diversity. That’s pretty nice for a small county of our size.” Two county-owned business parks offer available space to welcome even more new industry to the area. The Chester Technology Park has one 11-acre and one two-acre lot remaining, and Chester County Research and Development Park has about 280 acres remaining. “We landed our second industry in that park last year – Chart Industries,” Long says. “It’s a nice project, about $7 million and about 50 jobs. Now, we’ve got some renewed interest in the park, we have an offer on the table right now to buy some land from the county in that park. We’re trying to leverage that project to put in a road so we can open up more lots for development. It’s pretty exciting.” New businesses to Chester County are well served thanks to two unique assets: The first is access to a short line railroad, which was originally installed back in the textile days. Long explains, “What makes it interesting is that it follows the Highway 9 corridor where we have industrial land available on certified sites and it also connects back to both Norfolk Southern and CSX (railroads) right here in Chester County. So, in essence, any site along the L&C Railroad is dual rail served.” The second asset is the Chester County Natural Gas Authority, which is one of only five gas authorities in the State of South Carolina. The gas authority has created a joint action agency with nearby York County Natural Gas and Lancaster County Natural Gas to create Patriots Energy Group. “That is a transmission pipeline that connects directly to the Williams Transco, which is the main transmission pipeline from the Gulf of Mexico to Pennsylvania,” says Jason Stewart, General Manager of the Chester County Natural Gas Authority. “We have a direct tie-in so we are able to provide the lowest rates possible. We have gas from our own entity or we can get it from Carolina Gas transmission, so we have a redundant system. Our motto is: there’s not an industry we’re going to tell no. So if someone wants to come to Chester and they need gas, they’re in the right place.” Most of the industrial sites Chester County has available already have the natural gas infrastructure in place. “We’re there,” Stewart says. “We’re just waiting for the right person to come along.”