Business View Civil and Municipal | Volume 2, Issue 6

169 CIVIL AND MUNICIPAL VOLUME 2, ISSUE 6 PULASK I COUNTY , V I RGINI A shares Jonathan Sweet, Pulaski County’s Chief Administrative Officer. One point of pride for the County is the access to high quality K-12 and post secondary education, including close proximity to Virginia Tech and Radford University, both world-class institutions. Pulaski County is also home to New River Community College, which is highly rated for performance in the state of Virginia. All seven of the county’s elementary and middle schools have been renovated, or are new, showing a strong commitment to education at all levels. Plans are underway for major renovations of the county’s high school, with the intention of “offering our students the finest 21st-century learning environment that that we can,” according to Sweet. With a current population of 35,000 the County intends to grow the community by 5,000 people over the next decade. Sweet explains, “We don’t have to build more schools or bigger libraries, hire more law enforcement, or add more infrastructure to accommodate 40,000 people. We currently have the capacity. It would mean more people sharing the overhead and contributing to the local economy without being a burden. With tongue in cheek, we call it our 40 by 30 by 20. We want 40,000 people who are in their 20s to call Pulaski County home by 2030. We are creating new jobs, building the housing stock, and shaping a community for that generation of working professionals. We are even putting in certain amenities such as dog parks to accommodate what we think is going to be a wave of young professionals discovering Pulaski County.” The County housing market is booming and both developers and contractors are working hard to keep up with demand. With such a hot market, there is a shrinking inventory of houses available but the County has plans to address this issue, converting two former schools into Pulaski County Courthouse, located in the Town of Pulaski