Business View Magazine | October 2020

246 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE OCTOBER 2020 SERVING NATURAL GAS TO NASHVILLE AND THE SURROUNDING AREAS FOR MORE THAN 20 YEARS www.rockymountnc.gov 331 S. Franklin St., Rocky Mount, NC 27802-1180 community it once was, becoming an advanced manufacturing and pharmaceutical powerhouse owing to two of the largest employers like Cummins and Pfizer.” The county is also targeting its marketing efforts on 500 acres of industrial properties. Two of those are industrial parks: the Whitaker Business & Industry Center a county-owned property on I-95, and the Middlesex Corporate Center, a 340-acre park just 25 minutes from downtown Raleigh. “In that particular park, we’ve got a 62,500-square-foot shell building that’s expandable to 100,000,” says Hagy. Another county-owned property is the 142-acre NC Highway 97 site on I-95 which recently received a Duke Energy Site Readiness certification. All are high priority properties for state incentives. Nash County is served by Foreign-Trade Zone #214, located in southeastern North Carolina. The Foreign-Trade Zone program allows U.S.- based companies to defer, reduce, and even eliminate customs duties on products admitted to the zone. It also provides important benefits to businesses and industries such as federal and state tax savings. “We’ve got areas of the county that qualify for New Markets Tax Credits and federal Opportunity Zones, such as the Middlesex Commerce Centre,” says Hagy. “That’s at the federal level. At the local level, by controlling many of the industrial properties, we have the leverage to discount the property for the right project, as it relates to jobs and capital investment.” The county also offers an investment grant - again, for the right project. “It’s a 50 percent reimbursement of tax revenue over five years.” “There’s so much we want to emphasize,” he continues. “Our strategic location between the Research Triangle and I-95; our access to a workforce of more than two million people and talent to hire and grow within a 60-mile radius; our low cost of living and doing business; and our shovel-ready industrial parks, sites, and