VIDEO: Economic Development 101

GOLDEN TRIANGLE, Miss. (WCBI) – Starkville is moving forward on a major economic development project.

Aldermen rezoned a few hundred acres of land, north of Highway 82, making room for a new industrial park, but there are still steps to climb before a business can call the park “home”.

We sat down with the CEO of the Golden Triangle Development LINK, Joe Max Higgins, and he breaks all of those steps down for us, including what’s next for the Starkville park.

“Having proper infrastructure and available land, that makes it easy to come in and build. New industry is essential,” says Mayor Parker Wiseman.

That’s why the city and county paired up with the LINK three years ago, working to bring the industrial spot to life. This is what that “spot” means.

“Generally, an industrial site may just be a big site out there that somebody could acquire and put maybe a single user on. An industrial park, there’s a little bit more planning involved in those, you know, you’ll lay out a street grid, you’ll lay out a utility grid,” says Higgins.

Before a park can mark it’s territory, there’s a few steps to climb.

Step #1: pick a piece of property that is suitable for development. Step #2: buy the property to control it. Then, this happens.

“Once we get it under option, do the due diligence, get all of the preliminary engineering done, then we’re ready when a project comes in, to start marketing it to the company. That’s kind of the simplified version of it,” says Higgins.

If the rezoning holds and doesn’t get appealed by surrounding property owners, that’s the next step the city and county will take.

“Fourteen million dollars total among the two, will be used to construct the industrial park, that’s not the buildings in the industrial park, those of course will be the industries in the future that hopefully will choose to locate there,” says Wiseman.

How do you get those companies to come to the area?

“We get our industries kind of one of three ways. Either deals that we have, relationships with companies and marketing trips that we go to and market directly to the company, or TVA will bring us leads and prospects, or MDA, Mississippi Development Authority will bring us leads and prospects,” says Higgins.

Getting a tenant to sign the dotted line is just the start of a project.

“Once the company comes in, if the infrastructure is not already in place, then you have to concurrently construct the improvements like water, sewer, and roads, while they’re building the facility.”