While Craven County’s industrial business infrastructure continues to expand, the county is facing a looming crisis — a shortage of land readily available for commercial development.
During a recent meeting of the Craven County Board of Commissioners, County Manager Jack Veit said there are only two more lots left for business development in Craven County Industrial Park. Veit said once that property is subdivided and sold, the county will have to find other options for businesses looking to bring employment and financial opportunities to the area.
“We’re at the end of the road there. Once those lots are subdivided and sold there is no more land in the industrial park,” Veit said. “Which is a good problem to have but we have to look toward the future where we’re going to move to next because demand still remains high.”
Veit said the county is exploring several options to increase the real estate available for that future development. Chief among those is a possible new, larger industrial park that would be built off of U.S. 17 in partnership with Jones County. Veit said the plan would require the purchase of large tracts of land and significant infrastructure work.
According to Veit, the county is currently working with the N.C General Assembly to explore funding options for the proposed industrial park partnership.
During an interview with New Bern Now, Jeff Wood, economic development director for Craven County, said the county is still in the exploratory phase of the plan. A new industrial park would take years to fully complete, he explained.
Approximately $27 million would be needed to get the property ready for development, Wood said.
“A lot of that would be infrastructure-base that even without a park that area is going to need. If you look at a growth corridor like U.S. 70, most of that is infrastructure buildout,” he noted.
Wood said the U.S. 17 corridor along the Craven County and Jones County line has certain infrastructure advantages already in place.
“There’s both a natural gas and a power transmission line that snakes along U.S. 17,” he explained. “When we look at the places that meet the criteria for industrial development we look at gas infrastructure, because it is extremely expensive to get natural gas to a piece of property.”
Wood said the county is currently talking to landowners in the area to gauge interest in the project.
“It’s a growth corridor for us so we’re still trying to figure out which landowners we would want to work with there. So far, the few we’ve talked to have been receptive to the idea but we’ve not started negotiations yet,” Wood said. “That’s a long-term, slow moving process for sure. Building an industrial park from scratch, you’re talking about five to 10 years to get everything in place.”
Another option being explored for commercial development is a 155-acre tract at Coastal Carolina Regional Airport. The land is currently owned by Craven County and leased to the Airport Authority. According to Wood, 90 acres of that property has been set aside in the airport’s 20-year plan to be utilized for aeronautical/aerospace based economic development.
“That’s part of FAA’s master plan for the airport and that’s the goal, to open that up to really focus in on one of our target industries for the area,” Wood commented.
The estimated cost to develop the airport property is $2.9 million, which would cover costs for infrastructure needs such as the building of roads and clearing and preparing the land. The Airport Authority recently received a $753,500 Golden LEAF grant for the utilities and the county and airport are currently exploring other grant opportunities for the rest of the development costs, Wood said. He estimated it would take approximately 18-36 months to develop the airport property.
Wood stressed that the county is still heavily invested in the current industrial park, which dates back to the late 1970s and is located along U.S. 70 West at the Clarks exit. The two lots available at the site measure approximately 33 acres and 15 acres. He said an engineering firm is currently performing analysis on the properties and the goal is to break up the lots into 6-10 acre parcels.
Wood said one use for the land may be the development of shell buildings that can be marketed to companies, a strategy that has been successful in other parts of the industrial park.
“We do have folks that have been successful in building on the southern side of the park and they’ve shown interest once we break that up by purchasing more property and continuing that activity,” Wood said.
Wood noted that it is “very critical” that the county find more land for commercial development.
“Inventory of industrial space, whether property or building, is low,” he commented. “The Craven County Economic Development office gets a number of requests from different sources for property to be developed. For us to remain competitive for new investment into manufacturing and distribution, we need new real estate product.”
By Todd Wetherington, co-editor. Send an email with questions or comments.