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October 9, 2019

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By Virginia Annable
vannable@newstopicnews.com

Oct 07, 2019 7:20 PM

A longtime furniture manufacturer in Caldwell County is expanding its facility, and the county is offering incentives for it to create jobs with the expansion.

Fairfield Chair is planning an expansion of about $770,000 to its facility, which could come with the creation of 32 new full time jobs, Caldwell County Economic Development Commission Executive Director Deborah Murray said at a Caldwell County Board of Commissioners meeting Monday.

“We’re excited that they are doing this,” Murray said.

The board of commissioners voted to give Fairfield $2,000 per job created for up to 32 new full time jobs over a two year period, a total of $64,000. The jobs would have an average wage over $39,000, Murray said.

The county also endorsed the company’s application for a building reuse grant from the N.C. Department of Commerce.

In other business, the county is buying the former Flick Video building on Main Street in Granite Falls for a new library location to replace the current branch location closer to the heart of downtown Granite Falls.

The new building will cost $250,000, an offer that was approved by the building owner, Luther Stamey.

In other business, the commissioners approved a permit for a 159-foot Verizon Wireless cell tower off Fowler Road just north of the Five Points intersection. A quasi-judicial hearing on the conditional use permit in July for the tower brought arguments and comments from nearby residents and ultimately ending in the commissioners tabling the hearing to wait for all information in the permit application to be up to date. When the hearing reopened at Monday’s meeting, no residents spoke at the hearing.

The commissioners decided to approve the conditional use permit for the tower at Monday’s meeting.

Reporter Virginia Annable can be reached at 828-610-8724.