By Virginia Annable
(Lenoir) News-Topic

Old, empty factory buildings sit on prime real estate scattered through Lenoir, brushed aside by potential buyers because of the possibility of contamination left behind by the manufacturing years ago. That all may change with a new grant from the Environmental Protection Agency.

After applying three years in a row with no luck the first two times, the city of Lenoir received a $300,000 grant from the EPA to study brownfields, sites that may have contamination but haven’t been studied yet — an unknown that turns off investors.

Studying the sites would involve testing groundwater and soil for contaminants and chemicals left behind by manufacturing in years past and to research the history of the sites to determine what they’ve been used for and where hazardous materials might be left behind.

The implications of the grant goes far beyond environmental cleanup, said Greg Icenhour, a consultant from Mid-Atlantic, an environmental engineering consulting firm, at the Committee of the Whole meeting.

“It’s money to essentially address blight in your community,” he said. “It’s really an economic development tool.”

The city has 19 sites listed as brownfields, but more than likely about five will be studied with this grant, Icenhour said. Because it’s an annual grant, Lenoir could apply for it again once the money is used up.

Once those sites are studied, the city will know if there is contamination or not, making developers more likely to buy if there is none. It also clears the way for a brownfield agreements with the state through the N.C. Brownfields Program, which takes liability for contamination off any new owners.

If there is contamination, the Brownfield Assessment Grant money could lead to clean-up grants for sites that have hazardous waste.

The sites include the old Bost Lumber property on the west end of downtown, the Singer Furniture facility on Norwood Street, and the Blue Bell Inc. building on College Avenue. Once they are studied, which will start in October when the money comes in and could last up to three years, the city hopes to get the properties sold and developed.

“These grants can help stimulate private investment in these areas,” Icenhour said.

The city will chose exactly which sites will be selected with input from the community, said Radford Thomas, director of public utilities.

Planning Director Jenny Wheelock said the grant ties in well with the Fairfield South area plan, which paints a vision of arts, businesses and residential growth in the southwest part of downtown Lenoir, where a few old factory sites are.

“We can throw idea around but until we know a cost we don’t know how to get there — this is going to help with that,” Wheelock said.

Some of the buildings were also put on a list to potentially be on the National Historic Register, Wheelock said.

With the brownfield assessment grant, the historic background and the recent designation of several areas of Lenoir as Opportunity Zones by the U.S. Treasury Department, which does away with capital gains taxes, several of these old factories are poised to be developed, said Councilman Ben Willis.

“I think this is a really big deal,” he said.

By Guy Lucas
(Lenoir) News-Topic

A large amount of Caldwell County has been accepted for a new federal program that may spur new development projects, the N.C. Department of Commerce announced Monday.

The U.S. Treasury Department has approved all 252 of the state’s recommended Opportunity Zones, which will allow investors to re-invest capital gains while avoiding standard capital gains tax obligations, including four census tracts in Caldwell County:

• 301, 303 and 308, which together cover a large part of Lenoir, including all of downtown, and southwest Caldwell County. From the intersection of Main Street and U.S. 321 in the Valmead area, the western boundary of this area follows Creekway Drive to Morganton Boulevard and then follows Morganton Boulevard all the way to the Burke County line, and on the east the boundary follows U.S. 321 to McLean Drive, to Norwood Street and then to Connelly Springs Road, which it follows all the way to the county line.

Blue Ridge Energy received the highest honor in an awards program for America’s electric cooperatives.

It received the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association’s Edgar F. Chesnutt Award for Best Total Communication Program. The award was for the communications campaign related to Blue Ridge Energy’s new community solar program, which was established in response to consumer requests for additional renewable energy options. The campaign was so effective that every panel in the solar array was sold in just 10 months.

“Blue Ridge Energy’s impressive understanding of their consumer and community needs is clearly evident in their marketing and communications strategy in support of this new solar project,” Scott Peterson, NRECA’s senior vice president of communications, said in a press release.

Blue Ridge Energy received the award at CONNECT ‘18, a national communications, marketing and member services conference organized by NRECA.

Continental Structural Plastics announced that its Lenoir plant won the Best Environmental Health and Safety Program in the company’s annual health and safety awards.

The Best EH&S Program award recognizes the facility that has developed superb health and safety programs and processes. Last year the Lenoir plant won the Most Improved EH&S Program award, and in the past year the plant’s team has continued to make improvements, including creating work instruction videos and requiring reporting of near-miss incidents, the company said in a press release.

Local investors are being sought for potential multi-family housing projects that one local official calls Caldwell County’s “number one economic development issue.”

The Caldwell County Economic Development Commission is maintaining a confidential list of investors, executive director Deborah Murray told the group’s board of directors Tuesday.

“We would like to add to that list,” she said. “Where do we find that group of people?”

The need for new housing, especially multi-family developments, has come up increasingly as the number of jobs has grown. Murray has said that some local employers have reported losing some recruits for top jobs because of the lack of housing options locally.

The state’s most recent unemployment report found that the number of Caldwell County residents with jobs has hit a post-recession high of 35,355, and it would be even higher if there were more places here for people to live, Murray said.

Annual surveys of major local employers by the EDC have found that an increasing number of new hires live outside Caldwell County: 30 percent in 2015, 34 percent in 2016, and 40 percent in 2017.

The U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey found in 2014 that about 6,600 people commuted from outside Caldwell to jobs here, and in the most recent data available show that grew to 9,700.

“We have the higher-paying jobs, but those people don’t live here so we don’t get to count them as Caldwell County statistics,” Murray said. “We are building the jobs. Our companies are growing.”

Murray also floated the idea of whether local governments should offer tax grants for large multi-family developments, which would allow developers to pay less than full property taxes for the first few years after the development is completed. That would offer investors and lenders assurance that they could more quickly recoup their investment.

A similar incentive already is available for large industrial projects.

Jeff Branch, who also is a member of the Caldwell County Board of Commissioners, said the idea makes sense to him.

“Once people move in there, they’re going to live there for years and years,” he said.

Several members of the board of directors also discussed problems with tight lending by banks since the recession and the cost of certain development rules, but Murray said that some of those problems are beyond local officials’ reach.

“We need to do something about the things that are in our control,” she said. “That (a tax grant) could be the thing to bring a Charlotte (multi-family) developer here.”

Normally, Amanda Hope is the one asking job applicants about their qualifications, but at Caldwell is Hiring, the tides were turned.

“I’m used to filling jobs but now I find myself here looking for one,” said Hope, formerly an executive recruiter.

Hope, along with hundreds of other people searching for their next job, descended on the J.E. Broyhill Civic Center, where 54 employers met with applicants for about 2,300 jobs.

Like many others there, Hope went looking for a specific position.

“I’m looking for my next career opportunity, hopefully as a local recruiter,” she said.