Kevin Costner’s Ray Kinsella was once famously haunted by a simple phrase, “If you build it, they will come.”
The cryptic message is one of the central plot points to the 1989 film Field of Dreams. I’d highly recommend the movie, which has little to do with economic development. Other than a veiled reference to charging admission to the baseball diamond constructed in a corn field in Iowa and Costner’s character running out of money to pay the mortgage on the family farm, there’s not much to speak of in terms of finances.
Colleton’s own field of dreams, 1481 acres between Bells Hwy. and Ruffin Rd., is another story. Known as the Colleton Mega-site, the former tree farm, may just hold the keys to the county’s economic future
And yes, that future might even include a Target or a Home Depot!
In our first two installments of this column, we covered the trickledown effect of economic development and the county’s role in facilitating growth. With those principles in mind, and with the support of allies such as the S.C. Department of Commerce, the S.C. Powerteam, Dominion Energy, Palmetto Railways and the City of Walterboro, the county began the process of selecting and developing the site about a decade ago. An initial 850 acres was purchased, and the partners collaboratively worked to begin prepping the site for the future. In the years that followed, entitlements were secured, due diligence studies were completed, and vital infrastructure was extended, all done speculatively and driven by available grants with the hopes that the site would one day be viable enough to attract a major or “mega” industry.
One of the site’s final limiting factors, the presence of municipal sewer, is quickly nearing removal. The City of Walterboro will complete the construction of a 12-inch sewer main down Bells Highway to provide service to the mega-site this summer, instantly making the property more viable and marketable.
I was asked a few weeks ago, why the county would take on the creation of a mega-site, especially when there are existing industrial parks with available property. The answer is economic development projects are not one size fits all. While we may be able to accommodate a small or midsize project that needs say 50-100 acres with our existing inventory of industrial sites, what we don’t want to do is remove ourselves from consideration for a larger prospect, the kind that might create 100s or even 1000s of well-paying jobs that could change the trajectory of our citizens’ families.
Why invest in a megasite? Well, because the juice is often worth the squeeze, and with a shortage of ready megasites across the Southeast, large-scale industrial projects will continue to consider Colleton County.
If we don’t have it, we can’t sell it. Nor could we reap the potential economic benefits.
Make no mistake, change will come with that benefit. Things like construction and commuter traffic, railways running regularly, additional housing and businesses to support that residential growth.
Rather than resist change, we need to embrace it. If you’re the person who wants more to do, more to eat and more to buy right here in Colleton County, you should be rooting for the success of the Colleton Megasite.
Yes Ray, if you build it, they will come.
(Brantley Strickland is the Executive Director of the Colleton County Economic Alliance. He was managing editor of The Press & Standard from 2011-2014. Reach him by email at bstrickland@cceainc.com )
