RALEIGH – North Carolina’s Rural Infrastructure Authority approved nine grants totaling $2.236 million, linking public building and utility work to 78 newly attributed jobs and more than $504 million in expected private investment.
The Oct. 15 approvals cover six building-reuse projects, two downtown projects and one utility-infrastructure project. State officials said the grants are associated with 219 jobs, but 141 of those jobs had been announced previously. That leaves 78 jobs newly attributed to the grant round.
The largest grant is $1 million for water and sewer improvements at the Southeast Regional Airport Authority Industrial Park in Scotland County. The work would support Great Southern Wood Preserving’s lumber-treatment facility, a project tied to 29 jobs and $40 million in investment.
A $500,000 award to Wilson would support renovation of a 310,000-square-foot building used by Reckitt Benckiser. The grant is tied to 112 jobs and $432.6 million in investment, but the underlying Wilson expansion was announced earlier and is not a new project created by this grant vote.
Other building-reuse awards include $144,000 for Select Products Holdings in Henderson, tied to 18 jobs and $23.856 million in investment; $152,000 for Sigma Crossings & Railroad Products in Fayetteville, tied to 20 jobs and $3.581 million; and $129,000 for Safety Test & Equipment Company in Shelby, tied to 17 jobs and $137,050.
The authority also approved $50,000 for MJM Yachts in Washington, tied to 13 jobs and $140,076 in investment, and $80,000 for Edgecombe Furniture in Greenville, tied to 10 jobs and more than $3.8 million in investment.
Two downtown grants carry no stated job commitments. Clinton received $81,000 for a new roof at the Clinton Theatre, while Elkin received $100,000 for sidewalk, accessibility and retaining-wall work near the public library.
WCTI independently reported the statewide totals and detailed the Beaufort and Pitt county awards. The public grants are approvals for local infrastructure and building work; the cited records do not establish that every associated private project is complete.
For rural North Carolina, the immediate business consequence is $2.236 million in approved public support spread across nine communities. The broader $504 million investment figure is an expected total that includes previously announced projects, most notably Reckitt’s Wilson expansion.
Image: Seal of the State of North Carolina. North Carolina Department of Transportation / State of North Carolina via Wikimedia Commons; public domain. NC Business Desk.