By Shannon McFarlin News Director
Paris, Tenn.—In what Henry County Mayor Brent Greer called a ‘game changer’ for the future of the county, Greer and Paris City Mayor Carlton Gerrell Monday night announced the county has entered a three-year option to purchase a 300-acre site for industrial and community development opportunities.
In addition, the Paris-Henry County Industrial Committee has completed final negotiations to sell the spec building in the Paris Industrial Park for $450,000 to Workman Farms, Inc., which will be producing hemp products.
Together, those announcements represent a lot of hard work and mean a wealth of ‘good news’ for the county, Greer said.
The 300-acre site is owned by Mineral Technologies, Inc. (former American Colloid) on Russell Street in Paris and Greer said state and local partners involved with the negotiation are “excited for the opportunity to develop this property into a State Certified Industrial Site.” Rail service is available on the full length of the property, making it “an extremely attractive site”, he said. “I personally believe this will be a ‘game changer’ for Paris and Henry County as we will potentially have the only rail served certified site in Northwest Tennessee.”
The Industrial Committee has entered into the three-year option to purchase the site for $1M.
The purchase followed over a year of study and negotiations, Greer said. “A lot of things came together for Henry County last week. We’ve worked over two years on this,” he said, “and it involved a lot of prayer and hard work.”
Henry County officials presented the state with eight pieces of property to evaluate as potential industrial sites and Greer said the site on Russell Street was the one that state officials said should be concentrated on.
Greer especially cited city officials, County Attorney Rob Whitfield and State Rep. Bruce Griffey (R-Paris) for their work along with the county on the project.
Mayor Gerrell said, “This is an exciting time and this is one of the things that makes Paris and Henry County great is this cooperation that the city and county share.” He said that when state officials evaluated the eight properties, they agreed the site on Russell Street “is the one you can’t let get away.”
Greer said the State Department of Economic and Community Development, TVA, Rural Development and the U.S. Department of Economic Development Authority will be applying for grant assistance to purchase and develop the tract of land.
“If we want to be successful, we will be,” Greer said, “but our biggest challenge now is to develop our work force to serve the industries we will be developing here.”
As part of the sale of the spec building site to Workman Farms, Inc., the county was required to rescind the resolution offering a PILOT agreement to Revel Industries that was previously approved. Greer said Revel is presently not in a position to complete the purchase of the spec building, due to a contract with Amazon.com not coming through as expected.
In other business:
–The county approved entering into a contract with TDOT for assistance in creation of an industrial access road for North American Caviar on Barnhill Lane. North American Caviar processes the tons of Asian Carp which are being removed from local waterways. The TDOT project is at no cost to the county.
–Fran Holberg asked for county support for a litter education initiative. She and another private citizen have identified 40 problem roads in the county in which litter is dumped. She and County Litter Program Director Diann McGuire have designed signs which state, “Keep Paris/Henry County Beautiful. Don’t Litter”. The signs are available for placement around the county, she said.
–Retiring BPU Employee George Combs thanked county commissioners for their kindnesses to him during his 44 year career.
Fran Holbert reports on the state of litter in Henry Co., while George Combs helps out with her signs and County Commissioner Dell Carter looks on.
Top photo: From left, Paris Mayor Carlton Gerrell, County Mayor Brent Greer and County Attorney Rob Whitfield report on the industrial news. (Shannon McFarlin photos).
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