Writer: Joshua Andino
2 min read March 2023 — Three months into 2023, and North Carolina’s local officials are hard at work strategizing over what’s next for their respective counties. As the region’s growth continues, the outlying counties around Charlotte proper and Mecklenburg County continue to receive increased attention. Invest: spoke to Kim Eagle, county Manager for Gaston County, and Chris Platé, executive director for Monroe-Union County Economic Development Council, to see where they saw the priorities moving forward and what they were working on today.
What have been some of the recent wins for the region?
Kim Eagle: Across the whole region, there’s been massive growth in warehousing spec space. Four or five years ago, there would be a 300,000- or 400,000-square-foot building for two or maybe three tenants. Now, we’ve seen the size of the buildings grow substantially, especially in the upper end, to around 700,000 square feet or even a million square feet. The Charlotte metro region is delivering a substantially larger amount of square footage each year than we did just a couple of years ago.
Chris Platé: Last year was an extremely busy year for us. We ended our calendar year with $271 million in new capital investment, but one of the biggest trends for us has been the increase in our labor force, which grew by about 1,000 people per month from January to August. We now have a labor force exceeding 130,000 people in the local labor force now. That kind of growth is great and needed, because these people are getting hired very quickly. We need to make sure we remain attractive for in-migration from other states to ensure an available labor force for our companies. Because of the increased economic activity, we have sold almost every developed site or building, so we are working to rebuild our inventory for future prospective companies and expanding firms.
What are the issues are you currently navigating?
Eagle: When I think about our accomplishments from the past year, it’s not just business and industry, it’s also trying to be attentive to those who are most vulnerable in the community. We’ve spent a tremendous amount of time this past year working toward positive progress with our homeless population. We have the opioid settlement dollars that are coming in response to another very significant issue in the community. For a healthy, vibrant community, it’s important to me that we take all those pieces into account.
Platé: Inflation is the newest issue to the culminating headwinds projects are facing. People are having to anticipate their needs earlier, like HVAC. So many critical items are taking at least a year to arrive.
I think, as a whole, we have done a good job thus far of mitigating these challenges, but it’s about moving different pieces methodically. It takes time to put a good strategy together and even more time to “work the plan”. Union County and North Carolina are still in a good place, but we must have the product in place to win quality projects.
What’s your outlook for the remainder of the year heading into the future?
Eagle: We’re in a critical moment for the county. We’re seeing unprecedented growth and change in the county from how it’s evolved over time. One of the last counties in the Charlotte metro region that hadn’t fully grown out is seeing its full growth potential. We’re seeing that now, and with that comes opportunities and challenges. But we’re also in the middle of a rebound. Compared to some of our neighboring counties, we haven’t peaked yet. That’s actually a really positive thing because we’re still building the county out and still investing in infrastructure. The state is as well. We think Gaston is probably extremely ready for any kind of economic movement, whether that’s north or south in regard to that, because we’re still trending upward, we haven’t plateaued. That is providing the opportunity to tackle some large projects, from a capital investment standpoint, that we might not have been able to do previously.
Platé: Locally, my team is still trying to put together pieces around agriculture and food. The pandemic demonstrated the need to have food and other essential resources nearby. We want to continue to grow the manufacturing of critical components and remain focused on aerospace. Electronics and medical devices are other areas that we are continuing to recruit.
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