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Published Wednesday, October 29, 2008 in Local

Investors get red carpet tour of Coweta

By Jeff Bishop

The Newnan Times-Herald

A busload of potential investors participated in the Coweta County Development Authority's "Developers Day" Wednesday, touring Newnan, Grantville and Senoia industrial parks and getting a taste of what Coweta has to offer.

"We want to show off some of our hot spots," Coweta County Development Authority President Bill Harrison told the group as it began its tour at Coweta Industrial Park Wednesday morning. "We'd like for you to see first-hand some of the things that are happening in Coweta County."

"We encourage you to bring something here," echoed Coweta County Commissioner Randolph Collins. "We pledge to do what it takes to bring the jobs here that we need, and we thank you very much for coming."

The tour began with Ben Stafford of Pattillo Construction Company talking up Coweta Industrial Park, with its 13 sites of 110 acres each.

"This is a 790-acre park," said Stafford, "with one side having access to the CSX railroad and the other side with frontage to I-85."

Redmond Machinery is already at the park, and construction is under way on the 458,546-square-foot "Project Surge" electronics distribution facility.

Next, the bus toured Ashley Park lifestyle center and the Shenandoah Industrial Park.

"One of the things you'll get an impression of is just how big this county is," Harrison told the developers. "You'll see just how much land and space there is. It's roughly the same size as Gwinnett County, but they have a million people." Coweta, by contrast, has about 120,000.

"So there's plenty of room for expansion and growth," said Harrison.

Harrison pointed out that there's still more than 500 acres of undeveloped land in Shenandoah Industrial Park.

"It's properly zoned and fully-served, but there are some development challenges," Harrison said.

He showed the developers where the Chinese Kingwasong soy sauce plant will open operations "hopefully in May."

"They've had some problems with getting their engineers over here to put the thing together," said Harrison. "They've had some visa problems."

The group stopped by the Newnan-Coweta Airport near Moreland and chatted with airport manager Calvin Walker.

"We have 30 acres on the east side with water and septic," Walker said. "This would be great for an aviation business or a corporate hangar facility."

Tom Barranco of Pope and Land showcased the Bridgeport "megasite" property just north of Moreland. The 1,415 acres is unique in the metro Atlanta area, both because of its size and because of its access to rail and I-85.

"We have three miles of frontage on the interstate and two miles of rail frontage," Barranco said.

"The property is not currently zoned" for industrial use, he said, but the company expects to go forward with that next year.

"We are working on all of our development issues," he said.

Jerry Silvio led the tour of the 195-acre Grantville industrial park, which is still in the infant stages.

The owners of the site are "going to be very aggressive when they pull the switch on this project," Silvio said. The park will benefit from being roughly halfway between the new Kia automotive site in West Point and downtown Atlanta, he said.

"The timber has already been removed," said Silvio. "The pricing will be in the $40,000 to $50,000 per acre range, when developed."

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