Good utility rates and the area’s people were the driving force behind a company relocating to Lenoir and creating new jobs.
Van Brown, owner of Carolina Prime Pets, said Tuesday that the move also coincided with more personal reasons to be in the area.
Brown was the man of the hour at the Broyhill Civic Center on Tuesday during the official announcement that he’s moving his company into the former NACCO Industries building on Morganton Boulevard SW, in Lenoir. It will create around 150 jobs within the next two to three years. Carolina Prime Pets, which makes pet treats, currently leases a 60,000-square-foot space in Murphy and employs around 25 workers, Brown said.
The company plans to buy and renovate the 277,411-square-foot NACCO Industries building for around $4.5 million. Its major customers include PetSmart, Petco and Costco, as well as private labels for grocery chains, Brown said.
Good electric and natural gas rates are something that attracted Brown to the area.
“We needed that because we’re an expanding industry using more and more energy,” Brown said.
In addition, the area feels like home for Brown, who hails from Cherokee County. He also has a daughter that just started school at Appalachian State University and his first grandchild, born in September, lives in Charlotte.
For Caldwell County officials, the move has been more than welcomed. The NACCO building has been vacant for seven years, say officials.
Caldwell County has suffered one of the highest unemployment rates in the region.
“There is not a community in North Carolina that wouldn’t trade places with us today,” Deborah Murray, director of Caldwell County Economic Development Commission, told the crowd gathered for the announcement Tuesday.
The company has received financing in the form of Industrial Revenue Bonds up to $4 million through the NC Department of Commerce. Caldwell County commissioners also agreed to provide an economic development incentive to the company with $296,000, or $2000 per job, from the county’s Sales Tax Reinvestment Fund.
Caldwell officials say the company has the potential to expand beyond the projected 150 employees.
Brown said he wants the company’s name to be known in the $7 billion pet treat market. He’s pushing to get the needed equipment moved into the Lenoir facility in the next four or five months.
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