Central Arkansas cities pursuing industry.

Jacksonville Begins Formation of Five-Year Economic Plan

FROM A RESEARCH PROJECT in Jacksonville to the creation of a new industrial park near Cabot, economic development in central Arkansas has been booming.

Last year, Jacksonville received a $75,000-$25,000 matching federal grant for economic development. For about nine months, Phil Sullivan and Rona Scott, director and assistant director of the Office of Economic Development, have done intensive research to develop a five-year plan for the city.

The two interviewed executives in the industrial sector, retail and service sectors and in the health care sector of Jacksonville.

"Primarily what we did this year was set a good foundation for us to work from, based on compiling all the economic development information about the city," Scott says. "Probably the most important step we did was take the results of the study to the city and have public hearings. They've been very successful."

At the end of the year, the five-year strategic plan for Jacksonville will be determined. The city already has developed tools such as a community profile and a marketing packet for the city's industrial recruiter. The vision statement adopted for the city is "Jacksonville--the city of choice, centrally located, committed to work in partnership to meet the needs of its citizens -- a safe clean place to live, work and grow."

In the last few years, Jacksonville also has tried to recruit several industries, specifically the plastics industry.

"We're in the process of trying to locate a new industrial park in Jacksonville," Mayor Tommy Swaim says. The city has set aside $500,000 for the park. There are only small parcels of land available in Jacksonville's existing Pulaski Industrial Park.

Jacksonville's stability is intertwined with the Little Rock Air Force Base, although the city has a strong industrial base, Swaim says.

For a year, Jacksonville has been a pilot city for the WAGE (Workforce Alliance for Growth in Economy) Program, a worker training program which has found jobs for 25 unemployed people.

Seventeen of this year's 31 graduates received jobs from $17,000-$30,000 after the training, says Diana Gunlock, executive director of the Jacksonville Chamber of Commerce. The others are continuing their educations. Hundreds of adults have participated in the first year of the program, and 52 have earned their general equivalency diplomas.

Industrial Park Near Cabot

At Cabot, the North Lonoke County Economic Development Corp. recently purchased 76 acres adjacent to U.S. Highway 67-167 and state Highway 89 for an industrial park site. The land was formerly part of a farm.

LITTLE ROCK/NLR MSA

1993 UNEMPLOYMENT RATE                  4.8%
1994 5-MONTH UNEMPLOYMENT RATE          4.3%
NET EMPLOYMENT GROWTH/5 Mos. '94        2.3%

The park will have heavily restrictive covenants, says Cliff Christopher, pastor of Cabot United Methodist Church and president of the Cabot Chamber of Commerce. The development corporation wants capital intensive industrial development firms, instead of labor-intensive firms, seeking to locate their headquarters in Arkansas. It is also looking for other sites for development.

Only one block of road needs to be built to the park before a company could begin building on the site.

J.M. Park, president of the Bank of Cabot, is chairman of the development corporation.

Cabot wants to improve its business tax base to provide funds for the school district, which has a reputation as one of the best in the state, although it spends less per pupil than any district in Arkansas.

"Cabot has realized it can no longer depend on the [Little Rock] Air Force Base and being a bedroom to Little Rock to thrive," says Christopher, who is also vice chairman of the development corporation. "We need to add another leg to the stool to be more stable. And everything we do in our schools is built on the backs of the homeowners."

Cabot has enrolled in the Arkansas Community of Excellence Program with the Arkansas Industrial Development Commission and expects to be an ACE community within a few months.

Both the Cabot and Ward chambers of commerce initiated the North Lonoke County Economic Development Corp.

Targeting Little Rock

This year, the Greater Little Rock Chamber of Commerce has sent members of its Target Industry Recruiting Program to New Jersey, southern and northern California, Chicago and Ohio. In about a month, they will visit Texas.

The group targets specific industries in each location and puts out feelers for companies planning to open new plants. Wisconsin and Minnesota also will be visited next year. The chamber is committed to visit each of the sites annually.

"We have some major, major prospects under way," says Paul Latture, the chamber's vice president for economic development. Three or four firms, with about 1,000 potential jobs, are considering Little Rock, he says.

Next month, the chamber will begin a joint effort with the City Board of Directors to inform businesses in Little Rock about the possibilities for expansion here.

"A business that has been here awhile may not be aware that the same incentives to bring somebody in from Chicago are available for folks if they expand here," Latture says.

The biggest economic development success for Little Rock this year was the recent announcement by Southwest Airlines that it will locate a $10 million reservations center here.

Another major success for the area was the new plant DeWafelbakkers Inc. opened in North Little Rock this year. Both the Little Rock and North Little Rock chambers worked jointly on the DeWafelbakkers plant.

Out of Space at Benton

Shannon Lancaster, president of the Saline County Industrial Development Council, says the industrial park has sold its last 80 acres of space in the past year.

The land was sold to Memphis Drum Service for a 50,000-SF plant that should open in October and will recycle 55-gallon drums; Danville Veneer, which will build a 20,000-SF facility; and PROWOOD Co., a 4-year-old firm that will use it for future development. Arkansas Labeling Co., another tenant in the industrial park, is expanding its facilities by one-third.

"We are trying to purchase land for an industrial park, but that's difficult to do because of the growth rate here," Lancaster says. "We'd like to have another 120 acres, but so would everybody else. Everybody wants to relocate in rural parts of the county because of the schools. We can't build houses fast enough now."

He says in the past eight years about 500 jobs have been created in the county.

"The main reason businesses locate here is the community and the people in the county," Lancaster says.

Lancaster calls the success ratio tremendous for attracting business to Benton and Saline County.