Pulaski County officials plan to discuss a proposed west side industrial park with a potential tenant. Community Development Commission Executive Director Nathan Origer told the county commissioners last week he’s working with two potential businesses.
He said that attracting them to the new rail-served industrial park will depend upon timing. “One of them, his timing and the way he’s working, it’s really not very time-sensitive,” Origer said, “and so I’m working with him as it comes along, but there’s no rush.”
With the other possible tenant, Origer said he has some more research to do, to figure out whether the county will be able to work within its time-frame. “He’s working with some new technology with a company out of state, one of the first ones to implement it,” Origer explained. “So everything is sort of explorational for him, as well as for us.”
To further discuss the project, Origer planned to set up a meeting with the possible tenant, Pulaski County Council President Jay Sullivan, and one of the county commissioners, “Just to talk the details to see if it’s something where we want to go ahead and see what we can do, even if we don’t have everything worked out to try to make the whole project happen right now, to work with this person and see if his infrastructure needs are something that we can work with the town on doing sort of piecemeal just for him, rather than worrying about the whole project now, so that we can try to secure that.”
He said that depending on the business’s infrastructure needs, it may be able to purchase land directly from its current owner, rather than the county having to buy it first. While Pulaski County has been discussing a west side industrial park for some time, it hasn’t actually purchased the land yet. Recently, Origer has explored the possibility of getting grant funding to help cover the cost. However, he suggested buying it with county money to speed up the process, and using grant funds to add infrastructure later, once tenants’ needs are more clear.
