ROCKINGHAM — Another industrial park in Richmond County is close to filling up.
The Rockingham City Council on Tuesday approved the sale of 21 acres of land in the Rockingham West Industrial Park to Duke Energy.
City Manager Monty Crump said the power company plans to construct an operations center on the property — similar to what Piedmont Natural Gas has in the industrial park.
“Duke Energy purchased this property to support the growing demand for electricity in the city of Rockingham,” Senior Communications Manager Madison McDonald said in an email to the RO on Wednesday.
McDonald added that the operations center will provide more capacity for its material and employees and “enable us to better respond to and serve our customers in the area.”
Crump said the selling price of $121,000 exceeds what the city paid for the property — part of a 211-acre tract — in 1994.
Duke made an offer of $6,000 an acre and submitted the required 5% deposit and there were no upset bids in the 10-day period that ended Monday, according to Crump.
“With this sale, we’ll have recouped our initial investment and filled up the industrial park,” Crump said. “I think that’s pretty impressive.”
The city still owns around 160 acres out there, which was previously harvested for the timber.
Crump said there aren’t any other lots left, but there are 6.7 acres of land left at the end of the road in the park — but it “sits low and lays kinda funny.”
The city manager added that it’s possible that a company could locate there, as long as they didn’t need immediate road access.
Crump said the remaining property isn’t likely to be developed, but the city is growing pine trees which can later be cut to provide revenue.
This isn’t Duke’s only presence in Richmond County, with the Sherwood H. Smith Jr. Energy Complex located off Airport Road, south of Hamlet.
Duke Energy will be the sixth business in the Rockingham West Industrial Park.
Impact Plastics moved into a shell building — constructed by the Richmond County Economic Development Corporation — in 2020, making it the second in-county location for the company. The other location is on County Home Road, north of Hamlet.
That was the fifth shell building constructed.
In addition to Impact and Piedmont, three other companies currently occupy previous shell buildings in the industrial park: General Glass, CAI Ink and Latham Pool Products.
RCEDC is currently constructing its sixth shell building at the Richmond County Industrial Park off of the U.S. 74 Bypass.
Crews broke ground on the project about three weeks ago, County Manager Bryan Land told commissioners May 7.
The $2.5-million grant-funded building is expected to be completed by mid-November, Land said.
Land added that he and Butler are “excited…to have a 40,000-square-foot industrial building in our war chest to market” for companies “looking to call Richmond County home.”
REZONING APPROVED
Earlier in the meeting, the city council approved a request to rezone 4.6 acres on Richmond Road from Low Density Residential to Neighborhood Business.
John Massey, assistant city manager and city planner, said the request was made by Roberdel Baptist Church.
The church, Massey said, wants to erect an electronic sign on its property. However, those types of signs aren’t allowed in residential districts.
Massey added that the action wouldn’t be considered spot zoning because several adjacent properties are already zoned Neighborhood Business.
The recommendation was approved by the Planning Board on April 2, and the council approved the measure following a public hearing.
