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“I think we’ve ...set the stage for a large industry now with this waterline,”
Pittsylvania County - Once the ribbon fluttered to the ground during Monday’s ribbon cutting at Brosville Industrial Park on U.S. 58, Pittsylvania County’s economic future suddenly expanded beyond even what the Board of Supervisors had initially envisioned.
Along with the opening of the park comes the projected completion date of a waterline that will bring water to both U.S. 58 and the industrial park.
“I think we’ve kind of set the stage for a large industry now with this waterline,” Tunstall Supervisor Tim Barber said Tuesday. Barber, who took over the push on the waterline project initiated by Westover Supervisor Coy Harville, believes the park will play a significant role in the county’s economic future.
“Danny Marshall said the Dan River Region is the fastest growing area in Virginia as far as job growth,” Barber said. “We (supervisors) feel like this waterline is going to be just another tool in attracting job growth and industry in the county.”
Brosville Industrial Park is in Barber’s district and was the first major project he tackled as a new supervisor three years ago. “We started talking about this in 2004, feeding the Brosville park for fire flow. The Brosville park is about a $10 million industrial park,” he said. “I’ve been working on it for three years. It’s been a pretty difficult project to pull off. “We had two jurisdictions involved, a federal grant, tobacco grant. It started off as a small project then turned into a 17-mile project going all the way to Philpot.”
Barber, Harville and County Administrator Dan Sleeper all said they had the full support of the entire Board of Supervisors on the project. Harville, who said he initiated the project with Virgil Goode, said it has grown rapidly.
“I asked Virgil Goode for a million dollar grant, which would help us do the preliminary engineering work to get it going,” he said. “Now we’ve got this.”Harville, chairman of the Board of Supervisors, noted, “My original concept of the waterline was that if we could get that water from Henry County, from Philpot, down 58 to the Brosville area, that the next step I would like to see was to take the water across the county and head to 29 north.
“Take it past Tunstall where the schools could be connected to it. In the future, it could go all the way to Halifax.”
The waterline is the first cooperative venture between the Henry County Public Service Authority, Pittsylvania County Public Service Authority and the Board of Supervisors.
Cost for the project is estimated at $5.7 million, with grants from the Economic Development Administration and the Virginia Tobacco Indemnification and Community Revitalization Commission covering most of the cost. Henry County will contribute $1.25 million and Pittsylvania County will pay $700,000.
From Harville’s first request for a $1 million grant to an eventual $10 million in grants and funding, the industrial park and the accompanying waterline means the county will be more attractive to prospective industries, supervisors said.
“I think it’s a history making project. We’ve got water on 58 now and we’ve got enough water to provide for industry,” Barber said.
“We’re getting ready to go to bids in October,” Harville added. “The line will be completed next year, so we’re moving.”
By REBECCA BLANTON
Register & Bee staff writerTuesday
September 18, 2007
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