BY MILES LAYTON

News posted to social media spreads fast but fails to provide perspective. 

After many years, MiTek is leaving Edenton, Chowan County – moving to Perquimans County… That much, many folks know. 

I went to Monday’s Perquimans County Commission meeting, so I know that MiTek, a Berkshire Hathaway company (Google Warren Buffet), will be relocating to a new plant that will be built within the next couple of years or so at the Perquimans Marine Industrial Park. 

“Perquimans County developed the Marine Industrial Park to bring high paying quality jobs to our community, and that goal has been accomplished. We look forward to the relationship with MiTek, and we are excited for the investment they are making in Perquimans County,” said County Manager Frank Heath.

More about Monday’s commission meeting will appear in a future story.

Gold Star Award

Remember how proud you were as a kid when you were awarded a gold star for memorizing Scripture passages in Sunday school? That was a big thing then. 

Thus, County Manager Heath and the Perquimans County Commission deserve a big gold star for signing MiTek at the marine industrial park. This is going to be a game changer for the county. Bringing over 80 jobs and $45 million in investment, MiTek is the world’s largest manufacturer of metal fasteners for roof truss construction. The company will use the Perquimans Basin to offload its raw materials for production. The plant will be located on 25 acres and around 350,000 square feet in size. 

“I believe, strongly believe that for a long time we’re going to look back on it and say this is a significant point in Perquimans County history that we have finally been able to see something happen in that project,” Perquimans County Commission Chairman Wallace Nelson said. “There were so many pieces came together… along the way we’ve been able to secure a lot of support from a lot of different agencies. I’d leave out some if I started trying to name them. Still, some of the more prominent ones, the Department of Commerce, I know multiple governor administrations during the years have been supportive and representatives and senators for the state have been supportive. You know we’ve finally seen this thing get built or at least the phase one of the basin and now we’re going to see a significant investment for MiTek. I want to say on behalf of all the commissioners, thanks to the whole MiTek company for looking at and considering Perquimans County.”

Best possible site was in Pirates’ country

I wouldn’t be me if I wasn’t thinking about why the company is moving from Chowan County, where it had long been in operation, to over the river and through the woods to the neighbor’s house.  

Answer – MiTek executives explained to the Perquimans County Commission that the plant needed more space and improved ability to get products to market. And they got a sweet financial incentives package.  

More space – MiTek envisions constructing a big, beautiful building – 350,000+ square feet. To put that kind of square footage in perspective, the world’s largest Harris Teeter grocery store in New Bern is 100,000 square feet – so the MiTek plant will be more than three times bigger than that – HUGE! 

“We produce more plates in Edenton than any other division in the country, so we go through a lot of steel,” said Mark Phelps, MiTek plant manager. “Basically like I said, the building has been there since the 60s. The earliest, the newest part was built in the 70s, and basically it’s worn out. You know, it wasn’t designed to do what we’re asking it to do. MiTek’s corporate offices told us to find a new piece of property to build a building.”

Phelps continued, “I live in Hertford, Ryan (Cook/Vice President of Manufacturing) lives in Edenton, and we thought that we would really like to keep it here (in our area). We don’t want to travel. So we looked at your place at the (Perquimans) Basin and it’s really ideal for what we want. We can expand and grow where we’re at. You know we have to have a new facility. This could be a state-of-the-art manufacturing site right here in town.”

Then there’s the property’s proximity to water. Let’s face it: railroad lines are few and far between in Northeastern NC. Rather than give a boring history of regional railroad construction and investment, let’s leave it like this – we have great waterways, so it’s been cheaper for large manufacturers to utilize the rivers and the Albemarle Sound over the long haul. Don’t believe me? Ask Nucor — a company that ships steel from Ahoskie.

Factoid alert — A barge has space enough for MiTek’s widgets to fill many, many 18-wheelers – while trucks have flexibility and benefits, sometimes the costs of truck transport far outweigh the hassle of logistics from barge or rail. Marine Park will be a good fit for MiTek.  

“We go through a lot of steel and a barge of steel can haul about the same amount as 120 truckloads of steel,” Cook said. “So to have that water site, that barge site there right beside the building, will be the biggest advantage of having that basin. And really, as a prerequisite, we either have to be on the water or on a rail line. Rail lines are kind of tough to come by in northeast North Carolina so the water is our next best option.”  

Build big — anticipated completion date for the plant is mid 2027.

“We’re going to get started right away as far as the planning, you know, with architects and engineers and site work, we would expect to get some at least started this year,” Cook said. “We’re going to have to do, you know, geotechnical work, borings and all that kind of stuff. We would expect that to happen this year, and then we would expect to break ground in the first half of next year with an anticipated completion date on the building or delivery on the building probably mid-2027. So, a building that is that size takes some time to put together.”

Art of the Deal

Despite what egghead economists and CNN journalists think, there is no such thing as a free lunch nor free trade. Here’s the fine print about MiTek’s move – the financial incentives offered by the county and state. 

Land – 25 acres at $25,000 an acre – total cost: $625,000

Leased land – .88 acres along the marine park’s southwest side– will be leased at 40 cents per square foot.  

Now here’s the sweet part – rather than me “filtering” the news like some idiot television journalist who suddenly became an expert economist when explaining tarriffs – what morons – here’s the notes from the commission’s agenda package about the deal’s economic incentives. The good parts I bolded for emphasis.   

The purpose of these grants would be to encourage the Company to construct and operate a truss component manufacturing facility that would be located on a multi-acre site in Perquimans County (the “Facility”). This proposal would appropriate and spend from the County’s general fund amounts to make certain cash grants, detailed as follows: If an investment threshold of $15,000,000 is met by MiTek, Inc. to the 25 +/- acre property located on the eastern edge of the Perquimans Marine Park basin, 50% of the original land purchase price of $625,000 for said parcel will be granted back to MiTek, Inc. If an investment threshold of $30,000,000 is met on the above-mentioned property, 100% of the original land purchase price will be granted to MiTek, Inc. MiTek, Inc. must make said investments within 3 years of the purchase and lease dates to qualify. The cash grants described above would be conditioned on the Company’s paying the applicable real property and personal property taxes for each year of ownership.

Think about that for a minute – if the company does what it says it’s going to do, then it gets $625,000 worth of land for the plant for FREE, but not really — the company has to spend $30 million first. That’s like a car salesman saying we’ll give you a new set of tires if you drive this Jaguar off the lot.

And though $30 million investment is a good starting point, it could be more.

“We would expect on a low end to be at $30 million,” Cook said. “More realistically, we’re probably talking in the 40 million, 45 million dollar range. We haven’t fully developed the plans for that building yet, but I would expect it to be somewhere in that neighborhood.”

Spend money to make money  

Economic Development – from the meeting/agenda notes:  

The Company’s construction and operation of the Facility would further the economic interests of the County in numerous ways, including through the following specific benefits: (a) by creating a construction project at the Facility that would last approximately nine months which, in addition to creating employment at the Facility, would likely result in greater revenues to local businesses; (b) by offering a number of full-time jobs at the completed Facility with an average wage greater than the median wage in the County; (c) by enhancing the County’s property tax base and increasing the County’s property tax revenues; and (d) by supporting the diversification of the County’s economy. In addition to holding the public hearing, at this meeting the Board of Commissioners of the County may approve the making of the cash grants as described above and may approve and enter into an economic development agreement with MiTek, Inc. 

Cook put this into perspective.

“So currently we employ 80 in the Chowan county site. We would expect to bring most of those 80 over, but we would expect that would be the minimum amount of jobs that we would have coming into Perquimans county would be that 80. There is a potential to expand that, especially with a larger footprint. And a lot of it really depends upon the housing market, which we know in the US, they say we’re about 4 million homes underbuilt right now. So, although the market is seasonal and a little bit up and down right now with interest rates, the long-term future of the market we expect will continue to grow, which would just bring more jobs.”

Moreover, these deals to attract big companies are not uncommon. Here’s one of our stories about Project Teapot – a company, assisted by local government support, plans to bring jobs to Edenton and spur economic developemnt in Chowan County.    

Long-story-short, by investing in MiTek, Perquimans County builds a stronger economic base that may, in time, attract not only more industry but residents to the county and region. 

SUBSCRIBE

If you want to subscribe, check out our website at https://albemarleobserver.news/

If you want to subscribe – you can enter your email address at the website or send it to us at albemarle.observer@gmail.com and we will gladly add you to our growing subscriber list.  Your information will never be sold or used for any purpose. We will send you an email every time we publish a story.

If you want to donate, there’s a spot on the website for that – or you can mail a check to 205 East Church Street, Apt. A, Edenton, NC 27932.  

If you want to contribute a story or news tip, send it to albemarle.observer@gmail.com