Is it for Sierra Nevada? Henderson County board to hold public hearing on incentives package Dec. 12

Posted on by Jeff Fobes

A Dec. 12 public hearing regarding incentives package for an unnamed company may be for Sierra Nevada Brewing Company, which is known to be considering the Asheville area as a site for an East Coast brewery. It could also be for New Belgium, a second craft brewer looking at Asheville for its East Coast expansion. Here’s the text advertising the public hearing:

HENDERSON COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS
PUBLIC HEARING TO CONSIDER ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT INCENTIVES FOR PROJECT 300 COMPANY

12 December 2011 at 5:30 o’clock p.m.

NOTICE FOR THIS HEARING was published in the Hendersonville Tribune on 1 December 2011.

SUMMARY:
“Project 300 Company” is a manufacturing concern currently located outside Henderson County contemplating locating an additional facility in Henderson County. It has requested to remain anonymous at this time due to competitive pressures.

Under the project as proposed, the public benefit to be derived from the capital project is a total taxable capital investment by Project 300 Company of at least $45,000,000.00 in real estate improvements, and at least $70,000,000.00 in business personal property (equipment).

The project would result in the creation of not fewer than one hundred twenty-five (125) new jobs, at an average wage in excess of the County’s average manufacturing wage for full-time employment, plus other benefits. The contemplated incentives would be to assist the Company with some or all of land acquisition, site development and preparation, water, sewerage, and construction. The incentives, in a total maximum amount of $3,750,000.00, would be accounted for over a period of seven years, based on the size and scope of the new investment, the number of new employees, and the Board’s incentives guidelines.

If the Board is so inclined, the following motion is suggested: I move that the Board grant economic development incentives to the Project 300 Company in a maximum amount of $3,750,000.00, and direct that staff attempt to negotiate a contract with the company for incentives, and bring that contract back before this Board for final approval.

Thanks to Russ Bowen for the heads-up about the public notice.

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About Jeff Fobes
As a long-time proponent of media for social change, my early activities included coordinating the creation of a small community FM radio station to serve a poor section of St. Louis, Mo. In the 1980s I served as the editor of the "futurist" newsletter of the U.S. Association for the Club of Rome, a professional/academic group with a global focus and a mandate to act locally. During that time, I was impressed by a journalism experiment in Mississippi, in which a newspaper reporter spent a year in a small town covering how global activities impacted local events (e.g., literacy programs in Asia drove up the price of pulpwood; soybean demand in China impacted local soybean prices). Taking a cue from the Mississippi journalism experiment, I offered to help the local Green Party in western North Carolina start its own newspaper, which published under the name Green Line. Eventually the local party turned Green Line over to me, giving Asheville-area readers an independent, locally focused news source that was driven by global concerns. Over the years the monthly grew, until it morphed into the weekly Mountain Xpress in 1994. I've been its publisher since the beginning. Mountain Xpress' mission is to promote grassroots democracy (of any political persuasion) by serving the area's most active, thoughtful readers. Consider Xpress as an experiment to see if such a media operation can promote a healthy, democratic and wise community. In addition to print, today's rapidly evolving Web technosphere offers a grand opportunity to see how an interactive global information network impacts a local community when the network includes a locally focused media outlet whose aim is promote thoughtful citizen activism. Follow me @fobes
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2 thoughts on “Is it for Sierra Nevada? Henderson County board to hold public hearing on incentives package Dec. 12”

  1. LOKEL

    The “numbers” here do not match the figures that were bandied about when the story first broke that Black Mountain was the potential site for this brewery …

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