Floyd To Join Forces with Bartow and Polk to Boost Economic Development
Looking at what is now a white hot area of development, plans to create a joint development authority comprising Floyd County, Bartow County and Polk County.
Northwest Georgia has been a hotbed of economic activity over the past year with the build of the SK On/Hyundai battery plant and announcements by Qcells, Microsoft and SOLARCYCLE. There’s no indication that it’s slowing down, Rome-Floyd County Development Authority President Missy Kendrick said.
A development authority is essentially an independent government agency developed for a specific purpose: in this case to promote economic and industrial development in a specific area.
The purpose of a multi-county authority is to allow the entity to work across county lines — like the Gordon-Floyd Joint Development Authority. That entity is responsible for recruiting industries, like Synthica Energy, to locate in its jurisdiction.
Polk County and Bartow County have already approved the plan and the measure should go before the Floyd County Commission in January.
Floyd County will have two seats at the table, the chair of the Rome-Floyd County Development Authority and an at-large member will be appointed to the board.
“The fact that Bartow County is growing toward Floyd and Floyd is growing toward Bartow and 411 is just really hot, I think this is a great thing to do,” Authority Chair Jimmy Byars said.
At this point, the creation of the joint development authority won’t require a financial investment, Kendrick said. The first step is to come up with the focus of that authority.
At this point it will focus on certain development corridors like U.S. 411 from Floyd to Bartow, Ga. 101 from Floyd to Polk and Ga. 113 from Bartow to Polk, Kendrick said.
As Floyd looks more toward those corridors, there’s also talk about the dissolution of the development authority partnership with Gordon County.
That authority was created to promote the development of a jointly owned 65-acre Northwest Georgia Industrial Park located off of Ga. 53 and Hermitage Road in north Floyd County. Much of that land has already been sold — most recently to Synthica Energy and Power and Rubber Supply.
“They do not plan to proceed beyond the sale of the last remaining acreage we have in the Northwest Georgia site,” Kendrick said.