New textile company eyes Kings Mountain
The city of Kings Mountain will be holding a public meeting next month to discuss a new potential economic development project.
Matt Blackwell, with development services for the city of Kings Mountain, said a public hearing will be held April 11 at 6 p.m. at City Hall, 101 W. Gold St.
Blackwell said "Project Ball" as it has been designated, will be discussed in greater detail along with the proposed three-year incentive agreements the city plans to offer the company.
City Council voted to approve the public hearing at its Tuesday meeting and heard a presentation on the project.
Blackwell said N.C. General Statute allows City Council to provide certain economic development incentives to businesses and industries who are investing in the community, creating jobs and diversifying the economy.
"This project does meet all those provisions, and we're working on an economic development agreement," Blackwell said. "The proposed agreement would be three-year incentives."
Although he said he couldn't yet get into details about the company, he said Project Ball represents a textile manufacturing operation, and the company is considering an existing facility in the city of Kings Mountain.
"This existing facility was recently vacated late last year in late October, early November," Blackwell said.
He said a previous manufacturing operation had been located in the building but shut down.
"It's exciting that we had a closure, lost 30 plus jobs at that time, but now we have an opportunity to put the same building back into productive use with a proposed net new investment of $9.5 million in that facility, both in upgrades in the real property and personal property," he said.
Blackwell said the company intends to create 84 new full-time jobs with an average annual salary of $63,000.
He said more than 70 of the 84 jobs would pay over $50,000.
"That is really really good in our community," he said. "We're excited to have a company of this caliber considering the city of Kings Mountain."
He said the project does remain confidential at this time because it is under consideration for a state grant.
"So those projects must remain confidential until such time as the governor makes a successful announcement the company is locating here," Blackwell said. "This project represents a great opportunity to put a recently vacated building in our community back into productive use."
Following the public hearing in April, City Council will vote on the proposed incentives the city plans to offer Project Ball.
"Cleveland County is also been asked by Cleveland County Economic Development Partnership to support this project with a local incentive agreement, very similar to what we would be proposing for the city of Kings Mountain, as well as supporting the company with what's called a building reuse grant to help them leverage funds from the state to make certain renovations to that building to put back into productive use."
Reach reporter Rebecca Sitzes at rsitzes@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on The Shelby Star: New textile company eyes Kings Mountain
