quote

It is a wise man who plants a tree in the shade of which he knows he will never sit. -- Greek proverb --

Judge each day not by the harvest you reap but by the seeds you plant. -- Robert Louis Stevenson --

From On High - Coming to you from a secured redoubt on Big Walker Mountain in the heart of Virginia's Blue Ridge.

Friday, October 13, 2006

This Is Big

While we high-five one another around here when our many hiking trails and bike paths produce an employee somewhere, a manufacturer has announced its intention to build a facility in Danville and ...

... 740 Virginians and their families will have a future:

IKEA subsidiary headed for Danville
By Jamie C. Ruff, Richmond Times-Dispatch Staff Writer


Danville - Gov. Timothy M. Kaine announced today that a furniture manufacturing subsidiary of the Swedish home furnishings giant IKEA will build a plant in the Danville area and employ 740.

The announcement is being cheered in Danville, whose economy has been wracked by an exodus of manufacturing jobs in recent years - most notably the sale and shutdown of Dan River Mills.

The IKEA subsidiary is Swedwood North America, and Kaine said the factory will be built in Cane Creek Centre, an industrial park in Pittsylvania County being developed by the county and city of Danville. (
link)

The acquisition came at a price, of course:
  • $3 million grant from the Governor's Opportunity Fund.
  • A $1 million grant from the Virginia Investment Partnership program.
  • Tobacco Region Opportunity Funds totaling $2.4 million.
  • Eligibility for unspecified benefits from the Virginia Enterprise Zone Program.
  • Up to $1.35 million in rail and economic access grants from the Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation and the Virginia Department of Transportation
  • Training assistance through the state's Workforce Services Jobs Investment Program.

We live in an age when corporate taxes are high in part so that politicians can take the revenue and dole it out ... to corporations. I wish we could simply provide for an enticing investment environment (not a revolutionary concept; they have perfected it in Estonia and Latvia for God's sake) so that our governor wouldn't have to work so hard buying businesses for the commonwealth.

But I am not going to rain on the parade. This is great news for a tortured region. May IKEA actually fulfill its promises.

Hat tip to Tugboat Phil

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