The right site: North Carolina's industrial parks come in a wide array of sizes and uses.

• Author: Wood, Suzanne
• Position: SPONSORED SECTION: SPECEAL REPORT: INDUSTRIAL PARKS

Although North Carolina has yet to land a major automaker at one of its four shovel-ready megasites, one community got a taste of what such a deal would mean. In December, an international tire maker announced it would build its first plant outside China at the 1,449-acre Kingsboro megasite in Edgecombe County.

Triangle Tyre, based in Weihai, China, will invest $580 million in a facility that will manufacture both passenger and commercial tires, employing up to 800 people at full capacity. Coming just before the holidays, the Triangle Tyre announcement gave residents a reason to celebrate in the five-county area the company will serve. And, it was an encouraging sign to economic developers and officials in communities near the other sites that success comes in many forms.

"It was an early Christmas present," says Oppie Jordan, vice president of the Carolinas Gateway Partnership, a regional economic development agency. Most of the jobs will be skilled, with the average salary nearly $57,000, which is about $20,000 more than the average wage in Edgecombe County. For these and other reasons, Jordan calls the announcement "game-changing."

Triangle Tyre is the first manufacturer to locate at one of North Carolina's megasites, all of which courted the Toyota-Mazda manufacturing facility that ended up in Alabama. The Kingsboro megasite is 5 miles east of Rocky Mount and 6 miles west of Tarboro. It's an hour from Raleigh, and rail carrier CSX has service adjacent to the site.

The Chatham-Siler City megasite consists of 1,818 buildable acres in three sections. It has direct access to the Norfolk Southern rail line and is within 50 miles of Raleigh-Durham International Airport and Piedmont Triad International Airport.

The Greensboro-Randolph megasite has 1,900 acres and is less than 10 miles from Interstate 85 via U.S. 421. The state's three major airports are within 100 miles of this site.

The Moncure megasite is located close to Research Triangle Park and is the largest of the four sites, with 2,500 acres. It is a 45-minute drive from Raleigh.

But as companies have shown, an industrial park doesn't have to be "mega" to attract big-name tenants employing hundreds of people. Across the state, dozens of parks, including some specialized ones, are filling their acreage with companies that don't require the space of an auto plant but want the highway access and infrastructure assurances offered by an industrial park.

In Davidson County, the first tenant to sign on at the county-owned 1-85 Corporate Center near Linwood rivals the Triangle Tyre project in size and...