TWO SIDES OF THE SAME STORY.

• Author: Blake, Kathy
• Position: COMMUNITY CLOSE-UP NASH & EDGECOMBE COUNTIES

Nash and Edgecombe counties are writing a self-made tale. They already have completed the first chapters of a bright future by developing business opportunities and creating welcoming communities.

Rocky Mount is about an hour car ride east of Raleigh on U.S. 64, where the piedmont becomes the coastal plain. The city, where the U.S. Census counted almost 55,000 residents in 2020, is split by the Tar River and the county line shared by Edgecombe and Nash. Through its center runs a train track, which binds the sides like a closed zipper. "My office is in the Helen R Gay train station," says David Farris, president and CEO of Rocky Mount Area Chamber of Commerce. "The train comes through numerous times a day. That's the sound of commerce, and it's music to my ears."

Amtrak uses the station's main building. It's adjacent to the bus terminal used by Tar RiverTransit and Greyhound. Across from Farris' office is home base for Carolinas Gateway Partnership, which promotes economic development in Rocky Mount and Edgecombe County. Nash County Economic Development markets its namesake county, including its county seat, Nashville. Both say that business recruitment is doing well. Tenants are occupying shell buildings. Big money is being invested. The sounds of commerce are becoming louder. But it hasn't always been a happy tune.

The region's economy recently took two major blows. The first was television shopping network QVC's 1.5-million-square-foot distribution center in Rocky Mount, which burned in December. Crews worked 10 days to contain what is the state's largest structure fire. QVC announced it wasn't rebuilding earlier this year, snuffing out 2,000 jobs in the process.

China-based Triangle Tyre, which committed to investing $580 million and creating 800 jobs at the Kingsboro Business Park, a 1,500-acre site Carolinas Gateway Partnership had been marketing for nearly two decades, canceled its plans in May. Published reports say several issues refocused the manufacturer's efforts on its business needs in China. "They couldn't resolve the politics and neither could we," says Carolinas Gateway Partnership President and CEO NorrisTolson. "What we learned was that the U.S. in that period of time lost $45 billion in Chinese investment during the previous administration."

N.C. Department of Commerce annually ranks the economic health of the state's 100 counties. Edgecombe and Nash were branded Tier 1--among the 40 most economically distressed--this year. Two years ago, Commerce labeled Edgecombe the state's most economically distressed county for the fourth consecutive year. "[Edgecombe County has] high unemployment," Tolson says. "But we are one of the most aggressive counties, and that's important because you also have to close projects. [In mid-June], we were working 84 projects. And [Carolinas Gateway Partnership Vice President Oppie Jordan] is getting one or two projects a week. The minute word got out that Triangle Tyre was leaving, we had eight people looking."

BUSINESS BOOM

Nash County Economic Development Director Andy Hagy has felt the winds of economic change the past two years. They blow in large part because of the COVID-19 pandemic. "We're realizing that what is actually produced internationally and not here at home, that shift is coming, where even international companies--and we've just located two international companies--are realizing that if they're going...