Martinsville-Henry County Economic Development Corporation

County OKs purchase of tracts

Aug 29, 2007
By Bulletin STAFF. The Henry County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously Tuesday to exercise its option to buy two tracts of land to use for industrial parks.

The county will spend $2,174,200 to buy 621 acres near the North Carolina line from Roma Realty LLC and about $2.3 million for a 1,206-acre property near Barrows Mill Road owned by Clayton C. Bryant of Appomattox.

The county took $50,000 options to buy both properties in February. Those option payments will be applied to the purchase prices.

The county has plans to use both of these properties for future industrial parks. The new parks are necessary, officials have said, because the county no longer has the land for larger industrial sites in its current parks.

Henry County Administrator Benny Summerlin said taking the options made sense after environmental studies found no problems with the sites.

He said that when the county closes on the sites, which will happen by October or November, it puts a major new tool in our economic “inventory.”

Supervisors Chairman H.G. Vaughn agreed.

“I think those two (sites) are going to be key players in our economic future,” he said.

Vaughn said that people should know that the debt service (interest) on the Patriot Centre site will end next year. After financing the purchases, the county will be paying about the same amount in debt service for these two sites as it was paying for the Patriot Centre, so it will not have a major impact on its budget.