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Valdese learns when money talks, industry walks

Saft chooses to build new plant in Florida

By Sharon McBrayer | The News Herald

Published: May 5, 2009

Valdese - Burke County lost out to Florida in attracting a business that is looking to build a new plant.
But it wasn't for a lack of effort.
The town of Valdese, Burke County, the state and others worked for two months on a bid to get Saft, a maker of batteries, to build a new plant in the town. The existing plant will remain in Valdese.
Jeff Morse, Valdese town manager, said he received a phone call from Saft in mid-March, requesting he meet with the company's president. When he did, he was told there is $2 billion in the federal stimulus package to meet hybrid battery production to convert military vehicles and tanks with hybrid batteries.
That would mean building a new plant and hiring people, Morse was told. It would have meant 150 jobs in the first three years and a possible 600 to 700 jobs over a 15-year-period, Morse said.
Saft officials sent out what's called a Review for Proposal to all communities with Saft plants. Nine states were in competition, Morse said. The Review for Proposal is a type of questionnaire which looks for information on the tax rate, work force training, tax credits and grants available and electricity costs, among other things, he said.
"We had two weeks to pull all this information together and send it off," Morse said.
The company was looking for a location that could produce a battery at the lowest cost, Morse said.
When he got the word, Morse put together a group of leaders that could help mobilize state and federal officials to lobby for the project to be located in Valdese. He also got local officials to help put together a proposal to convince the company that Valdese and Burke County would be the best location to be.
"We got the state to put together an aggressive package," Morse said.
Gov. Beverly Perdue even got involved, interrupting a visit to Asheville to meet with the president of the company in Valdese and to throw her support behind the project, Morse said.
State Senate and House of Representatives officials also were supportive of the effort to get the project.
"I, personally, feel the state went above and beyond the call of duty," Morse said.
Other agencies in the state offered grants.
A wrinkle occurred, though, when Morse and other leaders found out some states were offering buildings and land. That's when local officials decided to buy the land, build the building and lease it back to the company. It would have cost $11 million, Morse said. The town and county, though, were trying to get grants to help pay for the project, he said.
However, no commitments from the state or other agencies occurred because no award of the project was made, Morse said.
After the town and county got everything needed for a competitive offer, the search was narrowed down between Valdese and Jacksonville, Fla., Morse said.
The two areas then had a chance to sweeten the pot, Morse said. He asked the county and his council to extend its grants from a five-year period to a 10-year period, which would have been worth $6.7 million, Morse said.
At the last minute, Jacksonville offered $7 million in cash to the company, Morse said.
The decision to go with Jacksonville was made in France. Saft is a French-based company.
"The bottom line came down to the dollars up front," Morse said.
He said the town, county or state doesn't offer cash to companies. If the state plunked down cash to each company it tried to recruit, it could bankrupt the state, he said.
So is there anything Valdese, county and state officials could have done differently to win the project?
"Nothing," Morse said.
Wayne Harris, director of Burke Partnership for Economic Development, said, "I think we were extremely competitive and exhausted all avenues to win this project."
Harris said all of the agencies in the state pulled out all the stops trying to get the project.
"I don't know of anything we could have done differently," Harris said.
Harris said that with the county going up against a large metropolitan area, the larger area may be able to "put things on the table that we just can't do."
"Sometimes David doesn't win. Sometimes Goliath wins," Harris said.
Normally, town and county officials don't talk about companies they are trying to woo to the county or what they are offering until a deal is done. And they typically don't talk about the ones that got away.
Morse said he wanted people to know, however, the lengths that leaders in the county and state went to to try to attract the company. And that kind of effort goes on every day in the county with regards to economic development, he said. People don't know what goes on behind the scenes.
But, Morse added, "This is probably the most intense effort we've been involved with."