Grenada County gets $5.3 million grant for industrial park road to continue manufacturing growth
GRENADA, Miss. (WCBI) – The Greater Grenada Partnership announced June 14th that the county is getting a $5.3 million grant that will go towards creating a four-lane road into its industrial park.
It’s the latest in a series of major investments into the county’s growing manufacturing sector.
“This total access road that’s going to be built for the citizens in Grenada County, for the industries in Grenada County and allows us to recruit and maintain our presence in a competitive marketplace for manufacturers,” says Matthew Harrison, CEO, President & Executive Director of the Greater Grenada Partnership, Greater Grenada Area Chamber of Commerce and Greater Grenada Foundation for Economic Development.
Manufacturers like Milwaukee Tool, which already has the walls up on its new plant after the official groundbreaking in May.
Since then, the Greater Grenada Partnership learned that the U.S. Economic Development Administration awarded them the $5.3 million dollar grant to help build a road through the Grenada Technology Park.
“Transportation is key in site location,” Harrison says. “Having good transportation, interstate access, having ready in-development land and having utilities on-site obviously are the key players in site location.”
The roughly 2-mile road will connect MS Highway 55 with both the south and north ends of the park.
Will White, president of MS Freight and MS Sales & Service, which operate out of the park, says that direct access could be a game-changer for them, Advanced Distributor Products, Milwaukee Tool or any other business that sets up there.
“A truck can pick up his load, deliver his load with ease, without congestion, without fear of accident and have a good safe place to park,” White says. “Makes all the difference in the world.”
“We’re seeing 200-plus trucks move product in and out (of the park) on a daily basis,” Harrison says. “So this new road, this is a significant improvement for each of those businesses that service the park.”
White says that number could go up to 300 or 400 trucks once the new road is ready.
“We move quite a bit of freight out of Grenada and bring a lot of freight back into Grenada,” he says. “So this road in this park is going to help us a lot to be able to rotate more of our outdoor freight into this park.”
Since 2019, over $39 million in grant money has been awarded to Grenada County and there has been close to $510 million in private capital investments made to expand manufacturing and shipping during that same time.
The reason why?
“The regional workforce,” Harrison says. “You’re talking a regional player. We’re not just looking at Grenada County, you’re looking at seven other counties that we pull from on a daily basis that come here and work.”
Harrison says crews will begin work on expanding and paving the road sometime around late August. He expects the project to last about a year and a half.
