Golden Triangle Development LINK: Looking back, moving forward
GOLDEN TRIANGLE, Miss. (WCBI) – For the past 20 years, The Golden Triangle Development LINK has been marketing the region to industries looking for a place to set up shop and put down roots.
Looking back over the last 10, CEO Joe Max Higgins said a dedicated staff for existing businesses and expansions is critical.
“It’s important for us to monitor our existing companies because we can find out those who are in trouble, or those that have expansion possibilities,” Higgins said. “We need to know both of those. If they’re in trouble, we need to figure out a way to help them. If there’s an expansion possibility, we need to figure out a way to help them.”
Higgins said since big projects got announced last year, they are seeing a handful of expansions with at least 500 new jobs.
“The majority of jobs that will be created in the next calendar year will come from existing jobs that are expanding,” Higgins said.
With manufacturers like Paccar and Airbus in the Golden Triangle, Higgins said it makes it a great place for not only other big companies but small companies too.
“I think what we’ve done is we’ve hit a critical mass that we’re not a one-hit wonder, not a two-hit wonder, we’ve been doing this for 20 years, a little over, and we’ve been successful. It’s not a one big deal and we’re done,” Higgins said. “We just continue to do it.”
The Link’s continued focus is growth, and the next phase of that growth is set for the most recent Megasite, Cinco. They believe things could be happening there by March.
News about possible grants for the site could arrive by the end of this month, and that would mean construction wouldn’t be too far behind.
“We’re starting to market the site, so just about every day something is happening on the site,” Higgins said.
Right now, they don’t know who will locate at 1,500-acre site.
“It could be anything from a data center, to some of the new AI centers that they’re building, it could be steel or metals manufacturing, it could be aerospace and defense, it could be anything,” Higgins said.
Higgins said through the opportunities with the companies, they can help improve the quality of life for people who work in the Golden Triangle.
“People ask me, little kids say, ‘What do you do?’ I say, ‘I play Monopoly with real land, real water, real sewer, real utilities,” Higgins said. “I play Monopoly Real every day. But what else we do, and we should never lose touch of this is we change people’s lives.”
Higgins hopes when they look back over the next 10 years and see even more expansion and development.
He said that the main takeaway is that they are not stopping development, and they have no intention of giving up the heavy-weight belt any time soon.
