Lee County Supervisors Approve Purchase Of ‘Hancock Ranch’ Property For Business-Industrial Park

LEE COUNTY, Miss. (WCBI) –  Supervisors in Lee County take the first public step in the creation of a business and industrial park.

It took only minutes for Lee County Supervisors to agree to spend $3,000,000 for 500 acres along Mississpippi Highway 76.  But David Rumbarger and his staff at the Community Development Foundation have worked on this deal for five years.

“We had to do all the due diligence on property, all engineering evaluation, wetlands and the study for wetlands, all flood plain management, historical and cultural evaluations,” Rumbarger said.

Lee County will buy 500 acres now, with the option for an additional 500 acres within 5 years, also at $3,000,000. The property was known for years as “Hancock Ranch” and  will also include access from Highway 6.  The business and industrial park will be known as the “Hive.” .The county’s three industrial parks are getting full so the opportunity made sense to board of supervisors President Mike Smith.

“We’re getting limited on our numbers of places , and also, with tax incentives and all, we feel real good about this bringing jobs to Lee County very soon,” Smith said.

Now that supervisors have given the green light for the purchase of the property, Rumbarger says it will be even easier to market the site to prospective businesses and industries.

“We’ve already shown the property on a number of occasions, one of the drawbacks for prospects has been, what’s public control, what’s public access, what is development plan, this today puts that plan in motion,” Rumbarger said.

Once the deal closes, work will start on roads, water and sewer necessary to serve the “Hive.”

The city of Tupelo will develop the water and sewer,  the Appalachian Regional Commission will help with the initial roads for the business and industrial park.