Video: Silicor Out, Economic Leaders Hopeful for Future

[bitsontherun CdVgvt4l]LOWNDES COUNTY, Miss. (WCBI) – Some major developers that were looking to make Lowndes County home after close to two years of negotiations have fallen short. After missing its deadline to secure land and incentives the properties are now up for grabs.

What started out as a $600 million project looking to locate in Lowndes County quickly split into two projects. Silicor and Silicon Metal both were given deadlines by the Lowndes County Board of Supervisors of December 31, 2012 to put up good faith money. Silicor was to put up $50,000 in escrow to extend an option on its site for an additional year. But in a letter sent by Silicor officials they stated they were not in the position to pay the money to secure the 150 acre site.

Silcon Metal on the other hand failed to pay its $150,000 in escrow that was refundable to ensure their performance that they were funded and start construction by June 30th of 2013.

According to LINK C.E.O Joe Max Higgins, “While we did hear from Silicor we did not after multiple attempts hear anything from Silicon Metal Plant regarding the 150. So those incentives have gone away and the sites availability has gone away for that project.”

Global Principle Partners and John Correnti were some of the major players in the deal going bad. Failing to secure financing after they promised they had was part of the reasons for the deadlines. But with several other industries to locate in Lowndes County the space couldn’t be tied up any longer.

Higgins says, “The freeing up of excess of 100 mega watts of power in the park is huge. The freeing up of the sewer is huge and they have literally been standing there with our capacity in their hand committed to them and we have not been able to submit on other projects.”

With now plenty of capacity to handle major projects that will need electricity and sewer on the books. The LINK and the county are excited about what the future holds. According to Higgins, one of the strategies moving forward will to look strongly at a companies financial capacity and capability before getting to far into any deal in the future.

LINK C.E.O Joe Max Higgins says, there are other industries looking at the sites that are now available. As far as any chance of Silicor starting talks up again, Higgins says, that is slim to none.