Starkville is bringing more job opportunities to the city

An Oregon-based company will move into the old Gulf States building on Airport

STARKVILLE, Miss. (WCBI)- Dozens of new jobs are coming to Starkville. An Oregon-based company will move into the old Gulf States building on Airport.

City leaders held a special meeting this morning to sign an agreement to sell property.

Columbia Industries is ready to get to work in Starkville.

The city came to an agreement to sell the land today and feels that the new business will bring a lot of opportunities to the city.

The city of Starkville agreed to a purchase agreement Friday that would allow them to sell the old Gulf State manufacturing building.

Columbia Industries is a heavy steel custom design fabrication company based in Oregon.

The Golden Triangle Development Link company played a critical role in landing the deal.

“My guess is 60 to 75 days the paper work will be done and the company will be able to finish buying the building and we’ll start doing the project. We think it will create somewhere between 65 to 70 jobs and pay somewhere between 45 to 50 thousand dollars a year,” said development CEO Joe Max Higgins.

Link CEO Joe Max Higgins says the capitol investment could range from 10 to 15 million dollars.

It wasn’t just Mississippi State University and everything that Starkville has to offer that helped get Columbia Industries to come to the Magnolia State..

They saw opportunities to build a strong workforce immediately, and in the future with students at East Mississippi Community College.

“They need welders and we spent the better part of half of an afternoon with EMCC and their welding trainers and the communiversity folks to understand what they could do and I think one of the reasons the company picked us is because they had high faith and confidence in EMCC’s ability to churn out trained welders to come and fill these jobs,” said Higgins.

The company will manufacture the equipment in its new location and ship the products out throughout the southeast.

Mayor Lynn Spruill said city leaders have long known the site had potential for a new use and they’re glad they’ve found the right fit.

“More importantly we’re putting a building that’s been vacant for several years now back into production and that’s incredibly important to us. It rounds out our manufacturing it offers us opportunities in manufacturing and new jobs in town it couldn’t be more important. We’re delighted to have someone who wants to come in a be a part of the Starkville community,” said mayor Lynn Spruill.

Once the paperwork is done then Columbia Industries will take over and get the building back to normal operations