Editorial: Development agencies prove area wins when officials involved cooperate

When a steel company based in Savannah, Ga., looked at the Huntington area for a new plant, it couldn't find a site that fit its needs. So officials at the Huntington Area Development Council referred Chatham Steel Corp. to the people at the Lawrence County Port Authority.

Chatham Steel Corp. bought 12.26 acres near the community of Hanging Rock for a $7.5 million warehousing and fabricating plant that will provide 50 to 60 jobs when the plant opens next year.

The property is located adjacent to the Duke Energy and Rumpke Recycling plant and County Road 1A west of Ironton.

The company will build a 65,000-square-foot building that can be doubled in size in the future. The plant will be a regional distribution site for several cities, including Charleston, Cincinnati and Lexington, Ky. Chatham Steel has plants in Savannah; Durham, N.C.; Columbia, S.C.; Orlando, Fla., and Birmingham, Ala.

Its product line includes carbon steel products, carbon alloys and stainless steel products.

Jerry McDonald and Paul Riedel of the Huntington Area Development Council worked to bring the company to the Tri-State. When a site couldn't be found in West Virginia, they turned the prospect over to Lawrence County.

The new plant will be about 25 miles from downtown Huntington, but it's still a victory for this area in more ways than one. The first victory is landing those 50 to 60 jobs, of course. The second and larger victory is that local economic development officials work together to bring progress to the area, even when one area has to hand a prospect off to a nearby one.

It's a method of operation people in political life would do well to emulate. A win for Putnam County is not necessarily a loss for Cabell County, and good news for Marshall University in Kanawha County is not necessarily a loss for West Virginia University.

That does not mean local areas should feel free to convince businesses to move from one side of the river to the other, all else being equal. It also means West Virginia legislators and others should ask why Chatham thought Lawrence County was a better fit. We can help each other, but each state, county and city must do its best to make itself friendly for the kinds of businesses that are expanding and creating jobs.