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REGIONAL VIEW: THE YEAR IN REVIEW southwest virginia


Spinning plates For the coalfields region, 2017 was ‘a year of many projects but smaller job numbers’


Beth Doughty, a member


of the VEDP’s Committee on Business Development and Marketing, says there’s nothing wrong with supporting small businesses with small grants. They can be valuable economic development tools. “You have to stop think-


Jonathan Belcher (right) of the Virginia Coalfi eld Economic Development Authority presents a ceremonial check for a new cybersecurity program to Buchanan County offi cials Carroll Branham (left) and Jay Rife.


by Tim Thornton I


n 2017, Southwest Virginia had one big economic development homerun.


Bristol’s new American Merchant bath towel factory promises to create 405 jobs (see related story on Page 34). Most of the region, by


comparison, recorded a number of smaller expansions and new businesses that are expected to result in about the same num- ber of total jobs as the Bristol factory. All new jobs are welcome


in the region, as is more support from the state. “Virginia doesn’t have one


big economy. It’s really a collec- tion of distinct regional econo- mies,” says Stephen Moret, president and CEO of the Virginia Economic Develop- ment Partnership. “One of the things that we have focused on since my first day here has been to begin to lay out a strategy to position rural Virginia for growth.”


32 MARCH 2018 Rural areas generally are


in economic decline across the country, he notes. South- west Virginia’s troubles are compounded because of the shrinking coal industry. (Coal jobs have been trending down since the 1920s, with upward swings around 1950 and 1980. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, 2,417 coal miners were working in Virginia in 2016.) “Obviously, the region has


had some struggle s economi- cally with the downturn in coal mining,” says Jonathan Belcher, executive director of the Virginia Coalfield Economic Development Authority. “There has been some improvement in that, actually, in that past 12 months or so. So, that has certainly helped, but we’re putting forth a very extensive effort to try to do what we can to improve the economy in the area.”


For VCEDA, which


serves Virginia’s seven coalfield counties and Norton, 2017 was “a year of many projects but smaller job numbers,” Belcher says. The agency he leads recorded 23 new projects and expansions in its service area. Those promise to create 402 full-time jobs. “We’ve been doing a lot


more assistance to entrepre- neurs and small businesses than we ever have in the past,” he says. “It was a really active year, and 2018 has started out the same way.”


The $15,000 Seed Capital


Matching Grants that VCEDA awarded to the Well Coffee Shop in Tazewell and Sugar Hill Brewing Co. in St. Paul were typical. The $188,000 grant VCEDA contributed toward a zipline at Breaks Interstate Park was larger than most. “Having said that,” Belcher says, “we’re still focused on recruiting larger projects to the area as well.”


ing of economic development as buffalos, as only big stuff counts,” says Doughty, who is executive director of the Roanoke Regional Partnership. “In that realm, you’re going to be disappointed more than you’re going to be excited … Economic development — we say it’s spinning plates; it’s not a silver bullet. You’ve got a lot of plates spinning in economic development, so that’s another plate you’ve got to keep spin- ning. And I think spinning plates is responsible economic development.” Working with small busi-


nesses doesn’t preclude trying to attract those big deals. Belcher points out that the coalfields are already home to three sig- nificant data centers, high-tech businesses some people may not associate with Virginia’s mountains. “Ask people what they


know about Bristol, what they know about Southwest Virginia, and the answer is going to almost always be: ‘It’s very rural. It’s in the mountains. There’s a lot of agriculture.’ That’s all they know,” says Bris- tol Mayor Kevin Mumpower. “That’s everybody’s percep- tion. They don’t realize we’re centrally located. We’ve got a huge interstate and train trans- portation infrastructure. We’ve got these universities close by. Nobody realizes that within a 30- to 45-minute drive, we touch 300,000 people.” Even so, Moret says,


Photo courtesy Virginia Coalfield Economic Development Authority


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