PONTOTOC, Miss. (WTVA) - Despite a very challenging economy, one city in north Mississippi is seeing growth in a certain sector.
The city of Pontotoc is experiencing industrial growth in the area of furniture, so much so that the city has expanded its industrial park.
One hundred acres of an expansion site of land already has the ground work completed and is ready to become another industrial site with Pontotoc's Industrial Park.
"With the pad developed as it is today we feel like we can increase the traffic on this site exponentially in 2013," said Josh West, regional economic developer.
The new industrial site is open to anything, but with Toyota's front door located exactly 16 miles from the site, developers know which businesses would benefit from coming in.
"Our target market is advanced manufacturing," adds West. "We're not necessarily limiting ourselves to the automotive supplier, but we definitely have the capacity. If we need an automotive part, we definitely have the capacity here to fill it."
Three key componets that make the Pontotoc Industrial Site very attractive to potential new businesses: the quality of the soil, the infrastructure and the close proximity to a four-lane highway.
"We're within a half mile from a four-lane highway," adds Wayne Stokes, Pontotoc County District 1 Supervisor. "It will be two four-lane highways when Highway 15 gets expanded."
"The great thing about this industrial site here [is that] it's got water, it's got natural gas and it's got sewer now," added Jeff Stafford, Mayor of Pontotoc. "We have a flip pad to put a pad in town or inside city limits of Pontotoc."
One reason why new industries prefer their own buildings is they get to design something that fits all of their needs.
"Industries now want to have 40-foot eaves on their buildings," adds Stokes. "They want to build new buildings instead of using existing buildings, but we do have more than 90 percent of our industrial park filled up now."
And as more industry moves in, that translates into more job opportunities.
