Topping that list is the Nov. 13 announcement that Microporous is bringing 2,000 jobs with a $1.35 billion investment to the Southern Virginia Megasite at Berry Hill.
In a season of gratitude, leaders say there’s plenty to be thankful for in Danville and Pittsylvania County.
The thankfulness extends beyond the sheer magnitude of the historic event termed as nothing short of a game changer for a region now on the upswing from the demise of textiles and tobacco.
It goes deep into a dream forged more than a decade ago by a struggling city and county that wasn’t derailed.
It also foreshadows abounding optimism that other investments are just around the corner when the calendar flips to a new year.
“I am just so absolutely thankful that we have this opportunity for our citizens to not only get a job, but to get a better job, and something that will entice our young folks coming out of high school to stay with the family that raised them, that loved them,” Vic Ingram, who chairs the Danville-Pittsylvania Regional Industrial Facility Authority that owns the megasite, told the Register & Bee.
Microporous makes what’s basically a high-tech piece of plastic used in lithium-ion batteries, something known as a separator.
“It’s a very high-tech process,” Ingram, also a supervisor representing the Tunstall District, explained of what will be a state-of-the-art facility.
He was quick to point out the company isn’t making batteries, but instead a sought-after component.
“That’s why they are going to be so successful — other companies do not have the technology that they have,” he said.
The 3,500-acre megasite was nothing more then trees in 2008 when the first investment by the Virginia Tobacco Commission launched what’s now known as the largest industrial site on the East Coast.
The path to the present day was unpopular and met with naysayers at every turn.
“It was a huge risk,” Sherman Saunders, a longtime member of the so-called RIFA board and also on the Danville City Council, told the newspaper. “It was one we knew we had to take.”
The reason was simple: Danville and Pittsylvania County were stagnant in terms of job creation.
Although Saunders said he takes no credit for the megasite, his colleagues in the city and county feel otherwise. Together with Coy Harville, a former supervisor in Pittsylvania County who died in 2022, the two men are viewed as the visionaries behind the Berry Hill site.
That’s why 2.4 miles of Virginia 311 was renamed the Harville-Saunders Parkway just a day before Microporous was revealed as the first tenant.
“We knew that we were going to need some jobs in the region,” Saunders said thinking back to the early days, defining the region as Danville and Pittsylvania County. “And we knew that we were going to have to have some space and it needed to be a partnership.”
That’s when the city and county first started coming together, and each locality put in $6.5 million to buy the land.
For years the project faced a catch-22 situation, Lee Vogler, also a member of RIFA and Danville City Council, said. It was hard to get the permits needed to grade the property without an end user “and no one wanted to go to a field with a bunch of trees,” he explained in an interview.
That finally all settled out in 2018 when Berry Hill started grabbing attention.
It was in early 2023 when Vogler was chair of RIFA — a duty that switches between the city and county each year — that Microporous emerged on the radar.
“It was Little Dipper for the longest time,” he said of the code name. “It was a smaller project, which we were still excited about.”
Earlier this month, Gov. Glenn Youngkin explained that Little Dipper morphed into Big Dipper, the ultimate project that’s coming to Pittsylvania County.
Ingram credits a trio of people who work behind the scenes and often don’t share the limelight.
Matt Rowe, the economic development director for the county; Corrie Teague Bobe, the economic development and tourism director in Danville; and Linda Green, the executive director for the Southern Virginia Regional Alliance, are the driving force behind the transformation afoot in the region, leaders agree.
“We have a wonderful economic development team,” Ingram said. “They are the three that work so hard to make stuff like this happen.”
Vogler called them the best of the best.
“I’ll put them up against anybody in Virginia or anyone anywhere for that matter,” he said.
When a company wants to expand or locate a new facility, they start looking nationwide. Sometimes the state sends prospects down this way.
“The mega park at Berry Hill is getting a lot of attention,” Ingram said.
“A lot of these are running parallel to each other and you wait to see which ones get to the finish line first,” Vogler said of the prospects of which they are sworn by legally binding agreements to keep secret.
Vogler thought Microporous might have been announced at the end of 2023 and was starting to prepare what he’d say on stage.
“They had chosen us last year as the site,” Vogler confirmed. “Then it was just a matter of going through and getting the federal grant taken care of.”
Last December, the company announced it was selected for a $100 million grant from the United States Department of Energy to establish a lithium-ion battery separator manufacturing facility.
Once a company picks a location, they sign a letter of intent.
“Then in the meantime, they have to go through their steps,” Ingram said of working with local and state economic officials.
The corporation also has to secure investments and jump through legal hurdles.
“They have a lot of people looking at our region before they ever come and talk to us,” Ingram explained. That involves looking at politics, leaders and making sure there will be enough people to build a workforce.
In the early days, it wasn’t easy to market Berry Hill. Now companies are coming here and showing interest.
After being a near-miss a few times, the idea was tossed about over the years to just bring something — anything — to the megasite to cure the criticism that money was being poured down a drain.
“There was a pull every once in a while to maybe do that,” Vogler said. “There were conversations that, ‘OK, you do that, but you are giving up what this place was designed for.’”
He likened it to what happened with the rebirth of downtown Danville, something that was thought to be out of reach in 2009 when plans started coming together.
“You had to tough it out when people thought you were crazy,” Vogler said.
“You’ve got to be committed to it and stick to it,” he continued. “And I am thankful we did.”
The investments are a long, time-consuming process. For example, it took a year for a connector road to become a reality.
“To be where we are at right now, I compliment everybody,” Ingram said of the endurance exhibited by all involved. “Because nothing like this happens overnight.”
He compared it to having a baby, which is a nine-month process.
“A good, healthy community partner like Microporous might take several years,” he said.
Saunders said it was determination, fortitude and “staying with it” that made it all pay off.
It meant talking to people all over the world.
“It got a little frustrating at times, but we knew we had to stick with it,” he said. “And it took a long time to work that out.”
Companies do more than look at a space that’s mainly dirt to decide if they want to plant millions in investment into an area.
They also look for quality of life for workers.
“I know sometimes that’s not necessarily the thing that comes to mind when people think about economic development,” Vogler said.
That’s why city leaders pushed for the development of what’s become known as the River District, a downtown area with the Dan River as its focal point.
Anyone can offer incentives or say they can train employees, Vogler explained.
“But these companies now really think about where will my employees want to live,” he said. “These things that we do to make Danville a better place to live and raise a family, schools, all of that ties in.”
Industries aren’t fond of locating somewhere that has a “ghost town” for a downtown area as it doesn’t show leaders are willing to invest or take pride in a community.
“And then we’ve got a great workforce,” Vogler said, pointing to educational partnerships with Danville Community College and the Institute for Advanced Learning and Research.
The housing aspect also is something more and more companies are worried about.
“We talk about housing in every RIFA meeting,” Vogler said. “Companies ask about the housing.”
Although not wanting to speak for the entire board, he said RIFA may get involved in the housing initiative.
“You’ve got a connector road out there with a lot of land around it,” Vogler said. “It could be a number of things that would be nearby to the biggest industrial site in Virginia.”
Even amid the fanfare of a governor’s visit, the idea that 2,000 new jobs are coming to Southside may still not be registered to residents.
Some — despite a super splash of media coverage — have yet to hear about it.
“I think some do, I think many many do not,” Saunders said when asked if he believes it’s set in for locals. “And they won’t until they see all that traffic up and down 58, going into Berry Hill Road and coming out of Eden, North Carolina.”
That’s when it will hit.
“And they see the brick, the motar, the cinder block going up,” Saunders said.
Then the “wow” factor will set in.
“I don’t think it has settled in yet,” Ingram said when asked. “It will be evident in years to come.”
Even amid the fanfare of a governor’s visit, the idea that 2,000 new jobs are coming to Southside may still not be registered to residents.
Some — despite a super splash of media coverage — have yet to hear about it.
“I think some do, I think many many do not,” Saunders said when asked if he believes it’s set in for locals. “And they won’t until they see all that traffic up and down 58, going into Berry Hill Road and coming out of Eden, North Carolina.”
That’s when it will hit.
“And they see the brick, the motar, the cinder block going up,” Saunders said.
Then the “wow” factor will set in.
“I don’t think it has settled in yet,” Ingram said when asked. “It will be evident in years to come.”
“I think about the mom-and-pop stores that will sell a lot more gas, that will sell a lot more from the deli,” he said. “Local contractors that have a chance to apply for a major opportunity.”
It will bring more people, new neighbors and new ideas.
“It will bring such a nice, pleasant change to our community,” he explained.
Landing Microporous — a project only using slightly more than 200 acres of the 3,500-acre property — is energizing an already electric interest in Berry Hill, leaders pointed to.
“Now that that first one is in, it makes it so much easier to show folks,” Vogler said.
“You are selling an idea beforehand,” he continued. “Now you are asking someone to be a part of something that’s already pretty great.”
Ingram said they would eventually run out of space at the park.
“We will fill that park up before it’s over with, there’s no doubt in my mind,” he said in an interview.
Vogler said there are multiple active prospects eying Berry Hill now, something even Youngkin alluded to when he visited a few weeks ago.
“I’m very confident in the coming year you’re going to hear more great news out of Berry Hill,” he said. “You are going to hear more great news out of pretty much every industrial park we have here.”
The things that will be announced in the coming 365 days have been in the works for a year-plus.
“This upcoming year is going to be a possible record-breaking year” for the region economically speaking, Vogler said. “The best is yet to come.”
Read the original article here (Charles Wilborn, Register & Bee)