Carolinas Gateway Partnership President and CEO Bob Pike said, “We’re very close” to getting a business or an industrial prospect to locate at the Kingsboro megasite off U.S. 64 in Edgecombe County between Rocky Mount and Tarboro.
“One thing about this job: You don’t want to overpromise, but you’ve got to be optimistic,” Pike said in a phone interview earlier this month.
“All I can say at this point in time: We’re very close,” Pike said. “And hopefully, we’ll have something in the next six to eight months.”
The megasite is on the north side of U.S. 64 and the south side of Alternate U.S. 64. A megasite is a place suitable and available for significant economic and industrial investment.
Pike emphasized that one thing he has learned in business and in economic development is, “It’s not done until it’s done.”
At the same time, he said, Carolinas Gateway is continuing to receive emails and phone calls and conduct meetings about inquiries about the Kingsboro megasite.
Carolinas Gateway is a public-private organization based in downtown Rocky Mount and engages in recruiting businesses and industries for the city of Rocky Mount, the town of Tarboro and Edgecombe County.
In 2017, Gov. Roy Cooper, a Nash County native, announced that Triangle Tyre, which is based in China, intended to build a plant at the megasite that would provide some 800 new jobs, in what was going to be the largest manufacturing investment in eastern North Carolina.
However, in May 2022 then-Carolinas Gateway President and CEO Norris Tolson said that the tire manufacturer and distributor had canceled plans in Edgecombe County to concentrate on business needs in China.
In September 2023, Pike succeeded Tolson, who has remained with Carolinas Gateway as vice president of special projects in the interim.
Pike said Tolson is going to stay on through the end of June.
Regarding the Kingsboro megasite, Pike said all the attributes in the region come into play and that the biggest factor is that the location is shovel ready in terms of having access to infrastructure and utilities.
“Time is of the essence for these big projects because, in most cases, they’ve got customers waiting on the other end,” Pike said.
The megasite also is off a U.S. 64 that is signed as Future Interstate 87, is about 15 miles east of Interstate 95, is slightly less than 80 miles east of Raleigh-Durham International Airport and is equidistant between the ports of Norfolk, Va., and Wilmington.
The megasite also is a select site of Florida-based railroad giant CSX, which provides rail service to the area and has an adjacent rail line.
And CSX has the intermodal, called the Carolina Connector, just east of N.C. Wesleyan University. The intermodal is a place for freight trains to arrive, with the freight to be off-loaded onto other trains or trucks for distribution.
Pike, whose resume includes formerly having been a Nashville-based Braswell Family Farms executive, spoke about having sold a lot of eggs through the years.
In the recruitment of businesses and industries, Pike said, “Everybody’s looking at a site every day. It’s just we’ve got to get them looking at us and make sure we get the best site that matches up to the community. And that’s something that we really, really work at.”
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