Economic development in Beaufort County is a partnership

Beaufort County has so much to offer each of us as members of the community.

There is no place like the Lowcountry on a warm sunny day with every natural amenity at your finger tips. Before 2007, we could stop the conversation right there. That was before the bottom fell out of every major economic market in the Lowcountry.

Today, people are working to determine how they stay in the Lowcountry and desperately need to reinvent themselves and find employment. Today it's about people and people who need jobs to keep their homes and feed their families.

The Lowcountry Economic Network and Beaufort County together are making progress in positioning this county for existing business growth and business reallocations.

We welcome the dialogue and debate that we're having as we work together to provide quality jobs to the people of this county, but we firmly feel that there never will be jobs in this county and region if we do nothing and just simply wait to see what we get.

The Beaufort Commerce Park is a prime location for the development that will bring those jobs.

Here's a brief history of the Commerce Park:

When the network (then the Greater Beaufort-Hilton Head Economic Development Partnership) was formed in 2001, its goal was to attract value-added jobs that pay at or above the state's average wage level.

In 2006, the network decided to purchase the Commerce Park to ensure it was strategically positioned as the last industrially zoned property in Beaufort County. Since then, the network has overseen bringing full infrastructure out to the park, and it's now the only regional park with full utility infrastructure, including a stormwater system, electric and gas.

The park also benefits from its location along the state's "aeronautics corridor" with Boeing landing in Charleston, the future arrival of the F-35B at Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort and Gulfstream in Savannah.

Using a formula created for economic development organizations, the network has come up with several scenarios as to how development of the park could benefit our county through the jobs it creates and the shear investment in our region.

Using the most conservative estimates, full park build-out could mean 2,600 jobs for our region and a full financial impact of $55 million a year for our county once the park is completely developed.

Prospects coming into the network office are at an all-time high, but to translate those into real jobs we need to be able to leverage all of the resources, both public and private, at our disposal.

We look forward to further discussions with our partner, Beaufort County, and will continue to work toward the best interests of our residents

Kim Statler is executive director of the Lowcountry Economic Network, a public-private nonprofit organization that serves as the economic development arm of Beaufort County. Read Kim's blog online at lowcountrynet.org/sc-economic-blog