Growth comes slowly to Southeast Arkansas, and when it happens, it sometimes brings tears to people’s eyes.
That is as it was on Friday when it was announced that businesses were moving into the area. MD Power will be making energy out of solid waste, and ATM Gloves will be using that power to make its products.
And it all came together because of a 90-mile rail line the Southeast Arkansas Economic Development District has been piecing and putting back together for years, with, of course, the help of several other agencies.
“The railroad is the epicenter for all of this other coming together,” Shane Knight, deputy director of SEADD, said. “If it were not for the U.S. Department of Transportation, EDA (U.S. Economic Development Administration), Delta Regional Authority, … if we were not rehabbing the railroad, we would not be having this opportunity today.”
The idea was that if the region could make this north-south rail corridor a reality, the new transportation option would spur growth — along the lines of the “if we lay the tracks, they will come” dream.
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
Making such a thing happen takes years of effort. Writing politicians, working with agencies, getting a dab of money here, waiting for budget approvals, getting another dab there and then — when the table is set — more waiting to see if anyone sits down to eat.
No surprise that Knight and Chicot County Judge Mack Ball got a bit choked up.
“It’s an exciting day,” said Ball. “It’s going to change Southeast Arkansas. It’s already changed because we’re getting a glove factory from it already.”
Word was that hundreds of jobs would be created over the next couple of years. And when jobs are created like that, there’s a multiplier effect.
Those people need places to live and cars and schools for their kids and places to buy groceries and to go out to eat. Suddenly the cafe needs another waiter, and the elementary school needs another teacher or two. Tax dollars are generated. Smiles abound.
Congratulations to Chicot County, but really congratulations to the Southeast Arkansas Economic Development District for being the maestro on this advancement. They exist to make things like this happen, and it’s good to see it all working.