Anderson County announced recently that it has acquired the TTI sites in Anderson and Pickens counties. Both sites were purchased with grant funds received from the State of South Carolina. In addition to $9 million granted for purchase of the properties, the State has provided an additional $1 million for the creation of a “soft landing zone” at the Anderson facility on Pearman Dairy Road. The soft landing zone will provide new industries a place to train and to begin operations before their buildings are constructed, expediting job creation and allowing industries to hit the ground running. More importantly, this facility will make much-needed incubator space available to new cutting-edge technology startups to begin their operations before building permanent facilities in Anderson County. These initiatives will provide an enormous boost to our local economic development strategy, giving Anderson County a distinct advantage in recruiting tomorrow’s industries to our county and enhancing the County’s efforts to sustain, accelerate, and diversify our local economy.
We are pleased to report that companies today are waiting to occupy the facility and grow their businesses. One of these projects is a state-of-the-art materials lab that will develop research and materials with worldwide implications. All of the companies are internationally-based start-up companies.
Anderson County and Tri-County Technical College have worked together to make these ideas a reality. None of this would be possible without the vision and hard work of State Representative Brian White, who made the entire TTI project possible and saw the potential of these facilities to attract new companies to our area. These projects will have a positive impact on our county for the next hundred years.
The Anderson project will also allow the County to begin consolidating Anderson County Public Works Division operations at the Pearman Dairy Road site. The present public works complex on Michelin Boulevard is aging and has insufficient room for all operations. The County plans to demolish the structures at the existing public works location and beautify the area to complement the Anderson Regional Airport grounds. In addition, TTI will leave all furniture and offices “as is” so that as TTI moves out, County operations can move in. This process will occur in phases over the next two years. The County will continue to consolidate its operations at the Pearman Dairy Road facility over time. The Historic Courthouse and the Courthouse Annex will not be included in this consolidation. This facility has 535,000 square feet of usable space.
Plans for the Pickens location are under review with several options under consideration. The Pickens TTI complex covers 95.31 acres with 480,000 square feet under roof.
TTI has been a wonderful steward of the Anderson and Pickens properties during its ownership, and we are pleased that the company will continue to be a good steward of the land. Both facilities are being made environmentally sound for their intended purposes, and the responsibility for such remediation efforts will remain with TTI. Again, we are grateful to the State of South Carolina and to TTI for their continued investments in Anderson County.
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