ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT Cobb offers home field advantage to spur growth

By Chart Riggall criggall@mdjonline.com

Cobb County continues to be as friendly a place as you’ll find when it comes to attracting economic development.

The Cobb Chamber of Commerce and Development Authority of Cobb County rolled out the welcome mat for a number of big-ticket projects in 2022.

Major businesses like A.G. Rhodes, Biolyte, McGuire Sponsel, NPSG Global, and Soliant all announced new footprints within Cobb. Truist Financial, the name sponsor behind Cobb’s ballpark, plans to relocate its Buckhead headquarters to the Battery Atlanta.

Biolyte was previously located in Atlanta and Canton, but relocated its operations to Marietta with a $60,000 investment in a warehouse and the addition of 13 jobs to its 25-person workforce.

“Never in a million years did I think that we could have everyone under one roof, but our new warehouse in Marietta made that possible,” said Jesslyn Rollins, CEO of BIOLYTE. “Our team is thrilled and that lets me know this is going to be huge for our culture and growth trajectory.”

Fragrance company Arylessence, meanwhile, announced a new 54,000-square-foot expansion of its Marietta campus this year, with the help of a $27 million bond from the development authority. That project is expected to add 30 jobs to the facility.

“Arylessence has been an important part of Cobb County’s business community for over four decades,” said Dana Johnson, executive director of SelectCobb, at the time.

Pat Wilson, Georgia’s commissioner for economic development, said even without the state’s blockbuster Rivian and Hyundai deals, “we still break our record numbers, which is unbelievable … 2022 proved to not only break it, but blow that out of the water.”

Yet more projects are coming down the pipe.

In August, the development authority approved a record-shattering bond package of $1.6 billion for Lockheed Martin’s Marietta plant, which will help the firm finance a series of expansions should it win big-ticket defense contracts. While Lockheed executives have kept mum on what those projects will be, they compared them to the transformative impact of the C-130 aircraft, which has been produced in Cobb since the 1950s.

“These are franchise programs,” said Rod McLean, head of Lockheed Marietta. “Either you win it, or you’re out. Think about the C-130. We won that almost 65 years ago, and we’re still building the C-130 today. So these are one time shots you have to capture these programs.”

And in south Cobb, Novare Group is already at work on a sprawling mixed-use development that promises to help reshape the city’s downtown.

Said Powder Springs Mayor Al Thurman, “If you can go back through the years, there was a building here with restaurants and office buildings. And the city, we had a vision, and some of these plans have been on the drawing board for a number of years … and we tore it down. My point is, sometimes with a vision, you’ve got to tear down to build up.”