Business Review St. Clair Continues Growth

172-acre industrial park is expected to create 800 to 1,000 new jobs in the next five to 10 years. “We don’t know who the companies are yet, but we will have the space and infrastructure for them to invest. We’re expecting it to accommodate company headquarters, light manufacturing and warehousing as well.”

Also new to Moody will be a Starbucks and an entertainment center housing a trampoline park, an arcade and a bowling alley to be announced.

“Both of those projects fall in line with the Moody’s community input that was given to the city by its citizens on projects that they wanted them to focus during their recent comprehensive planning sessions,” said Smith.

The largest investment in the county, by far, is the $325 million dollars committed by National Cement in Ragland.

“This is the largest private investment in St. Clair County’s history,” said Smith. “It secures that facility’s production for another 50 years.”

He said National Cement is central to Ragland’s history. “Decades ago, the cement plant did a lot of labor-intensive mining,” said Smith. “It employed about a thousand people. Trains would come through and drop people off downtown. Over time, automation and machinery became available, and it was a lot easier to extract materials with a machine rather than shovel and pickaxe.”

As time went by, employee numbers have gone down, but wages have gone up. “What we saw,” he said, “was the need to reinvest and keep up with changes in technology. They had to modernize almost their entire facility, so now Ragland will have those jobs for the next 50 years.”

Other parts of the county are seeing growth as well. Springville has new business coming to town, including the Blue Water Bottling company and the opening of the Big Canoe Creek Nature Preserve. Big Canoe Nature Preserve is set to open in the spring or summer of this year. The long-awaited preserve will provide hiking and horseback riding trails as well as canoeing and kayaking.

According to St. Clair County Tourism Coordinator Blair Goodgame, “We are thrilled with the progress of the BCCNP. This project will be an asset to St. Clair County for generations to come. Not only will the Preserve enhance the lives of locals, but it will serve as an attraction for outdoor enthusiasts across the Southeast – adding to the county’s already vast catalog of outdoor recreational opportunities.”

In the commercial sector, the EDC is eyeing a number of retail prospects, including a new grocer in the Springville, Odenville, Argo and Margaret area. “There’s a number of developers who represent different grocery brands looking at different sites. We’re just trying to find the right spots for the right brand and the size acreage. That’s the key, but it’s been a challenge because building costs have skyrocketed.”

Interest in sites throughout the county is heightening. “We have active prospects on almost every interstate interchange on the I-59 corridor, and we hope to announce some in early 2023,” Smith said. “A community like St. Clair County has so much potential because of its two interstates and close proximity to both Birmingham and Atlanta. That’s a big draw in helping us recruit.”

Prospects for the future continue to look promising.

“So long as long as we continue to make St. Clair County a welcoming place for people to invest, which may include residential, commercial or industrial, we will continue to grow at a strong rate,” Smith said.

“It just makes me very happy to see job opportunities and conveniences now in the county. People will soon not have to drive outside our community to get what they need.”