Lexington County - SC Biz Special Section

Spring 2013

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Lexington

Lexington County is a rapidly growing neighbor of Columbia.

LEXINGTON COUNTY

Business climate and teamwork fuel robust growth in Lexington County

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hen Lexington County native Lou Kennedy was deciding where to build a new pharmaceutical manufacturing plant, she soon found out there is no place like home Kennedy, CEO of Nephron Pharmaceuticals Corp., was all set to put the plant next to one of the company’s facilities in Orlando, Fla. Frustrated with the permitting process there, she started talking to leaders in Lexington County, where she found an ideal site and a business-friendly regulatory climate. Today, Nephron’s $313 million project is under construction in an industrial park in Lexington County near the intersection of I-77 and I-26, where high-paying jobs await an initial 300 employees who will be trained using the readySC program.

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Lou Kennedy, CEO of Nephron Pharmaceuticals Corp.

County Administrator Joe Mergo said cooperation among governments and county departments is extremely important in dealing with businesses. “When the companies come in, it’s not such a laborious process for them to be able to understand all their plan reviews, all their document reviews, all their permitting and all of the ordinances. We do a great job of putting a team together that walks with potential developers and says, ‘This is your project team that’s going to manage your project for you and make it happen seamlessly.’”

Columbia Metropolitan Airport, located in Lexington County, is an asset for economic development.

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“I cannot underscore how expeditious and wonderful it was to work with the state and county authorities on the permitting process. I’ve never seen anything go smoother,” said Kennedy. Nephron is located in Saxe Gotha Industrial Park, which is a certified site where water, sewer and natural gas are readily available. Nephron also benefits from the easy access to rail, which will drastically reduce the cost of transporting materials to the plant.

Lexington County is enjoying a bumper crop of economic development and sowing seeds for plenty more. From 2008 to 2012, Lexington County had more than $1.1 billion in aggregate announcements involving new and existing industry. Of the 26 announcements, 18 were expansions and eight reflected industries new to Lexington County. The success is a reflection of the commitment of Lexington County Council to economic development.

With the success of 18 expansions within the past four years, Lexington County’s Economic Development Department aims to encourage and advocate the development of existing industry, through its industriNow Program. “The goal of this Business Retention and Expansion program is to call on existing businesses to thank them for their tax base and employment opportunities for its citizens. industriNow is designed to address company needs, offer products and services available through utility providers, the state or institutions of higher learning,” said Chuck Whipple, director of Economic Development. He also indicated that the county plans to make room for more companies by expanding Saxe Gotha, improving its industrial park in BatesburgLeesville and developing a new technology park in Chapin. It should be noted that energy giant and Fortune 1000 company SCANA has its headquarters, which were developed in 2009, in Lexington County.

County Council Chairman Bill Banning, Economic Development Committee Chairman Johnny Jeffcoat and Whipple are leading efforts to attract companies engaged in manufacturing, technology, health care, agribusiness, advanced materials, nuclear energy, distribution, aviation and aerospace.

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County Spotlight: Lexington

Above: A rendering shows Nephron Pharmaceuticals , a $313 million project..

Left: Construction is progressing on the Nephron plant, shown in December 2012.

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Michelin employs more than 2,000 workers at its Lexington County site.

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Beyond the county’s business-friendly climate, government and business leaders name plenty of other amenities for prospective companies and residents. Industries have been attracted by the county’s utilities, location, workforce, educational systems and job-training assistance. Quality-oflife assets include highly regarded public schools, attractive suburban neighborhoods Special Advertising Section

and Lake Murray.

Peter Sutton, manager of Michelin’s $1 billion-plus site in Lexington County, said, “The availability and the quality of the people that you can bring on to the workplace are of primordial importance.”

Michelin employs more than 2,000 workers at the site, making tires for passenger cars, light trucks and earthmovers. The

company’s arrival in 1981 was a watershed event for the county. Michelin was the first big company landed by Lexington County, which had previously been known for its agrarian lifestyle and suburban neighborhoods, forcing most residents to commute to Columbia for employment.

When Michelin’s corporate development leaders in France were considering the latest round of investments in the Lexington site, Sutton said, “their biggest area of questions was about people. ‘Can you get the right amount of people? Can you get the right skills in the people that you hire to fuel this expansion?’” Factory jobs aren’t what they used to be, as manufacturing today is a hightech environment that requires a high level of competence. “Machines don’t make tires, people make tires.”

Michelin works with the county’s two largest school districts and Midlands Technical College to help build what Sutton calls the “supply chain for technical talent” that the company needs to keep growing. He said the quality of the public schools also has become “a strategic competitive advantage” in recruiting employees. Sutton said that when people search for jobs, they also check websites that rank schools. He said he thought that if someone were hesitating between two job locations, he or she would choose Lexington because of the school system.

The tire manufacturer has partnered with schools in a number of ways, for instance, contributing to a “STEM lab” that focuses on science, technology, engineering and math at a local middle school. In

County Spotlight: Lexington

another school program, engineers from the Michelin plant conduct Lego robotics events for students.

Sutton, a French Canadian who has worked in numerous locations in North America and Europe, said the quality of the work environment and other amenities in Lexington outshine those enjoyed by workers in almost every plant he has seen, with the possible exception of a site at the foot of

the Italian Alps.

While the employees of the largest plants number in the thousands, the county’s largest employer by far is Lexington Medical Center (LMC), which has about 6,100 employees. While it is a relatively young health care organization (Lexington County Hospital was established only in 1971), its growth has been remarkable. Mike Biediger, president and CEO, said LMC performs

more surgeries than any other hospital in the region and operates the largest nursing home in the Carolinas.

Its innovative satellite offices operate in six outlying communities, with services including urgent care, radiology, laboratory and physician services. LMC’s larger satellite offices also offer outpatient surgery, cardiac rehabilitation and physical therapy.

Lexington Medical Center is also

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County Spotlight: Lexington

Flamingos welcome visitors to Riverbanks Zoo and Garden in Lexington County.

At top, the Lexington Country Club offers residents a place to relax and play golf.

In bottom image, a rendering shows Lexington Medical Center’s occupational health office, which will be located near Saxe Gotha Industrial Park.

planning a new occupational health office, which will be located near SCANA’s headquarters and the Saxe Gotha Industrial Park.

This new health office will offer employee physicals and pre-employment drug tests, treat workers who are injured and consult with companies to promote worker safety.

Biediger thinks the new center will be unique. “We can’t find anything like it in the country.”

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Fueling the fire

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As large industries locate in the county and more people arrive, a wide variety of businesses are benefiting. Glenn Martin, a communications company executive based in Gilbert, said that during his year as chair of the Greater Lexington Chamber of Commerce and Visitors Center, he attended close to 80 ribbon-cuttings for a whole gamut of enterprises – everything from people leaving the corporate world to open their own businesses, to new restaurants coming to town, to lawyers opening offices to do real estate closings.

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He believes a primary reason for the county’s robust growth is the local schools.

He calls them “an economic catalyst,” echoing an often-heard opinion.

All of the expanding sectors feed on each other, Martin said, and big businesses like Amazon and Nephron “fuel the fire of growth” and provide a new source of customers for existing businesses. Martin’s company, part of the Rock Hill-based Comporium, has been doing business in Lexington County for about 110 years. It is the former Pond Branch Telephone Co., and it provides telephone, cable television, Internet, security and wireless services.

Albert Bueno is president of another homegrown business, GIS (formerly a part of PMSC, a Columbia insurance software company), which offers corporations background screening, recruiting, hiring and onboarding solutions. With close to 525 employees at its Chapin headquarters, Bueno said, GIS has grown more than 500 percent over the last 10 years. He said Lexington County has been supportive of the

company in many ways, as they successfully recruit employees on the basis of the local schools, quality of life and the cost of living, along with what Bueno and other leaders refer to as Lexington County’s “jewel,” Lake Murray.

As for the business that was Lexington County’s mainstay for so long – agriculture – it’s still thriving. In 2009, products from local farms brought in nearly $147 million, with Lexington ranking No. 1 in cash receipts among South Carolina’s 46 counties, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Agricultural Statistics Service.

Lexington County’s population grew more than 21 percent between the 2000 and 2010 censuses, and it had reached 267,129 in 2011. “By 2020 we’re looking at a population over 300,000 people,” Mergo, the county administrator, said. County leaders hope to be ready for this continued rapid growth.

“We’re doing everything we can to plan for it.”

Charlie Compton has been Lexington County’s planning director since 1974, after graduating from Clemson University. Early on he was impressed by some of the county’s accomplishments, one being the implementation of a countywide fire and ambulance service. His reaction was “Wow, they’re doing something right here. Something good’s happening here.”

Compton, who said he’s “almost” a native of Lexington County, having lived there since he was 5 years old, appreciates the quality of life afforded by Lake Murray and other assets. However, it’s the diversity of

County Spotlight: Lexington

choices that really appeals to him. How the government has dealt with diversity is what has kept Compton in the job, as he said school-driven suburban growth is typical in any part of the country. For him, the exciting part of the process has been that county leaders “have been willing to do whatever it takes to deal with diversity. You don’t have to do the same thing all over the county.

You can have different rules and a different approach depending on what’s needed where, and they’ve embraced that very successfully.”

Looking ahead

Agriculture is still an important part of Lexington County’s economy. The harvest from Walter P. Rawl farm provides fresh produce across the state.

all of these institutions to aid in developing the 21st century workforce. “Businesses need employees who think critically, communicate effectively and are accountable for their performance. Our goal, by partnering with these institutions, is to ensure that the residents of Lexington County are able to

satisfy those business requirements!” said Whipple.

A spirit of opportunity prevails here, an inner-connectivity that cultivates – everyone working together for a common cause – which makes this a great place to live, work and play.

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Council Chairman Banning said the county needs “more product,” as it is called in the economic development world. “We need more options for other companies to join our great county.” Referencing industrial sites, he said that the county has to have the infrastructure in place, as incoming companies are ready to go. “They’re not going to wait on you to run water and sewer lines.”

In 2006, Lexington County Council decided to fund its first ever industrial park. Council realized that the land they had offered for a State Farmers Market site would make a great industrial park to attract new industry to the county. Realizing this, they approved a $13 million bond issue to acquire the site and install the public infrastructure. The result was attracting the massive Amazon, Nephron and SCE&G projects.

Two sites remain in the park today.

Additionally, Lexington County Council decided that tax revenue from all countyowned industrial parks should be shared by all five school districts, instead of going only to the districts in which the parks are located. Leaders say that arrangement is unique to Lexington County, but as Jeffcoat says, sharing is only fair since all of the taxpayers participate in the capital expenditures for the parks.

According to Whipple, Lexington County leaders are now turning their attention to workforce development, one of the drivers of economic development. Education at every level – primary, secondary and post-secondary – is crucial in the economic development process. It will be the role of

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