Tax revenue from two businesses in a Norton industrial park is now reaching Lee County. In September, the county accepted a check for $16,667.27. It was Lee County’s share of tax revenue from Project Intersection, the regional park off U.S. 23, according to the minutes of the September 15 Board of Supervisors meeting.
Add the two smaller checks the county received from the authority in June, and Lee County has taken in $26,667.27 from it this year, by The Lee Daily Register’s count from the board’s minutes. County Administrator Clint Carter told the board the checks should grow as the park develops.
Why a Norton park pays Lee County
The park belongs to the Lonesome Pine Regional Industrial Facilities Authority, formed in 2019 by Lee, Wise, Scott and Dickenson counties and the City of Norton. A 2020 application by Wise County to the Virginia Association of Counties describes the idea: localities that once competed for the same employers pool their resources and share the revenue that results.
Virginia’s Regional Industrial Facilities Act allows that kind of deal. In June, Lee County’s board adopted the authority’s model revenue-sharing agreement, according to the June 16 minutes. It splits each project’s revenue into seven equal shares:
- one share for each of the five member localities,
- one extra share for the locality that hosts the project, which here is Norton, and
- one share for the authority itself, which Carter said helps with its operating costs.
Lee County’s one-seventh came to $16,667.27 in September. If every share was the same size, the full distribution was about $116,670, and Norton’s two shares were about $33,335. Those are The Lee Daily Register’s calculations; the minutes give only Lee County’s amount.
What is at the park now
The revenue is tied to two buildings. William Wampler, the authority’s director, told Lee County’s supervisors in June that the park has recruited two businesses. EarthLink, the internet provider, employs more than 80 people. Wrap, a public-safety de-escalation company, has about 12 and plans to reach 126. The City of Norton has assessed both buildings for real estate tax, and state law returns that revenue to the member localities, Wampler said.
The board approved separate revenue-sharing agreements that night for a 20,000-square-foot building and a 28,000-square-foot building at the park. LENOWISCO Executive Director Duane Miller then handed Carter two checks, for $5,500 and $4,500, and said he hoped to bring another before the end of the year.
From mine site to industrial park
The land has a coal history. The 2020 application describes Project Intersection as a former 188-acre surface mine at the junction of U.S. 23 and U.S. Alternate 58. More than 23,000 vehicles pass that junction each day, according to state traffic data cited in the application. At the time, $10,867,400 had been secured for the project.
Spending has kept climbing. Wampler told the board the authority has invested about $30 million in grant funding over six years. In August, Virginia Energy and regional leaders presented checks for two more projects there totaling $8.45 million from the Abandoned Mine Land Economic Revitalization program, according to a Virginia Energy release. The money will pay for a speculative building of up to 40,000 square feet, designed for light manufacturing, and a second access road into the 200-acre park, which has five building pads.
Why it matters here
For Lee County, the payments are small next to a general fund of about $21 million. Carter called the arrangement a good example of how the area could benefit from a regional effort. When Supervisor Roger Waddell asked in June whether more prospects were coming, Miller said the authority has two that are “pretty good,” and that it is looking at other regional sites besides Project Intersection.
