An out-of-state company has an option to buy up to 80 acres of land in the Metro-Pike Industrial Park in Magnolia.
Britt Herrin, executive director of the Pike County Economic Development District, said last week that the company is “doing its final due diligence to locate.”
According to information provided by Herrin, the company would invest up to $80 million at the site, which is currently undeveloped land, and would create up to 45 full-time jobs in the wood products industry.
Herrin said the economic development district has been working with the company for about a year.
No construction plans, or a date that the business would begin operations, will be set until the agreement between the county and the business is complete.
The agreement includes a clause in which the economic development district has the right to buy back the land if the company is unable to build on the property.
The agreement did not specify a buy-back price.
In its meeting on Tuesday, the economic development district board approved a two-year consulting agreement with Wayne Sterling, an economic developer who worked as an attorney in McComb in the 1970s.
Sterling’s career includes work in Texas, South Carolina and Virginia, and he played a role in bringing a BMW auto assembly plant to South Carolina in the 1990s.
“He’s going to give us contacts that we don’t have,” said Herrin, who described Sterling as well-connected in the economic development field.
The agreement will pay Sterling $30,000 a year. Herrin said about half of the money will come from private donations, while the economic development district will pay the rest.
The website for Sterling’s consulting firm is sterlingedc.com.
In another matter, Tom Windham of the Windham & Lacey certified public accounting firm in Pearl said an audit of the district’s financial records uncovered no problems or irregularities.
