The pandemic put a pause on any announcement of new industries coming to Tennessee, namely the Memphis Regional Megasite, but Bobby Rolfe, Tennessee’s Commissioner of Economic and Community Development, expects some good news in the near future.
“While it looks like we have gone to sleep, I can promise you the team I work with has been just as busy (and) there are about 20 different projects that are slated to be announced over the next couple of months,” Rolfe said, “Hopefully, we will all be able to celebrate a couple of new job announcements – not only in middle and east Tennessee, but west Tennessee.”
Rolfe made his comments during a meeting at the Southwest Tennessee Development District, Monday.
“With respect to what’s going on at the Megasite, I think we all are aware, when the pandemic hit, maybe actually right before that, the governor wanted to push the ‘pause’ button on moving forward with the spending on the wastewater pipeline,” Rolfe said, “That is still the case … but we continue to sell the Megasite.”
Allen Borden, deputy commissioner, Business, Community and Rural Development, said there are good things and challenging things when it comes to recruiting business for the state.
“Companies all around the world want to get back to commerce,” Borden said, “The reason we know this is they continue to contact us by virtual meetings.
“So much of what we are doing right now is virtual.”
Borden said the challenge is – borders are closed.
“International travel is just not happening,” Borden said, “Prior to COVID, several projects were in the works, but you can only take these virual meetings so far.”
Rolfe said the state was contacted by a company wanting to install a solar farm on one-fourth of the acreage targeted for the Megasite.
The number of jobs the solar farm would create would be about 24.
“One-thousand acres is an enormous amount of acreage,” Rolfe said, “There is so much more for that than taking land and creating a solar farm in this case that would have limited economic benefit to the communities that are surrounding it.”
Board members voted unanimously to reject the offer.
(PHOTO: Bobby Rolfe, Tennessee’s Commissioner of Economic and Community Development, is pictured at right)
