LEXINGTON, S.C. — Economic growth is looking up in Lexington County.
Local leaders just released their first annual report of progress made over the course of the last fiscal year.
Opportunity awaits in Lexington County.
That's a big take away leaders of the area's economic development department and committee are preaching.
This brand new economic development annual report shares that 13 announcements in the past 12 months have produced commitments of over $445M in capital investment and over 1,100 new jobs in the county.
Some of which includes a $41M investment in a new security building as an FBI field office for 200, and expanding Nephron Pharmaceuticals with a $100M investment creating 250 new jobs.
Some of the big attractors to the area?
“Our quality of life and we have three major interstates that come through the county, two class A railroads, we have Lake Murray which is a major attraction here and then of course I would be remiss if I didn't mention our excellent school system,” said Sarah Johnson, director of Lexington County’s economic development department.
The economic development department tells News 19 there's a lot in store for Lexington County's three industrial parks in Chapin, Batesburg-Leesville and West Columbia.
“Continuing to just make preparations for the companies when they are looking to locate in Lexington County. We also in our Batesburg-Leesville Industrial Park, we are going to clear, grub and grade the parcel known as parcel 1, which is about 23.7 acres,” Johnson said.
The county's goal is to cut down the timeline by six months for companies that want to come to the area to build. They do this by clearing trees, putting in roads, water and sewer preemptively.
“We understand and know that time is money and so by us doing all of this site work and the site prep, it cuts down that time for companies to get up and running as quickly as possible,” Johnson said.
Their goal is to keep these companies around and offer expansions with companies like Sorinex and Spectrum.
If you'd like to see Lexington County's full economic development report, you can access it here. They'll have another report next year around this time.