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T'ville featured in state magazine
The city's economic developer, Debra Fox, is in the cover photograph. A full page photo with the story inside the issue shows Mayor Sheldon Day and Southwest Alabama Medical Center CEO Kevin Biershenk at the site where the hospital hopes to build a $30 million regional medical facility. The headline of the two-page story by Jim Dunn proclaims "Big Business In A Small Town" with a subhead observing, "A sense of community pride, coupled with public-private partnerships for improvement, has landed the little town of Thomasville on the development destination map." The article quotes figures provided by Mayor Day of $400 million in development dollars being invested in the city of 5,000. That comes out to $80,000 per resident, a remarkable figure. "Thomasville is clearly doing well for itself," the article states. Day credited full-time economic developer Fox for much of the success. Fox said the city's once isolated location isn't so anymore. "We can document 90,000 now in our trade area, for a population of 5,000 or so. We are pulling from a lot of surrounding areas." Day said a can-do, positive approach has spurred growth. He explained, "In our approach to problems, we don't talk about what we can't do, and we don't talk about the cost of the project. We envision what we want for our community, we put that on paper and then we figure out a way to either finance that project or get public-private partnerships or whatever it might take to make those projects happen." The article details the multi-million in private and public funds spent to revitalize downtown Thomasville. Day talks about the $3.5 to $4 million civic center planned in a renovated old high school downtown. However, that project received a setback that didn't make the magazine last week when the bid came in way over budget. The success story extends beyond Thomasville's boundaries, the article notes as it quotes Debra Bolen of the Clarke County Development Foundation and Clarke County Commissioner Rhondell Rhone who talk about the cooperative efforts of the county and municipalities. That cooperation held secure a multi-million Louisiana Pacific OSB plant just south of Thomasville. Rhone told Business Alabama, "That particular project started out as one of the first major projects for the economic development foundation. There are five municipalities in the county, and each of those governing bodies got on board or passed resolutions in support of that project, and I think that the company saw that spirit of cooperation. When you have people singing from the same sheet of music, I think that was one of the driving forces behind them deciding to locate here." For the full story and more on the magazine, see www.businessalabama.net on the Internet.
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