Billboards on Corridor X have positive effect on business

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Billboards on Corridor X have positive effect on business

Mobile Bay Monthly

The Road To Revival

Its roadbed is planned to thread through some of the state's most beautiful, most hard-pressed country. The long-awaited Corridor X promises to revive a region stung by mining and textile losses.

By Cathy Donelson

One rainy night not long ago Jerry Brown was checking on his fish pond near Hamilton, over in Marion County on the Mississippi state line when some people came up.

“I couldn't hardly understand what they were saying. Turned out they were Germans who saw our billboard on the interstate,” says Brown, famed for his hand-turned decorative pottery and face jugs.

He meant the new superhighway called simply Corridor X which will run from Memphis through Alabama's western hills to Birmingham when completed. Brown, who lives near one of the county's two large new computer call centers serving high-tech clients like Dell and Gateway, says he gets a lot of business off the new superhighway.

“Interstate is what everybody calls it around here,” says the ninth generation potter whose work is displayed in the Smithsonian's American History Museum and folk art collections over the world.

Corridor X is expected to be the road to recuperation — if not riches — for the three counties of Fayette, Marion and Walker it traverses. These northwest Alabama counties have a common key economic issue. “And that is Corridor X,” says David Knight, executive director of the Walker County Economic and Industrial Development Authority, based in Jasper.

The 260-mile four-lane roughly parallels U.S. 78, parts of which is two-lane and in rough shape. The new freeway that will tie into Interstate 65 just north of the heart of Birmingham is expected to be an economic lifeline for the area that has seen hundreds of coal mining and textile jobs go South in recent years.

Mine and plant closings have forced a shift in industrial recruiting and the region is looking to Corridor X, which is expected to someday become Interstate 22, for a jump start from Alabama's growing automotive industry. Knight says the lack of an interstate hurt the area in the past because highway access is a critical element in industrial site selection.

We've seen a significant increase in industrial prospects and auto-related suppliers looking at the region,” Knight says. “Walker County and Jasper seem to be within the distribution radius of supply companies for both Honda and Mercedes.”

Jasper, with over 14,000 residents, is the region's largest town. Home to a large Marshall Durbin poultry processing plant, it is counting its chicks with Corridor X as are other communities along its 100-mile route through northwest Alabama.

Shouldering Jefferson County, Walker County is about 16 miles from Birmingham. Along with bordering Fayette and Marion counties, it is in the heart of the once-celebrated Warrior coal basin. The 5,000-square-mile Warrior was the economic fuel of field in Alabama's Appalachian plateau for more than a century and the rich coal fields gave rise to large mining companies. Down in Drummond Hollow, between Sumiton and Empire in Walker County, Heman H. Drummond started a small mule wagon mine back in 1935. It grew into the Drummond Company, one of the state's largest privately held firms. Once a dozen large Drummond mines were worked in Walker County, but the company has closed all but one of its Alabama mines and moved its operations to Colombia.

“I consider mining our past,” says Knight, who emphasized the need to diversify the employment base and not rely so heavily on one industry.

Jasper City Councilman Morris Studdard, retired after 40 years with the Drummond mines, says, There's still some mining on a smaller scale with some dozer-loader pits, but the big strip mines are no longer operating in the county.”

A couple of the county's old mining towns like Carbon Hill on U.S. 78, devastated by killer tornadoes in November, are being bypassed by the new turnpike but Jasper is counting on Corridor X to attract new industry and retail expansion.

Alabama's first Wal-Mart Supercenter located in Jasper. Now there are two in Walker County and Home Depot and Lowe’s are coming to Jasper. We're expecting Corridor X to open this area to a boom like you wouldn't believe,” Studdard says.

Planners are awaiting suburban growth from Birmingham toward the scenic Jasper area just a few miles from Smith Lake. Ranked one of the nation's cleanest, the 21,000-acre lake with 500 miles of shoreline is famous for its record-breaking bass fishing.

Available for development are 54 acres of Alabama State Docks property at Cordova on a Black Warrior River branch near Jasper where Warrior River Steel has located a large fabrication facility. Both have access to the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway, the vast inland bargeway linked to the Port of Mobile.

Also available is the Tom Bevill Industrial Park in Studdard's council district, which already has access to the newly opened Jasper bypass through the Corridor X Industrial Parkway. We're hopeful it's really going to see some movement. Not a week goes by we don't have calls,” the councilman says.

The 500-acre Bevill Park has a large building available and rail access by Burlington-Northern/Santa Fe Railroad. The railroad put Jasper on the map in the late 1800s.

We're banking on it (Corridor X),” says Anne Hamner, executive director of the Fayette Chamber of Commerce. We've lost several jobs in the last few months so it is of real interest right now to try to get some new industry in here.” In the summer of 2001 about 400 jobs were lost when Arvin Industries moved its auto muffler plant.

The 1821 town calling itself “The South's Best Kept Secret” features Victorian architecture such as the impressive domed county courthouse on the National Register of Historic Places. The Fayette Art Museum, with a permanent collection of 3,500 pieces, is the state's largest folk art museum.

In recognition of those industries that stayed in the area, the chamber recently held a Business Appreciation Day and banquet. Manufacturers in the county range from the newer home-grown Alabama Sunshine, maker of gourmet hot sauce and syrups, to Daltile, which employs about 100 making designer quarry tile. It has been in business in Fayette for 22 years, getting its clay locally.

The Fayette County seat depended on a cotton mill as its main employer for many years. Fayette Cotton Mill is still a large employer, despite a recent scare that it might be closing. And there's still some coal mining in the county on the western edge of the Warrior coal field. “Mining has been a good industry,” Hamner says.

Nationally known Ox Bodies, which makes heavy truck and dump bodies, just celebrated its 30th year in Fayette. The family-owned business opened there in 1972 and has branch plants in Arkansas and South Carolina.

“Dump bodies are our bread and butter,” says company President Lehman Pendley, who operates the business with his sons. Customers can bring their trucks to their Fayette facility, where the firm motto is “Strong as an Ox.” The company also has a fleet of trucks to make deliveries and Pendley says Corridor X will be a plus. “Any new road for our area will be an asset,” he says.

Alan Harper, executive director of the newly formed West Alabama Economic Development Authority, agrees. Based at the Bevill Community College in Fayette, the authority was created two years ago to promote economic development in Fayette, Pickens and Lamar counties.

“In Fayette, we have experienced a tremendous loss in jobs in the last three to five years — about 1,200 jobs — but we have an excellent available workforce,” says Harper, who is working with a community economic development team.

“I’ve been very impressed with the efforts made by the City of Fayette and Fayette County to come together and aggressively market the county,” Harper says. He adds a cooperative effort to target the automotive industry has resulted in 300 to 400 contacts. “With this kind of can-do attitude, we will be successful in the long term,” he says. “Industries don't come to a community overnight and an economy develops over decades. It does take time.”

Harper says the existing Fayette Industrial Park is pretty well filled and that plans are moving forward for a new industrial park. We're looking at some new industrial property. Corridor X is 25 miles north of us and will be a big asset for our area once it's completed.”

Fayette is pro-active when it comes to economic development, according to Mayor Ray Nelson. “We have created a community economic team made up of 20 citizens who have demonstrated strong leadership,” Nelson says, admitting the loss of the Arvin and textiles jobs were heavy blows. We're going to bounce back, if we just keep working hard. Corridor X is right on our doorstep and we're pushing for a north-south corridor through here.”

Congress has appropriated $4 million for an environmental study of a new highway from Muscle Shoals to Tuscaloosa that would cross Corridor X.

In neighboring Marion County the new Corridor X is about the most important road since Andrew Jackson's volunteers cut the historic old Military Road through to Nashville, heading home from victory over the British in the 1815 Battle of New Orleans. It later became a stage road from Washington to New Orleans and a roadside settlement called Toll Gate became the Marion County seat of Hamilton.

Some portions of Corridor X are completed including 14 miles between Hamilton and Winfield. Both towns have Corridor X exits and are counting on it for jobs in the county that has lost nearly 5,000 jobs in the past seven years. All the garment plants closed along with eight of the 12 manufactured housing industries.

Galvanized by an unemployment rate of more than 12 percent last year, leaders formed the Community Development Foundation of Marion County which began operating in September 2000.

“The most immediate need was to bring in jobs as quickly as possible to stop the economic bleeding,” says David Graham, CDF executive director. As of August, unemployment in Marion County was down to 7.7 percent and $40.2 million in new industry has located there. Newly recruited companies include Modular Engineering, maker of steel prison cells; RV manufacturer Southeastern Converting and Tullahoma Industries, a military clothing company.

“A number of industries have been recruited in the past 19 months,” Graham says. “Service Zone is the biggest one.”

The high-tech Service Zone computer call center has spent millions on 45,000-square-foot buildings in both Hamilton and Winfield, and has hired more than 400 at each site, with a goal of a total 1,200 employees. Providing post-sale computer support for customers of clients, the company also handles calls about billing and orders and offers telephone technical support for Internet provider users.

“What I really like about the area is the availability of eager and highly skilled employees,” Service Zone Vice President Allen LaBrune says.

He adds that he found the workers to have a strong work ethic and care for customers. “The people that have come aboard are in tune with customer-service philosophies and I think because of the way they were raised in this area, there is a warmth conveyed to customers on the phone,” LaBrune says. “We couldn't be more happy.”

Neither could the county's economic leaders. “All we ever did was manufacturing. This was something totally new for our area,” says Hamilton Area Chamber of Commerce President Tyna Tucker Vines.

Cathy Donelson contributes regularly as a freelance writer for Business Alabama. She lives in Fairhope.

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	Billboards on Corridor X have positive effect on business
	Mobile Bay Monthly The Road To Revival Its roadbed is planned to thread through some of the state's most beautiful, most hard-pressed country. The long-awaited Corridor X promises to revive a region stung by mining and textile losses. By Cathy Donelson One rainy night not long ago Jerry Brown was checking on his fish pond near Hamilton, over in Marion County on the Mississippi state line when some people came up. “I couldn't hardly understand what they were saying. Turned out they were Germans who saw our billboard on the interstate,” says Brown, famed for his hand-turned decorative pottery and face jugs. He meant the new superhighway called simply Corridor X which will run from Memphis through Alabama's western hills to Birmingham when completed. Brown, who lives near one of the county's two large new computer call centers serving high-tech clients like Dell and Gateway, says he gets a lot of business off the new superhighway. “Interstate is what everybody calls it around here,” says the ninth generation potter whose work is displayed in the Smithsonian's American History Museum and folk art collections over the world. Corridor X is expected to be the road to recuperation — if not riches — for the three counties of Fayette, Marion and Walker it traverses. These northwest Alabama counties have a common key economic issue. “And that is Corridor X,” says David Knight, executive director of the Walker County Economic and Industrial Development Authority, based in Jasper. The 260-mile four-lane roughly parallels U.S. 78, parts of which is two-lane and in rough shape. The new freeway that will tie into Interstate 65 just north of the heart of Birmingham is expected to be an economic lifeline for the area that has seen hundreds of coal mining and textile jobs go South in recent years. Mine and plant closings have forced a shift in industrial recruiting and the region is looking to Corridor X, which is expected to someday become Interstate 22, for a jump start from Alabama's growing automotive industry. Knight says the lack of an interstate hurt the area in the past because highway access is a critical element in industrial site selection. We've seen a significant increase in industrial prospects and auto-related suppliers looking at the region,” Knight says. “Walker County and Jasper seem to be within the distribution radius of supply companies for both Honda and Mercedes.” Jasper, with over 14,000 residents, is the region's largest town. Home to a large Marshall Durbin poultry processing plant, it is counting its chicks with Corridor X as are other communities along its 100-mile route through northwest Alabama. Shouldering Jefferson County, Walker County is about 16 miles from Birmingham. Along with bordering Fayette and Marion counties, it is in the heart of the once-celebrated Warrior coal basin. The 5,000-square-mile Warrior was the economic fuel of field in Alabama's Appalachian plateau for more than a century and the rich coal fields gave rise to large mining companies. Down in Drummond Hollow, between Sumiton and Empire in Walker County, Heman H. Drummond started a small mule wagon mine back in 1935. It grew into the Drummond Company, one of the state's largest privately held firms. Once a dozen large Drummond mines were worked in Walker County, but the company has closed all but one of its Alabama mines and moved its operations to Colombia. “I consider mining our past,” says Knight, who emphasized the need to diversify the employment base and not rely so heavily on one industry. Jasper City Councilman Morris Studdard, retired after 40 years with the Drummond mines, says, There's still some mining on a smaller scale with some dozer-loader pits, but the big strip mines are no longer operating in the county.” A couple of the county's old mining towns like Carbon Hill on U.S. 78, devastated by killer tornadoes in November, are being bypassed by the new turnpike but Jasper is counting on Corridor X to attract new industry and retail expansion. Alabama's first Wal-Mart Supercenter located in Jasper. Now there are two in Walker County and Home Depot and Lowe’s are coming to Jasper. We're expecting Corridor X to open this area to a boom like you wouldn't believe,” Studdard says. Planners are awaiting suburban growth from Birmingham toward the scenic Jasper area just a few miles from Smith Lake. Ranked one of the nation's cleanest, the 21,000-acre lake with 500 miles of shoreline is famous for its record-breaking bass fishing. Available for development are 54 acres of Alabama State Docks property at Cordova on a Black Warrior River branch near Jasper where Warrior River Steel has located a large fabrication facility. Both have access to the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway, the vast inland bargeway linked to the Port of Mobile. Also available is the Tom Bevill Industrial Park in Studdard's council district, which already has access to the newly opened Jasper bypass through the Corridor X Industrial Parkway. We're hopeful it's really going to see some movement. Not a week goes by we don't have calls,” the councilman says. The 500-acre Bevill Park has a large building available and rail access by Burlington-Northern/Santa Fe Railroad. The railroad put Jasper on the map in the late 1800s. We're banking on it (Corridor X),” says Anne Hamner, executive director of the Fayette Chamber of Commerce. We've lost several jobs in the last few months so it is of real interest right now to try to get some new industry in here.” In the summer of 2001 about 400 jobs were lost when Arvin Industries moved its auto muffler plant. The 1821 town calling itself “The South's Best Kept Secret” features Victorian architecture such as the impressive domed county courthouse on the National Register of Historic Places. The Fayette Art Museum, with a permanent collection of 3,500 pieces, is the state's largest folk art museum. In recognition of those industries that stayed in the area, the chamber recently held a Business Appreciation Day and banquet. Manufacturers in the county range from the newer home-grown Alabama Sunshine, maker of gourmet hot sauce and syrups, to Daltile, which employs about 100 making designer quarry tile. It has been in business in Fayette for 22 years, getting its clay locally. The Fayette County seat depended on a cotton mill as its main employer for many years. Fayette Cotton Mill is still a large employer, despite a recent scare that it might be closing. And there's still some coal mining in the county on the western edge of the Warrior coal field. “Mining has been a good industry,” Hamner says. Nationally known Ox Bodies, which makes heavy truck and dump bodies, just celebrated its 30th year in Fayette. The family-owned business opened there in 1972 and has branch plants in Arkansas and South Carolina. “Dump bodies are our bread and butter,” says company President Lehman Pendley, who operates the business with his sons. Customers can bring their trucks to their Fayette facility, where the firm motto is “Strong as an Ox.” The company also has a fleet of trucks to make deliveries and Pendley says Corridor X will be a plus. “Any new road for our area will be an asset,” he says. Alan Harper, executive director of the newly formed West Alabama Economic Development Authority, agrees. Based at the Bevill Community College in Fayette, the authority was created two years ago to promote economic development in Fayette, Pickens and Lamar counties. “In Fayette, we have experienced a tremendous loss in jobs in the last three to five years — about 1,200 jobs — but we have an excellent available workforce,” says Harper, who is working with a community economic development team. “I’ve been very impressed with the efforts made by the City of Fayette and Fayette County to come together and aggressively market the county,” Harper says. He adds a cooperative effort to target the automotive industry has resulted in 300 to 400 contacts. “With this kind of can-do attitude, we will be successful in the long term,” he says. “Industries don't come to a community overnight and an economy develops over decades. It does take time.” Harper says the existing Fayette Industrial Park is pretty well filled and that plans are moving forward for a new industrial park. We're looking at some new industrial property. Corridor X is 25 miles north of us and will be a big asset for our area once it's completed.” Fayette is pro-active when it comes to economic development, according to Mayor Ray Nelson. “We have created a community economic team made up of 20 citizens who have demonstrated strong leadership,” Nelson says, admitting the loss of the Arvin and textiles jobs were heavy blows. We're going to bounce back, if we just keep working hard. Corridor X is right on our doorstep and we're pushing for a north-south corridor through here.” Congress has appropriated $4 million for an environmental study of a new highway from Muscle Shoals to Tuscaloosa that would cross Corridor X. In neighboring Marion County the new Corridor X is about the most important road since Andrew Jackson's volunteers cut the historic old Military Road through to Nashville, heading home from victory over the British in the 1815 Battle of New Orleans. It later became a stage road from Washington to New Orleans and a roadside settlement called Toll Gate became the Marion County seat of Hamilton. Some portions of Corridor X are completed including 14 miles between Hamilton and Winfield. Both towns have Corridor X exits and are counting on it for jobs in the county that has lost nearly 5,000 jobs in the past seven years. All the garment plants closed along with eight of the 12 manufactured housing industries. Galvanized by an unemployment rate of more than 12 percent last year, leaders formed the Community Development Foundation of Marion County which began operating in September 2000. “The most immediate need was to bring in jobs as quickly as possible to stop the economic bleeding,” says David Graham, CDF executive director. As of August, unemployment in Marion County was down to 7.7 percent and $40.2 million in new industry has located there. Newly recruited companies include Modular Engineering, maker of steel prison cells; RV manufacturer Southeastern Converting and Tullahoma Industries, a military clothing company. “A number of industries have been recruited in the past 19 months,” Graham says. “Service Zone is the biggest one.” The high-tech Service Zone computer call center has spent millions on 45,000-square-foot buildings in both Hamilton and Winfield, and has hired more than 400 at each site, with a goal of a total 1,200 employees. Providing post-sale computer support for customers of clients, the company also handles calls about billing and orders and offers telephone technical support for Internet provider users. “What I really like about the area is the availability of eager and highly skilled employees,” Service Zone Vice President Allen LaBrune says. He adds that he found the workers to have a strong work ethic and care for customers. “The people that have come aboard are in tune with customer-service philosophies and I think because of the way they were raised in this area, there is a warmth conveyed to customers on the phone,” LaBrune says. “We couldn't be more happy.” Neither could the county's economic leaders. “All we ever did was manufacturing. This was something totally new for our area,” says Hamilton Area Chamber of Commerce President Tyna Tucker Vines. Cathy Donelson contributes regularly as a freelance writer for Business Alabama. She lives in Fairhope. 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