Triangle joins hand with Edgecombe County

The deal for the largest manufacturing investment in rural North Carolina became official on April 4.

Edgecombe County Board of Commissioners and Triangle Tire USA Technologies LLC, approved an inducement agreement for the economic development project in Edgecombe County. The required investment by Triangle Tire USA will be $579 million to create 800 permanent full-time jobs an average annual salary of $56,450.

The commissioners held an emergency morning meeting at the Department of Social Services office on Wednesday in Rocky Mount to hear about a couple changes in the inducement agreement and approve the final version of the agreement. The board had originally signed the inducement agreement in December.

Edgecombe County Manager Eric Evans said Ding Yuhua, president of Triangle Tire USA, signed the inducement agreement for the company. Evans said some of the highlights of the inducement agreement includes Triangle Tyre USA receiving 400 acres of land from Edgecombe County at the 1,449-acre Kingsboro megasite. The beginning of construction on the project site is expected to start by April 13 and no later than April 16.

Evans said one of the changes in the inducement agreement is that progress of construction will be regularly monitored by N.C. Department of Transportation engineers. He added Triangle Tire USA will have its own engineers consult with DOT engineers to review test results made or received by the DOT engineers and to monitor the progress of the first and second phases of construction.

The project is the Chinese tire company’s first manufacturing facility in the United States, in which the company will be building two tire manufacturing facilities, a passenger tire facility as phase one and a commercial tire facility as phase two.

Evans said the original phase will have a $26 million pad-ready site for the first building, which the county is waiting to get some permits for. Evans said he received a letter Tuesday from the DOT that the agency is confident that the appropriation of the $26 million is forthcoming from the N.C. General Assembly.

Evans said Triangle is already exploring plans to expand the operations beyond what was signed Wednesday. Norris Tolson, CEO and president of the Carolinas Gateway Parnership, said at the Rocky Mount Area Chamber legislative forum earlier this month that the full build-out of the project is likely to be a little more than $1 billion and create between 1,100 and 1,200 jobs.

“They plan to start design work on the second phase of the preparation that will allow them to expand,” Evans said.

Also in the inducement agreement, the county will remove all mobile homes and modular homes in the Mid-Lakes Mobile Home Park within the next two years.