Gadsden County is seeking a $75,000 state grant to help market prime sites for development and attract new businesses to the area.
Grant would fund Phase Two of the Strategic Sites Inventory Study. County leaders hope the project will make Gadsden County more competitive for business investment. Watch the video to hear from local officials about the plan.
BROADCAST TRANSCRIPT:
Right now, it’s just open land here in Gadsden County, but county officials think it could be much bigger. I’m Tatyana Purifoy, your Quincy neighborhood reporter, and they’re hoping land just like this and others could soon be home to new businesses.
The Gadsden County Board of County Commissioners Economic Development Department has applied for a $75,000 state grant through the Florida Department of Commerce. If approved, it would fund Phase Two of the Strategic Sites Inventory Study, a major step in attracting developers. The county currently has six sites it wants to market, but being left off the list has made it harder to compete for business investment.
Gadsden County Economic Development Director T.J. Lewis says, “What happened in 2021, maybe 2024, is the state updated the list that was created in 2016. They did it statewide, but Gadsden was left off of the update. So what we’re trying to do is get the funds to at least have our inventory updated so we can more confidently market those properties to would-be site selectors and developers and say, Hey, we’ve got the sites you’re looking for right here, right outside of Tallahassee that are just sitting here prime real estate for you and it’s certified.”
The first phase of the study, completed in 2016, identified priority areas for industrial and commercial growth. This new phase would dive deeper, with environmental and engineering reviews, identifying barriers to development and estimating improvement costs.
Dr. Kassandra McGlonn Gadsden County Grant Administrator said, “Because there are other funding opportunities we are applying for this, but of course there are others that are also in the pipeline for us to be able to get some funding from for this exact same effort. The others will be on a larger scale you know, we got the 75K for this one but it will be the same thing, just at a greater number, a higher number, a more in-depth kind of project. But yeah, we like to cast wide nets around here.”
Officials believe the $75,000 project will make Gadsden more competitive across the state, helping them market land effectively and increasing their chances of landing new employers.
If the grant is approved Phase Two could start later this year, bringing Gadsden County one step closer to turning open land into opportunity. In Quincy, Tatyana Purifoy, ABC 27.
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