Brookhaven and Lincoln County officials have come together on an economic development plan that aims to bring life to Linbrook Business Park. The Brookhaven-Lincoln County Economic Development Alliance sought city and county board support to move forward with efforts to team up with Agracel, an industrial development company, to construct a facility in the vacant business park.

The Alliance was formed in 2005 alongside the acquisition and development of the Linbrook Park and is a subset of local government whose board has members from both the Lincoln County Board of Supervisors and the Brookhaven Board of Aldermen. After a joint session Monday morning between supervisors and aldermen, each board voted unanimously to increase the Alliance’s budget by $80,000 from each board.

“It’s all very positive and I’m just proud that we’re going to aggressively market the Linbrook area, and work toward getting a tenant,” Brookhaven Mayor Joe Cox said. “That was great news, that was a good day yesterday and I think everybody was excited about it. It’s all about economic development and moving ahead.”

Brookhaven-Lincoln County Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Garrick Combs has spearheaded the effort to team up with Agracel. Combs said the Alliance would partner with Agracel, who would construct a building to house a potential business on 10 to 20 acres of the 400-acre business park. Having a facility in place that a manufacturer or other industrial company could move into and quickly customize to their needs is huge, Combs said.

“What they do is they come into a market like ours, and they take a look at our property, our community, what we’ve got to offer, and they make a decision whether or not to invest in that community and build a facility in partnership with us,” Combs said. “And then we all go out and market it. What they’re looking for is a permanent, long-term tenant for the building. What we’re looking for is new jobs, new investment and development of the new industrial park.”

“Speed-to-market has elevated on companies’ must-have list steadily over the last 10 years,” Combs said. “When a business identifies an opportunity in the market they want to make sure they can capitalize on that. To cut 12 months off their timeline is a very attractive selling point.”

Now that the Alliance has the green light and financial support of the two boards, it can go ahead with the many aspects of due diligence needing to be executed before Agracel and the Alliance come to an agreement.

“There are a handful of communities that have a track record of doing this [and that have] participated in this type of project — in Columbus, Grenada, Tupelo with good success,” Combs said. “Agracel wouldn’t be looking to replicate that unless they thought they were going to be successful here, too.”

Justyn Dixon, regional development director for Agracel, said at this point they are in discussions, seeing what they can do to come together with Brookhaven/Lincoln County to see some better opportunities for the area.

“Typically when we build, we already have a tenant before we build a facility,” Dixon said. “So if we’re going to go into an area and put a marketable building in place that doesn’t have a tenant, it typically means we are very interested in the area, and it has a [strong chance of becoming occupied.]

“With the progressive nature of Brookhaven, and more specifically Garrick Combs, I think Brookhaven has an excellent opportunity of being successful, and we would like to be a partner in that,” he said.

Dixon said city and county government, along with the Alliance, are to be commended for a unified front on economic development.

“I think you’ve got a pro-business atmosphere, you have a 7-0 vote and a 5-0 vote, which is a lot of backing by the community,” Dixon said. “[It’s a] very business friendly community and the economic development being [cultivated] is very strong. We like the way it’s situated on a great interstate in between Jackson and New Orleans, and I think you’ve got a great work force there.”

While specific numbers on the agreement and the facility are far from being set in stone, Combs and other members of the Alliance were steadfast on the fact that the combined $160,000 from the boards would not affect taxes for the next fiscal year.