A Road Paved with Opportunity
Published Mar 16, 2009
Lowe’s operates a distribution center in Mt. Vernon that employs around 1,000.
A network of major highways interconnects with air and rail transportation to provide Ark-Tex industries a variety of ways to move product, a key component in spurring new investment and expansion.
“We’re at a crossroads for agriculture, which is why we’ve had Kimberly-Clark and Campbell Soup here for a long time,” says Pete Kampfer, Paris Economic Development Corp. executive director “We’ve got lots of water and a good workforce. Now we’re working with folks who are interested in raw-food manufacturing and strategic warehousing that would tie into our distributors.”
Companies are able to send and receive goods via U.S. highways 82 and 271, as well as Texas highways 19 and 24; I-30 is only 38 miles away.
The planned NAFTA Corridor, a highway system that would connect Canada to Mexico, would position the Ark-Tex to be a major thoroughfare for goods going from around the United States to Mexico and other points in South America and Central America. Interstates 49, 59 and 69 would be key arterial connectors for the system, positioning the region to expand its warehousing and distribution capacity.
“All routes identified as NAFTA corridors pass through our region,” says Deborah Cook, executive director of the New Boston Special Industrial Development Corp. “The majority of the continent’s imports and exports pass through our highways, serving all domestic and international markets.”
The transportation network includes more than 15 well-maintained interstate and highway systems that transect the region, as well as the presence of numerous major freight carriers. A Foreign Trade Zone has been established in Northeast Texas, including New Boston, which is strategically located in the center of Bowie County, where the four corners of Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana and Oklahoma meet.
Roadways have been an integral part of growth plans laid out in Mt. Vernon, which also relies on its quality of life and a host of other amenities beyond its transportation assets.
Mt. Vernon has reinvested its sales-tax collections back into the community, capitalizing on a Lowe’s distribution center to bring in a variety of business and cultural projects, says Teresia Wims, who is the city’s economic development coordinator.
Employment at the facility is around 1,000, with increases at peak times. Since Lowe’s opened the center in 1995, sales-tax receipts have increased more than 100 percent.
“It goes without saying that the distribution center has been a tremendous economic engine for us,” Wims says.
Story by Joe Morris
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