Steve Mensing, Editor
♦ A popular game played in economically struggling and desperate parts of the United States is squandering taxpayer money on speculative industrial buildings for manufacturing. We’re not talking about “flex” buildings for distribution centers and warehousing where interior walls can be adjusted for floor space requirements–they are less of a gamble unless your area has a large inventory of empty buildings suitable for distribution and warehousing. Here we are focusing solely on large and expensive speculative industrial buildings for manufacturing…built on your dime.
Constructing large and expensive speculative industrial buildings for manufacturing is always a high risk gamble that seldom pays off save for the architects and construction outfits that build them and those who might be in line for “funny money” to make it happen. That’s often why many “build it and they will come” projects are gambled upon–kickbacks and bribes. Those chummy little envelopes that often go under the radar.
But why are speculative industrial buildings for manufacturing, built on the taxpayer’s dime, high-risk? Let us count the reasons.
• Each manufacturing company has their own unique building specifications that a one-sized fits all building will seldom if ever match. For example:
* Floors might be required to bare a specified weight.
* Building shape and length might have to adhere to assembly line anomalies like curves and forks.
* Ceilings must be height specific.
* Roofs may have to support weighty cooling units.
* Support beams must require a certain load baring ability.
* Ramps and truck entrances/exits need to be a certain size and width.
* Are the areas statistics inviting to industrial manufacturing companies? Companies, looking to transfer staff and their families, take very seriously an area’s crime, public school performance, and poverty statistics. Salisbury and some parts of Rowan County would get short-shrift based on statistics alone. Many other areas are far more livable.
* How about the area workforce? Are they educated and trained enough to meet a prospective manufacturer’s needs?
Constructing speculative industrial buildings for manufacturing is an extremely high-risk gamble. The landscape across the United States is littered with “build it and they will come” vacant buildings and empty job promises never fulfilled.
The Dark Side of Build It and They will Come:
http://rowanfreepress.com/2014/05/25/the-dark-side-of-build-it-and-they-will-come/
