Wal-Mart brings millions to Baker
County officials expect to reap huge benefits
John Snow
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BAKER COUNTY - County officials put up $9 million in incentives to keep
Wal-Mart from shopping elsewhere for the site of a major distribution
center, but one study says they will get a $152 million return on their
investment within five years.
The 880,000-square-foot distribution center opened in April outside
Macclenny on U.S. 90. The 124-acre site is in Enterprise East, one of
two industrial parks being developed by the Baker County Development
Commission.
"We're pleased that they've already employed 550 people," said Ginger
Barber, executive director of the Baker County Development Commission.
"They told us they'd start with 300 and build to 600 within three years.
We're also pleased with their starting salary of $11.25 per hour. That
is a boon we didn't know about."
Many jobs also come from the center's contracted trucking firm.
Clarksville Refrigerated Lines ships Wal-Mart's food products, dry goods
and refrigerated products to Wal-Marts and Sam's Outlets in South
Carolina, Georgia and Northeast Florida.
The jobs brought by Wal-Mart and the trucking company played a key role
in an economic impact study by the Northeast Florida Planning Council,
said Mike Brown, the study's author and the council's director of
special projects.
"The $152 million includes everything from employee wages to how much
Wal-Mart will spend on supplies and subcontractors," Brown said. "Part
of that is also for construction equipment and the construction costs of
the project."
Wal-Mart invested $40 million in the project, which has brought enough
growth to Baker County that Barber worries about having enough
commercial and retail space for businesses that want to follow in
Wal-Mart's wake.
She says several fast food chains want to enter the county but can't
find a location.
"Before Wal-Mart we didn't have the dollar flow and we didn't need the
space," Barber said. "A lot of people who were commuting to Jacksonville
are staying in Baker County now. Commercial space is still pretty tight.
We need more people developing commercial. There's no empty retail space
I'm aware of in the county."
Demand should do nothing but increase. Brown notes Baker County's work
force was only about 8,842 in the 2000. An increase of 600 is nearly 7
percent, and the computer model in Brown's study predicts 277 additional
jobs from the Wal-Mart center's indirect influence.
The center's overall regional economic impact is put at $199 million by
the computer model, Brown said.
The Wal-Mart project, combined with International Paper's sale of 47,000
acres in Baker County, has spurred residential development as well. The
Baker County Commission has been rezoning agricultural parcels into
residential development zones, Baker said.
WorkSource, a federal agency that acts as an employment agency, also has
benefited from Wal-Mart's presence. WorkSource was instrumental in
facilitating the employment application process for Wal-Mart, Barber
said.
About 6,000 people applied for jobs at the distribution center, which
offered a starting hourly wage 34 percent higher than the county average
of $8.41. To do the work of hiring, WorkSource moved from a small
temporary location into a larger, permanent one in Macclenny.
"Now we're able to reach out to other businesses in Baker County and
help them with recruiting," said Candace Moody, WorkSource's vice
president of marketing and communications. "A lot of applicants that
weren't hired by Wal-Mart at least learned of our services. A lot of
other businesses are going to cluster around Wal-Mart and we can help
those businesses with recruiting as well."
Moody says a downside to all the growth was a lot of Baker County's best
workers went to Wal-Mart, which became a concern to other employers.
"It's part of our job to help them stay staffed as well," Moody said.
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