North Carolina’s Rural Infrastructure Authority just signed off on eight grants totaling $4,085,208, a fresh round of money that state officials say will help small towns and industrial sites get truly “shovel ready” for new employers and services. The package is projected to create 396 jobs and attract more than $126 million in public and private investment, with the single biggest award tied to a BorgWarner expansion in Hendersonville.
According to a press release from the North Carolina Department of Commerce, the Rural Infrastructure Authority approved the eight local government grant requests and detailed how each dollar is supposed to be used. The funding targets a familiar but critical list for rural communities: reusing older buildings, upgrading water and sewer, prepping industrial sites and freshening up downtown streetscapes in multiple counties.
What the money will pay for
Several of the grants are earmarked to turn vacant buildings into new space for manufacturing and health care, shore up water and sewer systems, build out industrial sites and support downtown revitalization, as reported by ABC11. State leaders are pitching the package as one more way to help rural towns compete when companies are scouting locations for their next plant, office or expansion.
Grants span factories, health clinics and streetscapes
The Commerce release breaks the awards into several buckets: building reuse grants will back projects in Lexington, McAdenville and Reidsville, along with a rural health reuse effort in Taylorsville. Downtown and infrastructure grants will support communities including Badin and Asheboro. The largest single award - a $1,862,000 Community Development Block Grant to Hendersonville - will pay for a 20,000-linear-foot looped extension of a 12-inch water main serving a BorgWarner site. State officials say that project is expected to support roughly 378 jobs and about $100 million in private investment, according to the Department of Commerce.
State leaders tout rural momentum
“These grants contribute to our state’s positive momentum by making necessary infrastructure improvements that will bring good-paying jobs and help communities thrive,” Gov. Josh Stein said, as quoted by ABC11. Officials cast the awards as part of a broader push to modernize rural infrastructure and keep sites ready so smaller towns have a real shot at landing new private investment instead of watching it pass by.
What to watch next
From here, local governments will move into the less glamorous but crucial phase of contracting and starting site or utility work, on timelines that will differ from county to county. As projects come out of the ground, officials say hiring typically follows, with community colleges, county economic development offices and state workforce partners stepping in to help connect residents to the jobs the grants are meant to unlock.
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