Construction of the planned aluminum mill in Lowndes County is expected to bring 2,000 contractors and, once it’s fully operational, add 850 permanent jobs. An obvious question: “Where will those people live?”
“RV parks,” is the answer many are coming up with.
Since November, when the aluminum mill was announced, the Lowndes County Building Inspection Department has seen an influx of calls from developers keen on the idea of building their own RV parks in Lowndes County, Building Inspector Daniel Livingston said.
Where Livingston once saw between three and five calls per year, he has seen about five since November, all asking questions about RV park development.
“There has been an uptake here lately,” Livingston said. “It’s been more inquiries, and we’ve not seen any actually start yet. But there’s been more questions.”
An RV park generally provides designated parking spaces for recreational vehicles and often includes services such as electricity, sewage, internet and water.
Ben Quiggle, an editor for Woodall’s Campground Magazine, said that in the last few years, more and more people have begun traveling for work, making RV parks more attractive to workers who will only be working for between one and six months in any given spot.
“The RV park and campground industry, we’re seeing more of that (workers traveling),” Quiggle said. “Some park owners are starting to cater to people who are working. … And we have seen some developments that seem to cater to workers who are working on oil projects, and like large construction projects.”
Quiggle’s observations bear out in the numbers. According to a report by the Mississippi Department of Revenue, the gross sales of the more than 60 parks in the state have more than doubled from $9,372,285 in the 2019-2020 fiscal year to $20,074,359 in 2021-2022 FY.
Challenging business at times
Ken Smith, owner of Parkwood RV Park at 319 E. Plymouth Road, explained the business can be competitive, and finding tenants can be difficult at times, especially during the winter months when fewer people are traveling.
“There’s no rhyme or reason. It’s either feast or famine,” he said. “It comes and goes, depending on what people are doing. The plants are having a construction project ongoing or ramping up. It comes and goes more.”
As far as how these parks are occupied, park owners Stuart Phillips and Chris Chain said their park occupancy ranges between 40 and 60 percent year round, with a mix of day stayers, weeks and one to six-month-long rentals, Chain said.
The average monthly payment for a spot at area RV parks ranges between $385 to $540, according to the RV park owners The Dispatch spoke to.
Despite fluctuating occupancy, Chain says he sees more people are interested in developing new parks. In fact, he is even assisting a colleague with some of the logistics of running such a business near the Golden Horn Steak and Seafood Restaurant.
“I’m working on one for a friend of mine out there by the Golden Horn,” he said. “He is trying to see if he wants to do it.”
Phillips, who owns the Island Road RV Park, said his park usually fills up when projects are ongoing.
“I get a lot of people from TVA, they have a crew that comes around every February and they have a lot of people that come in for different jobs,” Phillips said.
Golden Triangle Development LINK CEO Joe Max Higgins said this wouldn’t be the first time developers have become interested in starting RV park businesses for a large project. During the Yokohama Tire manufacturing plant’s buildout in Clay County from 2013 to 2015, Higgins said about four parks opened, but were never filled because of the local competition.
“They built two or three RV parks that were built to take advantage of that (Yokohama project),” Higgins said. “They never really made it.”
He noted the market for RV parks is already quite saturated with competition in the area, which could make it harder for new parks to be successful. According to RV Life, a park listing website, there are currently more than 16 parks in Lowndes County.
“People don’t realize that we’ve had enough big construction over the years and work done here that most of those parks are well known,” Higgins said. “ People know where they are.”
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