Golden Triangle LINK CEO Joe Max Higgins said he has high hopes for the future of economic development in the Golden Triangle, updating Columbus Rotarians Tuesday on prospective projects and a political change at Mississippi Development Authority.
Specifically, he said he’s going to drink a glass of Scotch in celebration of MDA head Glenn McCullough’s retirement at the end of the month. Higgins, one of the state’s most prominent economic developers, has long been a critic of McCullough’s.
“Glenn McCullough has been an unadulterated trainwreck at MDA,” Higgins told Rotarians during their weekly meeting at Lion Hills Center.
“I’ve got a bottle of Scotch that was sent to me about Christmas,” he later added. “That stayed in Scotland for three years and one month so it could be Scotch. … The cork’s coming out of that at the end of the month. I’m probably going to drink it in one drinking.”
From the LINK’s formation in 2003 through 2014, Higgins said, it saw an average of $445 million in investments and 479 jobs created per year. In the four years since McCullough became head of MDA, that number has dropped to $229 million and 303 jobs per year — and that was after the LINK expanded its services to work on recruiting industrial development in Oktibbeha and Clay counties in addition to Lowndes County.
“For those of you that are struggling with doing math in your head, we have seen a 40 percent reduction in our announced (projects and investments) and a 40 percent reduction in our announced jobs in the four years that administration has been here,” he said.
Higgins said he has faith in newly-elected governor Tate Reeves to get MDA back on track and bring investments back to Mississippi.
“He has been engaged with corporate people. … He has been engaged with us, with other economic developers,” Higgins said. “He understands what the issue is, he knows what Mississippi needs and … I’ve got very, very high hopes for him.”
Higgins said he and other economic developers in the state have been looking at Mississippi’s existing economic incentive programs and working on ways to streamline them and make them more user-friendly for potential developers.
“I think we’re at the table at least being able to say, ‘May I make a suggestion, may I make a suggestion?'” he said. “Not saying, ‘do this, do that’ because we’re not, but we are getting to make suggestions for what we think needs to happen. And not just who runs (MDA) but how it’s structured and how we incentivize and fund deals in the future. That’s probably the most important part.”
Higgins also took the opportunity to talk about two potential projects that could come to the Infinity megasite in Lowndes County. For one of them, the company would have plants in Lowndes, Oktibbeha and Clay counties — a $1 billion investment in Lowndes County and $3 billion total, Higgins said. The other would be a $2 billion to $4 billion investment in Lowndes County alone. However, Higgins did not disclose many details on either of those projects since they have not been finalized.
In response to questions from multiple Rotarians, Higgins spoke about potential plans for Leigh Mall, which Augusta, Georgia-based retail firm Hull Property Group purchased late last year for $3.5 million in an online auction. While The Dispatch previously reported that Hull is looking at several possible plans for the mall — including demolition, renovation or de-malling — Higgins spoke more broadly about retail in the city.
He said Hull representatives were open to working with Columbus Redevelopment Authority to demolish and replace dilapidated buildings along Columbus’ “retail corridor” along Highway 45, from about Highway 82 to Bluecutt Road.
“His end goal is: he wants to make the ‘hood’ a better place,” Higgins said.
He added Hull representatives — along with other retail firms who had been looking at buying the mall before the auction — were concerned that there was “too much retail space” in the city for its size.
“This is not necessarily Hull’s idea,” he said. “I’m telling you, this is stuff that we learned talking to five or six (retail specialists).
“The town’s got not enough support for the space we’ve got,” he added.
He said if Hull does demolish part of the mall, they would probably replace those retail spaces with medical centers, which he said are “traffic generators” and “tax generators too, by the way.”
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Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 33 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
