Newberry County has put together a tactical plan to foster economic development.

The plan comes as a part of economic development efforts being discussed by county leaders which includes the Newberry Business Alliance, Newberry County Chamber of Commerce, the towns, school district, existing business leaders and others.

The plan outlines six tactics to be worked on.

The first is to construct a speculative or spec building. This will be a shell building located in the Mid-Carolina Commerce Park.

Work has already begun on the project and the financing has been obtained.

The 50,000 square foot building will increase economic development traffic to the county and bring in new industry.

It is planned that the building will be completed June.

The county is also planning on using discretionary statutory property tax incentive to increase the number of manufacturing jobs in the county.

These jobs are hoped to be above the average weekly manufacturing wage for the county which is $729.

This will be an ongoing effort that will allow for industries with more than 25 employees and a $5 million investment to get tax incentives.

The third tact is is to construct and operate a recreation facility.

With the cost of the facility being a multi-million dollar investment this project will need funding.

To fund the project the county council will look at having a referendum put on the 2014 or 2016 ballot. The voters in the county would then make a decision about it.

If the referendum passes it would take about two year to complete construction.

The fourth tactic is to expand the number of available industrial sites in the county.

These properties will be outside current industrial parks and the county would negotiate with landowners to offer their property for industrial development at prices that are agreed on in advance.

The goal is for the county to add three new private sites to the inventory of potential industrial properties by the end of the 2013 year.

The fifth tactic will be to offer a two-year period during which existing industries can make significant expansions and receive enhanced property tax incentives.

This will spur growth in jobs and the tax base by expanding existing industry and make the county more attractive to the companies instead of them building at other locations. This would be done over the next couple of years.

The sixth tactic is to aggressively market the Mid-Carolina Commerce Park.

This will be done through brochures featuring the park to target companies and industry.

The brochures will be printed and distributed this fall.

There will also be a virtual tour of the spec building in the Mid-Carolina Commerce Park that will be done by February.