Future Jobs: A new tech boom coming to Danville?

The city is hoping small, green companies will replace old industries

February 15, 2011|Chris Hurst | Reporter

DANVILLE, Va. —

Is a new boom to Danville's economy about to happen? As part of our weekly series in February looking at future jobs, will small startups fill lost factory jobs?

Danville's uneployment has been hovering at about ten percent. And to get it down and put people back to work, the city is banking on buzz words we've heard before; green jobs.

To see the change Danville is trying to create, start with the worn bricks in the Tobacco Warehouse District. Some of these buildings have stood empty for decades, now they're home to new green companies. LifeBat makes lithium ion batteries and recently opened up inside a warehouse that had been abandoned for twenty years.

"We're making strides and I think people are starting to see 'Oh! Well we went through that chapter but look at the future here some of the great things that are coming to Danville,'" says Danville's Director of Economic Development, Jeremy Stratton.

The old chapter is well known. The textile industry disappeared. The Dan River Mill closed in 2006. The population dwindled.

"The problem was we were in the commodity industry, industries that were continually looking at ways to cut costs and the way they're going to cut costs is to cut labor," he says.

Now the city is attracting what it calls gazelle companies. Small in size, but can grow rapidly making energy and resource saving products. EcomNets purchased an office building to store computer servers and house a data center. They plan to keep information from clients in the Federal government.

The site is next to the Mid-Atlantic Broadband, an industrial strength fiber optic network from Washington, DC to Atlanta. It runs along Route 29, right through the heart of Danville. And EcomNets director of infrastructure Terell Jones says tech companies need the network and may be Danville's most alluring quality.

He says running the network from the ground to the building would cost a half-million dollars in northern Virginia, bogged down by red tape. In Danville, it was free.

The Virginia Tobacco Commission helped pay for it. The commission has awarded grants to green companies taking root in Danville. A new solar power panel manufacture, U.S. Green Energy also got money from the commission.

"The businesses that they are attracing right now I feel that it's a great nucleus for the green industry," says Troy Sacra, with the solar power panel company.

Sacra plans to move his headquarters from Fredricksburg to Danville and create 50 jobs by April and nearly 400 in the next few years.

"That's our goal," he says. "Putting everyone in Danville back to work."

http://www.usgreenenergycorporation.com/ - U.S. Green Energy Corp.

http://www.ecomnets.com/ - EcomNets

http://www.mbc-va.com/ - Mid-Atlantic Broadband

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