A group affiliated with Bladen County, which is deemed economically depressed under state guidelines, owns a quartet of new airplanes acquired for $2.5 million last August.
Chuck Heustess, the longtime leader of Bladen’s development efforts, orchestrated the purchase for the nonprofit economic development organization, Bladen’s Bloomin’. The aircraft’s manufacturer, Italy-based Vulcanair, said in February 2023 that it planned a $7 million Bladen factory that would employ 33 people, aided by $3 million provided by the county group.
The plant was a big victory for the rural county that is the state’s fourth largest in acreage but has a population of slightly less than 30,000, down from a peak of 35,000 in 2010. Its county seat, Elizabethtown, has 3,265 residents.
Two years later, the factory plans are pending.
Now, the airplane purchases are one element of an ongoing dispute among local government officials that Heustess describes as “absolute insanity.” He alleges a litany of misdeeds, broken promises and outright falsehoods, mostly attributed to the municipal administration of Elizabethtown.
Dane Rideout, a former West Point garrison commander who is Elizabethtown’s town manager, thinks the rift between the town and the county will heal. He blames the fractured relationship on the county’s lack of understanding and foresight.
The flap includes legal action after Bladen’s Bloomin’ filed a civil suit Friday, March 28, against the town of Elizabethtown for failing to comply with an Oct. 18 public records request. The complaint contends that the documents provided by the town in mid-March were a small portion of its request.
Also today, the town issued a press release that blamed the county and Bladen’s Bloomin’ with “misinformation” and “divergent views” that have stymied projects. The town may lose $21.2 million in promised state and federal funding, according to the release.
Heustess is director of the Bladen County Economic Development Commission and its nonprofit real estate arm, Bladen’s Bloomin’. In an interview, he shared a 4-inch-thick file that lists 44 grievances between the city, county and economic development groups. “It was 70-something,” he said of the list, “but we consolidated.”
Rideout counters that his team has done nothing wrong. “We’re being positive,” he says. “We’re keeping our heads down, right? We’re doing things legally, ethically and morally correct.”
For years, Bladen’s Bloomin’ has been among the state’s most successful rural economic development efforts. That reflected a longtime consensus among city and county leaders.
But acting County Manager Charles Ray Peterson, who also chairs the county commission board, now says there is “no relationship. We are honestly fixing to go to court. The ball has been in their court for months. They’ve been dragging, they’ve been putting us off on things, and we’re not waiting another day. I took the gloves off on this one.”
The disconnect centers around Elizabethtown’s plan to develop a “live, work, play” community within its industrial park. The park includes an airport with a 5,006-foot lighted runway. In 2023, the county gave $100,000 to the town to help fund a master plan for a proposed 33-acre residential and commercial project. The primary goal is to provide housing for Bladen’s workforce.
The county’s dominant employer is the 5,000-strong Smithfield Foods meat packing plant in Tarheel. But only 6% of the plant’s workers live in the county, Rideout says. Many more would do so if housing was available, officials believe. When he moved to Bladen, Rideout lived in a travel trailer for his first few months on the job because he couldn’t find an alternative while his own home was under construction, he says.
But the shared enthusiasm for the new plan, called The Estuary, vanished after the town’s vision for the project suddenly veered away from Bladen’s understanding.
Among the issues were questions over authority and decision-making and a change in the kind of housing that would make up the residential portion. The parties had originally agreed on 30 or so “for sale” housing units, but the town’s revised plan called for an additional 300 to 500 rental houses. The Estuary’s current vision calls for the initial construction of 284 units.
Aghast at the revisions, Peterson asked for the city to return the $100,000 in a Nov. 4 letter to Elizabethtown Mayor Sylvia Campbell. Meanwhile, other projects began sputtering over newer disagreements. That includes disputes over infrastructure funding and control over projects within the park, grant monies lost or threatened, and fear that Vulcanair and other projects could be at risk.
“There’s been a trend of the town giving us inaccurate information or backing out on commitments they’ve made,” Heustess said.
In limbo, Peterson says, are $15 million in state Department of Environment Quality grants and $1.3 million in lost Golden LEAF funding. Another $1 million in road, water and sewer funds from the U.S. Economic Development Administration and Golden LEAF were lost because “Elizabethtown just didn’t do what they said they were going to do,” Heustess says.
Then there’s the airplane purchases. In February 2023, county officials said Vulcanair North America would use a 36,000-square-foot building at the Elizabethtown airport to assemble a four-seat plane used mainly by flight schools and private businesses.
The plant is supposed to open this year. It would create at least 33 new jobs with salaries averaging $56,061 and an annual production capacity of 96 planes.
While Bladen’s Bloomin’ planned to invest $3 million to design and build the facility, the town has now taken over that effort. Rideout says the project is “right on schedule.”
But Huestess says delays have threatened the viability of the project. Based on Elizabethtown’s promise to build the facility and to make sure that it would come to fruition, Bladen’s Bloomin’ agreed to acquire four aircraft from the manufacturer. The price tag was about $515,000 each, with fees and delivery costs putting the bill at $2.5 million.
The first plane will touch down soon, while the other three will arrive by this summer, Heustess says. What may sound like a Hail Mary purchase will prove to be a great investment for Bladen’s Bloomin’ and the community, he adds.
“We made the right decision because from the information that we got, it was the only way to save the project,” he says. “If we didn’t buy the four planes, we were told that the project was going to die.”
Bladen’s Bloomin’ bought the planes at their cost and believes there are flight schools waiting to lease the planes. “It could end up being a really good financial return for us … we made sure that it made financial sense as we calculated the risk versus reward,” he adds.
Repairing the relationship between Bladen County and Elizabethtown might be a tougher sell. Heustess said there’s been damage done “that can’t be undone.”
In Friday’s statement, the town said it remained “willing to work cooperatively in a manner that is fair and equitable to our citizens, but we have an important interest in the development of our own property which best serves the town’s economic future.” It will seek a “peaceful and fair” solution, according to the statement.
This article first appeared in Business North Carolina magazine.
Author: staff report
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