The Dragon Lair Road Relocation Project has been an ongoing project for Economic Development Partnership since early 2018, when the Partnership began focusing on improving the two sites in Sage Mill Industrial Park bisected by Dragon Lair Road.
In February of this year, the Economic Development Partnership was awarded a LocateSC Site Enhancement Grant from the South Carolina Department of Commerce, and then subsequently awarded another grant from the Site Readiness fund from the SC Power Team. These grants were awarded specifically for the relocation of Dragon Lair Road to open up a 400+ acre rail served site, improving the competitiveness and marketability of the joined sites in Sage Mill Industrial Park.
According to EDP President & CEO, Will Williams, “Dragon Lair Road’s bisecting two tracts has caused us [Sage Mill Industrial Park] to be taken out of consideration for about 6 projects over the last five years.” Each of these projects required a large footprint that would’ve required Dragon Lair Road to be relocated.
Williams and EDP had previously gone through the legal system to obtain the permits needed to relocate the road, but prospects would’ve still had to wait for the road to be relocated, before any facility construction could commence. However, securing the grants from SC Department of Commerce and the SC Power Team, in addition to funding from Aiken Electric Cooperative, allowed the project to break ground in mid-June.
The relocation should be completed by mid-November and will open up a 408 acre site for development in Sage Mill Industrial Park. The new portion of Dragon Lair Road will be a paved road that will come out next to the water tower on Honeyberry Drive.
Sage Mill Industrial Park
In a recent interview with the Aiken Standard, Williams said, “Sage Mill is a Class A industrial park. About half of it is owned by Aiken County and about half of it is owned by the Wyatt Development Company. From the economic development standpoint, we (the Economic Development Partnership) market it. We work with prospects looking to locate there, and we work with the county to come up with the incentives to get a company to locate there.”
Sage Mill Industrial Park, a Class A industrial park, is home to Bridgestone PSR and ORR plants, MTU’s manufacturing plant and distribution center, and SubAir. To learn more about this project, checkout Aiken Standard’s article on the relocation project by following this link.
To see more on Economic Development Partnership’s available properties, including Sage Mill, please visit our Sites & Buildings page.