Oconee Industrial Development Authority Sells Acreage In Gateway

The Oconee County Industrial Development Authority, in a called meeting on Thursday morning, approved the sale of just under 25 acres from the eastern tract of the Gateway Technology and Business Park to Taylors Iron Company of Watkinsville.

Taylor’s Iron Company currently is located at 1081 Industrial Drive in the Watkinsville Industrial Park and will use the Gateway location as a new site of operations.

The actual purchaser will be Rodwood Investments LLC, which is a subsidiary of Taylors Iron Company, according to Oconee County Attorney Daniel Haygood.

Rodwood Investments will pay the Industrial Development Authority $497,714 for the parcel, which fronts on Aiken Road and lies mostly in the city of Bogart. It is north of SR 316.

The IDA agreed to spend $150,000 of the purchase price to extend Gateway East Parkway to provide access to the property off McNutt Creek Road. The roadway also will provide access to a roughly 15-acre unsold parcel in the eastern tract of Gateway Technology and Business Park.

At the called meeting on Tuesday, the Authority also approved paperwork for the refinancing of the $10.38 million bond the IDA issued in 2012 for infrastructure improvements to entice Caterpillar to locate a plant on the Oconee County and Clarke County border at the edge of Bogart.

That refinancing is expected to save the county $676,000, according to County Finance Director Wes Geddings.

For more on the story, with a video of the Industrial Development Authority meeting, please go to Oconee County Observations.