St. Mary proceeds with business expansion

St. Mary Parish Economic Development Director Frank Fink has been busy in the past year.

Busy in a good way, that is.

The director said that the St. Mary economy has thrived in the past 12 months thanks to expansion at many of the parish’s primary businesses.

Fink said business is booming everywhere people turn within the parish’s borders.

“Almost all of our major businesses are in what I call expansion mode right now,” Fink said. “Of course, that is a very great thing. We’ve been inundated with news and so many things have happened. But it’s been a positive year for us – there’s no question. In St. Mary Parish, I think we are comfortable saying that things are moving forward.”

A large variety of businesses are expanding their horizons right now within the parish.

According to Fink, Conrad is expanding on property that it purchased a year ago. Bollinger Shipyard and Swiftships Shipbuilders are also moving forward with expansion projects and are making efforts to grow.

Fink said those three companies are three of many within the parish. He added that it would “take an hour” to list all of the businesses in the area that have grown.

“We’re just looking at a variety of major expansions,” he said. “Some of the things are not fully finalized yet, but they are all getting closer. We have had a lot of retail activity here. We’ve had a lot of people who have made the commitment to invest their time and resources in our parish. That is obviously a very good thing for us.”

With the expansions pending, St. Mary also knows that it needs to have workers to keep up with the jobs that will be available.

Among the things Fink said he was most proud in the past year was the opening of the Franklin campus of the Louisiana Technical College system. He said the campus, which is located at Franklin High School, will positively impact a lot of people within the area.

“It’s at the high school, and it’s really going well,” Fink said. “They started with welding, because they were really over full of people enrolled for that. But they also have a marine safety program that’s really doing very good things, too. But we’re seeing so many things out of the Young Memorial College, as well. There are so many courses that are giving people more opportunities to get their training right here at home.

“Things here are just moving forward, you know? Activity has been almost overwhelming, but very positive, and I think we look for this to continue into 2014. And I think that between now and the end of 2014, we’re going to be adding between 1,000 and 1,500 workers into our parish, which obviously shows you the direction in which things are headed.”

Now, all St. Mary Parish needs is more housing.

Because of the expansion in services and the number of jobs that are flowing through the parish, Fink said St. Mary is in “dire need” of apartment complexes.

The economic development director said that the parish is waiting for the right developer to pitch an adequate proposal to create a series of complexes in the area.

Fink said that on any given day, St. Mary employs 7,000 people who commute into and out of the parish each day.

He said that with more housing available, that number would potentially shrink, which would help St. Mary’s economy as a whole.

“We need apartments,” Fink said. “We’ve just got to have that to keep up with the labor force. When I say more apartments, I’m talking about a complex of 150 or 200 units. … If I can’t build 300 or 400 apartments in this area and make a fortune, then nobody can, because we are in dire need.”

But then again, from the position of an economic developer, having too much work and too few people to fill the positions – that’s probably not a terrible thing.

To illustrate that point, Fink pointed to McDermott closing its lot in Morgan City earlier this year.

He said that while people were laid off in the closure, so much work was available throughout the rest of the parish that people were not unemployed for long.

“Thank goodness, we were blessed to be in a time where those folks were able to get right back to work,” Fink said. “While we wish that McDermott situation didn’t have to happen, we understand it and know it’s how things go sometimes. We’re just happy those men and women were able to get on other places to continue to support their families.

“And that’s the luxury we have here right now. Things are growing and it’s been a very good year. We expect 2014 to be another one, too.”

POWER PLANT HAS MORGAN CITY EXCITED

While St. Mary thrives as a whole, the parish’s biggest city eagerly awaits a new multi-million dollar power plant.

The Louisiana Energy and Power Authority (LEPA) announced in mid-October that it had completed the sale of $120 million in bonds for the final stage of design and construction for a new natural gas-fired electrical power plant in Morgan City.

According to officials, the plant will be a 64-megawatt nominal rated natural gas fired combined-cycle gas turbine generating plant.

It will be the first of its kind to be built in southern Louisiana in the past 40 years.

The project is expected to begin in April 2014 and end in late 2015.

Six LEPA member municipalities, including Moran City and Houma, have committed to participate in the project by entering into long-term power sales agreements for the plant’s power output.

“One of the primary drivers that led to the development of the plant was the fact that the transmission constraints in parts of Louisiana undermined purchase of low-cost power by the municipalities that operate their own electrical systems,” Morgan City Mayor Tim Matte said. “Sitting the plant near Morgan City and Houma’s loads helps to mitigate those transmission constraints and will actually allow the participating municipalities to export excess power from a once constrained region.”

According to officials, the plant will be adjacent to the Joseph Cefalu Municipal Steam Plant in Morgan City. It will also be equipped with an emergency diesel generator to provide for the ability to restart the facility without relying on other generating facilities or external sources of power.