Bharat Forge America, Inc. built an aluminum forging plant to manufacture automobile components in Lee County, creating 460 jobs. According to Sanford Area Growth Alliance, the company will invest $170 million in Sanford.
WithersRavenel began work on Project Forge for the City of Sanford to assist with the project due diligence during initial site selection. In under two weeks, the WithersRavenel team was able to assemble boundary surveys, preliminary geotechnical investigations, wetland delineation, and a Phase 1 ESA for the 98-acre property.
We worked with many partners in developing and securing this multi-state competitive economic development project through our practical site due diligence expertise and collaboration with the many stakeholders involved which included North Carolina Commerce, the Economic Development Partnership of North Carolina, the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality, Duke Energy, Lee County, the City of Sanford, and the Sanford Area Growth Alliance.
Our team presented our findings to the City of Sanford and Kalyani Group and worked to create development and permitting strategies to allow the project to move forward with extremely tight time schedules. These strategies were one of the key factors in the final site selection.
Follow-up work on the project included assisting the City of Sanford with subdivision of the property, site topographic surveys, Phase II — Environmental Site Assessments, USACE Jurisdictional determination coordination, initial site grading, sediment and erosion control permitting and successful grant application preparation for over $3 million in funding assistance.
WithersRavenel is completing a design/build contract with Sanford Contractors on behalf of the City of Sanford to provide the initial site building pad, entry roadway, and site utility connections.
Working with Gray Construction, WithersRavenel provided full-site civil drawings for the Project Forge site development.