GOLDEN CORNER PARK A “WHITE ELEPHANT”

Oconee County should be glad to unload the Golden Corner Commerce Park to an investor looking to build a solar farm, District 2 County Councilmember Wayne McCall said Tuesday. McCall claims it was a mistake for the county ever to buy the approximately 300-acre park off S.C. 59 near Fair Play because, he says, the park has been a “white elephant.” The difficulty trucks would have in accessing the site is a main problem and industrial prospects have little interest in it, McCall said, and the problem is not easily solved under existing circumstances. Last night McCall said, “Nobody wants it,”despite the long efforts of past and present county economic development recruiters. McCall’s pronouncement during the County Council meeting came in answer to public comments by county resident Tony Adams taking the county to task for purported county plans to sell the whole park to an investor looking to build a solar farm. That use, Adams said, would produce few jobs and add little to the county’s tax base compared to use of the park to base one large or multiple smaller industries. Counting over $9 million to install a sewer line back to the Oconee Joint Regional Sewer Authority’s wastewater treatment plant near Seneca, Adams said, the county had invested over $10 million in the site, money that now seemed mostly a waste. The county purchased the 300-plus acre tract over 15 years ago intending to develop a major industrial site near Interstate 85.