Officials in Cumberland County, N.C. say that they have abandoned plans to bring a Sanderson Farms processing plant to the area. The chicken processor said that it had been looking at building a $113 million plant in the Cedar Creek Business Center that would have added more than 1,000 jobs, reports WRAL News.
Commissioner Marshall Faircloth said that, a week after the Board of Commissioners couldn't muster enough votes to pass an incentives package for the plant, officials have decided to drop their recruitment of Sanderson Farms altogether.
"It varied among commissioners from environmental issues to the type of industry that it is to the amount that they pay and to the resistance in the community," he said as to the board's decision.
"That's the goal of all people – to be where they're wanted," Sanderson Farms spokesman Bob Billingsley said. "This was a site that was made available to us in the beginning to look at it, and it would be one that would work for the community. So, we're going to continue to work on that and see where it takes us."
Sanderson has options on several other tracts of land in Cumberland County and isn't ready to throw in the towel on the deal yet, Billingsley said. A city in Virginia also is courting the company to locate the plant there.