Henry County partners with developer on shell building

Henry County leaders moved in late 2023 to expand the county-owned Patriot Centre Industrial Park by approving construction of the park’s fourth shell building.

“We have to give the world a reason to look at Henry County,” says Henry County Administrator Dale Wagoner. “We do that by building high-quality industrial sites and shell buildings.”

But the county ran into a hurdle: The cost of constructing a 100,400-square-foot building suited for a manufacturer had more than tripled since the county last built one in 2014 for $3.2 million.
“The $10 million price tag was an issue,” Wagoner says.

Martinsville-Henry County Economic Development Corp. President and CEO Mark Heath helped find a solution — a public-private partnership with South Carolina-based real estate developer Marlboro Development Team. The project marked the first time Henry County worked with a private developer to construct and market a spec industrial building.

The county transferred a 20-acre parcel to MDT, which paid to construct the building. Completed in February, the shell building is the developer’s first foray into constructing an industrial facility in Virginia.

“It wasn’t a decision we took lightly. We did our due diligence,” says MDT Senior Vice President Brian Nash. “The infrastructure present in Martinsville was attractive, as well as the manufacturing base in the region.”

Though MDT is new to Virginia, Wagoner says the board was impressed by the company’s work on similar structures in the Carolinas.

“They have a proven track record of getting clients in quickly,” Wagoner says.

The precast, tilt-up concrete structure has 32-foot, 6-inch ceiling heights, four dock-high doors and one drive-in door. The building can be expanded to more than 400,000 square feet.

As for a shell building Henry County put up in 2014 at the Patriot Centre, rubber automotive products manufacturer Fukoku Korea announced plans in March to invest $18.9 million to establish a manufacturing plant there. That building had remained vacant after German sink manufacturer Schock GmbH announced plans to build an $85 million manufacturing facility there in 2021. The company later abandoned its U.S. expansion plans, prompting Henry County to repurchase the shell building in 2024.

Wagoner did not expect the new shell building to remain on the market long. As of May, the building had already been shown several times.

“We’ve had a lot of interest,” Wagoner says.