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WEST POINT — Members of the West Point Rotary Club on Thursday received an update on the economic progress that’s been taking place lately in West Point.

Meghan Richardson, the city’s economic development specialist, was the guest speaker at the club’s noon hour meeting.

Richardson has been in this field for some 12 years now. She worked for the City of Valdosta and Lowndes County before coming to West Point nine years ago. Drew Ferguson was the mayor at the time and the city was still in the wake of the Kia boom, something that’s still impacting the city some 15 years after Kia Motors Manufacturing Georgia first went into production.

Kia will reach its 15th anniversary of the start of production in November. At that time, the tax abatements that were given by the state, county and city will expire. With Kia’s initial investment of $1.2 billion having expanded into a more than $4 billion economic impact on the west Georgia-east Alabama region, that boom does not appear to be slowing down.

In the nine years Richardson has been in West Point, more than 1,400 new jobs have been created and more than $700 million in capital investment has come this way thanks to KMMG being in West Point. Hyundai Transys, which manufactures transmissions for Kia, Hyundai and other automobile companies will soon start a second shift in its massive new building on the 600-acre Kia pad. KMMG will be adding more workers with its production of electric vehicles.

The EV 9 is being produced on the same assembly line as the vehicles with internal combustion engines. A new building is needed for the production of electric vehicles.

This will be a place where parts needed for the EVs will be stored temporarily as part of the just-in-time inventory strategy that’s widely practiced in automobile production. Close to 200 employees will be needed in the sequencing of these parts to the assembly line.

Richardson told members of the club that Exit 2 off I-85 is an area for some significant growth for West Point. The completion of two new bridges over Long Cane Creek and the opening of three new roundabouts on Georgia Highway 18 will add to this.

West Point has a lot going for it for a city of an estimated 3,500 people. Very few towns that size outside metro areas have eight lanes of traffic moving through it. West Point has that with I-85 and Kia Parkway. According to Richardson, West Point has an more than 7,800 people driving there to work every day. Another 1,000 are leaving West Point to work outside the city limits.

Traffic studies have revealed an amazing vehicle count at Exit 2. It’s an astounding 40,000 vehicles a day.

“There’s a lot of potential for development there,” Richardson said.

Love’s Travel Plaza will be celebrating its first anniversary in West Point in November. It’s already the busiest commercial establishment in town.

“Lots and lots of people are going there for gas and a biscuit from Hardee’s,” Richardson said.

Some also stop there for Godfather’s Pizza and there seems to be a million trucks parked on their sprawling area for the big 18 wheelers.

From the city’s standpoint, one of the best things about Love’s is that it didn’t cost the city anything. “We didn’t have to incentivize it,” Richardson said. “Love’s paid for it all.”

While the Kia pad is the epicenter for local manufacturing, the Northwest Harris County Business Park is also a busy place. An estimated 6,000 people are on the Kia pad every day. The five current suppliers in the Business Park employ another 1,000 people, and it has vast potential for future growth. The site is in the West Point city limits and owned by Harris County.

“It’s been challenging to get new businesses there,” Richardson said. “Much of the pad isn’t ready for development, but we’ve been working with Harris County to improve that.”

West Point and Harris County were successful in getting a $500,000 One Georgia grant to get a 35-acre portion of the park shovel ready for future development. Harris County provided an estimated $1.2 million in Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax (SPLOST) funding to boost the park. “Over $2.4 million has been invested to get it ready,” Richardson said. “The water and sewer infrastructure is there.”

This effort could be paying off in a big way. Plans are for a 200,000-square-foot building to be going up, creating an estimated 140 new jobs. The new plant will be an affiliate of one of the suppliers already in the same park.

One subject Richardson is frequently asked about is what’s going on with the Coca-Cola building near Exit 2. Coca-Cola had a long history in West Point, starting with George S. Cobb in 1909. He started in a downtown building on West 3rd Avenue and later moved his bottling plant across the street. “Harris-Gray is in one of the buildings and Ninth Street Fitness in the other,” Richardson said.

That long history moved from downtown to the building near Exit 2. Coca-Cola products were warehoused there for a number of years. This all changed with a storm that swept through the area in March of last year, causing massive damage to the building.

Coca-Cola is no longer using the location and has deeded the property to the city. Some wall damage has been repaired, but there’s still a massive hole in the roof. There’s still a truck inside the building that needs to be removed when the damage is repaired. That could be taking place early next year. “We need to redevelop the Coca-Cola site,” Richardson said. “We’d like for it to be a site that’s valued by the community, something in the hospitality or service industry.”

With the city owning the site. it’s in position to control its development.

Richardson is enthused about the city’s plans to have river trails in the river park. “There are some environmental challenges to be dealt with, but we think it will be something local people will enjoy when it gets done,” she said. “I understand Lanett is considering having river trails on its side. It would be good to have these trails linking up.”

Richardson is a next-generation economic developer who is passionate about collaborating with others to see cities transform, creating stronger communities to live, work, play and learn. She’s a member of the Georgia Economic Developers Association and a graduate of the Georgia Academy of Economic Development.