A public-private partnership years in the making for McDowell County has accomplished its primary mission of job creation.
And to help celebrate the creation of 300 new jobs at the Federal Correctional Institution McDowell, hundreds of people representing communities throughout McDowell and Wyoming counties as well as representatives of agencies that serve the region converged on Indian Ridge for the official dedication and staff recognition ceremony at FCI McDowell.
The federal facility is the first private-public partnership in the Mountain State, according to state Sen. Richard Browning, D-Wyoming, who served as the keynote speaker for the recent ceremony.
According to Browning, McDowell County could not have found a better partner for job creation than the Federal Bureau of Prisons.
Browning said all of the people who worked to make FCI McDowell a reality attended countless meetings, worked long hours and presented a unified spirit in support of the project throughout the long development cycle. He said the late Gov. Cecil Underwood helped lay the foundation for the project. ...
By mining coal that otherwise wouldn’t have been profitable to mine at the site, development officials were able to significantly reduce their financial investment in the Indian Ridge Industrial Park while also having plenty of room to build the federal prison. ...
With the construction and hiring phase of the federal prison complete, officials are now hoping to pursue a new housing development phase in the future. ...
The dedication and staff recognition ceremony was a welcomed celebration of the completion of this long-planned, and long-awaited project.
The FCI McDowell project has been a true success story for the city of Welch, and the counties of McDowell and Wyoming. And it could be the project that ultimately helps McDowell and Wyoming counties turn the economic tide in the coming months and years ahead.