Green / Sustainable Building Products

Competitive Strengths of Clark County

Locally Available Materials

  • Clark County is one of the leading counties in Arkansas in terms of number of acres of forest land. 
  • Clark County is already home to Georgia Pacific and other companies that produce products associated with the building products industry.

Transportation

  • Clark County is within a day's drive of major population centers along the East coast and in the Midwest, including Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Kansas City, New Orleans, Oklahoma City and Houston.
  • Clark County is located off of Interstate 30, about halfway between Little Rock, Arkansas and Texarkana, Texas.
  • United States Highway 67 and Arkansas State Highway 7 also cross the county.
  • The Union-Pacific Railroad, which runs from St. Louis, Missouri to the Texas-Mexico border, provides mainline rail service for Clark County.

Available and Affordable Sites

  • The 313-acre Clark County Industrial Park is located on U.S. Highway 67, five miles south of Arkadelphia.  The site is also located within two miles of Interstate 30 and has approximately 160 acres remaining for development.
  • Gurdon also has a 186-acre rail spur site and there is at least one other marketable site in Gurdon.

Skilled and Available Workforce

  • Clark County has a total labor force of more than 10,000 people and there is a labor force of more than 91,000 within a 50-mile radius of Arkadelphia.
  • The leading industry based on employment in Clark County is manufacturing, which employs more than 20 percent of the workforce. Workers possessing skills used in traditional manufacturing facilities could be easily retrained to perform jobs at green or sustainable building product facilities.
  • Approximately 57 percent of residents in Arkadelphia and 45 percent of residents in Clark County hold an Associate, Bachelor or Graduate degree or have attended some college classes.
  • Henderson State University (HSU) in Arkadelphia has an enrollment of more than 3,600 students and grants Associate's, Bachelor's and Master's degrees.  HSU has more than 50 program areas.
  • Ouachita Baptist University (OBU) in Arkadelphia is a four-year liberal arts college which has an enrollment of approximately 1,450 students.  OBU offers Bachelor's degrees in more than 60 program areas of study.
  • The Southwest Arkansas Technology Learning Center in Arkadelphia is a workforce training consortium that provides credit and non-credit courses as well as training programs as requested by industry in order to create a well trained workforce for the surrounding area.

Competitive State Incentives

  • The state of Arkansas offers a competitive array of incentives that include income tax credits, sales and use tax credits and refunds, payroll rebates and cash grants for new and expanding companies.

Low Cost of Doing Business

  • CNBC's 2008 "Top States for Doing Business" report ranked Arkansas as the state with the 3rd lowest cost of doing business.  Only Iowa and South Dakota have a lower cost of doing business.
  • According to the 2007 Milken Institute Cost of Doing Business Index, Arkansas has a score of 75.9 and ranked tenth overall.  This means only nine states have a cost of doing business lower than in Arkansas.
  • Average electric rates in Arkansas are also lower than in five of the six surrounding states.

 

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