On Thursday, April 16, the North Carolina Rural Infrastructure Authority approved 17 grants – and one of those is going to be a big help for a brewery project in High Point.
As part of this funding round, the authority approved a $120,000 grant to advance the reuse of a 16,200-square-foot building in High Point, where High Pint LLC, a startup microbrewery, plans to locate the High Pint Brewery & Public House.
At that site, the company plans to brew a wide selection of craft beers, which it will distribute both locally and internationally. The company’s overall investment in the project is expected to exceed $4 million. Estimates are that it will create 27 new jobs in the High Point area.
In March, the High Point City Council unanimously approved a local matching grant for a small portion of the cost of the project.
The grants to local governments that the NC Rural Infrastructure Authority approved on April 16 total just over $6.5 million, and the combined projects are expected to create 377 jobs across North Carolina – with more than $23 million in private investment being put into those 17 projects.
The authority offers the grants in order to support a variety of activities in rural areas of the state. Those can include infrastructure development, building renovation, building expansion and demolition, as well as general site improvements.
A couple of other projects that, like High Pint, are getting money in the “Vacant Building” category, are a project in Catawba County that’s getting a $75,000 grant to support the reuse of an 11,000-square-foot building for an architectural and engineering firm that expects to create 11 jobs, and a project in Iredell County, where a $200,000 grant will support the reuse of a 72,000 square-foot building that a global fencing company will occupy. That project is expected to bring 34 jobs to the Statesville area.
When did High Point (ever) qualify as “RURAL”? Shouldn’t these monies be only spent for country-folk type areas?