There is a reason that since the start of the millennium, Laurens County has announced the location or expansion of Fred’s Distribution, a Best Buy Distribution Center, and Botkin Lumber in addition to significant employment growth by local manufacturers:

• An internationally recognized, zero-cost workforce-training program

• A transportation infrastructure that includes access to five major Interstates, three commercial airports, two major railways, and two regional ports.

• The inventory tax of ***X*** is well below the national average.

• Very affordable land.

• A 300-mile roadway radius that includes major metros in all of Georgia and South Carolina; and including Tallahassee and Jacksonville, Florida; Birmingham and Montgomery, Alabama; and Chattanooga, Tennessee.

• A 600-mile roadway radius as far as Memphis, Tennessee; New Orleans, Louisiana; Miami, Florida; and Richmond, Virginia.

According to the magazine Southern Business & Development:

Dublin/Laurens County, we’ve found, is one of the most friendly, dedicated and attractive places to live and work that we’ve seen in eight years of traveling the South. Officials with the county don’t just talk about he present when touting their location’s appeal to business. They talk about their commitment now as well as down the road. And for any forward thinking industry executive, that’s where the rubber meets the road.

For example, one of Dublin/Laurens County’s most notable corporate announcements came in January (2000) when Best Buy, the nation’s leading retailer of consumer electronics, announced it would build a $40 million, 700,000 square-foot distribution center in the county. At the announcement ceremony, a Best Buy official said, ‘Once we decided to build in a city we’re going to be there for a very, very long time,’ In response, a Laurens County official stated, ‘We’re going to be good partners with you not only today, but 10 years, 20 years, 30 years from now.’ While you may think to yourself that’s a standard response, you’re right, it is. However, there is a certain honesty about Dublin/Laurens County that’s hard to explain. It’s an intangible that’s…. well, a tangible. Our experience with Dublin officials has convinced us that when they say there are going to be with you down the road, they mean it!