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Valdosta is growing up
By Kay Harris
VALDOSTA — Valdosta is poised for growth, anticipating business
and industry to be attracted by the area’s new metropolitan status.
But the community is well prepared for its future growth, bolstered by area leaders who were shaken from complacency in the early 1990s by the threat of closure for Moody Air Force Base, Lowndes County’s largest employer.
The base was saved
and remains a vital and important part of the county’s economy,
and it brought community leaders together to ensure the area would no
longer be dependent on just one business or industry to carry the region.
“We vowed we wouldn’t let it happen to us again,” said
Myrna Ballard, president of the Valdosta-Lowndes County Chamber of Commerce.
“Moody is still strong, but we’ve made our economic pie bigger
and more diversified.”
Built on agriculture, Valdosta-Lowndes County served as a hub at the turn
of the century for the distribution of a variety of crops, from cotton
to tobacco, and today is still a major supplier of pecans, timber and
produce.
“In Valdosta, we have to remember that we are still heavily dependent on agriculture because of the counties around us who are primarily agricultural,” said Ballard. “Between 30 and 40 percent of our consumers come from surrounding counties or off the interstate.”
But the segment
of the area’s economy which has grown the most rapidly in recent
years is tourism. Boosted by Wild Adventures Theme Park, the new Valdosta-Lowndes
County Conference Center, and more than a dozen new hotels and restaurants,
the community is capitalizing on its proximity to Interstate 75 and to
the Florida state line.
Statewide, agribusiness still ranks as the number one industry economically,
but tourism and hospitality is right on its heels as the second largest,
said Ballard, and gaining each year.
In Valdosta-Lowndes County today, tourism generates $175 million annually, in addition to more than $7 million in taxes, according to Martin Brown, executive director of the Conference Center, which is attracting events from around the state and region.
Although Valdosta
was once known as a “pass through” city, it is swiftly becoming
a destination all its own, largely due to Wild Adventures Theme Park.
Brown said the park, one of the fastest growing in the country, is a major
part of the overall tourism package the community has to offer.
“No one in the tourism industry can deny that Wild Adventures is
the largest attraction for tourists in the area,” he said.
Ballard said the community is fortunate to have such diversity economically. “When we thought we were going to lose Moody, it made us understand we had too many eggs in one basket.”
Valdosta seems well prepared for its future, thanks to the foresight of its leaders.
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