The County has three targeted growth areas known as Development Service Districts (DSD) located along one of the most heavily traveled corridors in the County.

Shirley T. Holland Intermodal Park is located within the Windsor DSD. This County-owned park provides affordable sites close to The Port of Virginia, within both a Foreign Trade Zone and a Virginia Enterprise Zone, where businesses are eligible for federal, state and local incentives. Work is underway to create permit-ready sites on some of the largest publicly-owned tracts in the region, and the park is already home to three nationally recognized companies: Keurig Dr Pepper, Safco Products Company and World Market, a subsidiary of Bed, Bath & Beyond, which together employ over 700 people.

Located in the Camptown DSD in southern Isle of Wight, International Paper operates a mill with roots dating back over 100 years. In 2019 M&M Milling, a manufacturer specializing in grinding, blending and sizing of agricultural materials, joined ST Tissue’s and Franklin Lumber’s existing operations in the DSD. In addition, the Franklin Regional Airport is located in Isle of Wight along U.S. Route 58 and boasts a 5000-foot runway, as well as more than 60 industrially-zoned acres owned by the City of Franklin and jointly marketed by the County and Franklin/Southampton Economic Development, Inc.

Business is booming in northern Isle of Wight within the Newport Development Service District, where over 2,000 residential units and 1.1 million square feet of new retail and office space has been approved for development along the Route 17 corridor.

Sources: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, November 2019; Esri Business Analyst Online, 2024 Forecast; Esri Business Analyst Online 2019 Detailed Age Profile; Economic Modeling Specialists International (EMSI), 2019 Forecast