Why do some communities succeed and grow, while others stagnate and decline? It comes down to one word: investment. Our community hasn’t sat around and waited for opportunity to find it, hoping to be good enough for outside capital to flow in. Rather, we have taken a proactive approach to invest in ourselves, knowing that it’s the best way to entice others to follow with their own dollars. Parks. Playgrounds. Infrastructure. Community spaces. Beautification. Each of them is a signal to everyone inside and outside of Sanford and Lee County that we are a place on the move, ready to seize tomorrow’s opportunities.
Over the past year, it’s seemed like every time we’ve turned around, there’s been a new community project coming to completion. The Pilgrim’s Sanford Agricultural Marketplace. The new Lee County Main Library. Lee County Athletic Park. The newly renovated Depot Building. Not to mention the upgrades and expansions at our other parks and public spaces, or the improvements made to our downtown cityscape. These aren’t just nice-to-have amenities; by improving the visual and recreational appeal of our community, outside investors are more likely to consider it as a place to set up shop, confident that they and their employees will be eager to live and work here.
Investing in ourselves also goes beyond our public-facing amenities. Further from the limelight, the expansion of TriRiver Water’s Sanford treatment plant from 12 million gallons per day to 30 million gallons ensures capacity to serve growing residential needs while simultaneously providing ample capacity for any future industries that want to locate in our area. Unlike other utilities, often governed at the state or national levels, water is a very local service, making it an opportunity for a community to show its local commitment to prosperity. Our expanded water system won’t just provide new capacity for new industry; it’s a sign that our leaders are ready and willing to invest in the future.
All these investments are great in their own right, boosting the quality of life for all our residents. But they are just as important as attractors of outside investment. When a new company locates in our area, drawn by our investment in ourselves, they often bring with them substantial taxable investment. That’s new money that can be put towards further improvements, creating a virtuous cycle: investment leads to attraction leads to money for further investment.
None of this is to say that investing in ourselves is a cost-free strategy. Spending more on infrastructure and public amenities costs more money today than doing the bare minimum required to get by. But in the long term, a strategy of proactive investment is by far the more affordable one. Attempting to maintain the status quo is an ultimately futile exercise; without robust new investment, existing infrastructure and amenities inevitably decline. This creates a two-pronged problem for communities that underinvest. First, a community that has put off updates, refurbishments, and expansions will inevitably find itself trying to dig out of a hole of deferred spending that can no longer be put off, meaning it’s saved few dollars and cents in the long term. Second, a community with declining public investment is going to attract few new residents and see many relocate elsewhere, leaving a shrinking group of taxpayers to carry that heavier burden.
These concerns aren’t theoretical; Sanford and Lee County have been through this cycle before. In the aftermath of the Great Recession, with money tight for residents and local governments alike, public investment was deferred. That tightening is part of why our community took longer than many others to recover from the recession, and why taxes increased during that time. Some communities in our state never fully recovered from that period, and are today stuck in cycles of higher taxes paid by fewer residents.
Thankfully, through the concerted efforts of our leaders, Sanford and Lee County were able to pull out of that state of affairs and avoid long-term decline. Robust reinvestment in the community is a large part of why, after decades of quiet, our community was able to garner several large investments and new projects in the space of just a few years. Today, Sanford and Lee County are attractive destinations for manufacturers, life sciences companies, and more as they look to expand their operations. These new investors in our community have driven many of the new amenities we have celebrated over the past year, and will continue to create the opportunity for new ones in the future.
There are innumerable inherent things that set Sanford and Lee County apart as places to live, work, and do business. Good people. Robust industry. A strong sense of community. By building on these advantages with greater investment in ourselves today, we can ensure that tomorrow offers an even brighter future for the next generation.