Economic Growth in Stephens County
Attend a few public meetings or read social media comments and you will see it seems to have become common place in our society to just speak your own truth or repeat what you’ve heard without checking facts if it is to your benefit. What’s even more astonishing, people just believe what they hear, without checking the facts.
Here are a points of interest regarding economic growth and how it works in a community. Unlike many rural communities in the south, Stephens County has a nice balance of agriculture, industry, tourism and retail business in our community. It’s always good to have a diverse revenue stream to foster growth and help survive more economically challenging years.
When a new business/industry chooses to come to Toccoa, it’s their decision. A prospective business does their homework to see if there is a need and a gap or opportunity in the service they provide. We have this data available as it has been collected from a third-party organization with whom we have partnered for the last seven years. It is a business decision and it’s the decision of the prospective business who is looking for a new location. The equation must work in their favor. If a new business chooses to invest hundreds of thousands of dollars if not millions in our community, this is a compliment to the potential they see in our community to support their investment, because believe me, they do their homework before making the decision as to where to locate.
We have 53 industries/manufacturers/suppliers/contractors in Stephens County. With the struggle in all communities to find and retain a solid workforce, a large challenge faced is finding available housing for their employees who make a solid income, and they also have insurance. Housing is a challenge in our county and in the surrounding counties as well. If our employees cannot find a place for their families to live in Stephens County, they will find a job in the area where their family lives.
Community Goals: the need for new housing it not only in our County at large, the need is mentioned nine times in our current City of Toccoa Comprehensive Plan. If you’ve enjoyed the pleasure of country-living while in the city limits, you might want to consider moving out further in our county to enjoy the privacy of acreage and the peacefulness of the countryside. Because when you live within the city limits, you must expect growth to happen at some point. Thankfully, we are in a place where this is happening. New housing developments, which bring new families, will not overload our hospital or our school system. The majority of workforce career opportunities come with benefits and therefore, those employees will have insurance to cover their medical needs. Secondly, our school system is planning for and has expectations of growth in our community. Stephens County School System is prepared.
Another issue our community leadership has faced over the past few years is a tremendous need for additional hotel rooms. Between corporate training, sporting events, wedding/special events, community festivals, concerts/shows and tourism in general to Toccoa-Stephens County, our local business community sends thousands each year to book hotel rooms outside of Stephens County because we do not have the capacity needed on the local level. What this means is revenue and tax dollars are being spent in other communities rather than in Stephens County. This is an opportunity we must reclaim on the home-front. Because these events draw people of different socioeconomic backgrounds to our community and we must be prepared to provide accommodations of different price points for our guests. We recently received the findings in our 2024 Hospitality Feasibility Study conducted by the Highland Group of Atlanta. After they contacted and questioned many of our local businesses, they found we are sending over 16,000 hotel rooms out of our county each year. Therefore, the need for a new hotel and possibly two new hotels in our county is more than justified and paramount.
According to Stephens County Development Authority President & CEO Brittany Ivey: “We are so grateful that our City and County trusted our local Chamber of Commerce and SCDA when we told them that we believed based on conversations we had and an unofficial survey we conducted ourselves, that our room demand had increased astronomically since 2017. This report verified that. In 2017, the estimated room demand in our community was 3,352 rooms/year and this year's report estimates that demand at 16,453 rooms/year. This report also showed that post COVID our room demand in Toccoa-Stephens County recovered better than the national average. In 2021, 33.4% more rooms were needed in our community than the nation's average.”
From Brian Akin, SCDA Chair: “The Stephens County Development Authority is always trying to be proactive in ensuring our community is prepared when developers come to visit us. We felt like Toccoa-Stephens County has made significant progress since 2017 when the last study was prepared, but it was reassuring to have those feelings validated by an outside source. The biggest take away for us when you compare the two studies, is the increase in projected occupancy and that we went from a suggested 72-Room Quality Brand Limited-Service Hotel after the 2017 study was completed to a 90-Room Premium Brand Limited-Service Hotel in 2024.”
Let’s continue to remember when a new development, whether a hotel, industry, small business, or retail establishment chooses to come to our community and invest, this is good news for the growth and stability of our County. When individuals choose to invest their hard-earned money and life savings, taking a chance, and risking it all in hopes of opening a new business and succeeding, Let’s do all we can to help them achieve their dream.
Understanding there will be growing pains, learning curves for employees, challenges faced in finding and building the right team. There may very well be times when as customers we might not experience the best of service. Here’s a challenge for all, instead of racing to social media to slam a local business, handle it correctly and share your concerns directly with the manager and/or owner. Give them the opportunity to make good on the experience. It’s become all too easy to do tremendous damage in the blink of an eye because we want to vent about an unfortunate situation. We should remember the golden rule and handle situations as we would want them handled if we were the owner of the business. It’s extremely disappointing and embarrassing to see some of the things written on a public platform with no care shown towards the ones working hard to better this community. Here’s what my mama always said, “if you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all!” We need to get back to the good ole days of doing business with our friends and neighbors, showing mutual respect for one another and working things out on a personal level, not in the spotlight.
We have seen much new growth in our town over the past few years, and we have a number of new businesses opening soon in our historic downtown. These are exciting times as we see economic development in our community. Let’s continue to shop local in our Historic Downtown Toccoa and throughout Stephens County. Let our local business owners know how much we appreciate their investment in our community because our support matters. When we shop local, our tax dollars stay here at home, and we all benefit from local investment. In high tide, all boats rise. Let’s help keep this momentum going, Stephens Strong.