TUCKER, Ga. (April 24, 2019) – Tucker City leaders, along with leadership from the Tucker-Northlake and Tucker Summit Community Improvement Districts (CIDs), held their inaugural Manufacturing Day event Wednesday at Stone Ridge Event Center. The gathering of regional real estate and business leaders offered an inside look at the industrial operations situated within the City of Tucker, as well as redevelopment possibilities for manufacturers looking to move into one of Tucker’s industrial corridors.
“We’re nurturing a community where if you work here, we want you to know that you can live close to your work. If you live here, we want you to know that there are good jobs right in your backyard,” said Tucker Mayor Frank Auman.
Auman, a small business owner, shared the stage with the leaders of the City’s two CIDs. Tucker Summit CID President Emory Morsberger said his member business owners have thrived as part of a CID.
“In 2011 we formed and, since then, we have dramatically improved the overall curb appeal of the area, we’ve reduced the crime rate 80 percent, and we are working on a number of intersection and road improvements,” Morsberger told the crowd.
Tucker-Northlake CID Executive Director Matthew Lee agreed, saying another big step in the success of local businesses has been Tucker’s incorporation as a City.
“More and more property owners are choosing to come into the City of Tucker,” Lee explained. “Boxer Properties came in [with] some office buildings, Briarcliff Village came into the City of Tucker and, just earlier this month, Northlake Mall announced that they have requested to be annexed into the City of Tucker. They see good things happening here and that is significant.”
Tucker has seen an influx of new and expanding businesses moving into the City since incorporation in 2016. Much of that is due to the personalized level of service and responsiveness of its Community and Economic Development staff.
“First and foremost, [we] feel valued as a business,” said Thermo Pac Vice President of Operations Tasha Hill. “I have a connection to the Mayor, I have a connection to the CID, I have connection to business development.
“There’s a great workforce here…I love the location and our employees they feel safe in this area and that’s a big deal when you’re working in an industrial park.”
Commercial real estate broker Stephen Bridges told the crowd that Tucker has a lot of the characteristics his clients are looking for when they want to locate a business.
“Tucker is so close in to the large population of customers,” Bridges, the Managing Director of JLL, explained. “You can get to Savannah port easily, you can get to the airport. [It’s] just location. That old phrase ‘location, location, location’.”
Following a panel discussion, participants of Manufacturing Day toured four diverse manufacturers across the City of Tucker; Steel Mart and sonnenBatterie in the Tucker-Northlake CID and Eurofins and Thermo Pac in the Tucker Summit CID.
Tucker is home to more than 2,000 licensed businesses, including multi-national corporations like Pepsi and Ricoh. It is an attractive destination for residential and commercial property owners as the City operates with a zero-millage rate.
