Top state legislators stand behind GTP

Although it has been controversial in prior years among state legislators, the leaders of the N.C. House and Senate reaffirmed their commitment to the Global TransPark this week.

In an interview with The Free Press on Tuesday, House Speaker Joe Hackney, D-Orange, said he favored continued extensions of a repayment deadline on a $32 million state loan.

The Global TransPark Authority, a state body created to oversee GTP operations, received $25 million from the state Escheats Fund in 1994. With interest, it has grown to $32 million. The legislature pushed back the most recent deadline, October 2007, to October 2009, and Hackney said he expects the legislature will continue to extend it.

The TransPark would face bankruptcy if officials could not repay the loan.

Senate President Pro Tem Marc Basnight, D-Dare, said Wednesday that the state has no choice but to continue to fund and support the TransPark. He said the state would be foreclosing on itself if the legislature forced the GTP to default on the loan.

“It’s ours, so we make the best of what we have, and continue to support it,” Basnight explained.

The facility also receives $1.6 million in state funds each year for operations, a small fraction of North Carolina’s multi-billion dollar budget.

“They need to be given a chance to succeed,” Hackney said of TransPark leaders.

The GTP’s fortunes have picked up in recent years, with several new industrial tenants, but it is not yet profitable.

"We were very pleased, of course, to hear of House Speaker Joe Hackney's supportive comments about the Global TransPark,” Executive Director Darlene Waddell said in a statement Wednesday. “We will continue our efforts to justify his long-range confidence in the GTP's potential."

Local Rep. Van Braxton, D-Lenoir, said his fellow legislators are willing to hang on as long as progress continues.

“I think they feel like it’s slowly turning a corner and starting to move in the right direction,” he said Wednesday.

Sen. Charlie Albertson, D-Duplin, offered his continued support of the TransPark.

When asked why, he responded: “Because we know we need jobs in Eastern North Carolina and as far as I know, it’s the best game in town.”

Braxton said GTP leaders and state Department of Commerce officials are working to land a major tenant for the park, which would help it take off. Large companies such as Boeing have expressed interest in the past.

Placing the TransPark in rural Lenoir County, without the appropriate transportation assets nearby, such as an interstate highway or a railroad connection, has made it difficult to attract tenants.

Improvements have been made over the years, though. C.F. Harvey Parkway and U.S. 258 North provide access for cars and trucks, and a two-mile runway allows large planes to come in and out, Braxton said.

The GTP still needs a link to rail lines running through Kinston, Braxton said. That rail link is making its way through the state bureaucracy.

Braxton said the link might arrive faster if TransPark officials can land a major tenant. He also felt the facility’s current transportation assets could attract such a tenant, and the rail line could be in place by the time that company is ready to move in.

“I think right now the legislature is willing to give the TransPark a minimal amount of dollars, and waiting to see if it can generate enough revenue on its own to be self-sustaining,” he said.

David Anderson can be reached at (252) 559-1077, or danderson@freedomenc.com