The Decatur County Board of Commissioner received an update on many of the county’s industrial projects from Development Authority Executive Director Rick McCaskill, which apart from delays due to Hurricane Michael, are moving along quickly.

Taurus USA’s new North American headquarters at the Commodore Industrial Park has roughly 27,500-square-feet of concrete left to pour out of its 180,000-square-foot facility. Two pours have had to be canceled due to bad weather, and Thanksgiving next week might delay that further, but McCaskill expects that to be finished soon.

Within the next months, walls will start to be erected. In the meantime, Taurus USA has begun the hiring process for 20 new customer service positions that will be located in Bainbridge. An office space has been rented in the city as a temporary location for these employees.

“They are doing that out of Miami right now, as people are leaving to take other jobs, and they figured it would just be better to replace those jobs here and get something started here,” said McCaskill. “That operation will eventually be moved into the office and manufacturing facility out there.”

McCaskill said he is also speaking to some of Taurus USA’s suppliers about relocating their facilities or building satellite facilities in Bainbridge.

The Industrial Development Authority closed on the roughly 470-acre property between Pond Town Road and Hwy. 253 that will be the future location of a state of the art sports shooting complex.

The property was bought at $2,000 an acre.

“It is probably going to take way longer than we think it is going to take, but we have an opportunity to have a world class shooting facility out there,” said McCaskill.

Details about how the facility will be run, and whether the Georgia Department of Natural Resources will have complete or partial control over the complex, are currently be ironed out.

McCaskill mentioned several large solar facility projects are potentially on the horizon.

Harrell Ag Products, who has been renting a building at the Decatur County Industrial Park to build drying trailers, will be moving its headquarters from Leesburg to Bainbridge in the coming months. The company builds agriculture equipment, and will be a major asset to Decatur County, McCaskill said.

As part of the move, the building Harrell Ag Products is currently using will need an updated roof, part of which has already been purchased, and another 1,400 amps of additional power McCaskill asked the Board of Commissioners for help in accomplishing this to the tune of $300,000. The board unanimously agreed.