Karen Kistler

karen.kistler@salisburypost.com

 

The economic outlook for 2025 was the topic of the February Rowan county Chamber of Commerce’s Power in Partnership breakfast.

F&M Bank served as the sponsor for the event, which was held Feb. 20 at Trinity Oaks.

Following chamber announcements, Steve Fisher, chairman of the chamber board, welcomed everyone and introduced the members of the panel of local businessmen who would speak on the subject of the economy.

He said that the goal of the panel discussion was for the members to share what they do and address the subject of the economy from their particular specialty.

Panel members included Phillip Lookadoo, director of Land and Development Services for Salisbury; Ed Muire, planning and development director, Rowan County government; Gary Blabon, president of Novant Health Rowan Medical Center; Stephen Bullock, president of Power Curbers; and Fisher, president and CEO of F&M Bank.

Prior to their presentations, Fisher provided some statistics that he received from Elaine Spalding, president of the Rowan County Chamber of Commerce concerning a sense of the health of the county’s economy.

He said they had received their December 2024 unemployment numbers and those numbers for the United States is 4.1 percent; for North Carolina those rates are 3.7 percent; and in Rowan County it is 3.2 percent.

“So we are beating the national average, we are beating the state average,” said Fisher.

He noted that Rowan County has a workforce of approximately 69,500 people and of those, only about 2,200 are unemployed at this time, which he said is “good news to start the year on where we are from an employment perspective.”

He then turned the program over to the panel beginning with Luckadoo who spoke from the perspective of the city’s land and development services noting that they are a new department.

Luckadoo said they “handle everything in the city and outside the city relative to permitting.” He went on to explain that this means they sell all the taps for water and sewer, review the plans or any water and sewer line extensions and issue the necessary state permits for the extensions.

Additional responsibilities include handling stormwater reviews for subdivisions or other developments as well as zoning permits and text amendments for the zoning ordinance.

Luckadoo then addressed the number of permits they had last year, adding that they implemented a new permitting software. This new software, he said, “allows us to break down a permit into the number of reviews.” 

The roll out date was Jan. 16, and since then, he said they had “roughly 2,700 plans and permit applications and varying amounts of staff to review that.”

Of that 2,700, permit applications numbered 2,444 and 249 were plans, which includes major and minor subdivisions, major and minor site plans and any kind of utility reviews that the city receives.

He shared that the number of applications has gone up and that the amount they received in January was the highest month of applications to date.

Also in January, he said they had three staff members and since then have gained additional staff and are up to seven.

Before moving to the next speaker, Fisher said the biggest take-away from Luckadoo was that the “numbers are going through the roof and you guys are staffing up to it efficiently to deal with that. So the economy from the city’s perspective, it’s growing dramatically and they are chasing it both with staffing and the new software.”

Muire spoke from the perspective of the county telling that they permit things specifically for the county. He looked back at what is done countywide through their erosion control program, which he said is housed in their office.

“Any project that disturbs more than one acre of dirt is required by the state to have an erosion control plan,” said Muire.

He said they have almost 100 projects that have been permitted, which he broke into nine categories with the first being apartments and townhomes. He said that they had permitted 15 of these in the last two or three years but with only five of those moving dirt, meaning the remaining 10 have not decided to move dirt yet.

Another category covers big box warehouses, telling they have permitted 11 with four under construction. 

Institutional use, of which he said the Catawba expansion is included, is another category.

Manufacturing was next, and Muire said these vary in size from 10,000 to 100,000 square feet and added that “these are things that we’re seeing in the county, and the expansions happen out of necessity” as they outgrow their space and look to expand.

“I would say 70 percent of them are in progress,” he said.

Additional categories included businesses such as gas stations and Dollar Generals with approximately 60 percent of them in progress; and large and smaller single family residential lots, noting that 60 percent of the smaller lots are under construction.

Muire did tell the group that when looking back through the three previous fiscal years he noticed “we are about 30 percent less on new erosion control plans permitted as in previous years.”

This year there have been 18 in comparison to 27 last year. “So we are seeing a little trend down in that regard,” he said, “but again if you look back at some of the other projects that have been permitted there is an inventory there.”

The third speaker on the panel was Bullock, who shared from the manufacturing perspective and one who is building.

He first began by explaining what the company does, that they are a manufacturer of big heavy machinery that pours concrete, specifically curbing and sidewalks.

He pointed out they are not a contractor, but build and sell the machinery to contractors worldwide.

With curbing being specialized, Bullock said that they are all over the country and world and that less than one percent of their revenue comes from the county.

He noted that they are experiencing a great backlog of orders and expect to be up about 10 percent overall for the 2025.

Plus they are hiring, having open positions in the production area, specifically welder, assembler or machinist positions.

Bullock pointed out that the work they do is mainly related to private development, providing curbs and guttering in subdivisions and the sidewalks that go with them.

“So when housing starts to do well, we do well,” said Bullock.

He said that there is also lots of curbing in warehousing and therefore, that has “become a driver of our business as well.”

However, he also mentioned several issues in manufacturing including the workforce shortages, which he acknowledged is nothing new to those in the room.

Bullock said, “there’s just not enough workforce out there. And without more people, you’re going to have to pay people higher wages to get them to do tough jobs like construction. Therefore, inflation is going to rise. That’s how we see it.”

A second issue he mentioned were the recent tariffs which he noted has an impact on the machines they ship out and “does two negative things for us,” he said, one being the price they pay for the various components that go into the machinery,” if that goes up they in turn have to pass that along.

“Secondly and an even bigger concern for me with 25 percent of our business being international,” he said, “other countries retaliate. They put retaliatory tariffs on American products going into their country.”

Plus ports are congested with countries trying to get things in and it has caused this problem at the ports and created delays on receiving needed components.

“As far as anything related to the local economy,” Bullock said, “I’m bullish on America and I’m bullish on Rowan County.”

Healthcare was the next topic with Blabon who said that they pay close attention to the growth taking place in Rowan County, “because we will expand as the healthcare needs demand” pointing out that what they have seen in the past is that people get their healthcare where they live.

“We are growing,” Blabon said, “and we’ve got some exciting stuff going on. We are going to be growing in line with what Rowan County is looking at” as they will be adding some positions he said.

Blabon also told the group that what they are seeing is that healthcare is transitioning to outpatient, “so we are looking at the ambulatory services” and what they can do as outpatient and keeping the inpatient beds for acute needs.

At Novant Rowan Health Medical Center, he said “we want to give access to all people.”

He concluded with some stats noting that the emergency room would see 45,000 visits this year; 800 babies born; and 12,000 surgeries performed.

Blabon also stressed their workforce needs telling that by 2035 the state would be having a 13,000 nursing shortage.

He encouraged those knowing people looking for a field to enter to point them to healthcare, noting that in addition to doctors and nurses, they have other departments that run the hospital including protective services, food and nutrition, environmental service, respiratory care and x-ray.

The final speaker, Fisher, addressed financial issues telling that the one question he gets asked is what are rates going to do and his answer was that, “It’s just like the weatherman, nobody really knows.”

He said that short-term rates have dropped but the long-term ones have stayed up, “and the one word I would give you is I think these rates are sticky. I think we are where we are,” but he added that this is not really bad.

Over the last 15 or so years, Fisher said we have gone through a recession and a pandemic and “events that have artificially kept our rates at a historically low level so long that they have been normalized and so we all think my mortgage should be 3 percent because my whole life they’ve been 3 percent.”

He told the crowd that the “only way we will be going back to where we came from is for one of those events that we don’t want to see happen. So these are sticky but that’s not a bad thing. That shows an economy that is probably pretty well balanced.”

He pointed out that there are things we can and can’t control that impact the rate including geopolitical issues and sociopolitical issues and bird flu and natural disasters and terrorist activity.

“So all those things can impact our rate environment,” he said. “Barring one of those though I do see these as being sticky.”

Fisher also mentioned that in his industry pricing is so diverse, something he hasn’t seen in his years in banking. They are unbalanced, but was quick to say, he didn’t say unsecure but unbalanced.

Fisher posed several questions to the panel of impediments to growth and Muire said housing affordability. 

Another question was they were most excited about in 2025 and Bullock shared about a new machine they have introduced that does paving and the fact they expect to be up 10 percent.

What keeps you up at night was posed to Blabon and he said two things, staffing and the wellbeing of the patients that come to the hospital and his team, keeping them safe.

The program ended with an opportunity for questions from the crowd and thanks from Fisher and Spalding for all who attended.