Business Park Projected to Add 500 Jobs in Three Years

By Brian Boyd
The growing New Bedford Business Park will create another 500 jobs within the next three years, the director predicted Wednesday at its annual meeting.
Since the start of the recession more than two years ago, employers at the business park added 550 jobs despite the economic woes, said Thomas G. Davis, executive director of the Greater New Bedford Industrial Foundation, which manages the park.
Looking ahead, expansions by existing companies and the arrival of new companies will increase the total number of employees at the park from 4,500 to 5,000, Davis told a gathering of business people and elected officials at Lighthouse Masonry Inc. in the park.
“I’m very optimistic about the future job growth and business growth both in the New Bedford Business Park, as well as Energy Park,” a development in Dartmouth that the foundation also markets, he said.
Since Jan. 1, 2008, 10 new companies moved into the park, and four existing business expanded, according to Davis’ presentation.
Robert B. Mitchell, the foundation’s chairman, said in the past 11 years, the foundation invested $500,000 in new signs, planting, and other beautification efforts, and it updated the zoning and surveyed the wetlands to identify saleable land.
“As a result of these improvement efforts, the New Bedford Business Park has recently been one of the hottest business parks in New England,” Mitchell said.
Davis said before the meeting the volume of inquiries by companies looking at the park has increased recently.
“It’s a sign the economy is picking up,” he said.
bboyd@s-t.com
March 11, 2010
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