Join us on The Best of Johnston County Podcast as we delve into the world of economic development in Johnston County with Chris Johnson. In this episode, we explore the various initiatives and projects that are driving growth and prosperity in our community. From attracting new businesses to fostering entrepreneurship, Chris shares valuable insights and success stories that highlight the potential of Johnston County. 

Whether you're a local resident or a curious listener, this episode will give you a deeper understanding of the economic landscape in our county. 

Tune in now to discover how Johnston County is paving the way for a thriving future.

Chris Johnson: Well, I jokingly say I'm the glorified cheerleader for the county. And when I meet with industry representatives basically I'm there to promote and sell.

And the first and foremost is really to create jobs for our citizens. Obviously there's two things, there's investment, which we've been very blessed with and fortunate with. And if you look at our tax rate over the past three or four years, we've been able to traditionally reduce our tax rate, and that's because of the growth of our industrial sector. So creating an industrial base that pays for itself, and then also, you know, is able to provide services for our citizens.

And then the second thing is, job creation. Unfortunately, right now, Jonathan, as you know, our labor shed in Johnston County is about 120,000 employees here in the county, yet about 70% of them, almost 70%, leave every day to work somewhere else.

Jonathan Breeden: welcome to another edition of The Best of Johnston County podcast. I'm your host, Jonathan Breeden. And today we have as our guest, Chris Johnson, the Johnston County Economic Development Director, and also owner of Jewel's Formal Wear in downtown Smithfield. And that's the story he's on for a long time. So we'll talk a little bit about Economic Development in the County and what he does. We'll talk a little bit about his formal wear store. And of course, we're going to talk about why he loves Johnston County as much as I do. Welcome Chris.

Chris Johnson: Thank you very much, John. I appreciate it.

Jonathan Breeden: No problem. Tell us a little bit about your background, where are you from, where you grew up?

She says, sweetheart, I love you, but if we're getting married, we're not gonna live in Johnston. So uh, she was, she's third or fourth generation, John Stonian from Smithfield and so it was just kind of a natural thing, but I've got my mother's family's from the Fuquay Varina area, so I'm familiar with the triangle region in Raleigh.

So Eastern North Carolina is pretty much in my DNA.

Jonathan Breeden: That's awesome. I was, We were joking right before we started recording. I know you're a huge East Carolina supporter, you've been on the board of visitors there for a long time leading the NC State fan. So we always joke with each other about NC State and East Carolina.

What's your wife's maiden name?

Jonathan Breeden: All right. So what? Why did you and her decide to get into the formal wear business for a long time? I think it was Jewel's bridal wear.

Chris Johnson: Exactly. Well, it's one of those things that we were fortunate to buy an existing building. She had a relative that owned a formal wear shop or a women's shop.

And her mother and myself and my father in law, we all got together and bought the business. And over time was fortunate enough to buy a piece of property in downtown and expand our facility there and as well as buy a piece of property next to it. And so right now we've got you know, our store is about 7,000 square feet of retail space, and we've been very blessed.

Jonathan Breeden: So what all do y'all sell there? I know it's not bridal anymore, you just told me that.

Chris Johnson: We started out in the wedding industry and did mother of the brides and bridesmaids and wedding gowns. Uh, Just changed a lot, David's bridal, a lot of stuff came into the market that and then we lost a sales associate that was really focused on that.

And so when she left and retired we just transitioned into more of the prom and the special events and the things that what'd I say? there's a sequent, we'll sell it type thing. But about 10 or 12 years ago, we were very fortunate that a girl from Garner here Arlie Honeycutt came in and bought a dress off the rack in one Miss North Carolina. And so from that point, it just was like catching lightning in a bottle.

Jonathan Breeden: Oh, that's cool. And the Cleveland community just had Hanley house when Miss Teen America, which is exciting.

That's awesome for Johnston County and the Cleveland community. And she's student at Cleveland high school.

Chris Johnson: Talented young lady and her family goes to our church at First Baptist Church. And so, yeah, very excited about that.

Jonathan Breeden: So you do the proms and some of the pageant stuff any other core customer for y'all?

Chris Johnson: We do tuxedo rentals and that's where my niche is at particularly during, I know, cause we're in the busiest time of the season from January through about May. So all the tuxedo rentals and stuff, I'm usually there measuring the guys, making sure they fit homecoming. We do some sec's, what they call second weddings or destination weddings, but not the full blown, which you would traditionally see as a wedding gown.

So it's more than formal second weddings or destination stuff. So people going to Aruba or Jamaica getting married like that.

Chris Johnson: Yes. My daughter has kind of, she's graduated from East Carolina and she now is response. She's obviously a Sales Associate and responsible for our social media. So she handles all of our TikTok, all of those things that the younger generations involved, and I'm not that tech savvy other than, you know, Facebook and LinkedIn and things, but TikTok and Snapchat and whatever other else is out there.

Yeah. Instagram. I know. So she's constantly posting videos and stuff like that in our sales. We've seen an increase in sales.

Jonathan Breeden: Well, that's awesome. Well, good. And we'll talk about your full time job or the full time job that you're technically have. I know that when you're in retail and you own a retail store that's its own full time job.

Jonathan Breeden: How do we do at the store?, right? No, that's it.

Chris Johnson: Cause it's like, if you don't make a dollar a day, then you don't need to be in business. So it's like, how do we do it?

Jonathan Breeden: No, look, I'm a small business owner as well. And I asked my staff that every day I'm always looking at the the credit card processing website. Like, you know how much money came in because it takes a lot of money to stay in business.

So anyway, I guess when I first meet you, you're the Johnston County Economic Development Director, but my first meetings with you where we started working together, you were the Downtown Development Director for Smithfield. How did you get that job?

Chris Johnson: Well, it was kind of a journeyman's path, meaning that I'd worked, you know, I was involved in politics. I was the County Chairman for the Republican Party during the mid-90's back when I say politics was fine. And we had the Republican wave occur and such, and I was involved in that. I worked for a U. S. Congressman at the time, unfortunately was not re-elected as one of those things that was a job that I absolutely loved.

So I was kind of, and during that same time our executive director for the downtown development corporation took another position in Charlotte. And the board at that time asked me, say, well, Chris, can you do this as an interim till we figure out what we want to do or who want to hire? I said, sure thing.

And I never really promoted our store in the sense that I knew that if the Howell Theater, if any of the other businesses or restaurants were doing well, then I was going to be doing well at my store and vice versa. So, I did that for 15 years, I was fortunate to be appointed to the County Economic Development Advisory Board, which you had served on before, and so I got a taste of that, and then that exposed me to the regional aspect with RTRP, and a little over 10 years ago Rick Hester approached me, their director had retired, had an interim director there that was part time, the county was growing, things needed to be addressed, and Rick approached me about the possibility of applying for the position and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Jonathan Breeden: Right. I just remember. You jumped into the Neuse River when it did not rain on the Hammingham Festival.

Chris Johnson: There's always a running joke that it always rains during the Hammingham Festival. And I guess that's the promotional side of me, just trying to bring attention to the organization and also the event is that, you know, one year I built this huge rain gauge, which was like this big metal wash tub that I had sticking up in the air about 15 feet high. And I had it was, you know, it was always kind of a, you know, embrace the struggle, so to speak.

And so everybody says there's always rains and so it was one of those things that I said, okay, here's what I'm going to do, I'm going to jump in the river if it doesn't rain. Well, people actually thought I was going to actually jump off the bridge into the river. I said, no, I'll just jump into the water. So, I had the Smithfield Fire and Rescue Department take me out in the middle of the river.

Jonathan Breeden: No, And for those listeners that don't know the Hammingham Festival is the first weekend in May, every year they still have it. It is a huge event, it's two days over 100 vendors and they usually have a pretty good band on Saturday night. Now they built a brand new amphitheater stage down there. And so, that'll be coming up here the first weekend in May. And if you've not had a chance to go to the Hammingham festival, I would encourage all of y'all to go.

Is fun, it is family friendly. There's tons of stuff for the kids, there's great vendors, there's tremendous food. And they do a tremendous job there in Smithfield with the Hammingham Festival. And I've really enjoyed it.

Chris Johnson: Yeah. We've had some tremendous artists come through. I mean, when you think about Molly Hatchet we had Night Ranger, we had Eddie Money, one year.

It's really an opportunity for, you know, we, it couldn't happen without the small business support and I challenge anybody that whenever they go to these events to really seek out who has been a Trump sponsor year in and year out, because it typically is not the national chains that are sponsoring this.

It's the breeding law firms, the jewels, or it's the small mom and pop stores that really kind of put it together. And that's who the ones that traditionally get back time and time again.

Jonathan Breeden: Yeah, that's absolutely right. And I've enjoyed it. There's railroad days in October in Selma.

But there are tons of festivals, unfortunately, the Cleveland Strawberry Festival sort of went by the wayside when the Cleveland Chamber was merged into the Triangle East Chamber. So we don't have that anymore, but the festivals I really enjoy. And that's one of the things I love about Johnston County.

So now after we've talked about all this, we'll talk about actually economic development, which is your actual job for the county.

What is economic development?

Chris Johnson: Well, I jokingly say I'm the glorified cheerleader for the county. And when I meet with industry representatives basically I'm there to promote and sell.

And then the second thing is job creation. Unfortunately, right now, Jonathan, as you know, our labor shed in Johnston County is about 120,000 employees here in the county, yet about 70% of them, almost 70%, leave every day to work somewhere else.

So my role, and I say this jokingly but being serious, is to turn those cars around. And because it goes back to the main street concept of live, work, play. The same thing can apply for my office and that's where I've brought my philosophy is really on the small business thing.

Obviously the economy of scale is a whole lot bigger, but it's the same day. I mean, we all still have 24 hours a day and it's really kind of applying that small business principle and then explaining that to prospective clients and then showing say, hey, we're here to help. And it's a shared risk shared reward philosophy that we've got.

So, I think we check all the boxes for our any project that's looking at North Carolina, I'm able to see and receive inquiries. Now, whether or not we can submit for those is another thing and that's kind of where you know, having a great advisory board of making sure that we have good sites around the community, good buildings that we can promote and talk about.

Jonathan Breeden: Right. But you've had a tremendous success over the last 10 years. I mean, we've had more industry come here in the last 10 years than maybe in the previous 100 years in Johnston County. And that's not by accident and I think you deserve a lot of credit for that, I think the commissioners and the county manager would say that.

Jonathan Breeden: What is the number one thing when you're out there pitching Johnston County with these corporations and we're competing?

And I was on the Economic Advisory Board with you for two years. So I kind of already know the answer to this, but I'm going to answer it. What is the number one thing you lead with when you're competing with South Carolina, Kentucky? We seem to always be competing with Hickory and stuff like that.

And what is the thing you go to first when you want to talk about Johnston County?

Chris Johnson: Well, first of all, listening to them to what their needs are. I'm not trying to say I've got all your answers, listen to me. It's really sitting down, hearing what the typical industrial need is, and everything's different, but the number one factor that a lot of people are looking for is talent.

I said, they're here, they're just leaving every day to go somewhere else. I said the key thing is that our county average is around $45,000 you know, from a salary standpoint. I said if you're at that level or above, you can attract good labor and because they would much rather live in Benson and work in Four Oaks or live in Smithfield and work in Clayton or wherever that is as opposed to getting into their car and driving over to, you know, Raleigh or Durham or wherever those jobs may be.

So what, and you've been involved in this as far as the certification of sites and things of that nature of making sure that we go ahead and address all the potential questions that they may have about a site is worth the wetlands, you know, what's the sole conditions? Has it been already re-zoned?

What's the price of the land? And so my office through the advisory board goes through and we identify sites, we work with the property owner, we get agreed upon sale price, we go through the process of having it rezoned, we do all the due diligence. So then that way, they come in and say, we have already done the homework for you, and here's a great location for you to choose from and settle.

So they've wasted months and months of their due diligence. So we try to address all those things and add value to our property owners because we've got a great group of citizens across Johnston County that have property that are working with us. And fortunately for us, we don't have to put up any money other than the cost of doing the due diligence.

So we've got agreements to sell and it's kind of a win. And so I try to lead into like, I try to treat our citizens as I would want to be treated as a property owner and be respectful for them because that's just been our philosophy from, and it comes down from the County to the top.

And so it's not competing, but partnering with to get us to the next level because obviously we've missed out on a tremendous amount of opportunity because we may not have something.

And the county would agree to say, if you don't have a tenant, when it is finished, the county would pay the lease rate for two or three years while the county still tried to recruit a business to the building. And the first one that we did was the building at, is it Eastgate in Selma?

Chris Johnson: Eastfield, yeah.

And we all hoped that we wouldn't have to do that and we all almost knew certainly that the county was not actually going to have to pay that lease. And before the building was finished, Be Good Foods had agreed to lease it. The county didn't have to spend any money, but if the county had not said we will pay that lease payment for a couple of years.

If you don't have a tenant, I don't know that the financing of that deal doesn't come through. That building doesn't get built and we don't have the tenant that we have.

Chris Johnson: Right. Well, and again, they may Google maybe going somewhere else that there is already an existing shell. And to your point, what we do, we pay, it's actually a it's $3 per foot up to a hundred thousand square feet.

And the thing is that we're getting an asset, the County is getting an asset. So as soon as that lease, and the key thing is that it does not start until the building's finished. So it kind of puts the pressure on the office and on the County to get out there and really market these things and kind of make sure that we get a tenant in there.

100,000 square foot spec building is going to cost anywhere between 12 and $15 million with a debt service on that is tremendous. And the county doesn't need, particularly with the other needs that we've addressed and talked about of what's around the county. We don't need to be in the building business, but we can lease something.

With the hopes that we got it. And then there's always an, I'll say an end. There's an end after two years, but the tax base is always going to be there to replenish those funds eventually.

Jonathan Breeden: Right. And unfortunately I'm not on that board anymore, but are there any more buildings like that going up in the County where the County has agreed to help with the lease payment if we can't find a tenant while it's being built?

So the $25,000,000 tax base and we're, I mean, and the $3 a foot to put for the citizens listening in, the $3 a foot for 100,000, that's the equivalent of about $25,000 a month. The tax base on it alone is probably well over 250,000-$300,000 a year anyway, so it's kind of a wash. And we're, but the thing is that we've just missed out on so many projects of like, I'm sorry.

We've got developers willing to build you something, but we don't have a building. And again, speed to market is so critical this day and age.

I now understand it, I still like it, but I understand the game. So can you explain the economic development grants or sort of these give backs that the commissioners do for these buildings?

Chris Johnson: Yeah. And I'm glad you brought this up because obviously I've enjoyed our banter. Off the record and I mean off camera and everything. First of all, I want to make sure that the public understands that any incentives that the county gives, there are several things.

So basically for every dollar that you give me in new tax dollars, I'll give you a percentage back over a predetermined amount of time, but you've got to make sure that the investment is there, that the jobs created or that you've said that you're going to do.

So the point is that before we give back any grant, they have to do what they've said they've done. They have to pay their taxes, they have to have made the investment and they have to create the jobs. So there's protection on behalf of the citizens and then, two is not taking money out of grandma's pocket to give to some large corporation.

I said the money that after we give back to the client, the money that the county receives is the equivalent of a $600 million project with 500 jobs. So what would a community to do to receive a company at $600 million at with 500 jobs? And that's no incentives at all.

And so that's what you've gotta and that's what we work to prove. Not to prove, but just to explain to the general public, is that the monies that the county gets to keep is astronomical in itself.

Somebody there looked at me and it may have been the chairman and he said, but Jonathan, we get the building for 100 years and we're only giving the taxes back for five. And I thought, Oh yeah, we do get, the building doesn't go away. It's a hundred year building.

Chris Johnson: Yeah. They're not going to pick up a $1.5 billion facility and move it over the facilities there. But again it's one of those things that every time we have a project announcement you know, I try to explain to the public. And it's one of those things that you've got to constantly remind and let people know that it's not your tax dollars. It's just, you're there just getting back their own money for a pre-determined amount of time.

Jonathan Breeden: Right. Well, last question here, because literally we could go all night. What do you love most about Johnston County and what has you excited about the future for Johnston County?

Right now we're probably pushing 250,000 in population. We're adding about 12 to 15,000 residents a day, which is exciting. And also meeting the needs of our existing industries or being a part of a bigger regional, a larger region in the triangle region and so that's exciting and providing and having all the things that people want and expect in a large area.

But the other thing is that we need to make sure that, and our County Commissioners understand that of trying to direct that growth, trying to maintain that sense of community, that rural character that has made Johnston County so attractive.

And it's a delicate balance of government of telling private citizens what they can and can't do. Obviously we don't mind it if it's benefits us, but you know, don't tell, have government tell me what to do, but I want to make sure that the property owner next to me doesn't do such and such.

Jonathan Breeden: Well, that's awesome. Well, We'd like to thank if anybody wants to get up with your office, I know you're at the airport. How would they get up with you?

Chris Johnson: Well, the best way to do this is go to our website at GrowWithJoCo.Com and there's links there that you can connect with me, to email me or call the office.

Jonathan Breeden: Right. And what to be, what's

Chris Johnson: Trying to be very responsive. And then also you can follow me on LinkedIn and the social media, the Twitter and Facebook and stuff.

Jonathan Breeden: Right. And what's the website for the Jewel's Formals?

Chris Johnson: You know, it's funny, I'm ashamed to say it's probably just JewelsFormals.com. But you can Google that. All right. Cool. Again, I am a novice when it comes to all these other stuff, because every time I finally figure out something everybody's moved on to something else.

And if you would also do us the favor of leaving us a five star review down at the bottom, wherever you see this podcast, it helps with our visibility to be shown to other people in the community so that they will learn more about what is so great about Johnston County and hear more of The Best of the Johnston County podcast and all of the great guests we have.

Until next time. I'm your host, Jonathan Breeden.

If the legal aspects highlighted raised some questions, help is just around the corner at www. breedenfirm. com.