The 164-acre Trakas site, located between Pacolet and Jonesville along Highway 9, is contracted for the sole occupation of Fine Organics Americas LLC, with a planned minimum investment of $135 million to create 60 new jobs.
It took more than a decade of investment, long-range comprehensive planning and infrastructure improvements, and enough patience to fill the last 100 years.
But with the recent agreement by Spartanburg County to partner with Union County in a venture known as a Joint County Industrial Park, the effort is not only expected to pay off in the near future in some big ways, but further attract more business and industry to both counties for decades to come.
The partnering pertains to the 164-acre Trakas site, located between Pacolet and Jonesville along Highway 9, fully furnished with water, sewer, electricity, natural gas, and fiber optic cable available.
The site is contracted for the sole occupation of Fine Organics Americas LLC, an India-based producer of bio-based specialty ingredients and additives.
Company officials plan a minimum investment of $135 million to create 60 new jobs in what will be their first U.S. manufacturing facility, with operations expected to begin in 2027.
“Union County has been marketing this site for more than 10 years,” said Phillip Russell, Union County Supervisor and chairman of the Union County Council. “Fine Organics has not started construction, but Union County is working with their design and construction planning team.”
But rather than hingeing on a physical park location such as Trakas, Scottie Kay Blackwell, communications manager for Spartanburg County, explained that a Joint County Industrial Park is actually a legal and economic development mechanism, enabled under state law to allow “two counties to partner on a project for the purposes of sharing revenue and supporting regional growth.”
“Because the project is located in Union County, they are required to partner with a neighboring county to establish the JCIP,” Blackwell said. “Spartanburg County’s role is that of the partner county.”
The main point in the JCIP is an item known as Fee-In-Lieu-Of-Tax (FILOT).
FILOTs are employed between neighboring counties that offer different federal job tax credits.
For example, Spartanburg, a Tier II county, can offer new industries a federal job tax credit of only $2,750 per employee. Whereas Union, a Tier IV county, can offer the same job tax credit at $25,000 per employee.
Spartanburg can then utilize a FILOT partnership by partnering with a higher tier county, such as Union, to offer a higher federal job tax credit for Fine Organics Americas employees.
Once the company begins operations, Spartanburg County would receive an annual payment of 1% – or $5,000 – on an annual FILOT of $500,000.
Union County would receive the other 99%, or an annual payment of $495,000.
“This amount will increase if initial investment is exceeded,” Russell said, adding that the arrangement would be reversed if a future JCIP partnership were to locate in Spartanburg County.
“In short, it helps Spartanburg County recruit new industries using a higher job tax credit,” he said.
He added that without the JCIP in place, Union would be much harder pressed to attract large industry: The state Constitution sets the industrial tax rate at 10.5%. At this rate, Fine Organics Americas’ annual tax would be 28.35 times more than the $500,000 FILOT.
“This is why S.C. Commerce and local governments utilize FILOT agreements,” Russell said. “South Carolina would (otherwise) not be able to compete for new industries, because neighboring states have a much lower industrial tax rate.”
But with the JCIP in place, the area may just now be reaching the edge of a long-simmering potential.
Dating back to the 1920s, Union County’s population and business climate has mostly been in an up-and-down pattern.
But in addition to Fine Organics Americas, the county will soon welcome Eaton, a global power management company, which will acquire and retrofit an 861,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in Jonesville in 2027 as the major part of a $340 million investment and the creation of 700 new jobs.
Union and Spartanburg counties have also partnered for a similar FILOT arrangement for Eaton – and many more are likely to follow.
“Union is currently growing at a pace it has not seen in decades,” Russell said. “In calendar year 2025, Union County announced over $500 million in industrial growth alone, between Fine Organics Americas LLC and Eaton Corporation. Both Union County and Spartanburg County citizens will benefit from this growth.”
And Angela Fant, executive director for the Union County Chamber of Commerce, indicated that with the county only an hour from Charlotte, Columbia, and Greenville, she can’t wait to see what happens in the next decade.
“Geographically, we’re in a great business hub position,” she said. “And with these two industries as catalysts to push us forward, we’re very excited and definitely in a position create more jobs for even more growth.”
