With a close proximity to Fort Bragg, I-95, and affordable costs of living, not to mention opportunities for business development and growth, legacy businesses, and forward-thinking entrepreneurs, it’s no wonder that Fayetteville has positioned itself as an ideal place to live and work.
But after enjoying working in the tech industry for 30 years in the region, Marty Cayton became increasingly aware that the Fayetteville area had more business news than what
was being broadcast.

In 2020, this reality became especially apparent to Cayton. A local angel investor and owner of TeamLogic IT, he brought the 14th location of VentureSouth, an angel investment
network, to Fayetteville and was tapped to serve as the director.

“Being able to wave the VentureSouth banner in Fayetteville is a significant step towards putting our community on the map as a place to start and grow companies. VentureSouth brings a successful and proven process to our local investors and will undoubtedly lead to the growth of our angel investment and entrepreneurship ecosystem,” Cayton said.
The news, despite its importance to the region, was picked up by few media outlets, and like much local business news did, went by the wayside.

After reading the Greater Wilmington Business Journal and seeing people become interested in becoming TeamLogic IT clients from advertising in the publication, Cayton “became a little jealous,” he said.
That’s when he got an idea. What if Fayetteville had its own business journal? Through collaboration with GWBJ to learn the publishing ropes and many hours of lengthy discussions with community and business stakeholders on what a successful business journal should look like, Cayton built a team that went to work.
Scouring LinkedIn pages, making hundreds of phone calls, driving around town and taking pictures of curious developments among other inventive ways of forging connections and digging up hard-hitting news, the team assembled the first-ever issue of Greater Fayetteville Business Journal, which launched on May 28, 2021.

In celebration of our first birthday, let’s take a moment to reflect on just a few of the many newsworthy developments our seven-county coverage area has celebrated with GFBJ over the past year:
Horne Brothers Construction sale
Pine Gate Renewables launched Blue Ridge Power, a new EPC company; then, Blue Ridge Power acquired the solar division of Fayetteville-based Horne Brothers Construction, Inc. Jack and Charles Horne joined the company’s leadership team, and Chris Dunbar, who served as Pine Gate Renewables chief construction officer, became president of Blue Ridge.

Amazon coming to Fayetteville – twice

In early May of 2021, the Fayetteville Cumberland Economic Development Corporation announced that an Amazon delivery station would be coming to the region at 1005 Dunn Road – the previous location of the Soffe outlet store. RealtyLink helped broker the deal for the property, which included the 127,750 square-foot building and almost 24 acres with the plan to lease much of the facility to Amazon. Months later, an Amazon 1.3 million-square-foot fulfillment facility was confirmed by the FCEDC at the Military Business Park.

USPS announced as new tenant of Liberty Point Industrial Park

In September, Liberty Point Industrial Park gained USPS as a tenant, located on Corporation Drive, adjacent to the area of Interstate 95.

Fayetteville State University acquires Bronco Square
FSU kicked off its homecoming week with the announcement that it acquired the Bronco Square strip mall debt-free and would build a standalone Chick-fil-A and Starbucks, totalling five million dollars in debt-free assets. The book store, Chancellor Allison said, would move out of Bronco Square and that space will become a new hub for entrepreneurial activities – a one-stop shop for businesses.

FTCC rescue training center, announcement of aquatic addition

The final steel beam for the first phase of construction of the FTCC-Cumberland County Regional Fire & Rescue Training Center was hoisted into place. In November, the school announced plans to open an indoor swift water rescue training facility in the building. The state-of-the-art technology being implemented in the 88,000-gallon tank will allow emergency personnel to train for a variety of swift-water and floodwater rescue situations upon completion.
Elkay expands operations into Robeson County
In June of 2021, Governor Roy Cooper announced that Elkay Manufacturing, the leading producer of sink and water delivery products, would invest $5.5 million dollars into the Lumberton area by becoming the first tenant of the Lumberton/Robeson County I-95/I-74 Industrial Park. In early December, ground was broken at the site for the distribution center and construction is anticipated to be completed by October.

Bernhard Capital deal discussion
A private equity company based in Louisiana Bernhard Capital Partners discussed the possibility of managing the Fayetteville Public Works Commission. In the summer of 2020,
BCP offered $750 million to the city. Near the beginning of May 2021, PWC withdrew from the deal, publicly announcing that it had ceased communications with BCP because it had not established the “transparency and trust” to continue the discussion. In early December 2021, Greater Fayetteville Business Journal was told that PWC has not yet been released from the nondisclosure agreement with the firm.
Cumberland County legislators bring $412 million back to region 

Upon the signing of the state budget, Cumberland County was set to receive an investment of over $412 million dollars from the state budget. This is the largest allocation from the budget that the area has ever seen.
Counties perform $75M in federal contracts
In 2021, businesses executed $7.3 billion in federal prime contracts in North Carolina, according to the North Carolina Military Business Center. Among the 15 counties that performed over $75 million in federal prime contracts were Cumberland County, clocking in at $1,457,469,978.57 in federal total dollars and Robeson County, clocking in at $321,813,220.65 in federal total dollars.
Metcon completes construction of UNCP's new business school
UNCP completed and opened its 62,000-square-foot, two-story building, which contains multiple classrooms, seminar rooms, an auditorium, cafe, media rooms and a high technology stock trading room. The total cost of the School of Business was $35 million.
PWC announces carbon neutral energy project turns gases from waste into electricity
The Fayetteville Public Works Commission shared plans to install 1.5 megawatts of solid oxide fuel cells, made by Bloom Energy, a California-based company with a leading solid oxide platform for distributed generation of electricity and hydrogen. The project is one of the first of its kind, and as data shows that waste generation will likely increase by 70 percent by 2050. 

Bast Fibre Technologies acquires Lumberton Cellulose

Bast Fibre Technologies Inc. (BFT), a manufacturer of premium natural fibers for the global nonwoven and textile industries, made an agreement to acquire Lumberton Cellulose LLC, a natural fiber processing facility in Robeson County, from Georgia-Pacific Cellulose LLC.
Additionally, GFBJ has delivered business news digitally and published a new publication called the Book On Business.
So, to our readership, thank you for joining us on this journey. As we celebrate our first birthday, we look to the years ahead and are eager to continue telling your story.