Etowah County’s own records account for $30.1 million at the megasite. Officials have described nearly $50 million.

GADSDEN, AL – Eighteen years of Etowah County Commission minutes account for about $30.1 million in land, contracts and site work at the Northeast Alabama Regional Megasite. A county commissioner said last year that nearly $50 million had been invested here. The roughly $19.9 million between those two numbers has no public document behind it. When GadsdenThrive requested the records that would close the gap, the county’s chief administrative officer said the request was too extensive and would take too much time and effort. He did not say what it would cost.

The county owns about 1,280 acres beside Interstate 59 and a Norfolk Southern main line. The property has a 100-acre graded pad, a rail crossing, access roads, a new electrical substation, a 500,000-gallon water tank and water and sewer work either finished or underway.

It has no announced tenant and no permanent jobs from one.

That by itself does not mean the strategy failed. Industrial sites get built before a company commits. That is how the business works. But 18 years in, residents are entitled to a plain answer to a plain question. What has this cost, who paid, and how much more is coming?

What does the public record actually document?

GadsdenThrive built a line-by-line ledger from commission minutes, contract awards, grant announcements and county budget amendments. Every entry has a source document.

Adding only the controlling records, and taking care not to count the same dollar twice, the total is $30,088,989.85.

Land purchases through 2015	$2,600,000
Growing Alabama program, all three phases	$8,700,000
Interchange access study, Goodwyn Mills Cawood	$240,000
Interactive site map and maintenance	$12,700
Goodwyn Mills Cawood, water and sewer engineering	$2,267,400
Jordan Excavating, water main	$5,397,860
Apel Machine and Supply, sewer main, final	$4,736,813.85
REV Construction, I-59 utility crossing	$1,352,520
Stewart tract, about 160 acres, recorded cost	$902,634
Alabama Grading and Excavation, Canoe Creek Road, final	$3,879,062
Total	$30,088,989.85

Two things about that number matter as much as the number.

First, it is not cash out the door. Some entries are recorded land costs. Some are contracts the commission authorized that may not have been paid in full. The largest single line, the $8.7 million from the Growing Alabama program, is a program ceiling rather than a receipt. A May 2026 commission amendment let leftover money from those three awards be moved to sewer work, which proves the point. An announced amount and a spent amount are not the same thing.

Second, the real figure is higher. This total leaves out costs the county has not made public.

Why is $30.1 million a floor and not a total?

Because the record has holes, and they are not small ones.

The price of the 168 acres the county bought in 2016 does not appear in the online minutes. Neither does the price of the 30 acres bought from William C. Lucas in January. A budget amendment in April moved $596,543 into the county’s industrial development land account, which may be that purchase, but the minutes do not say so.

Alabama Power built a 115-kilovolt substation and transmission lines at or near the site. The company has never said what it cost. There is also a fair question about how much of it belongs to the megasite, since officials have described broader benefits for the Attalla and Steele area.

The contract for the water tank and its final change order are not in the online minutes. Several early engineering agreements are missing amounts. County payroll, marketing and recruitment costs have never been allocated.

And there is a local revenue stream almost nobody discusses. Under a 2021 state law, the county adopted a late-payment penalty on property taxes and split the proceeds. Roads and bridges get 47.5 percent. The revenue commissioner’s office gets 12.5 percent. The megasite gets 40 percent. That is money from Etowah County taxpayers who paid a tax bill late, flowing to this project every year. The county has not published what it collects or what it spends.

Where did nearly $50 million come from?

At the June 3, 2025 commission meeting, during a discussion of the megasite and a new state grant, Commissioner Craig Inzer Jr. thanked a list of project partners and said nearly $50 million had been invested right here in Etowah County.

Read closely, that sentence says Etowah County, not the megasite. It may fold in Alabama Power’s undisclosed spending, Rainbow City’s money, utility work or countywide engineering. It may use a broader idea of investment than direct site costs.

The minutes contain no breakdown and point to no supporting document. It should be treated as an official statement, not a verified total. The only way to settle it is for the county to produce whatever spreadsheet, memo or presentation the figure came from.

What about the much larger numbers?

Figures approaching half a billion dollars sometimes get attached to this site. They come from adding two regional programs to it.

One is the A-USA Corridor, a roughly 280-mile freight rail effort connecting the Port of Mobile to markets across Alabama, put at $231.6 million. The other is about $240 million in Interstate 59 reconstruction across Etowah and DeKalb counties. Together they come to $471.6 million.

Neither is spending on this property. The rail corridor serves the whole state. The interstate work is general highway reconstruction, not the new interchange proposed for the megasite. Both belong in a conversation about the region around the site. Neither belongs in its cost.

Does the county ever get its money back?

Only if a company shows up.

As GadsdenThrive reported Tuesday, a 2022 memorandum of understanding commits Rainbow City to buy the project from Etowah County once an industry commits, with a provision reimbursing the county for its investment.

That agreement deserves a hard look, because it turns the missing ledger into a live financial question rather than a bookkeeping one. Reimbursed for how much? The reimbursement is measured against the county’s investment, and the county has never published what that investment is. If a tenant is announced tomorrow, the land transfer, the incentives and the payback all get negotiated against a baseline figure the public has never seen.

What did the county say when asked?

GadsdenThrive sent the county an itemized request for the records behind the site’s costs.

Etowah County Chief Administrative Officer Shane Ellison called this reporter at 4:11 p.m. Tuesday and said the request was quite extensive and would require too much time and effort. He directed this reporter to alabamamegasite.com, the project’s promotional website, for available information about the site.

This reporter asked whether the county could say in advance what producing the records would cost. Ellison did not give an amount.

That website was already a source for this reporting and is cited throughout it. It supplies the acreage history, the AdvantageSite certification, the substation announcement and the descriptions of the Growing Alabama phases. What it does not contain is a deed, a closing statement, an invoice, a grant agreement or a ledger line. It cannot answer a question about money because it does not hold the financial records.

GadsdenThrive is narrowing the request to three items, none of which requires pulling paper files. The first is an electronic extract of every industrial development transaction in the county’s accounting system since 2008. That single export would answer most of the rest. The second is whatever document supports the nearly $50 million figure. The third is the Growing Alabama and SEEDS grant files, which the county already assembled to submit to the state.

Under Alabama’s open records law, a public entity has 10 business days to acknowledge a written request and 15 business days to grant or deny it, with extensions available. An agency may designate a request time intensive. That designation extends the deadline, but it also requires the agency to notify the requester of any fees within 15 days of acknowledging the request. It does not remove the obligation to respond.

What would a real accounting have to answer?

The question is not whether every dollar was wasted, or whether commissioners deserve blame for trying to land a major employer. Recruiting industry to a county that lost Republic Steel is a defensible thing to attempt.

The question is whether Etowah County has ever defined the conditions under which continuing to invest still makes sense.

That takes seven things: the total cash spent, the current value of the land and finished infrastructure, the remaining cost to make the site fully marketable, the state of the recruitment pipeline, the reasons serious prospects chose elsewhere, what else the county gave up for each dollar spent here, and dated milestones for judging the strategy.

Any long public investment eventually faces a decision to continue, pause, restructure or exit. Choosing to exit would not have to mean walking away from the land or accusing anyone of wrongdoing. It could mean declining to fund optional improvements, finding another owner, subdividing the property, targeting different industries or capping further county money.

That decision cannot be made from a promotional website. It requires the ledger.

After 18 years, Etowah County residents are entitled to see it.

Frequently asked questions

How much has the NEAR Megasite cost?

Public records document about $30.1 million in land, contracts and site work. The true figure is higher, because several costs have never been made public.

Why is the total uncertain?

The prices of two land purchases are missing, Alabama Power has not disclosed what its substation cost, the water tank contract is absent from online minutes, and the county has not published payroll, marketing or late-penalty revenue tied to the site.

Who has paid for it?

Etowah County, the State of Alabama through the Growing Alabama and SEEDS programs, Norfolk Southern, Rainbow City, Alabama Power and federal pandemic relief money.

Where does the nearly $50 million figure come from?

A commissioner used it at the June 3, 2025 meeting, describing investment in Etowah County during a megasite discussion. The minutes include no breakdown or supporting document.

Is a company coming?

None has been announced in any public record reviewed through Sept. 1, 2026.

Does Etowah County get repaid?

Under a 2022 memorandum, Rainbow City would buy the project and reimburse the county once an industry commits. No tenant means no purchase and no reimbursement.

Related coverage: Etowah County has been buying megasite land since 2008. It still does not have a company. and Etowah County weighs $194,500 study of a 190-acre addition to the NEAR Megasite.

Sources

Etowah County Commission minutes, 2020 through April 2026; Etowah County Commission budget amendments; Gadsden-Etowah County Industrial Development Authority; alabamamegasite.com; Norfolk Southern; Alabama Department of Commerce; ALDOT; ABC 33/40; Act 2021-395; telephone call with Etowah County Chief Administrative Officer Shane Ellison, Sept. 1, 2026. Research cutoff Sept. 1, 2026.