S.C. developer buys Danville mill, vows at add 400 jobs

DANVILLE -- A South Carolina developer has purchased the former Dan River Inc. No. 8 Mill with a pledge to bring 400 jobs to this recession-scarred part of Southside Virginia.

Danville City Manager M. Lyle Lacy III said the landmark White Mill is now owned by White Mill Development LLC, which is headed by Gibbs International Inc. of Spartanburg, S.C.

The developers have committed to bring $400 million in capital investment and 400 jobs to Danville. The annual amount will be at least $16 million, or about $40,000 per employee, plus benefits when the development is complete -- a process, officials warn, that could take several years.

Officials said the project required financial incentives from the Tobacco Commission, the Danville Regional Foundation, the city and the state.

The Tobacco Commission alone has invested $2.45 million in the project, said Del. Daniel W. Marshall III, R-Danville and a member of the commission.

Details on possible tenants were not released.

Gibbs International is a 36-year-old company that conducts "business internationally as a trader of textile companies with a secondary business in industrial real estate," according to its Web site.

The Danville area has an unemployment rate of 12.8 percent, the highest in the state for a metropolitan area.

Denice Thibodeau is a staff writer at the Danville Register & Bee.