49 jobs for Iredell County

A Goldsboro-based foodservice distributor will open a distribution center in Statesville next year, creating 49 jobs initially.

Pate Dawson Co. will occupy a shell building in Statesville Business Park off U.S. 70. Pate Dawson will expand the 63,000-square-foot building, which was completed in spring 2009, to 95,000 square feet with plans to open next summer. The family-owned company will invest $8.5 million over the next three years in the project, which was made possible in part by a $150,000 grant from the One North Carolina Fund.

Salaries will vary by job function, but the average annual wage for the new jobs will be $47,531 plus benefits. The average annual wage in Iredell County is $36,348, according to a news release from Gov. Bev Perdue's office.

N.C. Department of Commerce Secretary Keith Crisco represented Perdue at today's announcement, dubbed Project Ice Box. (That title was appropriate because it was freezing this morning in the cavernous space.) The building was developed by The Keith Corp. in Charlotte, and the company's Alan Lewis officially handed over the keys to the property to Mac Sullivan, CEO of Pate Dawson.

The new facility will serve Pate Dawson's restaurant customers in western North Carolina and beyond. Sullivan tells me the company looked within a 50-mile radius of Charlotte for a site for the distribution center, which will join similar centers in Goldsboro and Greensboro. Pate Dawson, founded in 1885, employs 390 workers currently.

Asked why he chose Statesville, Sullivan says the city is near a "concentration of customers for us, and it's important for us to reduce our transportation costs. So this is a good fit for that."

He says the company will be looking primarily for warehouse workers and drivers. For more info on Pate Dawson, including job opportunities, go to www.pdco.com.

I couldn't let him go without asking my trademark question. Here's his response:

"It's interesting. The economy is certainly slow, and you can't say the restaurant industry is growing, but we are growing, so that means we're doing a good job growing our market share."

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