For over 100 years the City of Bessemer has been one of Alabama’s leading manufacturing and commerce centers. Several of the state’s oldest, continually-operating firms are located in Bessemer, including U.S. Pipe and Foundry and Southern Ductile Casting Corporation.
But Bessemer is also home to many service sector and technology-based companies, such as Logista and Trillion Communications. UAB Medical Center West, and the various clinics and health-related companies that service the institution, form Bessemer’s largest private sector employment force. And in the field of distribution, Bessemer is proud to call CVS Pharmacy, Federal Express, and Piggly Wiggly (Alabama Distributing Company) corporate citizens.
Since the mid-1980s, the Bessemer Development Board’s various programs have been utilized by these and other companies to create an ever-growing, diverse local economy. Some of the Bessemer Development Board’s program results include:
*Assisting over 400 businesses with business plan preparation, loan processing and other technical assistance;
*Booking over 100 business loans from its two revolving loan funds, with a default rate of less than 8%, helping to create and retain over 3,000 jobs.
*Helping to grow the city’s store of business parks from just two in 1982 to fifteen in 2005, parks totaling over 1,500 acres. Seven of those business parks are owned and managed by the Board.
*The construction of close to 50 metal industrial buildings for lease to for-profit entities, representing a total of more than 750,000 sq. ft. and a capital investment of approximately $12 million.
*The creation of two business incubation facilities - the 26,000 sq. ft. Bessemer Business Center (BBC) on the Bessemer campus of Lawson State College, and the 17,000 sq. ft. Downtown Entrepreneurial Center (DEC) in downtown Bessemer.
