File photoGov. Brian Kemp, along with FPL Foods and Walmart representatives, cuts the ribbon on Walmart’s new meat-processing facility that is expected to add hundreds more jobs to the local economy.

THOMASVILLE — Thomas County has seen close to 1,500 jobs materialize in the past two years.

New jobs during 2018 and 2019 total 775. Close to 700 jobs were created at existing businesses — Flowers Foods, Ag Pro, Hurst Boiler & Welding — during the last two years, Payroll Development Authority Executive Director Shelley Zorn said at Monday’s PDA meeting.

PDA member Stephen Cheney pointed out the jobs are diversified.

During the two-year period, a total of $190 million in capital investments were made in the community.

“The Walmart project, I believe, is the biggest in this region in 20 years,” Zorn said, in reference to Walmart’s first-ever meat-processing plant that opened recently in Thomasville.

Check-Mate, manufacturer of firearm magazines and other products, opened in Thomasville in late 2019. The first phase is up and running with 45 employees. Zorn said the second phase will start up in the spring with another 45 employees.

Check-Mate, housed in the former Caterpillar building on the west bypass, expects to hire a total of 230 employees.

“They have a lot of former Caterpillar employees out here,” Zorn told the PDA.

Last week, Zorn was Check-Mate’s guest at the Shot Show, a gun industry trade show, in Las Vegas, where she met officials of industries who expressed interest in Thomasville as a manufacturing site.

The head of a shoe manufacturer in Peru will visit Thomasville later this month. A visit by a Missouri manufacturer of gun holsters looks promising.

Two other industrial prospects have visited Thomasville this year.

The Sweet Grass Dairy cheese factory hopes to open by the fall, along with the four-story Courtyard Marriott, Zorn reported.

Marriott, she said, has submitted final plans to the City of Thomasville building department.

Zorn has received an inquiry from an extended-stay hotel interested in building on U.S. 19.

The PDA has received four recent inquiries about space in the Red Hills Business Park on U.S. 319 North. The business park has been empty since completion several years ago.

A cabinet maker is interested in a two-acre tract in the park.

Pottyman Portables is interested in constructing a park structure to store portable toilets. Zorn said the portable toilets are used on farms and at construction sites and special events. 

Senior reporter Patti Dozier can be reached at (229) 226-2400, ext. 1820