If the city of Burlington were to send a letter to Santa, odds are it would hit up Saint Nick for a massive new business to generate property tax revenue, provide jobs for area residents, and otherwise make Burlington the envy of every city in North Carolina.
A year-end gift on this scale would be a tall order even for someone with the aid of a magical sleigh. But it has nevertheless shown up in Burlington’s figurative stocking thanks, in no small part, to the efforts of Adam Shull, the city’s director of economic development.
Since his arrival in Burlington a little less than a year ago, Shull has been quietly working on a multijurisdictional campaign to recruit a colossal new distribution center to the city’s westernmost reaches. This venture culminated on October 22 when Ahold Delhaize USA, the Dutch-owned parent company of Food Lion, announced that it would set up an $860 million warehousing complex in an area of eastern Guilford County that has become a prime growth area for the city of Burlington.
Shull acknowledges that this particular project has been at the top of his to-do list ever since he took over the city’s economic development office at the beginning of January. He nevertheless adds that, at first, neither he nor his colleagues at city hall actually knew the identity of this corporate suitor who was discretely checking out Burlington and other communities.
“Day two, there was a meeting at the municipal building about the project,” he recalls. “It was called Titan White Box, and we knew the scope of the project, the level of interest, and the general area where it would be.”
Over the coming months, Shull would gradually learn more about the company behind this venture even as Ahold Delhaize became better acquainted with the community where it was contemplating going into business. This sort of arms-length courtship has long been standard operating procedure in Corporate America. It was, however, a relatively new experience for Shull, whose entry into economic development has come fairly late in his career.
In fact, the 41-year-old Hickory native first cut his teeth as a newspaper journalist after he graduated from Appalachian State in 2006. Shull initially plied this trade at The News-Herald in Morganton before he joined the writing staff of The Paducah Sun in western Kentucky. During his decade-long stint in Paducah, Shull met his wife, Joy, and in 2018, the couple relocated to Greensboro, where Shull would later pursue a graduate degree from UNC-G.
Shull ultimately obtained a master’s in public affairs with a concentration in community and economic development, and in 2022, he went to work for the state’s Pandemic Recovery Office, where his work on large multijurisdictional projects proved a good introduction to the field of corporate recruitment. Shull eventually left the Pandemic Recovery Office for the Piedmont Triad Regional Council, where he provided planning and zoning services for this organization’s members, which include the city of Burlington.
By the time he received his job offer from Burlington, Shull had pieced together a c.v. that contained the various skill sets he’d need for career in economic development. But as he began to dig into “Project Titan,” he also realized that his new position would require him to display the same sort of promotional savvy that he had shown in the job hunt.
“A project at this level doesn’t come around often,” he concedes. “It was clear this was a big deal for the community, so we wanted to put our best foot forward…and when I met with their team, it felt like a job interview every time.”
As part of his groundwork for Project Titan, Shull endeavored to become intimately acquainted with the community he was trying to market. Along the way, he found that the city of Burlington has quite a bit to commend itself to a potential corporate recruit.
“We have a good location for logistics with access to two interstates,” he explains. “We have an available labor force. Within an hour’s drive, there’s 1.7 million people within our laborshed…There’s quality education with Alamance Community College, our local school system, and Elon University – and that’s just inside Alamance County…We also have a low tax rate in North Carolina.”
Shull goes on to insist that many of these same assets that convinced Ahold Delhaize to set up shop in Burlington were instrumental in luring him and his wife to this part of the state. The city’s economic developer adds that his experiences over the past year have merely confirmed their choice of this community as the place where they’d settle down to raise their two school-age sons Emmett and J.D.
In the meantime, Shull is emphatic that he has no plans to rest easy now that he’s got Project Titan in the bag, so to speak.
“Our goal is to continue to be prepared as we look to the future,” he says. “There were decisions made in the past that allowed us to carry out this project, and I hope we can continue to move forward and prepare.
“I remember that, at the announcement [of Ahold Delhaize’s distribution center], the former mayor Jim Butler asked us ‘what’s next?’ I’ve been asking myself the same thing. Success breeds success, and we want to leverage this big win to get other big wins for the community.”
