When completed, Project Thoroughbred plans to operate a grain terminal with a focus on specialty grains used in the brewing, distilling, and craft malting industries with a goal of increasing Southwest Virginia farmer participation in supplying grain markets with Southwest Virginia grown products. The Lonesome Pine Regional Industrial Facilities Authority (LPRIFA) is a multi-jurisdictional organization that was officially established in 2019. The LPRIFA encompasses the Southwestern Virginia counties of Dickenson, Lee, Scott, and Wise and the City of Norton.
The LPRIFA operates under guidelines set forth by the Code of Virginia section 15.2-6400 and provides an economic development model that allows communities to pool their resources to invest and build a new economy for Southwest Virginia. The RIFA model then allows localities to share in the revenues realized from those investments. The creation of employment opportunities is a priority and underlying purpose for many of the LPRIFA’s projects.
Projects include the creation of new industrial and agricultural infrastructure, improvements to connectivity, improvement to the quality of life, providing sustainable and attractive housing, and establishment of economic stimulating initiatives throughout the entire LPRIFA region.
The mission of the LPRIFA is particularly important to the Southwest Virginia region, a region where the traditional and historical economies of coal and tobacco have experienced a down turn in recent years.
The formation of the LPRIFA promotes and creates an environment that provides ownership to the 5 member Southwest Virginia communities regarding their economic future.