VALDOSTA — The Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority held a ground-breaking ceremony for its largest project of the year Wednesday afternoon.

Under a bleach-white tent at the Westside Business Park, local contractors and government officials huddled to avoid the sparse rain to welcome Durocky Road, LLC.

The moist soil gave way with ease to the shovels of the dozen or so leaders who donned fluorescent green hard-hats and made the first ceremonious step in a project that promises to have a major local economic impact.  

Durocky will make a projected capital investment of $4.8 million which will create approximately 125 construction trade jobs during the seven-month construction period. The 150,000-square-foot logistics and distribution facility will support DuPont Crop Protection manufacturing operations for crop protection chemicals, which are produced on Rocky Ford Road in Valdosta.

“We were really excited about this project because it supports an existing industry and really focuses on the home team,” said Allan Ricketts VLCIA project manager.

The facility will bring 25 permanent jobs once it opens on Aug. 1, 2012, Ricketts said. DuPont will also have the option to expand the facility by another 22,000 square feet.

Much like the Miller Business Park, a significant portion of the work will be delegated to Valdosta Small Emerging Business program, a local group of contractors and sub-contractors that can handle smaller jobs.

“We put VSEB goals in all of our projects,” said Ricketts. “We were really the first agency to use them.”

High standards of energy efficiency will also be incorporated into the design of the facility. Project developer Doug Griffin agreed to design and use construction material that meets U.S. green Building Council Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification criteria and will seek LEED certification for the facility.

Griffin seemed overjoyed to see the project finally break ground after five years of prior work on the facility.

“It takes a while to get something like this done,” said Griffin. “In this economy that we’re in, we’re doing something, putting something out there, that we hope will jump-start things. That’s really important to us.”