On Wednesday, the town of Canton signed an agreement to purchase a section of its decommissioned Pactiv Evergreen papermill.
Canton is purchasing 35 acres of property, including warehouses and a chipyard, from the current proprietors of its decommissioned papermill site for $12.5 million dollars. The land was owned by Two Banks Development.
The town formerly used the mill’s wastewater treatment plant for free. The mill’s plant, however, was in a vulnerable area next to the Pigeon River, and flooded several times: twice in 2004, in 2021 during Hurricane Fred, and 2024 during Hurricane Helene. The new plant will be built behind the old one, on higher and less- vulnerable ground, extending previous connections to the town’s pipes.
Two Banks has been operating the current wastewater treatment plant temporarily at a cost of $140,000 per month.
“We will need that service until we build our new wastewater treatment plant, which is underway with the design work,” Smathers said.
The purchase means the town will be able to determine the building's use, although Smathers said he hopes industries will be interested in using the warehouse space. The future of the mill has been a recurrent theme when the community discusses Canton’s economy, and the town’s self-determination in the matter.
The purchase is only a small portion of the mill’s square footage, but Smathers hopes it will be enough to provide more economic opportunity for the community in addition to space for wastewater infrastructure. The warehouses, he said, could become light manufacturing or retail.
“As much as we want to talk about the economic future of Canton, the first thing we have to do is provide good services,” Smathers said. “We feel that the next chapter of Canton economically should start off exactly where we left it and that is with the manufacturing jobs.”
In a Helene relief bill passed last June, the General Assembly allocated $14 million to the town specifically for the purposes of buying this land and infrastructure. This purchase has been in the works ever since.
