Congratulations are in order for the Town of Vidalia for landing a long-sought industry to fill the gap left after Vidalia Apparel’s closure in 2016.

Long known only as Project Blue, last week officials announced details of a project by Vidalia Denim that would create a spinning, dying and weaving facility to turn raw cotton into finished denim fabric.

If fully realized as planned, Vidalia Denim will bring 300 jobs with an average annual salary of $30,000.

Already the project has put $12 million in Vidalia’s bank account. The town has committed up to $8 million of that back to the company for infrastructure needs in exchange for the company meeting certain investment and jobs milestones.

If successful, the most important benefit of the project will be the injection of 300 much-needed jobs into our community’s economy.

Adding more jobs to our community is sorely needed. Those jobs are expected to add approximately $9 million in payroll to the local economy.

That money should roll over several times in our community, buying groceries and gasoline, minivans and medical care, bicycles and birthday gifts.

Our community needs the project and we hope it all works out as planned.