First Bank Score: Golf Pairing Leads to Ace for Southern Pines

Hobbs Upchurch & Associates at the corner of SW Broad and Massachusetts streets. Photo by Hannah Sharpe.

As of Friday, March 15, 2013

Pat Corso had no ulterior motive when he invited First Bancorp President and CEO Richard Moore to play in the annual Sandhills Community College scholarship golf tournament last September.

"I knew that Richard used to play in golf events here," said Corso, executive director of Moore County Partners in Progress. "It was about renewing relationships. It wasn't a conscious gathering of people to talk about anything."

In fact, Southern Pines Mayor David McNeill missed the group's tee time because of an earlier commitment.

"It wasn't a day that we had planned to recruit First Bank," McNeill said. "It was a social golf outing and nothing more."

So there they were, standing on a tee box at Mid Pines Golf Club, when Moore said that the Troy-based bank was experiencing growing pains and thinking about relocating its corporate headquarters.

"When that day comes," McNeill told Moore, "we'd love for you to consider Southern Pines."

"That day" came Tuesday, when First Bancorp announced that it plans to move its headquarters to the former Hobbs Upchurch & Associates building in downtown Southern Pines. The bank last week purchased the building for $2.65 million.

Fred Hobbs, co-owner of Hobbs Upchurch and a former state senator, said a member of the First Bancorp Board of Directors broached the subject late last year at the end of a business discussion.

"He just said they were talking about trying to find a new location for the executive team," Hobbs said. "It took all of three minutes. The executive team came to look at the building earlier this year, but they had looked at other buildings and some land.

"They had several options on the table and picked one."

The announcement came after the Moore County Board of Commissioners and Southern Pines Town Council on Tuesday each approved an economic development grant - a combined $27,000 a year for 10 years - to help defray the bank's moving costs. The county will pay $15,000 a year for 10 years, the town, $12,000.

Moore was vacationing with his family Thursday and unavailable for comment.

Moore County officials have subtly tried to recruit First Bank for years, and they agree that it took a team effort to make the deal happen so quickly once they learned earlier this year that the bank was serious.

"Richard called me in January and said the bank was interested," Corso said. "That was the trigger. It was time to start lining up the town and the county, because we needed both for this to work. It wouldn't work with one doing it and the other not doing it."

Added McNeill, "We knew there was a short window of opportunity to make this project occur."

Town and county officials enlisted the help of Southern Pines businessman George Little, who had experience with incentives from doing economic development work for North Carolina under former Govs. Jim Holshouser and Jim Martin.

"This kind of opportunity comes around once in a lifetime," Little said. "When Richard laid out the bank's plan, I thought it was reasonable. We sat down and talked about it. If we didn't offer incentives, we wouldn't be in the ballgame. That's the nature of business today.

"I really feel good because it worked out."

Corso said local officials had several "healthy discussions about the pros and cons of incentives and other issues."

"This was unprecedented territory for all of us," he said. "George had been in this battle before. He gave us sound advice. I think his experience was invaluable to the process."

McNeill and Corso also credited Hobbs for expediting the deal.

"Outside of selling his building, Fred really felt this was an incredible opportunity for the town and the county," Corso said. "He did everything he could to ensure that First Bank came to Southern Pines."

McNeill called the availability of an existing 21,000-square-foot building "critical."

"It fit First Bank's needs," he said.

The bank has its largest deposit base - more than $420 million - in Moore County. That money is spread among its 11 branches in the county.

The bank already operates its facility management, legal division and mortgage loan origination operations in Moore County, where it also has a training facility. Some of those operations will be consolidated at the bank's new headquarters.

"Our bank has grown dramatically over the past few years," Moore said Tuesday in a statement, "and this new location will help us better serve our customers going forward."

One final hurdle remains. The bank must receive federal and state regulatory approval to move its headquarters, so there is no time frame for when the move will occur.

Local officials are also sensitive to how the news is being received in Troy, where town officials have been lobbying the state's fourth-largest bank for weeks to keep all its operations there. The bank indicated it would keep 150 of its 190 headquarters jobs in Troy.

"I'm glad First Bank chose to keep it in the region rather than going to an urban setting," McNeill said. "They easily could have gone to Greensboro or Raleigh."

Corso said selecting "rural North Carolina is an anomaly these days," even though the bank was founded in Troy.

"They've made a positive statement about their commitment to rural North Carolina," he said. "I think it's a win-win for both counties. Montgomery gets to keep most of what it had, and we get the headquarters for a publicly traded company."

Contact Ted M. Natt Jr. at (910) 693-2474 or tnatt@the

pilot.com.

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alladat1 2 months, 1 week ago

I'm glad Pat Corso is taking credit for this move. Remember that name when you go to pay you tax bill that is partially subsidizing bankers. Maybe we can keep Mr. Corso from getting reelected - oh wait - he's not an elected official - he just gets the local government to spend more tax payer dollars.

TF121 2 months, 1 week ago

This is a terrific addition to the Town of Southern Pines. But Mr. Natt, how about some figures on the ROI behind the $150k economic incentive? Head off the critics and skeptics, please. Surely, Mr. Corso, Mr. Little, Mr. Hobbs, Mr. Woronoff, and the rest of Partners in Progress, as well as the Chamber of Commerce can provide some projections. No?

alladat1 2 months, 1 week ago

TF121 - The key word you used is "projections". We know about the $270K taxpayer expense. Everything else is just a guess at this point - unless you want Lula's to save the lunch receipts for the "high rollers" from the bank. It's always nice to justify spending OPM (other peoples money) with some guess at "projected benefits".

PBinNC 2 months, 1 week ago

When we moved here we signed up with a nice little local bank called First Federal Savings and Loan of Moore County. It kept changing its name, but was still little. Then it got bought out, and it seems to be growing by leaps and bounds. I like the people I have dealt with at both the Southern Pines and Pinehurst Plaza Branches, but I wish it would not have gotten so big. I also feel badly about the citizens in Montgomery County, but that is a much poorer county than Moore and couldn't afford to pay it to stay. I expect any day now when I go in to renew a CD that I will be asked to pay to keep our money there, while I'll also be contributing with my tax dollars as well. Wonder what will become of the original branch in Southern Pines that they just spent a lot of money fixing up? Oh, I forgot, we're paying them enough to keep both.

deidretg 2 months, 1 week ago

Maybe they will start serving donuts in the lobby. You scratch my back and I will scratch yours type of thing going on, maybe? Any way you slice it, $150,000 rolling out of County of Moore's taxpayer stash and $120,000 rolling out of Town of Southern Pines taxpayer stash looks slimy, especially to those 400 hardworking, tax paying, recently laid off, out of work folks who now don't know when or where their next paychecks are going to come from, not to mention the 3,000+ others who have already been on the unemployment rolls here in Moore County since last year and before. After all of this pocket stuffing and glad handing by the politicians with the taxpayers hard earned tax dollars, they are not likely to find donuts very palatable . Desperate times with an uncertain future staring us in the face does nothing to calm the outrage at the sight of the handlers of our county and town funds loading up $270,000 for their banker golfing buddies (who have proudly declared all over the news that they each are making at least $100,000+) so that it won't be such a hardship on their pocketbooks while moving here. 20 weeks of unemployment benefits will be running out just about the time these political big spenders start telling everyone that there just isn't enough money in the budget this upcoming fiscal year to fund the non profits and other service agencies that might have been able to help some of these unwashed, unfortunates in these desperate times. No worries, the politicians have at least guaranteed that this $3.3 billion dollar baby will spend ever so much on fine hotels and fine dining for the next 10 years or they will have to give the money back. Without a doubt, the taxpayers won't be getting any of this money back. "Let us eat cake!"

Toda 2 months ago

It seems that the working poor take the brunt of Wall Street capitalism. Taxpayers will fork over 150K over 5 years. How much will the bank contribute to Moore County politicians who are contemplating a run for another seat in Raleigh or Washington.

As with a lack of Transparency in Carthage, until and after the next election ~ will voters know to what extent those taxpayer dollars impact political contributions from bank stackholders.

Business models have for decades have proven using others money [Hedgefunds] to invest in potential financial benefits, produces no liabilities. In the case of moving a headquarters to Southern Pines, provides ample incentive to keep the same politicians in an office of influence.

All the while, the Raeford Turkey Plant announced a closing leaving over 900 people out of work. Many of whom live in Moore County and commute. Should that 150K go to assist those unemployed to retrain or perhaps fund an incentive to provide another platform for a company relocating providing jobs for our unemployed?

alladat1 2 months ago

Spot on, as usual, Toda.

Toda 2 months ago

150K$ would go a long way in purchasing a CNC machine for SCC to teach unemployed employees new manufacturing skills needed for industry as opposed to pushing out more AAS degrees in programs that lead to fast food opportunities.