A housing developer sees big potential in Wilson, North Carolina, a small city with a modest 48,000 residents that is drawing a lot of outside interest.
Wilson is a mere 50-minute drive east of the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill area, known as the Research Triangle for its concentration of life sciences and other technology firms. In 2024, several pharmaceutical firms decided they would build manufacturing facilities in Wilson. That and the option for residents to commute to jobs in Raleigh contributed to Desco Investment's decision to plan a 412-home neighborhood in Wilson called Savannah Place.
That proposal became more concrete on Tuesday when Texas-based First Continental said in a statement that it would lend $7.4 million for Desco to develop Savannah Place. The neighborhood will have 246 single-family homes and 166 townhouses, with the first 108 single-family lots to be available to builders in 2026.
The biggest job announcement last year in Wilson came from Johnson & Johnson, which said it will invest $2 billion in a new biologics manufacturing lab that will employ 420 people by 2031. Other companies that said in 2024 they will locate in Wilson include ReckittBenckhiser, which plans to hire 300 workers to make cold medicine by 2028; Schott Pharma, which by 2027 will have more than 400 employees making syringes; and IDEXX, a pet healthcare company that says it will hire 275 people.
But Eric Dischinger, president of North Carolina-based Desco, said in an interview what also interested him about Wilson was that it got the Carolina Mudcats to move their baseball operations east from the Raleigh suburb of Zebulon. Wilson is building a new stadium downtown to house the minor-league team that will be renamed the Wilson Warbirds.
“Any time you see a municipality acting proactively to invest, it catches our eye, and that’s when we got excited about this area,” Dischinger said. “I think the ballclub coming does generate excitement, because there’s other stuff that comes along with that like the redevelopment of downtown. It generates energy that homebuyers pick up on.”
While the new businesses are expected to create a need for new homes, Wilson’s proximity to Raleigh is also increasing its value as a commuter town, Jeff Corbett, First Continental executive vice president, said in an interview. The state has improved the main highway linking the two areas in recent years in anticipation of Wilson’s growth, Corbett said.
Some people also like living in Wilson because it's relatively easy to get to the Outer Banks and other beach areas along the Atlantic coast, said Dischinger.
On the other side of Wilson, Desco has plans for a second, even larger development called Trinity Park that will mostly include single-family homes, Dischinger said. The company builds walkable neighborhoods that have good access to nearby commercial areas, he said.
