Opelika, Alabama Opelika, Alabama Opelika (pronounced | o p la k |) is a town/city in and the governmental center of county of Lee County in the east central part of the State of Alabama. It is a principal town/city of the Auburn-Opelika Metropolitan Area.
According to the 2013 Enumeration Estimate, the populace of Opelika was 28,635. The Auburn-Opelika, AL MSA with a populace of 150,933 which, along with the Columbus, Georgia urbane region and Macon County, Alabama, comprises the greater Greater Columbus, Georgia, a region home to 501,649 residents.
The first white pioneer in the region now known as Opelika appeared in the late 1830s and established a improve called Lebanon.
In 1848, the Montgomery & West Point Railroad Company extended a rail line from Montgomery, Alabama to Opelika, and in 1851 instead of a connection to West Point, Georgia, thus connecting Opelika with Atlanta, Georgia.
Wilson attacked Opelika, tearing up the barns s and destroying all government property, including Opelika's warehouses.
Soon after the end of the war, the Alabama state council created a new county out of parts of Macon, Russell, Chambers, and Tallapoosa counties to be titled after Confederate general Robert E.
In 1866, people of the new "Lee County" voted Opelika as the county seat.
After Opelika received a new charter in 1870, rapid expansion resumed.
During this time, Opelika began to gain a reputation as a wild, lawless town. Soon after receiving the new charter, town/city officials attempted to scam outside investors by issuing fake barns bonds.
In 1900, small-town investors established the Opelika Cotton Mill as the first textile plant in the city, employing 125.
Attempts to grew the textile trade in Opelika continued for the next three decades.
(now West - Point Home) to construct a large foundry just outside the town/city limits. From 1930 to 1970, Opelika continued industrialization, becoming a county-wide economic powerhouse.
In the 1950s, Opelika thriving the nation's first and biggest magnetic tape manufacturing plant.
In 1963, tire manufacturer Uniroyal constructed a massive plant in Opelika.
Around the same time Diversified Products revolutionized the physical public equipment trade with products produced in their Opelika plant.
By the early 1970s, Opelika's industries working nearly 10,000 citizens .
In the late 1990s, Opelika purchased and advanced the Northeast Opelika Industrial Park to increase its base.
Additional expenditures involved in constructing the Northeast Opelika Industrial Park encompassed $4.3 million transferred from the City's general fund to the Opelika Industrial Development Authority (OIDA) between 1997 and 2000, a $1.9 million federal industrialized park access road grant, $2.5 million from Opelika Water Works Board and the City of Opelika to sewage and water the park, $12.1 million from the Alabama Department of Transportation to construct an interchange.
Located at the intersection of Interstate 85 and Highway 280 (Exit 58) in Opelika and home to more than 70 businesses, Tiger - Town's tenants include The Home Depot, Target, Best Buy, Starbucks, Olive Garden, Kroger, PETCO, Office Depot, Dick's Sporting Goods, World Market, Hobby Lobby, Kohl's, Bed Bath & Beyond, T.J.
Opelika's biggest employer is the East Alabama Medical Center, which paid approximately $119 million in salaries and benefits to more than 2,700 employees in 2009. Historic Downtown Opelika has had an urban design revitalization in association with the nationwide Main Street, Inc.
With a compact historic precinct listed on the National Register of Historic Places, Downtown Opelika has thriving a range of specialty shops, arcades, antique stores and restaurants.
Opelika is governed by a mayor-council government, with a mayor and a five-member town/city council.
The chief executive official of the town/city of Opelika is the mayor.
The Opelika town/city council is the legislative body of the city.
Recently the town/city council designated Opelika as a City of Character.
Opelika is positioned in north-central Lee County, and is bordered by Auburn to the west.
Since January 2005, the City of Opelika has announced new trade investments and existing trade expansions totaling $1.166 billion and 3,129 additional jobs. Projects include a 170,000-square-foot (16,000 m2) business titled Daewon.
Daewon's investment in Opelika totaled $52.5 million, but a $13 million expansion in 2012 brought their total investment in Opelika to $65.5 million.
In August 2014, Baxter announced plans for a $300 million expansion of its state-of-the-art facility in Opelika, that will add 230,000 square feet (21,000 m2) and a several manufacturing lines, and problematic an additional 200 jobs.
An expansion announcement in April 2012 of approximately $24 million brings Mando's total investment in Opelika to nearly $160 million.
Along with the $24 million investment, Mando promises 30 more jobs, increasing the total number of employees to over 600 and making them one of the biggest employers in Opelika.
This brings Mando's total investment in Opelika to over $190 million and their employment total to almost 700.
The newest addition to begin manufacturing in the Northeast Opelika Industrial Park is Pharmavite, a global prestige and manufacturer of dietary supplements.
With a capital investment of $76.5 million, Pharmavite began manufacturing in January 2013 and will furnish 280 new jobs to Opelika and the encircling area.
As of April 2014, Pharmavite's capital investment in Opelika totaled more than $89 million.
On April 19, 2012, a 67-acre site in the Northeast Opelika Industrial Park became a Certified Food Site through Primus Builders, Inc./Garner Economics, LLC.
The food site designation experts presented the Opelika Industrial Development Authority with the certification, stating the site is an ideal locale for food and beverage processing, cold storage or food distribution facilities.
The certification is aimed to attract new food-based companies to the Northeast Opelika Industrial Park and ultimately problematic additional jobs for the City of Opelika.
On February 17, 2015, Golden State Foods Corp, one of the biggest diversified suppliers to the Quick Service Restaurant and retail industries, announced its decision to build a new state of the art meat refining facility utilizing the Certified Food Site in the Northeast Opelika Industrial Park.
Golden State Foods will problematic 173 new jobs in Opelika.
Wayne Morgan, Corporate Vice President, President Meat Group Golden State Foods said the business selected Opelika as the site for their new facility "based on the strategic locale along I-85, the available workforce and the atmosphere of trade and government cooperation." Opelika has received a several honors for its success in attracting new business.
In 2004, the town/city of Opelika's Economic Development Department was titled one of the top 10 economic evolution groups in North America by Site Selection magazine, a nationwide industry trade printed announcement covering corporate real estate management and economic development.
Site Selection again recognized the accomplishments of the Opelika Economic Development Department in its Top Groups 2005 list in the Honorable Mention category.
Opelika is positioned between the Hyundai-Kia automobile manufacturing facilities with the Kia Motors manufacturing plant about 18 miles (29 km) east on I-85 and the Hyundai Motors manufacturing plant about 67 miles (108 km) west on I-85/I-65.
In early 2006, the Economic Development Association of Alabama titled Opelika the top improve in Alabama for company recruitment for the year 2005.
In December 2016, the Auburn-Opelika MSA was ranked the 6th Best-Performing Small City in The Milken Institute's 2016 "Best-Performing Small Cities: Where America's Jobs are Created and Sustained" Report for the third year in a row, and up four spots from the previous year's 10th place ranking.
In June 2015, Forbes Magazine ranked the Auburn-Opelika MSA as the seventh best small town/city for jobs in the country. In May 2015, Opelika was titled one of the "Ten Smoking-Hot Small Market Economies in the South" by Southern Business & Development. January of the same year saw the Auburn-Opelika MSA claim 10th place for Best-Performing Small City in The Milken Institute's 2014 "Best-Performing Cities: Where America's Jobs are Created and Sustained" Report, rising 27 spots from the previous index. In 2014, the Auburn-Opelika MSA was also ranked the smartest urbane region in the state of Alabama and the fourth-smartest in America as stated to New - Geography's "100 Smartest Cities"; an analysis that examines which metro areas are gaining brainpower in the 21st century. Opelika is home to a branch of Southern Union State Community College.
Current technical programs include: Automotive Technology, Business Management and Supervision, Computer Science, Drafting and Design Technology, Heating and Air Conditioning Technology, Industrial Electricity/Electronics Technology, Industrial Maintenance Technology, Machine Shop Technology, Office Administration, Accounting, General Secretarial, Welding Technology, and Word Processing.
Opelika City Schools is the enhance school fitness of Opelika.
The Opelika City School System consists of eight schools.
There are three major schools serving grades Pre - K 2, three intermediate schools serving grades 3-5, one middle school (grades 6-8), and one high school, Opelika High School (grades 9-12).
Beginning with Pre - K, students in Opelika City Schools are offered a challenging and diverse curriculum.
Opelika City Schools employ highly qualified teachers trained in the latest instructional techniques including the Alabama Reading Initiative (ARI), Transforming East Alabama Mathematics (TEAM-Math), Alabama Math, Science and Technology Initiative (AMSTI), and Science in Motion.
Opelika High School recently announced its 2014-2015 Advanced Placement results, indicating a 150 percent increase in the number of qualifying scores accomplished by students in AP math, science and English exams.
In its first year of program participation, Opelika High School had 63 more course enrollments in rigorous AP classes than in the year before and students earned qualifying scores on 45 AP exams.
In May 2012, renovations and new assembly began on Opelika High School.
The two-year venture, managed by assembly firm Robins & Morton, is a $46 million joint universal between the City of Opelika and the Opelika City Schools Board of Education.
One part of the reason this region received this ranking is that Opelika is home to Robert Trent Jones Grand National.
The site for the course, which hugs the edge of Lake Saugahatchee in Opelika's northwest, was described by Jones as the "single greatest" site for a golf complex that he had ever seen.
Robert Trent Jones Grand National also served as the tournament host for the first PGA Tour tournament in Alabama since 1990, the Barbasol Championship, held the same week as The Open Championship. Another reason that the Auburn-Opelika MSA was titled the #1 region for golf in the United States was for the small-town enhance golf courses like Indian Pines Golf Course here in Opelika.
The Alabama Recreation and Parks Association awarded the Opelika Sportsplex and Aquatics Center the 2010 Facility of the Year Award for metros/cities with populations of 15,001 citizens or more.
The City of Opelika was honored by the Alabama League of Municipalities at the Statewide conference in May, 2010.
At that conference the League presented the City of Opelika with the 2010 "Municipal Quality of Life Award" for the city's new Sportsplex & Aquatics Center.
In their remarks, league leaders noted "Your exemplary program demonstrates a strong commitment to grade the character of life in the City of Opelika...your program exhibits the type of innovation that the National League of Cities is looking to recognize." This $32 million, 75,000-square-foot (7,000 m2) complex is the biggest universal ever undertaken by the City of Opelika in its 155-year history, representing the first-ever public-private partnership, with businesses, corporations and private individuals.
The city's governing body set out to make the dream a reality, and soon resolutions were passed by the town/city council authorizing the town/city to move forward with the plans.
On August 31, 2009 on schedule and on budget Opelika's new state-of-the-art Sportsplex & Aquatics Center opened its doors to the public.
Of the total populace (26,477), 27.9% are 19 years old or younger, 13.4% are 20 to 29 years old, 26.9% are 30 to 49 years old, 22.6% are 50 to 69 years old, and 8.3% are 70 years old or older.
Opelika is served by the Columbus, Georgia Designated Market Area (DMA).
Opelika Power Services now offers voice and video services to the people of Opelika, providing them with a community-owned and locally directed alternative cable provider. Opelika's consideration is now concentrated on technology, becoming the first town/city in Alabama to deploy a 100% fiber network that offers GIG internet speeds.
Opelika, Alabama joins only a handful of other American metros/cities that have deployed similar networks.
Opelika combines hometown company with advanced technology infrastructure.
Opelika is the only "Smart City" in the state of Alabama, and one of the several in the country to offer such cutting edge internet services to its people and its businesses. The Lee County Courthouse is positioned in Opelika.
Southern Union State Community College Opelika Campus Opelika City Schools Board of Education Opelika Middle School The reconstructed Salem-Shotwell Covered Bridge is positioned in Opelika Municipal Park.
Opelika populace figures as recorded by the US Enumeration Bureau (July 1 estimates base): 2000-23,638, 2001-23,636, 2002-23,579, 2003-23,597, 2004-23,483, 2005-23,804 .
Envision Opelika " City of Character Character Cities, Counties, and States - International Association of Character Citie"Opelika tire plant to shut down - WTVM.com-Columbus, GA News Weather & Sports".
Opelika City Schools/OCS Board of Education (2000) The City of Auburn, Alabama Comprehensive Financial Report for the Fiscal Year Ended September 30, 2000.
Enumeration Reports for Opelika City for the years 1950, 1960, 1970, and 1980.
Strategic Plan for the City of Opelika.
Opelika, Alabama, City of.
Comprehensive Plan for the City of Opelika.
Opelika, Alabama.
Opelika, Alabama, City of.
Opelika, Alabama, City of.
Cities in Alabama - Cities in Lee County, Alabama - County seats in Alabama - Columbus urbane area, Georgia - Auburn, Alabama urbane area
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