Bob Foos
Nearly six acres of Highway 171 frontage property in Carterville are finally being developed.
The site was cleared several years ago, but the uprooted trees just stayed in piles.
Two owners later, Chris Wright says it took an excavator like him and a special ingredient to prepare the land for development.
He says he doesn’t know for sure how he found out about the property. “Somehow, somebody told me about this. It was affordable and I had the (excavation) experience.
“Nobody (other developers) would touch it because it was swamp land.” It would have cost a fortune to fill it with base rock.”
Through his connections with area concrete plants, he is able to obtain – for free – dump loads of leftover concrete that has been broken down to crumble. “It’s the perfect base,” he says, “and the only way you could do this economically.” He tops off the recycled concrete with 3-inch and then 1-inch gravel.
That’s how he has leveled the north half of the property for his new business, Dig Wright Equipment Rentals.
And now he’s gradually going to do the same thing on the south half.
Without a purpose for it yet, he says “I’ll sit on it, make it one big gravel parking lot.” That way it will be more marketable or ready for him to develop.
Carterville Mayor Alan Griffin says he’s glad to see the property cleaned up. He adds that he hopes Wright succeeds with his equipment rental business and whatever he decides to do with the south half.
Although he says he likes Carterville’s quiet, small-town atmosphere, “I want my community to thrive.”
“I’m an equipment operator,” says Chris Wright in explanation of why he started his new business, Dig Wright Equipment Rentals.
He also builds metal buildings and houses. His other firm, Wright Family Homes, is embarking on a 31-home subdivision in Carthage.
He says he needs a large amount of equipment – that winds up not being used that much – in order to bid on big jobs. Renting his idle equipment is what he calls the “best of both worlds.”
In addition to fellow contractors, his customers are the general public.
For those nervous or not well versed in operating machinery, he says, “I’ll offer to do it for them.”
Recently, he said a teacher in Carthage needed to dig a 25-foot-long trench. She let him do the job for her at about the same cost as it would have been otherwise because the rental time was less than it would have been for her to do it.
Wright says he likes that situation, too, because, “I get to know my equipment is being operated correctly.”
Dig Wright Rentals is next door to Casey’s in Carterville, at 801 E. Main St.
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