VIDALIA — The Vidalia Industrial park will be getting a little more crowded in the future.

Plans have been made for the location of a new business, Precision Welding, to be placed in the park, bringing with it 12 to 15 new jobs.

Allen Stuart, who currently owns Oilfield Instrumentation USA Inc. in Ferriday, will own and operate Precision Welding on a 10-acre tract of land in the industrial park in an 8,000-square foot building near Louisiana Elastomer, Vidalia Mayor Hyram Copeland said.

“He has been wanting to build this business for about two or three years,” he said. “I am real excited about it. I think it is going to be a plus for everyone involved.”

Concordia Parish Economic and Industrial District Executive Director Heather Malone said Stuart’s decision to expand his business operations from Ferriday into Vidalia shows the parish is seeing success in bringing industry to the area.

“It is just nice to see that everything we have been working on is starting to pay off,” she said.

Malone said the 12 to 15 new jobs that are being brought in will be high paying, skilled positions.

“It is not going to be entry-level positions,” she said. “We will have to wait to see how they proceed with everything before we know about job applications.”

Copeland said any new jobs that are brought to the area are a step in the right direction for economic growth in Vidalia.

“He is bringing in all these new jobs, and he is going to expand in the future,” he said. “The area is always in need of new employment.”

Copeland said the addition of a new business at the industrial park will also allow for more business growth in the future.

“It gives us the ability to say that we have three industries in the park now, which helps us recruit new businesses to the area,” he said. “The more industries we can get here, the easier it will be to get more in the future.”

Copeland said Stuart also plans on helping Vidalia out by constructing buildings for new businesses that want to move to the area.

“In the past, when a new business wants to come into the area, they had to have a proposal on a specific sized building for their operation,” he said. “Stuart is willing to work with the city, and build any size building an industry needs to operate, and lease it to the city.”

Both Copeland and Malone said that Stuart’s business will be helped greatly once the Vidalia port is finished.

“Currently, the business is limited to what they can do,” Malone said. “But they can expand their product line to a larger building and bring in and ship out more supplies when the port is finished.”

Copeland said the city hopes to begin construction on the access road to the port sometime in the spring, and he is currently working on getting more funding for the project.

Malone said Stuart is planning to begin construction of Precision Welding in the summer.