Mayor Danny Gabriel says Cleveland is a small town with a limited staff.

But the town is doing everything it can to prepare for businesses that might want to move there, he said.

“One of the things we try to do, we keep a low tax rate because that’s something that companies look at,” Gabriel said. “We also maintain a very good water source. We try to make sure our infrastructure is in place so that, if something does come, we’ll be ready.”

Some recent developments in the town include:

• Freightliner is hiring about 700 people at its Cleveland plant this spring.

• The construction of West Rowan Elementary School — which will combine Cleveland and Woodleaf elementaries — is expected to be completed by the end of this year.

• The town board rezoned a nearly 100-acre property for light industrial use.

• The town is in the process of replacing all its waste treatment lift stations. All but one will have been replaced by the end of the year.

Landis

Town Manager Reed Linn said Landis has “always been a quiet community.”

But through processes like voluntary annexation, the town is growing, he said.

“We’re a lot bigger now than we were. We go from the city limits of Kannapolis all the way out to South Rowan High School,” Linn said.

“Some of our citizens will think to themselves, ‘Landis isn’t growing,’ because they look at what they see downtown,” said Public Works Director Ron Miller. “We’re growing from the outside.”

Some recent town developments include:

• Former NASCAR driver Mike Wallace purchased the old Landis Mill on South Main Street in January 2017. The building is for sale, and Wallace said it could be used for a number of purposes. The Wallace family also bought a convenience store at the intersection of South Main Street, West First Street and Highland Avenue.

• The town has had discussions with the N.C. Department of Transportation about how it can create a more direct passage from Mooresville to Landis in order to capitalize on traffic from the soon-to-be-completed Old Beatty Ford interchange on Interstate 85.

• The Parks and Recreation Department continued to work on the Lake Corriher Wilderness Area in 2017. A grand reopening is expected in April.