New Ridge Home Goods, one of several Chinese-led business ventures to face a difficult start in Virginia, has repaid more than $800,000 in government grants after admitting it can’t complete its planned factory on time.

The company last month backed out of an agreement to establish a 125-employee factory in Smyth County by fall of 2016, according to state and local officials.

But unlike another failed Chinese-led venture that collapsed in Appomattox and kept government incentives, New Ridge sent back unearned public money to the agencies that provided economic development grants in 2013 and 2014, according to officials.

Two and a half years ago, Gov. Bob McDonnell announced that New Ridge, a unit of Liaoyang Ningfeng Woodenware of Liao Yang, China, would bring new jobs to Southwest Virginia. Smyth County’s unemployment rate was 8.2 percent in November 2013 when the governor said that New Ridge would employ 125 people full time at a salary of least $30,000 a year.

The company bought a building in Atkins and collected $1 million in state and local grants, but it installed no machinery and hired no workers.

New Ridge voluntarily repaid the unearned portion of those funds last month, citing its inability to complete the factory and hire the agreed-to number of workers by its fall 2016 deadline, said Lori Deel, economic development director for Smyth County.

That dashed the hopes of county residents who expected New Ridge to replace some of the nearly 300 jobs that kitchen cabinet maker Merillat previously had eliminated in the Atkins area. The county, part of Southwest Virginia’s struggling former tobacco-growing region, posted a jobless rate of 6.2 percent in March, well above the state’s 4 percent.

The repayment blunted some of the pain, one official said.

“We found out we were going to get our money back and that helped a little, but that don’t help the job problem we got in this county,” said Wade Blevins, chairman of Smyth County’s board of supervisors. “I was just tickled that we got our money back.”

Lindenburg Industry, another Chinese-led project, defaulted last year on an agreement to invest $113 million and create 349 jobs in Appomattox. The Virginia Economic Development Partnership demanded the company repay a $1.4 million state grant. When Lindenburg declined to do so, the state filed a legal action that is pending in Appomattox Circuit Court. The discovery by The Roanoke Times that the partnership had not vetted Lindenburg roiled some members of the General Assembly, who said the case showed the need for a previously planned review of state economic development programs.

As recently as January, New Ridge touted its ready-to-assemble furniture, saying in a news release, “New Ridge Home Goods currently showcases two collections — the Abingdon and the Beaumont, both named after small towns in Virginia.” The company has a plant in China.

Its agreements with three government agencies, which said it must build its factory or repay, are now closed, officials said.

Smyth County, which gave the company $300,000, and the state, which provided $250,000, received repayment in full, officials said. The Tobacco Region Revitalization Commission got back $274,050 from a $450,000 grant furnished to New Ridge in 2014. Though the company created no jobs, its capital investment totaled $3.6 million, $2.55 million of which was for the building purchase. The capital spending came close to the company’s investment target of $4.6 million, according to commission spokesman Jordan Butler. The commission required only a partial repayment, he said.

New Ridge’s future use of the building is subject to speculation.

“We think they’ll put the building on the market,” Blevins said.

But Deel said New Ridge told her it might still open a business in the plant. She had no further details.

“New Ridge remains committed to grow its business in the communities of which it is now part,” read a company statement released May 5 by Hailey Fong, a company spokesman.

Zou Xiaohui, the president and CEO of New Ridge, owns a home in Montgomery County.

Fong was the state’s representative in China under a contract with the Virginia Economic Development Partnership. After 12 years serving the partnership, he left and began assisting New Ridge and its parent company. He has said that New Ridge ran into difficulty with the Smyth County project when the price of its chief raw material spiked unexpectedly.

“This resulted in a challenging effort by the company to find a viable alternative plan for the facility,” Fong said in March.

(Source: roanoke.com  Author：Jeff Sturgeon)