A $200 million recycled aluminum slab center announced by Aluminum Dynamics Inc. on Tuesday is expected to bring more than 100 jobs to the Golden Triangle.
The facility, set to be located in the Golden Triangle Industrial Park, will recycle aluminum beverage cans to serve as the primary raw material used for the ingots produced at ADI’s flat-rolled mill on Charleigh D. Ford Drive.
Combined with the $2 billion flat-rolled mill, the project represents a more than $2.2 billion investment in the Golden Triangle by ADI.
As for what drives industries to invest so heavily in the region, Golden Triangle Development LINK CEO Meryl Fisackerly pointed to resources and partnerships already in place long before industry chooses to locate here.
“It is that we have got a workforce that’s available and that’s meeting the skillsets that (these industries) need,” Fisackerly told The Dispatch on Tuesday. “It’s our industrial properties that are ready to go from a development standpoint, and it’s just the cohesiveness of all our partnerships that just make doing business here so easy.”
ADI, a division of Steel Dynamics Inc., shipped its first products produced at its mill in Lowndes County in summer 2025, bringing the 2.3 million square-foot facility online after two years of construction.
The slab center marks ADI’s second major facility investment in the region, though SDI also operates a steel mill and a biocarbon facility in Lowndes County.
Fisackerly said the slab center will be located at the Langston Loop site off Industrial Road, which is believed to be the oldest industrial site in Lowndes County Industrial Development Authority’s portfolio.
“So it’s really cool to see a project finally land on that piece of property,” she said, noting the LINK has worked with ADI on the project since late last year.
Trip Hairston, District 2 supervisor and president of the Lowndes County Board of Supervisors, said LCIDA gifted the property to ADI, given the level of the company’s investment.
“They didn’t have to do that for obvious reasons,” Hairston said. “You’re looking at a multi-million dollar project … with average job (salaries) at over $90,000 a year. It’s a big shot in the arm for our community.”
Jobs at the facility will span a range of disciplines, including electrical and mechanical maintenance, operations, metallurgy, construction, manufacturing, shipping, equipment operations and administration, according to an ADI press release.
The slab center will be capable of producing 180,000 metric tons of material per year. The press release said the facility aims to advance responsible aluminum manufacturing and support a more sustainable aluminum supply chain to the company’s mill.
To carry material to the mill, Fisackerly said construction for the facility will include adding a rail spur that will cross Artesia Road. Both Lowndes County and Mississippi Development Authority are pitching in to repair the road once the spur is added, the press release said.
“When the rail spur comes across the road, which it’s going to come across Artesia Road, you’ll have to rebuild that road,” Fisackerly said. “… There’s what’s called an apron that’s built around the rail spur that comes across the road.”
Work is already underway at the site, Hairston said, noting the value of ADI’s continued investment in the county.
“It builds jobs,” he said. “It’s one of those things that you’re just hardly able to put your finger on because it drives the wages up for all of the workers in Lowndes County to be competitive. So it’s an important thing.”
McRae is a general assignment and education reporter for The Dispatch.
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