Over the next three years, more than 2,200 acres in west Lowndes County will transform into an industrial development with the largest capital investment in Mississippi’s history.
The project will require more than 30,000 construction workers, along with millions in state and local dollars to bring it all together. While this transformation won’t happen overnight, neither did the efforts to get it this far.
“This is something we’ve been working on for a long time,” said Lowndes County Board of Supervisors president Trip Hairston.
The Mississippi Legislature approved a $246 million incentive package Wednesday for Steel Dynamics Inc. to build a state-of-the-art low-carbon, aluminum flat-rolled mill near its Columbus steel mill on Airport Road and a biocarbon production facility on Artesia Road, near the International Paper pulp mill. The company’s total capital investment will be $2.5 billion, and the two facilities will create about 1,000 jobs with an average annual salary of $93,000.
Part of that incentive package is $25 million in state funds for improvements to Charleigh Ford Jr. Drive and Artesia Road, as well as an $18 million loan from the state that Lowndes County will repay over 10 years after the plants are operating.
Golden Triangle Development LINK CEO Joe Max Higgins said Friday that $18 million will go toward land acquisition, buying out farming contracts on some properties and “soft costs.”
Other than roadwork, for which the county will use about $2.5 million of the state loan, and power needs – which Higgins said the Tennessee Valley Authority has committed to provide – the infrastructure is already in place.
“Water is already around the site, and sewer and wastewater treatment are sufficient to what they need,” Higgins said.
The biocarbon plant is slated to begin construction this year and is expected to be complete by late 2023. The aluminum plant will begin construction some time next year with expected completion in 2025.
Procuring the land
The aluminum plant would occupy about 2,100 acres west of Golden Triangle Regional Airport – with Charleigh Ford Jr. Drive bordering it to the west and Artesia Road to its south.
Almost 1,100 of those acres are the Infinity Megasite, which TVA certified in 2016 for industrial development. The Lowndes County Industrial Development Authority gifted another 305 acres to the project.
GTRA is swapping 144 acres of property intended for a cross runway, Higgins said, for a strip of roughly 236 acres immediately to the east that is contiguous with the airport and would allow for a future parallel runway. That swap is pending Federal Aviation Administration approval.
About 65 acres at the corner of Charleigh Ford and Artesia Roads, is 16th Section land the county school district has agreed to swap for 84 acres of farmland on Motley Road southeast of the Mississippi Sheriffs’ Boys and Girls Ranch. County supervisors, the Mississippi Development Authority and the Secretary of State’s office must all sign off on this exchange, Higgins said.
The LINK has options to purchase privately held land for the balance of the planned aluminum plant site, which Higgins said will be assigned to SDI to execute. He did not divulge the cost of the options or the agreed upon purchase price for those properties, citing the owners’ request for privacy.
For the biocarbon plant, LCIDA has gifted 130-plus acres at Artesia Road and Manufacturers Drive.
Building the roads
About 1.6 miles of the southern portion of Charleigh Ford Jr. Drive, which is now gravel, will be paved at an estimated cost of $4.5 million, Higgins said. The remaining three miles of that road that runs north and east to Airport Road is already paved.
The largest road project, estimated at $17.3 million, is building a wider, stronger roadway along 3.77 miles of Artesia Road – from Charleigh Ford to Manufacturers Drive. While already paved, that stretch is only rated for 57,000 towing pounds, Higgins said. Once finished, the project will bump that to 80,000 pounds.
There also will be an addition to the west side of Manufacturers Drive that Higgins said will “separate” IP and the biocarbon plant and also allow delivery trucks and employees a way out around the nearby railroad tracks.
Future project
A third “future project” for SDI listed in the incentive package has not been specified, but LCIDA has reserved the space for it to be developed.
The development authority has 300 acres immediately north of SDI’s steel mill, from which SDI can choose 200 to develop for the future project. The company must close that deal, and meet some other criteria, by the end of 2024 to get that property for free.
“They have to also commit to investing $200 million to develop the site,” Higgins said.
Zack Plair is the managing editor for The Dispatch.
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