Representatives from Steel Dynamics Incorporated held an “explosive” groundbreaking ceremony Tuesday on Charleigh D. Ford Drive for its $2 billion aluminum flat-rolled mill, Aluminum Dynamics, which will begin construction later this year.
To light the candle, so to speak, SDI CEO Mark Millett and Gov. Tate Reeves pushed down on a detonator, sending a mound of dirt flying high into the air about 100 yards from the celebration tent.
Before the big boom, Millett told about 400 attendees, including potential customers, local and state legislators and others construction of ADI and its 2,100-acre mill will likely begin in the next six months as the company waits for approval on its environmental and air permits. The mill is slated to come online in summer 2025 and will produce 650 metric tons of aluminum annually. The facility will also create 850 jobs with an average annual salary of $93,000.
“It’s not the building. It’s not the steel or the equipment,” Millett said of why ADI came to Lowndes County. “It’s the people in that building (the SDI Columbus mill) that has brought us here. The work ethic, the loyalty — it’s just phenomenal in this area and in the state of Mississippi in general. That’s why we’re here. It’s as my mom used to say, ‘The proof is in the pudding.’”
Plans for the new aluminum mill began in early 2022 between SDI, an Indiana-based steel company, and The Golden Triangle Development LINK. In November, the Mississippi State Legislature passed a $246 million incentive package, in part, to build a state-of-the-art low-carbon, aluminum flat-rolled mill near its Columbus steel mill. The Lowndes County Board of Supervisors obtained an $18 million loan from the state to assist with further land acquisition, road work and other costs.
SDI has committed $2.5 billion for the aluminum mill and accompanying biocarbon facility near International Paper, making it the largest single capital investment in state history.
Millett also said the new company will also provide other financial incentives to new employees. Those will include a $5,000 scholarship to any child of ADI employees and a company-wide 8-percent pre-tax revenue fund distributed to employees at the end of every fiscal year as bonuses.
“It’s not a gift. We’re not giving it away,” he said. “Each and every one of them earns it. They can have nice houses. They can retire earlier and enjoy life. That’s what’s important to us. We’re also going to give that $5,000 scholarship for four years so they go to college and lessen the burden of the expense. That’s who we are.”
As for now, the company is working on the site preparations. Once that is finished and permits are issued, the company will hire about 2,000 contractors and more than 30,000 construction workers to build. Millett said a good portion of the work will be hired locally but declined to give specific ratios of local and out-of-state contracts.
“We certainly prefer to hire that work locally wherever possible,” he said. “There’s a lot of folks, and so you will see people come from outside the area to help support that.”
ADI Operations Manager Gregg Whigham said the company also is partnering with East Mississippi Community College to help train its employees. The Communiversity, EMCC’s workforce development hub in Lowndes County, will play a vital role in that effort.
“We’re super excited about the quality of those spaces,” Whigham said. “We’re looking forward to working with them to see what we could develop in job training. I know they have apprenticeship programs and internships for the steel mill for electrical and mechanical. There’s lots of other things that we could do with them to expand those programs.”
Whigham said the company is looking to build a second corporate campus at ADI. To do this, more than 1,000 acres will be dedicated to building the aluminum mill. The rest will be for other companies to locate on campus, much like how Terberg-Taylor, Altex Tube and Mississippi Steel Processing have located their facilities on the SDI campus.
“It’s been very exciting how welcoming this project has been received within our customer group with whom we could potentially partner with and bring here,” Whigham said. “There’s a lot of those discussions going on scenarios. Very exciting.”
LINK CEO Joe Max Higgins mentioned three prospects who were invited to the groundbreaking: Ball Corporation, a metal canning company; BMW, an automotive manufacturer; and Coca-Cola, for which Clark Beverage is a distributor.
Higgins said these companies could be among those to potentially locate on the new site once it comes online. ADI might have the room to fit between 10 and 12 customers on site.
“It’s up to them (prospective customers) now to rock and roll,” Higgins said. “Whether it be structural aluminum, can manufacturers, automotive components — my Ford F-150 is all aluminum. They (Ball Corp., BMW, Coca-Cola) have a relationship with the company. Given that fact, I at least think we can open the door to start having those discussions because those are the types of companies that we would like to have here.
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