Could Broome County be close to landing a major steel manufacturer creating 600 jobs?
“A major company proposes to invest $150 million to construct a new value-added manufacturing facility in Broome County, resulting in creation of 600 high-paying jobs,” says a passage in the Southern Tier region’s proposal for a share of the Upstate Revitalization Initiative, which will distribute $1.5 billion from state settlements among regions in the state.
The document goes on to say the facility will use new energy technologies — such as combined heat and power systems — and train veterans, long-term unemployed people and ex-offenders, while shipping products all over the United States and world.
No company or site is named.
On Tuesday in Albany, before a panel hearing pitches from regional councils each seeking a half-billion share of the money, Tier council co-chairman Harvey Stenger, president of Binghamton University, was asked to elaborate. He didn’t name a company or site, saying no deal has been signed and that competitors might be trying to negotiate it away from the region.
He noted that the region has an ample supply of scrap metal that could perhaps best be used as material reprocessed into advanced steel products.
One of the Northeast’s largest scrap companies is Upstate Shredding-Weitsman Recycling, which is based in Owego and has several facilities elsewhere in the state as it grows through acquiring other companies in the metals-recycling business.
A major company in the business of melting down scrap for new steel products include Nucor Corp. of Charlotte, N.C., which has plants in Chemung and Auburn.
Nucor’s products include steel used in construction, such as bars, beams, sheet and plate steel, piling, joists and joist girders and steel deck. In the outlook section of its most recent annual report, the company said it’s facing a soft market for steel, import competition and less demand for steel used in oil and gas exploration, but added it is financially strong and intends to make capital investments.
Calls to Nucor on Wednesday and Thursday were not returned.
As for the regional entry in the contest for grants, Stenger was joined by co-chairman Tom Tranter of Corning Enterprises and other council members and staff as they presented their plan to the state-level panel.
The package of projects for which state aid is sought from various agencies focuses on three main initiatives: Revitalizing urban cores in Binghamton, Endicott and Johnson City with funds also sought for projects in Elmira’s downtown and Ithaca’s Collegetown; enhancing the transportation-equipment manufacturing cluster of companies in the region; and making more of agriculture through processing and shipping facilities and year-round growing in “controlled-environment” settings such as greenhouses. There’s also a group of projects aimed at promoting tourism.
Three winning regions are to get $500 million each in the Upstate Revitalization Initiative while those that lose out will still get millions from the state’s annual round of competitive grant awards. Critics of the system say state money would be better spent on infrastructure improvements while state officials defend the competition as helping leaders better research regional economies and focus on what is needed.
Tranter and Stegner said the region has $2.5 billion in private investments ready if the region wins. Tranter told the panel state money is most needed and would go farthest in the Southern Tier because it’s the smallest.
“We are the region most in need of your help with this 500 million dollars, so we ask for your thorough and thoughtful consideration,” he said.
A decision on the upstate initiative is scheduled for early December.
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