SEDALIA, Mo.- About 500 construction workers are building a massive $400 million steel plant in west-central Missouri’s Sedalia. The plant, which is being built near Highway 65, will be the anchor tenant of Sedalia’s new rail industrial park.
About 500 construction workers are building the $400 million Nucor steel plant in Sedalia (August 2019 photo courtesy of Charlotte-based Nucor)
State Department of Economic Development (DED) Director Rob Dixon says the Nucor plant is expected to open in November.
“If you’re coming into Sedalia from the north (on Highway 65), you’ll see it coming out of the ground. There’s cranes up, there’s construction underway, there’s people being hired,” Dixon says.
The steel rebar manufacturing plant is one of the largest projects Missouri has landed in the past decade.
Sedalia-Pettis County economic development executive director Jessica Craig tells Missourinet about 2,300 people have applied for 250 jobs, primarily steelworker positions. She says 153 employees have already been hired.
The average salary for a Nucor steelworker is about $65,000.
State Department of Economic Development (DED) Director Rob Dixon tells Missourinet training is underway.
“We’re working with State Fair Community College, the state Department of Economic Development and Nucor to try to get some folks trained and ready to go on day one,” says Dixon.
Charlotte-based Nucor has been training the new Sedalia steelworkers at their plants in Alabama, Mississippi and Texas.
Dixon emphasizes that Nucor is still hiring. He says applicants can visit nucor.com or the DED website.
Jessica Craig says some of the steelworkers who’ve been hired in Sedalia are driving from as far away as Columbia and Kansas City. She also tells Missourinet about 50 of the new employees are Nucor transfers from other plants, moving to the Sedalia area.
She says Nucor’s decision is a game changer for Sedalia, which has about 70 other manufacturers. Craig says the project will be “transformative” for Sedalia.
U.S. Sen. Roy Blunt (R) and U.S. Rep. Vicky Hartzler, R-Harrisonville, announced in February that the U.S. Department of Transportation had awarded Sedalia a $10 million grant to extend its existing railroad tracks to the new Sedalia rail industrial park.
Senator Blunt says the facility is on track to become the largest, exclusive rail-served industrial park in the Midwest.
Click here to listen to Brian Hauswirth’s full interview with Missouri Department of Economic Development Director Rob Dixon, which was recorded on August 15, 2019 at the State Fair in Sedalia:
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