Goodyear factory slated for demolition - Construction & Demolition Recycling

2022-05-28 04:01:40 By : Ms. Irina Liu

Old tire production facility would be removed as part of larger redevelopment plan.

A 600,000-square-foot building that formerly housed Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. manufacturing operations in Akron, Ohio, is likely to face a demolition process to enable redevelopment plans.

Crain’s Cleveland Business is reporting that Los Angeles-based developer Industrial Realty Group (IRG) plans to take down the sizable structure as part of its East End & Goodyear Headquarters development plan in that city. According to that publication, the cleared land initially will serve as “green space,” offering the potential of future residential redevelopment.

IRG says its 400-acre East End & Goodyear HQ project has involved consolidating Goodyear’s remaining corporate functions into a new 642,000 square foot world headquarters building while redeveloping the land surrounding it.

Regarding aspects of that project already completed, IRG writes, “IRG’s expert team created a new vision for the company and the iconic area, rebranding it The East End. The East End became a live, work, play environment with loft-style apartments, office space, retail stores, restaurants, theater, gymnasium and a Hilton Garden Inn hotel (the first new hotel inside Akron city limits since 1980).”

An April article in the Akron Beacon-Journal says the manufacturing plant slated for demolition is more than 100 years old. The newspaper says in recent years it has “attracted trespassers” who on at least three occasions have started fires.

A permit has been granted that could resolve a dispute between the developer and the city of Charleston.

A demolition permit has reportedly been granted for a vacant department store in Charleston, West Virginia. The demo project could clear the way for the construction of a new hotel.

A mid-May article by Charleston-based WOWK-TV says the future status of a former Sears store attached to the Charleston Town Center shopping center has been held by a dispute between the city of Charleston’s government and a developer who wants to build a hotel at the site.

The TV station says it has learned that a demolition permit has been granted to developer Mayur Patel that would allow him to take down the former Sears store.

That action should resolve litigation that has been pending, WOWK says a Charleston city attorney has told the TV station.

City Attorney Keith Baker says he anticipates the city will be dropped from the pending litigation now that the permit has been issued. The dispute had focused on whether or not the planned hotel would directly connect to the remaining shopping center, according to WOWK.

Organization uses World Trade Month as peg to call attention to recycling’s export-related $35.7 billion impact.

The Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries (ISRI), Washington, is using the U.S. Department of Commerce's World Trade Month in May to offer details on the export market’s role in the recycling industry.

“The recycling industry is vital to global supply chains, manufacturing and the environment,” says Joe Pickard, ISRI’s chief economist and director of commodities. “It is not possible to capture the full economic and environmental benefits of recycling without international trade, and recycling is critical to creating a sustainable, circular economy.”

ISRI calculates the recycling industry’s export-related economic impact in the U.S. in 2021 as $35.7 billion. “This includes more than $11 billion in wages and $3.8 billion in taxes generated,” the association says.

Recycled commodity volumes exported from the U.S. “reached the highest level in a decade in 2021,” ISRI says. Since 2000, U.S. recycling industry exports have made a positive contribution to the U.S. trade balance of nearly $300 billion, adds the group.

Established in 1938, ISRI describes World Trade Month in the U.S. as an opportunity to recognize the significance of exporting to the U.S. economy. According to the U.S. Department of Commerce, overall U.S. exports of goods and services totaled nearly $2.5 trillion in 2021, with each $1 billion in exports supporting more than 5,000 U.S. jobs.

ISRI says recycling impacts world trade by “employing readily available recycled commodities into the supply chain, providing necessary relief for manufacturers experiencing delays while awaiting virgin materials.”

Recycled materials as a manufacturing feedstock meet about 40 percent of the world’s industrial raw material needs, ISRI says. “By exporting excess valuable recycled commodities to other countries, the recycling industry helps prevent the need to extract more of the earth’s finite natural resources,” states the association.

ISRI says it represents companies that process, broker and consume scrap commodities, including metals, paper, plastics, glass, rubber, electronics, and textiles.

Steelmaker receives state agency approval for property transfer in Mason County, West Virginia.

Nucor Corp., headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina, reportedly has cleared a hurdle in its quest to build a new scrap-fed electric arc furnace (EAF) steel mill in Mason County, West Virginia, along the Ohio River.

The West Virginia Economic Development Authority (WVEDA) reportedly has approved a resolution that authorizes the agency to take title to the 1,200-acre property in Mason County and then lease it back to Nucor.

According to Charleston, West Virginia-based MetroNews, the resolution also involves “relieving the company of traditional property taxes.”

Nucor will be able to build the $2.7 billion mill and, rather than adhering to a traditional property tax arrangement, has “agreed to give a $1 million a year contribution to the Mason County Board of Education and entered into a PILOT [payment in lieu of taxes] agreement with the Mason County Commission.”

In the MetroNews writeup, Mason County Commissioner Rick Handley expresses support for the agreement, commenting, “The economic development as a result of this plant will be much greater” than the value of additional taxes that could have been collected. “How could you turn down at least 900 jobs and what impact is that going to have?” he is quoted as saying.

North Star subsidiary of Australian steelmaker completes expansion, contributes to firm’s revenue growth.

A mid-May ceremony at North Star BlueScope Steel in Delta, Ohio, has marked the completion of a $700 million capacity expansion project at the facility. According to Australia-based BlueScope Steel Ltd., the expansion will increase annual hot-rolled steel coil production by 850,000 metric tons.

“This was a difficult build because of the pandemic, but we were still able to complete the project,” says Patrick Finan, BlueScope’s chief executive of hot rolled products in North America. He continues, “Next month, we’ll be making the first slab off the new caster, which is part of the expansion.”

North Star President Doug Lange says, “We continued to run throughout the build. It took a tremendous amount of coordination to build a steel mill in the middle of another steel mill.” Lange credits several entities for assisting the project, including “the State of Ohio, Fulton County, the Fulton County Economic Development Corp., Jobs Ohio, the local community and North Star’s team members.”

At the ceremony, Mark Vassella, BlueScope CEO and managing director, presented a large, framed photo of the scrap-fed electric arc furnace (EAF) minimill. He also announced the North Star team earned the CEO’s Health and Safety Excellence Award for 2021.

BlueScope is pointing to the Ohio mill expansion in just-released earnings guidance. The Australian firm announced it now expects underlying earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) to be in the range of $970 million to $1.05 billion for the second half of its fiscal year 2022. (That period runs from Jan. 1 to June 30 of this year.)

That range is above the prior guidance range of $850 million to $960 million, though “subject to spread, foreign exchange and market conditions,” the company adds.

In a note to investors about the guidance, BlueScope writes in part, “The stronger outlook is driven by improved earnings expectations for North Star and the North America coated business due to better-than-expected realized steel prices and spreads in the United States. Expectations for BlueScope’s other businesses remain broadly consistent with outlook comments provided in February.”

As part of its growing presence in the U.S., BlueScope in December of last year completed the acquisition of the ferrous scrap processing assets of Indiana-based MetalX.