Ohio returning to its roots as steel center

NEW BOSTON, Ohio (AP) — An Atlanta-based steel supplier has chosen a former steel mill site in southeast Ohio for a distribution center and is expected to lay out more of its plans and a timetable for construction today.

Meanwhile, Scioto County development officials are still waiting to find out if a Russian steelmaker will put a mill in nearby Haverhill, returning southeast Ohio to its roots as a steelmaking center.

Infra-Metals Co., part of the PNA Group, has seven other structural steel service centers in Illinois and the eastern seaboard and recently chose New Boston for further expansion. Michael Sturgill, the village administrator and development director, said Monday that he expected company officials to fill in some of the details of their plans when they return to southeast Ohio this week.

“When they visited the proposed New Boston site, they liked the amount of land we have to offer,” Sturgill said. “When they saw the boat dock that came with the property, they really liked the land.”

The dock is there because it once was used by the former Detroit Steel mill, which was closed in 1980. At its height, the mill employed about 6,500 workers, Sturgill said, and the loss of the mill — along with the closing of shoe factories in the area — has depressed the economy for decades.

Russian billionaire Victor Rashnikov, who controls Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works, is considering nearby Haverhill for a $1 billion mill. He toured a site with Gov. Ted Strickland in September, and development officials hope for a decision yet this year.

That 600-acre site is adjacent to a $230 million coke plant expansion that will enable Sun Coke Energy Inc. to double production at the site to about 1 million tons a year.

The $13 million Infra-Metals project will include a 250,000-square-foot facility to inventory, process and distribute steel products, Sturgill said. Starting pay for the approximately 65 jobs that will be created would be about $40,000 a year, with the possibility of more through production incentives, he said.

Officials at the company did not return calls seeking comment Monday.