Old Campbell buildings hold a fortune in scrap

The demand for scrap metal is high in China and the rest of Asia.

By WILLIAM K. ALCORN

VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER

SCRAP METAL, WHILE NOT quite worth its weight in gold, is valuable enough to help clear the way for future economic development in this city.

The Campbell Works of the former Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. plant, one of the closed steel mills in the Midwest that gave rise to the term “Rust Belt,” sat for 30 years because it was
not worth anybody’s time to tear it down.

The buildings were an eyesore, and just their presence gave people the false hope that steelmaking might come back, said Mayor John Dill.

But now, with the price of scrap metal of all kinds at historic highs in this country, fueled in part by the demand for scrap metal in China and the rest of Asia, those dilapidated buildings have value.

Before, neither the city nor the building owners had the resources to have the buildings torn down, the first step in redevelopment.

Now, Dill said, people are paying big money to tear them down and selling the scrap metal overseas.

“It’s really ironic,” said the mayor.

Those buildings, some built back in the 1920s, were constructed by one of the largest steel companies in the world, he said.

It’s not only the sheet metal outside; inside are huge I-beams and other heavy metal, he said.

With the high price for scrap fueling the demolition of more buildings, which makes way for the environmental assessments needed before the land can be developed, Dill thinks Campbell is poised to expand on the groundwork that already has been done in brownfield reclamation by Youngstown, Struthers, Lowellville and his city.

Dill said it was discouraging the past couple of years when Cold Metal Products went out of business and Calex Corp., the city’s largest private employer with 175 jobs, also left.

Since then, however, Pro-Fab Industries, a Massillon-area company, has moved into the former Calex Corp., and employs about 80 people at its Pro-Fab Extrusions facility. Pro-Fab makes a variety of aluminum products, such as doors, building products, car parts and store displays.

Dill noted that other businesses are also thriving in the brownfield area — CMC Impact Metals, with 43 employees, that heat-treats pipe for industry; Quality Bar with 28 jobs, that makes round solid bars; and Munroe Inc., with 48 jobs, a steel fabricating company.

“There are good-paying jobs down there, and we are starting to see a turnaround,” he said.

On site for years

And, the mayor said, Casey Equipment, which he described as an excellent corporate partner and citizen, has been on the site for many years refurbishing the former Sheet & Tube buildings it owns.

Casey, by going out on a limb and promising to create 25 jobs, was the key to getting the $3 million Walton Road Bridge built, which provided easy access to the property. Before, access was a one-lane railroad trestle bridge, Dill added.

The mayor said the so-called brownfield property also has other attractive features for developers.

Along with the Walton Road Bridge, there are new bridges at either end of the property, and a $1 million grant has been secured, through the efforts of U.S. Rep. Timothy Ryan of Niles, D-17th, for a bridge over the Mahoning River that will connect Bob Cene Way and Casey Drive, roads that circle the property. Also, plans are under way to pave those roads, he said.

“The biggest thing we have going there to attract new businesses are the railroads: The Norfolk & Southern on the Struthers side; CSX on the Campbell side; and the Ohio Central shortline in the middle that services Casey and the other businesses and the CASTLO Industrial Park,” Dill said.

And as improbable as it may seem, more than a little of the potential for more progress is being driven by the high price of scrap metal.

There is more going on down there than most people realize, the mayor added.

alcorn@vindy.com