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Chemung lands steel firm

Pataki hails decision as sign of state’s revived economic viability.

By Charlie Coon
Star-Gazette
April 20, 2000

Standing in the middle of an alfalfa field, David Aycock vowed Wednesday that his company is coming to enrich the town of Chemung, not plunder it.

"We need a plant in this area. We need to serve the Northeastern tier," said Aycock, the chairman of Nucor Corp., who announced Nucor will build a $50 million Vulcraft steel-fabricating facility here that will employ 300.

"This is not an experimental plant that will disappear," Aycock said. "This is our seventh plant. We need to penetrate the markets in New York City and surrounding states."

Construction is expected to start this summer, and the plant off Railroad Street would open for business in 2001. Vulcraft, a division of Nucor, makes steel joists and decks used to build floors and ceilings in malls, schools, factories and other one-and two-story buildings.

Most of the jobs created will be for welders and other steel-related workers.

The plant will be built on the 100-acre alfalfa field where Wednesday’s announcement was made. Gov. George Pataki took time off from budget negotiations in Albany to fly to Chemung for the announcement.

"(Nucor) could have chosen any place in the Northeast," Pataki said, "and I know there were other states offering them enormous incentives to come to their state. But this is a different place now.

"Five years ago (Aycock) wouldn’t have thought twice of coming to New York. Now he’s talking about, if this works, the possibility of having additional plants here."

Nucor was offered financial incentives by the town of Chemung, Chemung County and the state.

Several steps need to be taken before ground is broken.

A State Environmental Quality Review must be finished to determine how the plant will affect the land and adjacent properties.

As part of that review, archaeologists from SUNY Binghamton were busy Wednesday digging holes and looking for signs of native American or historic sites underneath the alfalfa field not far from the announcement site.

Also needed to be determined are the locations of sewer and gas lines.

Thirty of the 100 acres need to be rezoned from residential or agricultural use to industrial use. The other 70 acres already are zoned industrial.

The town is expected to rezone the property after a public information meeting at 7 p.m. May 2 at the Best Western Grand Victorian Inn in Sayre.

Air-quality permits and building permits also need to be obtained before the anticipated July 1 groundbreaking.

Nucor, based in Charlotte, N.C., has 20 facilities in the United States, including Vulcraft plants in Indiana, Texas, Nebraska, Utah, South Carolina and Alabama.

Nucor is the second-largest steel maker in the nation (behind U.S. Steel), and is the nation’s largest producer of steel joists and decks.

"We’re not bashful to say we want earnings, we want revenues, we want profit," said Aycock, who spoke with a Southern drawl befitting a North Carolinian.

"What can we do for our employees or communities if we don’t earn a profit?" Aycock said. "The only thing we put ahead of the community itself is our employees."

Aycock emphasized that Nucor doesn’t treat its executives much differently than its line workers. Nucor executives don’t get special parking spaces or have club dues paid for them, Aycock said.

"All we do is pay some employees more than others," Aycock said. "They (hourly workers) understand that. We have a true partnership with our employees."

Aycock also said Nucor will work within local laws and expectations.

"If we get out of line, we expect you will tell us to get back in line," Aycock said.

Robert Proia, formerly the manufacturing manager at the Vulcraft plant in Fort Payne, Ala., will be general manager of the Chemung facility.

Proia said Nucor originally wanted a site farther east for its Vulcraft plant but expanded its search area. Nucor looked at The Center at Horseheads (an industrial park) and other locations in New York and Pennsylvania before choosing the Chemung site.

Southern Tier Economic Growth President George Miner said New York State Electric & Gas Corp. will build a natural gas line from Wellsburg to accommodate the plant. That line might eventually serve nearby Chemung residents who currently use fuel oil, wood and coal to heat their homes.

Municipal water, however, will not come to the hamlet of Chemung as part of the project because it would be too expensive to install, Miner said. Instead, Nucor will dig its own wells and build its own filtering and sewage facilities.

The raw steel will come to the plant by railroad, and the finished product will be shipped out by trucks.

Joists are the zigzagged steel structures that support floors and roofs in large buildings. Steel deck is the flat material welded to the one building for joist production. The two buildings will be combined 525,000 square feet.

D. Alan Lloyd of Chemung, president of Lloyd USA Development Inc., is selling the 100 acres he has owned since moving here from Wales 17 years ago. The selling price has not been disclosed.

"It’s kind of sad in a way," said Lloyd, who lives in a house adjacent to the property.

"But I do own some stock in Nucor. That made me feel a little better, knowing I can look up over here and say I own some of that. Maybe just one little pebble, but I’ll own some of that."

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