Huber Engineered Woods (HEW), headquartered in North Carolina, announced plans to build a $440 million manufacturing plant in northeastern Minnesota to vigorously promote the state’s wood products industry. The plant is expected to bring more than 150 jobs to the region.
The Iron Range Resources and Rehabilitation Board (IRRRB)-made up of state legislators from seven counties in northeastern Minnesota-voted unanimously on Monday to approve the company's $15 million exempt loan to help build a new factory in Cohasset. A few miles west of Grand Rapids.
The project is subject to an additional $20 million investment by the second state agency, the Department of Employment and Economic Development.
Huber Engineered Woods plans to start construction of a 750,000-square-foot facility next spring, which will be built on 400 acres of land owned by Minnesota Power, adjacent to the utility company’s Boswell Energy Center. The Minnesota Electric Company announced earlier this year that it intends to shut down and retrofit Boswell's remaining coal-fired units by 2035.
The manufacturing plant will produce Oriented Strand Board-or OSB-a compressed wood board, similar to particle board or plywood, used in housing construction.
Huber President Brian Carlson (Brian Carlson) said that the company considered many factors when looking for a location for its new facility, which he said will help the company meet the “real estate boom caused by the pandemic”. Growing demand.
The company finally decided to choose northern Minnesota because of its "fiber basket, the long history of the OSB industry, and the quality of the workforce."
The Cohasset plant will be Huber's sixth plant and the largest capital investment to date. Carlson said it will increase the company's manufacturing capacity by 30% and will primarily serve the western US market.
The company also pointed out that the new plant is less than 10 miles from the country's first OSB plant, which was built in Grand Rapids in the 1970s.
IRRRB business development executive director Matt Sjoberg (Matt Sjoberg) said that the structure of the public financing plan is an exempt loan, requiring the company to maintain at least 100 employees in the first six years of employment. These jobs are expected to pay approximately $30 per hour.
Sjoberg said: "We hope that this loan will essentially become a grant through the company reaching its benchmark and receiving forgiveness."
Huber predicts that the plant will also stimulate hundreds of indirect jobs, mainly in the logging and trucking industries in the region, which have recently been hit hard by the closure of other facilities.
Carlson believes that approximately 150 logging trucks are needed to supply the facility with aspen that has not yet been harvested for other markets. He said that ideally, it would cut within a 70-mile radius from Cohasset.
This news is good news for the forest products industry in Minnesota, which suffered a major blow last year when the Verso paper mill in Duluth closed.
The size of the new plant is similar to that proposed by another company five years ago, when IRRRB approved $36 million in funding for the Louisiana Pacific Company’s proposed wood siding plant-first in the town of Hoyt Lake, and then It's Cook.
However, the project is also estimated to cost US$440 million. After the company chose to invest in its Canadian-owned facilities, the project has not yet been completed.
Democratic Governor Tim Walz expressed his belief on Monday that the project will be different, saying it is now part of the state legislature’s budget negotiations.
The legislation being implemented will guide additional state funding to support the project, including a bill linking this funding to the company’s investment and output.
"We will solve this problem," Walz said. "It will make a difference. From the perspective of the timber industry, this is one of the first major events we have seen in decades. I think this is a real Positive factors." "
Republican lawmakers in Iron Range also celebrated the announcement.
"Hub wisely made a major investment in the best workforce in the country-hardworking men and women in the Tieling area," said Republican State Representative Spencer Eagle of Grand Rapids.
Just a year ago, forest products industry officials convened an emergency meeting in Grand Rapids to discuss the closure of the Verso plant, recalled Scott Dann, executive director of the Minnesota Joint Contract Lumberjack and Truck Driver.
Now, Dane says, “One year later, we announced the biggest development in the forest products industry in 40 years.”
The company still needs to acquire the property, which is currently owned by the Minnesota Electric Company. It also requires the approval of certain legislative initiatives and funding from other state entities.
HEW is a subsidiary of JM Huber Corporation, which is one of the largest family businesses in the United States. This will be HEW's sixth plant in the United States and the first plant in Minnesota.
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