Aluminum manufacturer Matalco has announced plans to build a new $80 million plant in central Wisconsin for the production of aluminum billet.
The company, which currently operates plants in Indiana, Ohio, and Ontario, Canada, said the proposed site in Wisconsin Rapids offered convenient access to its customers as well as a strong local labor force and quality of life, the Wisconsin Rapids Tribune reports.
Matalco executives also credited a package of state and local incentives for helping to bring the project to the region; the local incentives, the paper noted, must still be approved by city officials.
The Tribune said the facility expects to produce about 230 million pounds of billet, or aluminum logs, from mostly recycled scrap aluminum each year. Those pieces would then be sold to extrusion companies for cutting or pressing.
Matalco expects to employ 80 full-time workers at the 110,000-square-foot plant. Officials reportedly expressed interested in training new employees in partnership with nearby Mid-State Technical College.
If approved, construction would begin this spring and the facility would open in mid-2020.
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