For the first time in a generation, there’s going to be activity in the central area of what used to be "the steel plant” in Gadsden. 

Magneco/Metrel, a producer of refracting materials for heavy industry, is leasing a 100,000-square-foot building at the Gadsden Industrial Park, on the old Republic/Gulf States Steel property in Alabama City. 

It’s the Deerfield, Illinois-based company’s first venture into the South, according to Gadsden-Etowah Industrial Development Authority Director David Hooks. The operation will initially employ 30 people, at an average salary of $25 an hour, with the potential of that jumping to 70 jobs in a second round of hiring. 

“The facilities that surround the plant property have developed pretty well,” Hooks told the Gadsden City Council on Tuesday, but the core area has not.” 

Magneco/Metrel will be moving into a large building running horizontally through the center of the property. “So now we’ll have internal and external growing together,” Hooks said, “and hopefully we can fill up the whole site.” 

The Gadsden Industrial Park website currently lists four tenants — Eco-Vac,  which provides environmental services in industrial and municipal markets; Praxair, which produces industrial gases; Universal Environmental Services, an oil collector and processing company; and Valiant Steel and Equipment, a steel pipe supplier. Hooks said between 250 and 300 people are current employed at the park. 

The council approved tax incentives for Magneco/Metrel, which plans to invest about $5 million in the new operation. It will be exempt from construction, sales and use taxes for the equipment it buys during the construction period, then from ad valorem taxes on its equipment for a 10-year period moving forward.

Because the building is being leased and not purchased, it will still be subject to ad valorem taxes. 

“This is a very good project for that site,” Hooks said. “Refurbishing that part of town is imperative to making Gadsden better in the long run.” 

He called it “a collaborative effort on behalf of the City of Gadsden, the IDA and the owner of the property,” and also thanked Spire Gas and Alabama Power for their assistance. 

Mayor Craig Ford noted that Magneco/Metrel plans to use local suppliers. “We are excited to see their company succeed and grow along with others as we move Gadsden forward together,” he added. 

According to its website, Magneco/Metrel was formed in 1981 when two smaller companies merged: Magneco, which made fired shapes; and Metrel, which produced monolithic refractories.  

Its Metpump system uses colloidal silica combined with other chemical additives to form a seamless binding system that it says is superior to bricks for lining industrial furnaces and the like.