If Ozinga's new East Chicago mill runs entirely on slag from one financially strained steel plant, how dependent are our own regional material contracts on that single source?

Cleveland-Cliffs lost $229 million in the first quarter of 2026 and has a blast furnace relining scheduled for 2027 at Burns Harbor, the same plant supplying all the slag for Ozinga's million-ton cement mill. Any facility sourcing concrete or cement regionally should ask its supplier how a Burns Harbor outage would affect delivery before signing a long-term contract.

With ITAMCO chasing a Notre Dame partnership and Electric Plus building out prefab and training capacity in Plainfield, is Indiana's supplier base actually ready for larger utility and data center work?

Not yet on either front. Inside Indiana Business confirms no formal Notre Dame agreement exists for ITAMCO's Plymouth district, and Notre Dame's attention is tied up in the $130-135 million Colfax Corner project through at least 2028. Electric Plus is still six months from moving into its new Plainfield headquarters, so the capacity both projects are building toward will not show up until 2027 or 2028.

Does a safety audit that relies on a contractor's own incident numbers actually tell us anything?

Not always. SunCoke Energy's 2025 safety scorecard ties 10 percent of executive incentive pay to a Total Recordable Incident Rate of 0.55, but that number explicitly excludes Phoenix Services, the subsidiary whose employee was killed at Burns Harbor in August. Any facility using outside contractors for hazardous material handling should ask whether the contractor's safety metrics include or exclude the specific crew doing the work.

Manufacturing News TEG Daily

October 16, 2026 · Montgomery · Marshall · Lake · Hendricks · Porter

Nucor's $105M Crawfordsville Expansion, Ozinga's East Chicago Cement Mill, and a Fatal Accident at Burns Harbor: What Indiana Manufacturers Need to Know

Nucor's Crawfordsville expansion, Ozinga's East Chicago cement mill, and a fatal Burns Harbor accident: what Indiana manufacturers need to track this week.

Daniel BurkePublished every day

Nucor is pouring another $105 million into a Crawfordsville expansion of its Towers & Structures plant, Ozinga just started up a million-ton cement mill in East Chicago that runs entirely on Cleveland-Cliffs' slag, and a 28-year-old contractor is dead after an accident at Cleveland-Cliffs' Burns Harbor Works, three events that land specific cost, safety, and workforce consequences on Indiana manufacturers this week. Two more developments, ITAMCO's push for an innovation district in Plymouth and Electric Plus's $38.6 million headquarters purchase in Plainfield, add supplier-capacity questions Montgomery, Lake, Porter, Marshall, and Hendricks County operators should be tracking now.

01Montgomery

Nucor Adds $105 Million to Crawfordsville Expansion

Nucor Corporation announced on October 8 that it will invest another $105 million in its Towers & Structures plant in Crawfordsville, Montgomery County, adding more than 125,000 square feet to a facility that only started production in 2025. The project still needs regulatory approval and a final incentive package from Montgomery County, with groundbreaking targeted for the first quarter of 2027 and up to 100 new jobs paying an average of $87,500 a year starting in mid-2027. CEO Leon Topalian pointed to utility demand for poles and engineered structures supporting grid hardening and EV charging infrastructure.

Impact: This looks like a capacity story but it's really a race for supplier-qualification slots: the original Crawfordsville plant only began production in 2025, so Nucor is layering 125,000 square feet onto a facility that hasn't finished its own ramp, moving ahead of rivals Valmont Industries and Arcosa Inc. before utilities lock in long-term pole contracts. Valmont imports roughly $220 million of fabricated steel structures annually from Mexico and carries Section 232 tariff exposure that Nucor's all-domestic, rail-fed EAF supply chain sidesteps entirely, a structural cost edge as utilities pour over $208 billion a year into grid modernization. The expansion also feeds Nucor's own steel mills captive demand, insulating it from spot pricing while accelerating the wood-to-steel pole shift squeezing Stella-Jones and Koppers Holdings.
Watch: Montgomery County Council's final vote on the local incentive package and Nucor's Q1 2027 groundbreaking.
For the huddle: If utility pole buyers rarely switch suppliers once qualified, are we positioned (as a potential customer or regional supplier) to lock in contracts before this capacity race closes the field for the next decade?

SourcesNucor to Expand Utility Towers & Structures Facility in Indiana (buildingindiana.com)

Read the story →

02Marshall

ITAMCO Pitches an Innovation District for Plymouth

Indiana Tool & Manufacturing Co., led by President Gary Neidig, has formed the Indiana Innovation Center and is asking Plymouth to annex and rezone its property as the first step toward an adjacent innovation district built around advanced manufacturing, cybersecurity, and tech commercialization. The pitch names the University of Notre Dame and South Bend's Colfax Corner as intended partners, with Mayor Robert Listenberger and Council President Don Ecker backing the annexation. Notre Dame has not signed a formal agreement with Plymouth, and the university's $130-135 million Colfax Corner project in South Bend will occupy its attention through at least 2028.

Impact: ITAMCO is effectively asking for Notre Dame's attention at the exact moment the university's bandwidth is committed to the $130-135 million Colfax Corner project in South Bend, where construction is underway and Inside Indiana Business confirms no formal Notre Dame agreement with Plymouth exists yet, a real partnership availability gap through at least 2028. The timing also matters because Indiana's Manufacturing Readiness Grant program, which paid $79.8 million to 772 companies from 2020-2025, was defunded in the 2025-2027 state budget, meaning ITAMCO's private-anchor Innovation Development District pitch (IC 36-7-32.5, tax increment recycled for up to 30 years) is trying to replace that state grant mechanism with a locally-built one. The Neidig family's track record spinning out Atlas 3D (sold to Siemens in 2019) and SIMBA Chain (DARPA/DoD-backed) gives Plymouth a defense-contracting moat no other greenfield Indiana district currently has.
Watch: Plymouth City Council's vote on the annexation and rezoning requests, and whether ITAMCO formally files for Innovation Development District designation with the IEDC.
For the huddle: Given that no formal Notre Dame partnership exists yet and Colfax Corner will consume the university's attention through 2028, what's our realistic timeline if we're counting on this district for supplier or talent connections?

SourcesIndiana Tool & Manufacturing Co. proposes innovation district in Plymouth (giant.fm)

Read the story →

03Lake

Ozinga Opens Million-Ton Slag Cement Mill in East Chicago

Ozinga held a ribbon cutting October 13 for its new slag cement mill in East Chicago, Lake County, billed as the largest of its kind in North America at one million tons of annual capacity. The plant runs on granulated blast furnace slag processed at Ozinga's Burns Harbor operation inside the Cleveland-Cliffs steelworks, uses a Gebr. Pfeiffer vertical roller mill, and is projected to create about 50 permanent union steelworker jobs.

Impact: The project carries a single-source feedstock risk no one flagged at the ribbon-cutting: Cleveland-Cliffs lost $229 million in Q1 2026 and has been idling Burns Harbor finishing lines, and Burns Harbor's Blast Furnace C is scheduled for relining in 2027, meaning Ozinga's entire million-ton operation depends on slag from an aging, financially strained, consolidating steelmaker next door. The six-month slip from the original Q2 2026 opening target also hints at commissioning complexity with the new vertical roller mill that buyers should probe before signing long-term offtake deals. Meanwhile a new 50% U.S. tariff on Canadian cement (effective Aug. 22, 2026) and rising freight costs on Vietnamese imports (now 26% of U.S. import share) widen Ozinga's pricing window even as it enters a U.S. cement market forecast to shrink 2.5% in 2026.
Watch: Cleveland-Cliffs' Burns Harbor Blast Furnace C relining in 2027, and whether Ozinga discloses a commercial-production ramp date.
For the huddle: If we're sourcing concrete or cement locally, do our contracts account for the risk that Ozinga's entire feedstock runs through one aging, financially pressured steel mill next door?

SourcesOzinga opens East Chicago cement facility (nwindianabusiness.com)

Read the story →

04Hendricks

Electric Plus Buys $38.6 Million Plainfield Headquarters

Avon-based electrical contractor Electric Plus closed October 1 on a $38.6 million purchase of a 500,192-square-foot building at 501 Airtech Parkway in Plainfield, Hendricks County, buying from Canadian REIT Granite REIT at $77.17 a square foot. The company, which grew from 3 employees in 2006 to more than 950 today, will occupy about 235,000 square feet for office, prefabrication, and workforce training space, lease out the remaining roughly 265,000 square feet, and move in spring 2027 after the Plainfield Redevelopment Commission approved a five-year vacant-building tax deduction tied to a projected 90 new jobs paying around $45 an hour. The building carries about 6,600 amps of three-phase power, which Electric Plus can use as both a training lab and a demonstration asset as it chases data center and large industrial project work currently dominated by Indianapolis-based Gaylor Electric, which posted $750 million in revenue and 72.6 percent year-over-year growth, and Greenwood's ERMCO.

Impact: The real signal is buried in the building specs: 501 Airtech Parkway carries roughly 6,600 amps of three-phase power, which functions as both a training lab and a live demonstration asset as Electric Plus chases the data-center and large-industrial project tier currently dominated by Indianapolis-based Gaylor Electric ($750 million revenue, 72.6% year-over-year growth) and Greenwood's ERMCO. Granite REIT's willingness to sell at $77.17/square foot, well below Midwest industrial replacement cost, reflects the Canadian REIT's active 2026 disposition program ($158.6 million in properties shed through July) rather than a distressed local market. The prefabrication build-out also mirrors a tactic Gaylor already uses to win data-center bids, suggesting Electric Plus is retooling its operating model, not just relocating offices.
Watch: Electric Plus's spring 2027 move-in and Colliers' progress leasing the remaining ~265,000 square feet of the building.
For the huddle: As electrical contractors like Electric Plus build dedicated prefab and training capacity to chase data-center work, are we locking up the licensed electrical labor we'll need before that capacity gets absorbed by bigger players?

SourcesElectric Plus Acquires 500,192 SF Industrial Facility Near Indianapolis for $38.6M (rebusinessonline.com)

Read the story →

05Porter

Contractor Killed Operating Pot Hauler at Burns Harbor

A 28-year-old Merrillville man, Jonathan L. Stepp, who had six children, died on the night of August 13 while operating a pot hauler at Cleveland-Cliffs' Burns Harbor Works in Porter County. Stepp worked for Phoenix Services, the slag-handling contractor Cleveland-Cliffs uses at the plant, which SunCoke Energy acquired for $325 million in 2025. Cleveland-Cliffs called the death an isolated incident, and Indiana OSHA has opened an investigation that can take up to six months to complete.

Impact: SunCoke's own 2025 safety scorecard (which weights 10% of executive incentive pay to a Total Recordable Incident Rate of 0.55) explicitly excluded Phoenix Global's workforce from that number, meaning executives were paid on a safety metric that erased the subsidiary whose employee just died. The timing also strips the incident of leverage: USW's master contract talks with Cleveland-Cliffs were suspended until Oct. 28 with capital expenditure and maintenance commitments still unresolved, and WSWS counts Stepp as the fifth worker killed in roughly a year across major US Steel and Cleveland-Cliffs operations, following electrician Mitcheal Nelson at US Steel's Granite City Works and Jeffrey Smith at Cleveland-Cliffs' Monessen Coke Plant. Because Indiana OSHA's investigation can run up to six months, findings likely land after the contract is settled.
Watch: Indiana OSHA's investigation findings, which could come as late as February 2027, and the resumption of USW-Cleveland-Cliffs contract talks after Oct. 28.
For the huddle: When we use outside contractors for hazardous material handling, do our safety audits actually capture the contractor's real incident history, or does that risk disappear from the numbers the way it did in SunCoke's own scorecard?

SourcesA 28-Year-Old Father of Six Died in a Steel Plant Accident, and His Family Is Now Facing Life Without Him (aol.com)

Read the story →

Questions for your morning huddle

This brief