Nucor's $105 Million Crawfordsville Expansion

Nucor Corporation confirmed on October 8 that it will invest $105 million to expand its Towers and Structures plant in Crawfordsville, adding more than 120,000 square feet of manufacturing space and 100 new jobs averaging $87,500 a year to a facility that currently employs 328 people. Groundbreaking is targeted for the first quarter of 2027, hiring starts mid-2027, and the full job ramp runs through the end of 2029, contingent on Montgomery County finalizing its local incentive package.

Nucor's chief rival in this product line, Valmont Industries, is running a separate $1 billion utility-capacity buildout through 2029, but Valmont imports roughly $220 million a year in fabricated steel structures from Mexico. If tariff policy eventually targets that import stream, Valmont absorbs the cost increase that Nucor's fully domestic, mill-adjacent model avoids. Nucor is also expanding a plant that only started production in 2025, before baseline throughput numbers even exist, which points to utility supply contracts already locked in, a land grab on manufacturing footprint ahead of competitors, or both.