Nucor's $105 Million Crawfordsville Expansion

Daniel BurkePublished every day

Nucor Corporation announced on October 8 that it will invest $105 million to expand its Towers and Structures facility in Crawfordsville, Montgomery County, adding roughly 125,000 square feet and up to 100 jobs by the end of 2029. The average wage on those jobs is $87,500 a year, on top of the 328 people already working there. Groundbreaking is planned for the first quarter of 2027, with hiring to follow in mid-2027, pending final incentives from the Montgomery County Council and Board of Commissioners.

What the announcement does not spell out is that the first phase of this plant, a $115 million investment from 2023, had not yet reached EBITDA breakeven according to Nucor's own securities filings. A second nine-figure phase on top of that is a bet on sustained utility demand, not a response to a plant already running at capacity. It also puts Nucor in a direct race with Valmont Industries, which posted 23% utility sales growth and a $1.8 billion backlog last quarter using a brownfield-expansion model instead of building new. Nucor's advantage is vertical integration: it makes its own steel and runs its own galvanizing, which insulates it from the steel-input cost pressure Valmont flagged as a margin risk.

Impact

This isn't a routine capacity add: Nucor is layering a second $105M phase on top of a Crawfordsville operation that, per its own SEC filings, hadn't yet hit EBITDA breakeven from Phase 1, an aggressive bet on utility demand visibility the press release doesn't spell out. It also puts Nucor in a direct capital-efficiency race with Valmont Industries, whose Q3 2026 earnings showed 23% utility sales growth and a $1.8B backlog using a brownfield-expansion model instead of Nucor's greenfield approach, and Nucor's vertical integration (its own steel, its own galvanizing) is designed to insulate it from the steel-input inflation Valmont flagged as a margin headwind.

Watch

The Q1 2027 groundbreaking and the Montgomery County Council/Commissioners' final vote on local incentives needed to finalize the deal.

For the huddle

If Nucor's vertically integrated pole-and-tower model is squeezing out standalone fabricators the way the research suggests, are we positioned to supply into (or compete against) that utility transmission buildout?

Yes. Nucor's Crawfordsville expansion and Amazon's Greenwood plant are both hiring CNC operators, welders and controls engineers on roughly the same 2027 to 2029 timeline, at average wages near $87,500 and $100,000 a year. If your facility needs the same trades, you are bidding against two nine-figure projects, not just the local labor market.

Sources

Nucor plans to expand utility towers and structures manufacturing facility in Indiana · plantservices.com

Earlier coverage

From the brief, October 26, 2026

The whole day’s brief →

This story

Montgomery County Plants Capex

From the Energy Answers library · most read

Field guide

Demand Ratchets: One Peak, A Year of Cost

A ratchet turns one bad interval into twelve months of minimum billing. This guide shows you how it works, why metered and billed demand differ, and what to track so you can stop treating it like black magic.

Decision 3· Demand Charges

Read the guide

Work email

Operator Field Guide

Energy Decision 3

Decoding

Demand Ratchets: One Peak, A Year of Cost

Hosted by

Daniel Burke

A companion to

Episode 3 · Demand Ratchets Explained: Why One Peak Can Cost You All Year

Manufacturers Energy Grant Program

Free for Montgomery County manufacturers

Montgomery County manufacturers receive free, ongoing energy auditing and cost control that reduces their energy bills and keeps them low, month after month. Every line item checked and validated, every opportunity found comes with a step-by-step guide to capture it.

Claim your Grant Check out the program

EDCs: sponsor this program and it carries your organization's name For economic developers →