Industry News

Facilities

Production begins at L.G. Everist ready-mix plant and recycling yard in South Dakota

Asphalt production has started at L.G. Everist’s newest facility outside Harrisburg, South Dakota, the latest phase of a 60-acre development that also includes a ready-mix plant and recycling yard.

“It’s nice to have a big-enough footprint to do all the things that we need to do,” L.G. Everist President and CEO Rob Everist tells Sioux Falls Business. “It doubles our existing capacity in the Sioux Falls metro area, and it’s a very clean, very safe site. It’s laid out so well, it doesn’t ever seem that busy even though we’re having a strong year.”

The development, called Nine Mile Park, is staffed by about three dozen people and is the largest of the company’s sites. Operations at the ready-mix plant began last fall, and the asphalt plant came online in May of this year.

“It’s now a full-fledged ready-mix and hot mix asphalt facility,” Everist says about Nine Mile Park. “And then we’ve got recycled materials—road millings and crushed concrete—in the back, so it’s a 60-acre all-weather site that can produce all sorts of construction materials.”

Everist tells Sioux Falls Business that the facility, located along the Interstate 29 exit just outside Harrisburg, is intentionally landscaped and hard surfaced to create an “attractive setting.”

“As you drive by, you look at it and say it doesn’t look like a typical construction yard,” Everist says. “We did that on purpose. We invested more to make it look nice, not only to attract employees but to show the county and the community we’re here to be good neighbors.”

Described by L.G. Everist as “state-of-the-art,” the facility features technology for team members to monitor trucks and prepare required loads in real time to maximize efficiency, and every truck is washed before leaving the plant.

Everist says the South Dakota location is key to supporting regional growth, complementing a plant in northeast Sioux Falls and replacing a smaller plant nearby.

“So, we’re on opposite sides of the Sioux Falls area now, right off the interstate, and we have a lot of access and flexibility and redundancy as far as how we’re delivering throughout the city,” Everist says. “[In] Sioux Falls, there’s a lot of infrastructure work right now between Veterans Parkway, area bridge construction and the overall road construction season. Private construction has tapered off some, especially on the apartment side, but we’re happy and busy every day.”

L.G. Everist has grown to about 440 total employees, from its downtown Sioux Falls headquarters to about two dozen locations of various sizes throughout the Upper Midwest and Colorado.

The new site also features a recycling yard where asphalt and concrete are crushed and processed.

L.G. Everist owns a total of 140 acres in the area, with some set aside for future commercial land.

“It’s being farmed right now for crops, and when the interchange gets redone, we will start looking at development,” Everist says. “It will either be a build-to-suit or we’ll sell, but we own both sides of the intersection on the east side of the highway.”

A ribbon-cutting and two-hour open house were held June 19.

Mergers & Acquisitions

Heidelberg acquires Canadian concrete recycling firm

Irving, Texas-based Heidelberg Materials North America has acquired assets of Concrete Crushers Inc. (CCI), a Calgary, Alberta-based concrete recycling firm. The transaction includes a recycled aggregates yard in the city of Calgary and a contract crushing business with four mobile plants, according to Heidelberg.

“The acquisition of the CCI assets further strengthens our existing footprint in the Calgary market and accelerates our focus on recycled concrete aggregates and circular solutions,” says Oliver Patsch, president of the northwest region for Heidelberg.

The Texas business unit of Germany-based Heidelberg Materials says the acquisition aligns with its strategic focus on optimizing its portfolio in core markets.

Last year, Heidelberg acquired Flourtown, Pennsylvania-based Highway Materials Inc., which included a concrete recycling plant among its assets, and Victory Rock, a Gordon, Texas-based producer of aggregates offering concrete recycling services.