Rapides Police Jury to seek grants to assist ASA plant

The Rapides Parish Police Jury wants to ensure the needed public infrastructure is in place to accommodate the aluminum alloy plant to be built near Pineville.

Parish crews won't be doing any actual construction for infrastructure, but the Police Jury will work with grant consultants, engineers, bond attorneys and special legal counsel in seeking state and federal grants to assist American Specialty Alloys.

The Police Jury on Monday voted unanimously to authorize jury President Richard Billings to take actions to facilitate the ASA plant locating in Rapides Parish. The assistance would come in the form of "grant applications and other legislatively created financing opportunities" to help ASA with its public infrastructure needs related to roads, water, sewer, rail and port access.

The approved motion notes assistance "may require the creation of special districts."

"We're moving forward to working with the state of Louisiana to apply for grants to work on the infrastructure to bring the plant here to Rapides Parish," Juror Joe Bishop said.

The ASA plant will be located in Bishop's District B.

"We're going to apply for the grants, and then we'll funnel the money for the infrastructure through the Police Jury to help them get started, improve the roads," Juror Sean McGlothlin said.

"I think we need to do an extension to the rail spur, adding some water lines for fire protection" and other infrastructure projects, he said.

ASA will build its $2.4 billion plant at the former International Paper mill site near Pineville. Although city of Pineville officials played a key role in attracting ASA to the area, the plant site is outside the city limits, so the Police Jury is taking the lead in working with the state on grant applications.

The plant, which will manufacture aluminum alloy for the automotive and aerospace industries, is projected to employ more than 1,400 people at an average salary around $70,000 and generate 2,600 indirect jobs. Work is expected to begin later this year and be complete in 2020.

The plant will benefit the Police Jury from a tax standpoint, Bishop said, but the parish economy as a whole will get a huge boost from the jobs that will be created by ASA and spinoff companies.

"We're very excited about ASA choosing Rapides Parish. … It's a great location. There's plenty of land. We have rail spurs going to the old International Paper (mill). Also, you have access to the Red River so there's multiple ways of getting product there," Bishop said.

McGlothlin said the ASA plant, the Rapides Parish Coliseum renovation and other major projects in the works bode well for the area's economy.

"It's something that I think everybody in Central Louisiana has been waiting for," he said.

Also on Monday, the Police Jury agreed to the funding mechanism for expansion of the Robertson Branch Library in Tioga.

The approved resolution provides for issuing $1 million of limited tax certificates to pay for the library project.

Construction is to begin this summer and take about eight or nine months to complete. Square footage of the library building, which was constructed in 1982, will double from 3,200 to 6,400.

The branch will not have to close during construction.