Charter Steel - Cleveland's Newest Steel Manufacturing Facility

In 2002, Charter Steel purchased the old American Steel and Wire property on East 49th Street in Cuyahoga Heights with plans to construct a new melt shop facility at the site. Independence Excavating teamed up with Lockwood Greene, the project engineering and construction manager, to perform a significant amount of this work.

Our initial involvement started with the demolition of the existing steel mill foundations, where over 25,000 cubic yards of concrete was removed from the site. We then performed the installation of the site utilities which included over 57,000 feet of water, sewer, electric and process piping. At the same time the utilities were being installed, we began work on the foundations for the new building, which were placed on auger cast piles. As the building foundations were completed, the work on the equipment foundations began. Many of the foundations were very intricate with large amounts and sizes of anchor bolts and heavy reinforcement. Over 12,000 cubic yards of concrete and 1,400 tons of rebar were installed on the project. Once the building was erected, we performed the installation of the elevated slab concrete inside the building and continued to pour various equipment pads, piers and other structures. Other miscellaneous work included the removal of overhead cranes, construction of a rail scale, construction of offices, asbestos abatement, building demolition, structural steel modification, temporary lighting, construction of a loading dock, installing siding, installing roofing and asphalt paving.

Work on the new plant is nearing completion, and they will begin production of steel in this month. This is a very modern melt shop that will take local scrap steel and iron and produce various grades of steel and stainless steel. Charter Steel will produce steel to supplement its other operations such as wire coil production and also replace the steel that they are currently buying. This project has been a welcome change from the declining steel industry in Northeast Ohio. It will add many new jobs to the area, and it is a big addition to the industry in Cuyahoga Heights. Over 200 workers were on-site for most of the project with the peak from last July to this February being over 700 workers every day. Despite the large number of workers, Charter Steel provided a monthly lunch for the workers when an accident-free month of work was completed. It's quite a sight to see all the tradesmen eating lunch together, and we saw it almost every month! Charter Steel and Lockwood Greene took a team approach to building the new mill and it produced a positive can-do work environment that allowed everyone to take part in the construction, get quick answers and be productive in the performance of their work. Independence Excavating is pleased to have been a member of their construction team.

Our construction team included various subcontractors such as Precision Environmental, Precision ProCut, Lake Erie Electric, Schweizer Dipple, KLE Construction, Akron Rebar, McKinney Drilling, Kelley Steel, Cosmos Industrial Services, The Shelly Company, United Survey, Howard Concrete Pumping, Foti Construction, TH Martin, Gorman-Lavelle and Warren Roofing. Independence and our subcontractors were able to perform all this work in a safe, quality fashion that allowed us to finish on time and provide Charter Steel with a quality finished product. Of all the utilities that were installed and all the anchor bolts placed, there were almost no instances where work had to be removed and replaced or modified when the equipment from around the world was installed on the foundations. We had a great team of professional construction personnel on the job as well as quality subcontractors, and they should all be commended for a job well done!