From Deseret News archives:
A rocky, rebar-filled challenge
Current owner is clearing the casting site in Vineyard
Nearby, a 20-foot-tall hunk of concrete and rusted rebar looms like a disheveled industrial haystack. The building used to be 40 feet tall, and the foundation goes another 40 feet into the ground.
"It took (crews) six weeks to get it down to 20 feet," said Dennis Astill, project manager and general counsel for Anderson Geneva LLC. "It's not gonna come down very easy."
What used to be the smoldering, smoking heart of Utah County has long since been closed, leveled and nearly forgotten.
But for developers of the Vineyard site, the Geneva Steel factory is present every day in milelong concrete runways, cavernous holes and looming piles of steel-ribboned slag.
"People don't have an idea of the scale of this thing," Astill said. "It was an amazing piece of engineering."
Anderson Geneva LLC, plans to turn the 1,700 acres that was once home to a Utah County landmark into a new, vibrant center of growth, but they know it's a rocky, rebar-filled road.
In 1941, the U.S. government began construction on the steel plant in Vineyard to create plate steel for World War II shipbuilding.
After the purchase, heavy debt and falling prices for steel affected the factory, and in 1999 the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
The factory finally stopped producing steel in November 2001, and with dynamite blasts in July 2005, decades of history tumbled down.
By December of that year, Anderson Geneva LLC., had bought the land for $46 million.
It was a worthy investment, Astill says. A recent economy study the company commissioned predicted that at full buildout, the site will be worth close to $3 billion.
"That's 25 to 30 years from now," Astill said. "But it will be a very significant development."
From July 2005 to June 2007, crews tore down the plant. China purchased most of the steelmaking equipment and CST Environmental earned the demolition contract to clean up and recycle the leftover scrap metal. Astill said 90 percent of the material was recycled.
Several large mountains of steel byproduct, the slag roughly 3.5 million tons of it will also be "recycled," with any remaining steel pulled out of the molten rock and the remaining material used as fill for projects on the site and elsewhere, Astill said.
Recent comments
i agree the steel blob should be left as a monument. Make a...
Anonymous | Sept. 9, 2008 at 9:37 a.m.
To Contaminated: So don't live there or let your kids live there....
Old Steel Worker | Sept. 9, 2008 at 8:58 a.m.
That's why they're cleaning it up.
RIF.
Re: Contaminated | Sept. 9, 2008 at 8:38 a.m.
- For Reid, Dodd, clout cuts both ways 2:09 p.m.
- 12 dead in Afghanistan violence 2:02 p.m.
- Homicide charge filed in child's death 1:58 p.m.
- Late credit card payments drop in Q3 1:36 p.m.
- Study says basketball refs biased 1:13 p.m.
- Sanford faces 37 ethics charges 1:03 p.m.
- Woman killed in fall identified 1:00 p.m.
- October sales gains lift hopes 12:58 p.m.
- Home and garden news and notes 12:58 p.m.
- Ungrateful teen in your house? 12:54 p.m.
- Buttars wants to limit gay rights laws
213 - Glenn Beck to enter politics?
208 - RSL wins MLS Cup on penalty kicks
181 - Palin plans tour stop in Utah
178 - BYU records with win
132 - Palin's book shows she's unqualified
129 - Officer cleared in Cardall Taser case
103 - BYU cuts Women's Research Inst.
102 - Jazz finally win in San Antonio
99 - Bronco, Kyle rubber match
97
Utah's only Pottery Barn at Trolley Square, 600 S. 700 East, has...
A little after midnight Wednesday morning, about 21 hours ago as I write...
To summerize all the soccer hater comments "Blah, Blah, Blah, My life stinks"
Okay, I think its ridiculous how people get on these comment blogs and say...
when the chips are down to try raising the food tax but come up with excuses...
My purse is no more nasty and filthy and full of objectionable and disgusting...
BON JOVI!
Dude, it's "bowl" games, not "bowel" games. A "bowl" is a round object...
12:29 p.m You make it sound like I mis-represented what happend at the GL...
If you didnt see this show, you missed out! Some of the sickest fights I have...
BYU players have NO PASSION for winning and it all starts with their head...
Following Graduation in 1980 the USA was in the largest depression since the...


