United Alloy scuttles plan to build 200,000-square-foot facility, will leave Quincy by March 2026

QUINCY — United Alloy announced 18 months ago it had acquired land in Quincy to construct a 200,000-square-foot state-of-the-art facility on Ellington Road and create at least 100 new jobs for Quincy. The plan was for United Alloy to break ground by 2025.

Those plans changed dramatically this week.

Officials with United Alloy, headquartered in Janesville, Wis., confirmed with Muddy River News on Friday that not only has it scrapped the plans to expand, but it is also not renewing its lease at a 24,000-square-foot weld-only facility in the Ellington Road Industrial Park that opened in April 2023. Production in Quincy will continue through March 2026.

The newly purchased land is located just east of the current location on the south side of Ellington Road. 

“This is a disappointing decision to make,” Rebecca Bortner, chief commercial officer for United Alloy, said in an emailed statement.  

“We have not been able to establish a financially feasible building and construction plan and timetable over the past 18 months. We’ve faced significant challenges moving as quickly as needed, and it is hampering our ability to effectively serve our customers. As United Alloy is committed to being the most reliable partner to our customers and to scale and grow, this decision was required.”

Quincy Mayor Mike Troup said he learned on Tuesday that the cost for building on Ellington Road came in $10 million higher than the expected high range of United Alloy’s project. He also said the company used an out-of-town architect that created an “added expense,” and that the company learned that more ground work was necessary to make the property it bought more usable for the construction of the facility.

“There’s some dirt that is clay that doesn’t dry out too well, which means you’re not going to put a manufacturing building on top of it,” he said.

Troup is not quite ready to throw in the towel and has continued efforts to keep United Alloy in Quincy.

“So I asked questions like, ‘What do you need? What’s the size of all this stuff?’ I said, ‘Give me ‘til the end of the week to see if I can come up with something that will meet your requirements and be affordable,’” Troup said. “They said fine. The financial officer I spoke with agreed to that.

“I have an alternative that I think is quite impressive. We worked with some local builders and contractors to say, ‘Can we do this and this and this?’ I think we have a extremely doable project well within the time period and I believe within the dollars that they were talking to me about.”

Troup didn’t provide any details on his alternative plan. He called the news of United Alloy’s decision a “surprise.” 

United Alloy’s planned departure comes shortly after the company announced in mid-March that it will become the first tenant of a 546,000 square-foot building in an industrial complex in Union, Ohio, near Dayton. United Alloy will lease 182,000 square feet of the building and will initially create 60 new jobs. It eventually could employ up to 100.

Bortner said the Union facility will mainly manufacture data center fuel tanks and engine room exhaust plenums.

She said the company appreciates the contributions the employees in Quincy have made during the past two years.

“We value our team in Quincy and will work with the team to ensure a smooth transition for employees as well as our company production,” Bortner said. “We want to retain the team in Quincy and give those affected as much time as possible to plan their next steps. The details of opportunities for retention and relocation were discussed with the team in Quincy this week.”

“They say the workforce is unbelievable here,” Troup said. “They’re very impressed with the people they’ve been able to employ and the quality of work that they’re able to do on a regular basis. We’ve known that from living here that the tradesmen, the quality of workers, the work ethic from Quincy employees always is strong.”

When the expansion plans were announced in September 2023, United Alloy officials lauded the work of Kyle Moore and his team at the Great River Economic Development Foundation. Moore said United Alloy endured some “hiccups” in getting incentives from the state, but he didn’t believe they were insurmountable or would cause a “roadblock.”

“A lot went into establishing the relationship with United Alloy, working to find them a temporary facility,” Moore said. “They were always up front that the temporary facility (that opened in April 2023) was to give them time to see if they could find a permanent location in Quincy. If they couldn’t because of cost or because of any other factors, they would be looking at other options. 

“We would always work with anybody that we can, and we were very much trying to find a suitable location for them. Based on my conversations with them and based on my conversations in the community, the cost to develop the site that they purchased was simply not feasible to build a new facility. The cost overruns of the actual site work have run the project through the roof.”

For now, Moore wants to find homes for the displaced employees.

“I can tell you I’ve already been on the phone with a number of different manufacturers who believe that they’ll have no problem absorbing these positions,” he said. “We’ve got a general worker shortage in Quincy, so those conversations are already there. 

“Our number one work is for the people of Quincy. If there is a way we can keep them here, we will move heaven and earth to do that. But we’re not going to let something like this define our story from here on out. We still have multi-million dollar facilities like Amazon and Knapheide that are building and expanding here. This is obviously a bump, but we still have a heck of an economic development story here.”