SIDNEY — The city of Sidney officially welcomed and thanked SEMCORP Advanced Materials Group representatives for choosing Sidney to be the home of its next manufacturing facility during a special Sidney City Council meeting Tuesday afternoon.
The facility will make separator film, a key component in batteries for electric vehicles (EVs). SEMCORP’s products will be used by leading EV battery makers across North America.
City Hall’s Council’s Chambers was full with local business, city and county leaders; contractors; subcontractors; city staff members; and other supporters of the community, as well as numerous members of team SEMCORP team. The 3:30 p.m. meeting began a little late, as SEMCORP team members, including construction company officials to work on the project, arrived late after they were shown the site location for the new facility.
“We are here to officially welcome you to the city of Sidney and thank you for being here and selecting Sidney as your home. We are very, very, very excited about that,” Mayor Mardie Milligan said to the SEMCORP team.
SEMCORP Advanced Materials Group officially announced on May 6, 2022, it will establish a manufacturing facility in Sidney, creating nearly 1,200 jobs with $73 million in annual payroll and $916 million in capital investment.
SEMCORP Advanced Materials International CEO/President Jeff Liu thanked Milligan for the warm welcome and praised the city of Sidney for its beauty and charm.
“All of the tech people from our city, they said it is a beautiful city; the courthouse and also the downtown, it’s beautiful,” Liu said. “And also, I can tell, we have all the nice people and also a very good community that welcome us.”
Liu then spoke a little about his past working to build other similar businesses and then directed other members of the team to introduce themselves. A member of his team noted although the initial goal is to build eight lines, based upon customer demand, the hope it to expand exponentially beyond those eight lines.
City Manager Andrew Bowsher said, “It’s been an absolute pleasure and humbling experience to be able to work with (the SEMCORP) team and so many other consultants and SSEP (Sidney-Shelby Economic Partnership). Our staff here worked countless hours to get a package together and figuring out exactly how all the pieces fall together, and certainly we got a lot more work to do and we are really excited to your commitment to hiring local and bringing those a lot of individuals forward. Really, we feel like this is the tide that’s going to lift all of the boats here in Sidney and Shelby County. Very excited to have you here. I’m glad we were able to have an official kick-off and connect all of the dots and pieces.”
SSEP Executive Director Jim Hill said, “On behalf of the SSEP, Chairman Mick Given is here, we are just glad to see this project move from the site selection phase to the implementation phase — that’s what we really live in economic development world for. And I know we are going to enjoy working with Jeff and his team over the coming months and years to build a great partnership to continue Shelby County and Sidney’s leadership as a manufacturing powerhouse. It’s good to have you here.”
Liu said hopefully by the end of next year, “the building will be up.” During an April City Council meeting, SEMCORP Vice President James Shih said SEMCORP hopes for construction to begin in early 2023.
