ICL Shifts Plans for Battery Component Factory to North STL Riverfront
Date Posted: November 21, 2024
Posted In: News, Projects,
From St. Louis Post-Dispatch: A site north of downtown St. Louis is poised to become home to a factory that will produce a key element in lithium batteries.
ICL Specialty Products on Tuesday received a $1 million boost from a state economic development fund as part of the more than $570 million manufacturing facility now being planned in the city’s industrialized riverfront.
The project, expected to create 150 new jobs at a site at 460 East Carrie Avenue, also is receiving aid from the federal government and the city, including an $8 million property tax abatement.
The facility had been eyed for a site at ICL’s Carondelet neighborhood but is instead going to a site north of downtown that formerly housed construction waste.
During a meeting of the Missouri Development Finance Board, company officials said they were wooed by West Virginia but decided to stay close to their current U.S. base of operations.
“We wanted to keep it in St. Louis,” said Phil Brown, president of the Israel-based company’s phosphate and food division.
The facility will produce high grade phosphoric acid which will be used in the production of batteries and power storage. It will be the first large scale plant of its kind in the U.S.