SIOUX CITY | With the completion of a series of construction projects, all of Sabre Industries has consolidated all of its Sioux City operations at a single site.
Three years ago, Sabre, one of the largest U.S. suppliers of steel structures for the utility and communications industry, announced an expansion of its Iowa operations to a 150-acre site in the city’s Southbridge Business Park.
Sioux City beat out several other cities and states for the multi-phase project, with a total investment of $28 million and more than 530 jobs, more than doubling the local employment.
A 192,000-square-foot fabrication plant for the utility business opened in December 2012 at Southbridge, located just south of Sioux Gateway. That was followed by the opening of an administration building and a series of other structures.
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Last year, the company completed work of two additional production bays that put all of the local under one roof.
Sabre's communications tower operations were previously housed in two structures in the Bridgeport area and a facility along U.S. Highway 20, between Sioux City and Lawton.
“Having been here for over 30 years, we already had dedicated and qualified employees; however, expanding our operations meant expanding our workforce as well," Sabre Executive Vice President and General Manager, Brian Newberg said last October at a ceremony where the city honored the company's growth.
"The local community stepped up and helped us hire and train our current employee base," Newberg continued. "As we continue to grow, our Southbridge location provides us with both the capacity needed for future expansion and increased opportunities for our employees.”
The company was founded in 1977 in Sioux City by Bailey Aalfs as a manufacturer of high-frequency antenna systems. As cellular phone usage grew in the 1990s, the company began designing and fabricating towers for the wireless communication industry
In more recent years, Sabre's utility business has boomed. The company began manufacturing the structures at a plant in Alvardo, Texas, where Sabre maintains its headquarters.
In the event a natural disaster or other event forced the Alvardo facility out of commission, Sabre officials said they decided to build for a second or "redundant" plant.
In its winning bid for the project, Sioux City pledged a $1 million grant and the land in the business park, northwest of Southbridge Drive and 225th Street.
The state approved incentives that included a nearly $1 million forgivable loan.
Along with utilities upgrading the nation's aging electrical power grid, Sabre has benefited recently from a slew of projects to harness wind-generated electricity in Iowa and other Upper Midwest states.
The Sioux City Sabre plant has built poles for MidAmerican Energy Co., which is developing a series of high-voltage, overhead lines, known as “multi-value projects,” or MVPs, that are designed to alleviate congestion on the region's electric grid and provide a better route for sending Iowa and Minnesota wind power to the east.
Sabre also announced last month it had been selected as a "preferred supplier" of structures for another wind-related transmission project originating in O'Brien. Called the Rock Island Clean Line, the $2 billion project would transport excess electricity from wind farms in Northwest Iowa and surrounding states to customers in the Chicago area and point east.
The Houston-based developer, Clean Line Energy Partners agreed last year to buy an estimated 2,000 to 3,000 poles, from Sabre, or about four to five poles per mile for the 500-mile line.
The project would generate $150 million to $200 million in additional business for Sabre, President and CEO Peter Sandore said at a Feb. 7, 2014, news conference in Sioux City. The order would produce a demand for 100 to 150 million pounds of raw steel, as well as new jobs at the Sioux City plant, Sandore said.
