Demolition underway at former SC steel mill

Demolition work is underway at the former Georgetown Steel electric arc furnace (EAF) and rolling mill site in South Carolina. The Liberty Steel business unit of the GFG Alliance has owned the steelmaking campus since 2017.

In the subsequent eight years, the GFG Alliance has encountered financial difficulties caused at least in part by its relationship with the now liquidated Greensill Capital organization.

The Georgetown complex was not immune from those difficulties, with Liberty Steel announcing but never completing plans to restart the EAF melt shop, with a lawsuit and counter-lawsuit tied to those efforts.

As of May, media outlets in eastern South Carolina are reporting the start of demolition activity on the site, indicating Liberty intends to prepare the land for redevelopment.

WBTW-TV quotes the mayor of Georgetown as being favorably impressed with Liberty’s management plan for the demolition work and indicates a former mill manager is supervising the demolition process on site.

Another report from the Georgetown Times refers to the closed steel mill along with a nearby recently shuttered International Paper (IP) mill in Georgetown.

That article indicates that while some local officials back a proposed biomass power plant on the former IP mill site, a recent survey of Georgetown residents found that some 70 percent would prefer to see both sites redeveloped for nonindustrial purposes.

In the meantime, at the former Georgetown steel site, WBTW indicates demolition activities will be ongoing, with work taking place five or six days a week, involving demolition materials that will be moved off the property via rail or by truck.

The dismantling of a steelmaking facility likely will involve the generation of considerable amounts of steel and other recyclable metal found on the site.

A separate report from WCBD-TV says local politicians have met with prospective but unnamed buyers of the former Georgetown Steel land, who envision it becoming home to a mixed-use development that would include housing, green space and more.

“Retail, restaurants, housing and light industry—there’s a whole plethora of things that will bring jobs [to] our city,” the TV station quotes Georgetown Mayor Carol Jayroe as saying after hearing of the potential plans.