The Transportation Commission approved a multi-million dollar state grant for Lee County Tuesday. The commission approved what’s called a Revitalize Iowa’s Sound Economy or RISE grant of just under five million dollars ($4,941,617) to help in constructing a road to the new Iowa Fertilizer Company facility being built near Wever in Lee County.
The plant is expected to create around 25-hundred jobs for construction workers and then 165 permanent jobs once construction is complete. The $1.4-billion will produce a variety of products and is expected to be completed by July of 2014.
The plant has generated some controversy as legislators questioned the director of the Iowa Economic Development Authority last month about the state’s $240-million tax incentive package given the builders. Director Debbi Durham defended the incentives as necessary to keep the plant from going to another state.