The Iowa Transportation Commission approved up to $884,000 Tuesday to improve a roadway to a business in Perry.
DOT spokesman, Craig Markley, says it would improve access to three acres of an industrial area and help a local business.
“Progressive Foundry — they make all kinds of cast iron products — they want to expand,” Markley says. He says the expansion would bring in more workers.
“Looking like it would create 20 to 30 jobs — which about half of those could be pulled from Cleveland, Ohio to here,” he explains. The money comes for the Revitalize Iowa’s Sound Economy or RISE fund.
Marshalltown received more than $1.6 million dollars in funding to open up 48 acres on the northeast side of town. Markley says the improved roadway would have a side benefit of helping the large JBS pork packing plant in the area. “Twenty-five-hundred or so employees, a lot of trucks in and out. JBS has asked corporate to allow them to expand the facility. So, this roadway would certainly aid in that,” Markley says.
He says it would improve the traffic for the neighborhood.”Right now the trucks coming from the north, they turn onto a residential street and follow it down to the plant. So this would get that much easier movement for those semis,” according to Markley.
Both the roadway projects approved for funding are expected to be completed by December 2020.