County approves financing for Stinger
Canda Harbaugh/The Western News Stinger employee Tom Rose cuts banding that holds sheets of steel in place on a railcar with the help of Kurt Croucher. Employees unloaded railcars of raw material Thursday to prepare for their next big job — fabricating girders for a viaduct-widening project in Seattle.
Lincoln County commissioners voted last week in favor of financing a $3.37 million building at the Kootenai Business Park Industrial District that will house Stinger Welding Inc., a bridge fabricator based out of Coolidge, Ariz.
The decision ironed out the last financial wrinkles in building the 100,000 square-foot facility that is expected to eventually be the workplace of 200 people.
The county will be reimbursed by the state in the form of a 25-year loan once construction is completed, and Stinger will lease the facility from the county.
Contractors are currently digging utility trenches and by November, Stinger hopes to have the building up and in use, said Duke Brown, human resource manager for Stinger’s local operation. The company has been working out of a small temporary building at the industrial site since August.
The rate at which workers will be hired depends on how many bids Stinger gets, Brown said.
“We’ll add employees as the work comes into the shop,” he said. “When we get closer to a firm completion time of the building, then we’ll get more projects here. We’re bidding work daily. There is a lot of roadwork and bridgework out there.”
Twenty-two welders and laborers have been working in two shifts fabricating pedestrian bridges and parts for larger projects.
About 1.2 million pounds of steel is being railed into Libby to build girders for a viaduct-widening project in Seattle. The job was recently delayed by a last-minute design change, so some workers were temporarily laid off, Brown said.
“Once the new building’s done, there wouldn’t be a situation like this in the future,” Brown said, “because we will have the room to have more than one job in the shop at once.”
When engineers approve the viaduct project’s new draft and Stinger begins work – which is at least a few weeks out – Brown anticipates hiring 10 more people. In the meantime, workers are building shop doors for the new building, and may start work soon on a pedestrian bridge for Sandpoint, Idaho.