Hefty projects garner attention

With major projects including a casino and a convention center, Schuff Steel has maintained its reputation as a leading steel fabricator.

Last year, the company provided tons of steel needed to build the Tulsa Convention Center BOK Arena and the Cosmopolitan Resort and Casino in Las Vegas, Plant Manager Steve Bones said.

The plant also provided steel for a number of smaller projects including a power plant in Texas, Bones said.

Schuff Steel’s national work has brought positive attention to the Ottawa area, Tom Weigand, president and CEO of the Ottawa Area Chamber of Commerce said.

Ottawa’s Schuff Steel made about $85 million of the total $750 million brought in by Schuff International, Bones said.

“It’s just a good market right now,” Bones said. “It’s a good time. It’s an up-spring.”

The company, which had rapid growth in 2006, hopes to maintain its accomplishments from last year. Bones said the company will take a chance to catch its breath, but would still like to grow.

“We want to increase sales and make more money,” Bones said. “Doesn’t everyone?”

While the Cosmopolitan Resort and Casino was the biggest project for Schuff Steel last year, Bones said the most difficult was the Tulsa Convention Center BOK Arena.

“It wasn’t just your normal square building,” Bones said.

The year 2007 also brought the grand opening of the Sprint Center in Kansas City, for which Schuff Steel provided most of the structured steel, Bones said.

The company sends its fabricated steel to construction sites all over the country. The plant recieves design drawings for the structures, brings in raw steel, cuts it to length and then sends it to the site.

“We’re making little components of the big piece,” Bones said.

With some of the beams spanning 40 feet at 500 pounds per foot, some of those little components aren’t so little, Bones said.

Schuff Steel has been a good provider of jobs, pay and benefits as well as being a good partner to the Chamber of Commerce, Weigand said.

“It was just a real positive when they came in and took over that plant,” Weigand said.