UPDATE — The Jefferson County Commission on Thursday approved an incentive package valued at $320,000 for ACIPCO’s $793.1 million project to convert its furnaces to electric-fired furnaces

The Jefferson County Commission moved to its Thursday agenda an economic development project that is believed to be the second largest in the county, behind Smucker’s.

American Cast Iron Pipe Company is looking toward a major reinvestment in its North Birmingham facility that would switch over the company’s operations to electric-fired furnaces, reducing emissions by more than 90%.

Jeff Traywick, the county’s economic development specialist, said ACIPCO’s anticipated investment of $793.1 million is second only to the $1.1 billion investment of J.M. Smucker Co. to build a manufacturing facility in McCalla at the Jefferson Metropolitan Industrial Park.

The ACIPCO development supplants Coca-Cola’s estimated $330 million investment in a new, multifaceted Birmingham Coca-Cola facility as the largest development in commission District 1. ACIPCO is seeking a jobs incentive from the commission.

“We expect that the value of that (incentive) would be about $320,000 based on the 80 jobs and the $114,000 (annual) wages that will be associated with that at this time,” Traywick said. “Over the life of the project, we estimate that this will generate about $11.4 million in general fund revenue to the county and about $25 million to the schools.”

John Hagelskamp is senior vice president of sales at ACIPCO, which has been in Birmingham since 1905 and is celebrating its 120th year.

“We’ve been at the same place on the north side of Birmingham,” Hagelskamp said. “We make ductile iron pipe, diameters 4-inch through 64-inch, and we make oil and gas steel pipe 12-inch through 24-inch here in Birmingham. We do all sorts of other things around the country but … we want to stay in Birmingham and reinvest in Birmingham.

“We’ve embarked on four projects that are just under $800 million in value with inflation,” the vice president said. “Who knows where that number will end up, but we’ve made a commitment to start those projects as soon as possible. We will reduce emissions by changing our coke-fired cupola to electric furnaces. We will reduce — eliminate — the use of coke, which is a main source of greenhouse gasses.”

The switch to electric-fired furnaces is expected to reduce emissions by more than 90%.

“Our melting project will emit much less greenhouse gasses than what we have previously. We’re excited for that,” Hagelskamp said. “There’s great reasons to do that, from a business standpoint and a competitive standpoint for us to do that. It’s a win-win for everybody.”

The ACIPCO leader said the development is a long-term project, one that will take four, five or six years to complete.

“One of the other projects on there is a new employee center,” he said. “We’re an employee-owned company. Our first president, on his deathbed, bought up all the shares of the company and left them in a trust for the future employees, the employees and pensioners of the company. As an employee company, we’re going to reinvest in our employees by building them an employee center.”

The employee center will feature new lockers, a new cafeteria and new showers.

“We’re just trying to make sure that we can … attract and retain good employees from the metro area,” Hagelskamp said.

Lashunda Scales is the District 1 commissioner.

“It does my heart well, the mere fact that we’re talking about you all expanding your footprint,” Scales said. “I think that this is going to be a good shot now in that area. There is a lot of development that needs to take place, specifically in the community that surrounds ACIPCO. I do want to also say that I was thrilled to know about the wage/salary that we’re talking about in the mere fact that we’re not just talking about jobs. We’re talking about livable wage jobs.”