The Sioux City city council has approved the expansion of Sabre Industries into a new business park. Economic Development director Marty Dougherty says Sabre is anxious to get started on the new facility. “Sabre is doing a major expansion they are actually going to build a whole campus,” Dougherty says. He says the campus will have seven buildings and be the first business in the new Southbridge Industrial Park. The company makes cellphone and other types of towers. “They have about 200 jobs currently in Sioux City that will move over to the site when it is completed, and they will be adding an additional 200 jobs in phase one,” Doughterty says. He says they are skilled, well-paying jobs.

Sabre’s Darwin Gamm says the company hopes to have the first production plant ready by mid-November. “This facility will be utility pole structures that will complement our Sabre facility in Alvarado, Texas,” according to Gamm. Gamm says the company is experiencing a growth period with orders increasing. “And especially in the utility segment, the energy grid is so far behind, that there is a lot of business to update transmission lines. Especially when the renewable energy continues to be an issue, then you have to move that electricity to the open markets,” Gamm says. A second phase of the project could bring in another 100 jobs.

(Dar Danielson/Radio Iowa)