Heidelberg Materials
Heidelberg Materials is a multinational supplier of building materials headquartered in Heidelberg, Germany. It was founded in 1894 by Johann Philipp Schifferdecker. The company expanded into France in the 1970s, and to North America with the purchase of Lehigh Cement in 1990. The company maintains an office for its Alabama division at 400 Riverhills Business Park. In addition to a large Leeds Cement Plant, the company operates numerous ready-mix batching plants in the Birmingham area, and specialty products stores in Birmingham and Rainbow City.
HeidelbergCement AG acquired Sherman Industries in 2005 and Hanson PLC of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England in 2007. The business operated as Lehigh Hanson until rebranding under its present name in 2023.
In 2019 Heidelberg sold its Sherman Industries concrete plant at 1100 2nd Avenue South in what had become Birmingham's Parkside District to real estate developer Residential Ventures of Denver, Colorado. Soon later, the company announced plans to build a new plant on the site of its former concrete pipe plant at 3240 Fayette Avenue, just east of the Birmingham Crossplex in Birmingham's Central Park neighborhood. The proposal, which was perceived as exacerbating the history of "environmental racism" in the Birmingham District, was opposed by neighborhood groups, and by the Birmingham City Council. In August 2020 the company acquired an 8-acre parcel adjoining ABC Coke in Tarrant as the site of its new plant.
In 2024 Heidelberg Materials proposed two projects relating to its Leeds manufacturing plant for possible 90% funding by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's "Climate Pollution Reduction Implementation Grants" program. The first proposal would help the company explore the feasibility of using alternative fuels in its kiln operations. The second would support research on a modular project involving the capture of carbon dioxide for sequestration in coal seams.
Birmingham area locations
- Leeds Cement Plant and Terminal at 8401 2nd Avenue Leeds
- Leeds Concrete 8732 Parkway Drive, Leeds
- Bessemer Concrete, 1100 Vulcan Drive, Bessemer
- Gadsden Concrete, 246 Steele Station Road, Rainbow City
- Harpersville Concrete, 37538 Alabama State Highway 25, Harpersville
- Helena Concrete, 5699 Shelby County Highway 261, Helena
- Montevallo Concrete, 6824 Alabama State Highway 25, Montevallo
- Sylacauga Concrete, 1312 Fayetteville Road, Sylacauga
- Tarrant Concrete, 1020 Pinson Valley Parkway, Tarrant
- Trussville Concrete, 5067 Cardinal Street, Trussville
- Heidelberg Materials Specialty Products, 3100 6th Avenue South, Birmingham
- Heidelberg Materials Specialty Products, 246 Steele Station Road
References
- Beahm, Anna (April 30, 2019) "Proposed Birmingham concrete plant stirs environmental justice, racism concerns." The Birmingham News
- Beahm, Anna (May 21, 2019) "Sherman Industries still wants to move but it won’t be to Five Points West, Woodfin says." The Birmingham News
- Van der Bijl, Hanno (May 31, 2019) "Sherman Industries suspends permit request for Five Points West site." Birmingham Business Journal
- "Heidelberg Materials picks up where Lehigh Hanson left off." (January 3, 2023) Concrete Products
- "Project 3: Industrial Decarbonization " (March 1, 2024) in Priority Action Climate Plan'. Alabama Department of Environmental Management, pp. 18–22
External links
- Heidelberg Materials website