05-04-2025
Timeline of IRG's plans for $300M Erie facility, how close did it get to happening?
It was supposed to be one of the world's largest recycling facilities right here in Erie but now it's still an empty lot.
Friday we went back to the beginning to try to find out just how close IRG's project was to becoming a reality before the company's abrupt exit.
After going through many documents it seems there are still many unanswered questions from IRG.
International Recycling Group is no longer bringing a plastics recycling plant to the region.
IRG cancels plans for $300 million Erie recycling facility
This announcement coming Thursday afternoon with IRG citing a pause on federal funds and uncertainty surrounding tariffs.
This project has now been in the works for over five years.
According to a recycling publication Plastics Recycling Update, IRG announced that the $100 million plant was coming here in 2020 and scheduled to start up in 2022.
A year and a half later, the project increased its price by $50 million. At that time founder and chairman Mitch Hecht said that if they could close on financing by the end of 2021, the company could break ground during the first quarter of 2022 with commissioning expected in mid-2023.
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By this time, IRG had a mix of funds from key contributors Erie Insurance and the Plastek Group who are now both very disappointed with the current situation.
Matthew Cummings from Erie Insurance said they've always recognized that their investing carried an inherently high level of risk, but it was also an investment in a promising local economic development.
In March of 2022 when they were supposed to break ground, the cost went up yet again to $185 million. That's also when they closed on this East Lake Road property.
Among other investments, IRG received a $300,000 loan from the Erie County Redevelopment Authority, a $5 million RACP grant, $182 million from a federal EPA loan and a $509,000 rail freight assistance program grant.
The last we heard from IRG was in July of last year when the updated plan was to break ground in early 2025.
This brings us to Thursday when IRG canceled their now $300 million project.
'I never saw one stitch of paperwork from that company and I mean that did give me a lot of pause,' said Brenton Davis, Erie County executive. 'You can't count on things until they actually happen. We've been sold a lot of false promises we can't dwell on that.'
What we still don't know is what the company plans to do with the property or the money received by investors.
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We reached out to the company's spokesperson and they referred us to Thursday's statement. We'll keep trying.
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