Annandale Rock Products has long been in the business of digging deep below the surface of area lands to mine sand and gravel for construction projects. But in their latest endeavor its owners have looked up, not down, erecting a structure that rises seven stories above the ground to produce and deliver concrete for building jobs. Standing 74 feet high and resembling a grain elevator, the Mid-Minnesota Concrete ready-mix batching plant is open for business but still under construction along Highway 55 in Southside Township about three miles northwest of Annandale. Owners Tim and Jon Ferrell and the Ferrell family also own ARP and a number of area gravel pits plus Mid-Minnesota Hot Mix, an asphalt paving company. Starting the concrete plant is an expansion into another phase of the family business, according to Jon Ferrell. "We’ve always looked at ready-mix concrete (as) something we wanted to do," he said. "So it just seemed like kind of a natural." The plant has been operating since mid-June on the site of ARP’s Knickerbocker gravel pit, manager Josh Wylie said. At the top of the structure protruding above the roof line is a silo that contains Portland cement, which mixes with sand and gravel brought up on a conveyor to make concrete. It sits up there so the material can feed into the trucks by gravity, Wylie said, as well as to provide storage space. The plant is a year-round operation, Ferrell said, so the structure has to be enclosed and heated to keep the concrete at the right temperature. Liman Post & Beam of Annandale is closing in about 4,500 square feet of space including about 1,500 square feet for an office at the base on the south side plus a storage area for trucks and equipment on the north side. The office area will also house a customer entrance and a lab to do all the testing required to insure the concrete meets specifications, Ferrell said. Mid-Minnesota bought most of the equipment for the plant from Merts Inc. of Leesburg, Ga., and set it up, but it built the conveyor system and some other parts itself. "Everything we have is computer controlled," said Wylie, who’s operating the system from a temporary shack until the office is ready in about a month. "It has the capacity of producing 120 (cubic) yards an hour." The plant uses a dry batch system, which dumps the ingredients in the truck where they’re mixed with water to form concrete. "It’s just like you making a malt at home," Wylie said. You put the makings in "and flip ‘er on blend." The materials come from the nearby gravel pit or another ARP pit a short distance away at 80th Street NW. Some concrete requires granite, which the plant buys from a pit in St. Cloud. The operation includes eight trucks, which carry up to 11 cubic yards of concrete. Each yard weighs about 4,000 pounds. Its customers range from companies that do curbs and sidewalks for area cities "down to the weekend warriors that are putting a patio in for their brother-in-law," Ferrell said. The plant can handle a major road or bridge project, he said, but getting a contract would likely depend on how close the job is. Mid-Minnesota is trying to keep within a 25-mile delivery radius of the plant, Wylie said. "That’s the best for the concrete and most efficient for trucking." Though there are several other concrete plants within the 25-mile radius, Mid-Minnesota is mainly competing with the Knife River Corp. operation in Annandale. "We’re proud that we’re locally owned and operated and want people to know that," Ferrell said. It was "coincidental more than anything" that they started the new business during economic hard times, he said. One factor was the availability of Wylie, who came over from Knife River. "Josh’s the dispatcher, the order taker, the mixer … He kind of does anything." Another thing was that the price of petroleum, which is used to make asphalt, was skyrocketing, and they thought concrete was another product to give paving customers an option. The slowdown in the economy did give them the time to establish a new business, Ferrell said. Construction has been slow, he said, but "we’re pretty confident that it’s going to come back." Ferrell family companies don’t employ as many people as two years ago, he said, but the new plant has created the equivalent of five or six new jobs. "We’re a little smaller now but hopefully more diverse and this is one of the things that’s making us more diverse."
