NUCOR Steel Plant, Other Plants, Creating Housing Challenges 

Mason County’s $4 billion NUCOR steel plant is now more than halfway to completion. With that facility and others on the way, an employee housing challenge looms large throughout the western West Virginia region. 

The NUCOR steel plant covers 50 acres under roof, with much more company land now teeming with more than 1,500 construction workers. When scheduled completion comes in late 2026, more than 800 full time employees will work at the Ohio River site. Along with NUCOR, planned Mason County power generation facilities like Fidelis and Babcock and Wilcox are expected to bring in hundreds of jobs. Cabell County Commissioner John Mandt Jr. said his data helps foresee an even higher number.

“I think it’s a minimum of 5,000 jobs and upwards,” Mandt said. “Once Berkshire Hathaway and some of those others come in and do their expansion and building, we’re looking at possibly 8000 jobs in that area.”

But where will those workers live? A study completed by the Advantage Valley regional marketing group shows a housing need over the next three years in Mason and nine surrounding counties of more than ten thousand rental units and twenty thousand  for sale homes. In Huntington, officials are already  addressing a housing crisis, and Mandt said greater Cabell County has little property available. 

“They’re wanting to identify the top four or five places to build,” he said. “Whether it’s smaller homes, such as even an island estates type thing that we have here in Cabell County, and even going to nicer and bigger and larger homes for some people. Then you’re going to need apartments, and you’re going to need condos and all of that. So there is a housing shortage and there’s even a rental shortage.”

Mason County Commission President Rick Handley said people there have flat land available for housing, what’s needed are committed subdivision developers. 

“If someone would have said, you know, five years ago, we need to build 100 homes in Mason County. Well, who are you gonna put in them?” Handley said. “We don’t have any housing developments. We’ve got people looking at building, but it’s hard to find people who want to come in and build houses because they can go to a larger city and make a whole lot more money.”

Mason County Commissioner Chris Johnson said before any housing properties go up, infrastructure needs to be in place.

“Water and sewage infrastructure has to happen,” Johnson said. “The Advantage Valley study showed that we were 3,100 homes short. It’s completely impossible to think that we can meet that today. There is a development project going on in Point Pleasant right now, just outside of city limits, Heartland Development. They were probably the ones who are closest to actually start helping us out here when it comes to housing. They will have access to sewage. There’s another project breaking out our Route 35.”

Anna Rittenhouse is the new executive director of the Mason County Development Authority. On the job for just six weeks, Rittenhouse said Mason County is seeing multiple housing projects, like single family homes, multi family homes and condominiums – on the starting blocks.

“We have had multiple local individuals come forward that have property that they are interested in and feel like it’s appropriate for housing,” Rittenhouse said. “We have had several developers already come into the area and purchase parcels of property with the intent to build housing. We have also been  in conversations with developers as well as home builders as our surrounding counties have also been pursuing housing as well. We believe that there are going to be some opportunities to partner with other counties to reach that kind of critical mass where we can bring in some larger scale builders to help us meet the need for housing.” 

Rittenhouse also said Mason County infrastructure planning is on a fast track. 

“We are having those conversations now,” she said. “Over 90% of Mason County has water infrastructure, and I will say one of our pinch points is sewer infrastructure. So as these folks are coming in, we are simultaneously working with our city and our county PSD  to try to get ahead of these issues, and try to also plan and work with these developers in a very intentional way, so that we can make it as easy as possible to get these projects going.”

All involved say regional collaboration is key to developing housing for the influx of employees soon expected.