Producer profile
In the fall of 2019, Palmetto celebrated the first year of operation for its new plant in Lugoff, South Carolina, with a team cookout.
Palmetto Puts up Plant #4 W
When Palmetto Corp., Conway, South Carolina, was awarded a large project on Hard Scrabble Road in 2016, the company began investigating the need for another asphalt producer in the central South Carolina market. Hard Scrabble Road is a main thoroughfare 15 miles northeast of Columbia, with an average annual daily traffic count of 45,000. Surrounded by a mix of schools, commercial properties and residential properties, the road is a major commuter route in addition to supporting a high volume of business-related heavy trucking. “Congestion, coupled with growth and expansion, created a need for improved access and traffic flow,” said Palmetto COO Eric Faulk. Palmetto began working on the project July of 2018 and is expected to complete the project June of 2022.
32 // October 2020
During that time, the 8-mile span of roadway will be expanded from two lanes to four. The scope of work includes two new bridges, newly installed overhead and underground utilities, newly installed concrete curb and gutter and sidewalk, subgrade prep, and 130,000 tons of paver-placed 10-inch cement stabilized base course (CSABC) topped with 182,000 tons of hot mix asphalt (HMA). “Our asphalt plants are the core of what drives our business,” said Palmetto CEO Shawn Godwin. “Even though we provide trucking, milling, concrete, reclamation, surveying, dirt moving, pipe laying and crushing, our core business is asphalt. That is driven by having the ability to control all variables from quality to production and the asphalt plant allows us to do that.” Palmetto already had three plants located in the central and eastern parts of the state,
in Conway, Florence and Bishopville, but a fourth plant located closer to the state’s capital of Columbia would expand its reach. According to U.S. Census data, Columbia’s population has grown by 15 percent since 2000. As the state’s capital and its most populous city, Columbia is also a junction of numerous major highways. “Columbia is a growing market, especially the suburbs,” said Palmetto’s Plant Division Manager Charles “Ray” Mothershead. Palmetto’s new plant in Lugoff, 30 miles from central Columbia and 12 miles from its Hard Scrabble Road project, is well-situated for future growth. “It would be difficult to be competitive in the Columbia market without the new plant in Lugoff,” Mothershead said. Trucking mix from its second-nearest plant, in Bishopville, would add 25 miles to the journey. “Now, we
