The Industrial Access Roads and Bridge Corp., a state group that pays for roads and bridges for new industries, recently approved nearly $5 million in funds to improve access roads in and around five area sites where tier one Hyundai suppliers will be constructing their plants.

The companies receiving the funds are Daehan Solution Ltd. in Lowndes County, which will receive $930,000; Hyundai Hysco Steel of Greenville, $1.7 million; Hwashin America Corp. of Greenville, $1.271 million; Smart LLC of Crenshaw County, $360,239; and Sejung Co. Ltd. of Fort Deposit, $559,870.

Butler County Commission for Economic Development Executive Director Ricky McLaney said the funds will be used for access road development at the Hysco and Hwashin plants in Greenville.

&uot;Hyundai Hysco will have approximately 60 to 90 trucks per day going in and out of their plant,&uot; McLaney said. &uot;Shipped steel will be brought in from up north, and will then go out; 60 percent of those shipments will go to Shin Young in Luverne, 20 percent to Hwashin in Greenville, and 20 percent will go directly to the Hyundai plant in Hope Hull.&uot;

The economic development director said that Hysco had the greatest truck needs of the two plants, which accounts for the additional monies they received.

&uot;County Road 20 will get the most work because right now it’s a little county road that isn’t surfaced very well,&uot; he said. &uot;It will have to be widened and resurfaced.&uot;

McLaney also said the intersection of Highway 185 and County Road 20 will have to be improved – turn lanes will have to be added to both roads to accommodate the additional traffic.

Both plant sites will have access roads into the properties that have to be built.

&uot;There will be two roads into the Hysco property,&uot; he said. &uot;The main entrance and truck access road will enter the property off of County Road 20, and an employee entrance will enter the site from Highway 185.

&uot;Hwashin’s northern boundary road will be the truck access road, and the southern road will be the main entrance and employee access road.&uot;

McLaney pointed out that the intersection of Highway 185 and Highway 31 also will have to be addressed soon.

&uot;It will have to be straightened out because the trucks from Hysco will have to turn and go north,&uot; he said. &uot;Right now the &uot;Y&uot; shape makes that difficult for large trucks. None of them will be going south. It will have to be addressed just like the &uot;Y&uot; intersection at the Industrial Park on Highway 31 for which we’ve already received a grant. Those types of intersections may have been the way to go years ago, but with today’s trucks, they won’t work.&uot;

The recent grants don’t include provisions for additional traffic lights, however, McLaney said.

&uot;That’s determined by the Department of Transportation,&uot; he said. &uot;Once the businesses get here, they will do a traffic count to determine if traffic lights are needed at the intersections. It’s a separate issue from the access road monies.&uot;

McLaney said the only other issue that needs addressing is the addition of a rail switch at the Hysco property, which will be Greenville only rail switch.

&uot;We have another grant in process to pay for the rail spur made up of two $250,000 grants from CDBG and Delta Region,&uot; he said. &uot;We should be getting approval on those within the next two or three weeks.&uot;