Plans advance on Sustainea’s $430M ambition in Lafayette
Tax breaks move ahead, as company looks to be ‘cradle’ of bio-alternative for packaging, textile markets. Plus, TSC, LSC anonymously flagged in Rokita’s push to shame schools after Charlie Kirk murder
Support for this edition comes from the Art Museum of Greater Lafayette, presenting Art on the Wabash. The juried art fair will be 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 28, at Tapawingo Park in West Lafayette. Admission is free. For more, check out Art on the Wabash here.
PLANS ADVANCE ON $430M SUSTAINEA PLANT IN LAFAYETTE
Officials with Sustainea, a company planning to put $430 million into a facility that produces a plant-based alternative for the plastic bottle and textile markets, said Thursday that a groundbreaking in southern Lafayette is expected in late 2026.
Gustavo Sergi, Sustainea CEO, told the Lafayette Redevelopment Commission that operations located next to the Primient corn-processing facility – the former Tate & Lyle south plant along Sagamore Parkway South – would start in 2028.
“We have a brand new technology, that currently this material is made out of fossil fuels, and we’ll be making it out of dextrose from corn,” Sergi said Thursday morning. “So, this could be the cradle of this technology for the whole world.”
On Thursday, the redevelopment commission gave initial approval to a pair of 10-year tax abatements that cover $159.1 million in real estate and $207.6 million in equipment on the 16-acre site. The breaks would start at 100% the first year, stepping down by 10% each year.
Sergi said the project, first announced in October 2024, is expected to eventually create 191 jobs, with 95 of those initially. The average salaries were listed at $96,000 a year.
“This is a very important investment for our community on several different levels,” Lafayette Mayor Tony Roswarski said, pointing in particular to a 50-year partnership Sustainea is establishing with Primient.
Sustainea, a joint venture between Brazil-based Braskem and Japan-based Sojitz, is calling the plant a co-located project with Primient to produce a renewable, plant-based alternative to petroleum-based monoethylene glycol (MEG) used in textiles and food packaging.
According to the company, the new Lafayette facility with produce Bio-MEG from Primient’s dextrose, a carbohydrate derived from corn, to make renewable chemical that is a key component in the manufacturing of polyethylene terephthalate (PET). That, in turn, is used as an element of production of apparel, footwear, bottles and packaging.
Sergi said the process would take roughly 42,000 bushels of corn a day, first going through Primient to produce dextrose which would then piped to the neighboring Sustainea plant. Sergi said the main customers will be in North Carolina and South Carolina.
Sergi said Sustainea considered 100 locations before picking Lafayette, with Primient as its “co-location” partner.
“Knowing the partner was as important as knowing the corn and the city, because it’s a 50-year marriage,” Sergi said. “Maybe even more. … We do have room to expand, but our ambition is to grow as big as there is no single place that could have us.”
In 2024, the Indiana Economic Development Corp. announced that it would put $6.9 million in incentive-based tax credits into the project.
The tax abatement proposals will need final approval from the Lafayette City Council.
LSC, TSC FLAGGED BY ANONYMOUS PICTURES POSTED ON ROKITA’S ‘EYES ON EDUCATION’ PORTAL AIMED AT ‘CHARLIE KIRK SUBMISSIONS’
Lafayette and Tippecanoe school corporations found themselves among those called out by Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita’s recent effort to highlight and shame comments by educators and public officials considered by the attorney general’s office to be celebrating or glorifying conservative activist Charlie Kirk’s death.
Separate posts, shared anonymously and showing up on Rokita’s “Eyes on Education” portal Friday, feature photos marked as “failure to comply with U.S. flag half-staff order.” The photos, which appear to be taken through a windshield from the front seat of a vehicle, don’t include the dates they were taken.
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