Af­ter a decade of in­ac­tiv­i­ty, re­fur­bish­ment of the for­mer Arcelor­Mit­tal Steel Plant is un­der­way, rais­ing hopes among res­i­dents and small busi­ness own­ers that its re­vival will bring more jobs and re­newed eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ty to the area.

These sen­ti­ments were ex­pressed to Guardian Me­dia dur­ing a vis­it to the com­mu­ni­ty of Cal­i­for­nia yes­ter­day, one day af­ter the gates to the plant were of­fi­cial­ly re­opened fol­low­ing the ac­qui­si­tion by US-based Pin­na­cle Steel and Vana­di­um Cor­po­ra­tion, through lo­cal sub­sidiary Ibis Steel Com­pa­ny. High-rank­ing diplo­mat­ic and gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials, in­clud­ing US Deputy Sec­re­tary of State Christo­pher Lan­dau, at­tend­ed the rib­bon-cut­ting cer­e­mo­ny to of­fi­cial­ly be­gin re­fur­bish­ment work at the site. The US$750 mil­lion in­vest­ment is ex­pect­ed to gen­er­ate up to 1,000 per­ma­nent jobs.

For for­mer work­ers of the plant, the de­vel­op­ment is es­pe­cial­ly sig­nif­i­cant, bring­ing back mem­o­ries of a fa­cil­i­ty that once pro­vid­ed jobs for hun­dreds of peo­ple.