Kimberly-Clark Warren Advanced Manufacturing Facility

A steel mill closed in Warren, Ohio, and the ground sat. Now Kimberly-Clark is putting $800 million and more than a million square feet of consumer products manufacturing on it, less than a mile from Courthouse Square.

Project Scope

The plant is Kimberly-Clark’s first in Ohio and its 17th in the United States, part of a $2 billion-plus North American program announced in May 2025 that the company calls its largest U.S. expansion in more than 30 years. Product lines will include Huggies, Kleenex, Scott, Kotex and Cottonelle.

The site is the former Republic Steel and RG Steel property off Pine Avenue SE. The Western Reserve Port Authority sold Kimberly-Clark 560 acres of the 1,000-acre former mill site for more than $9.9 million in late 2023: a 261.1-acre brownfield parcel west of Pine Avenue plus roughly 260 acres of greenfield to the east. The land spans Howland Township, Warren Township and a sliver of the City of Warren. The port authority also holds capital lease agreements covering the plant and a possible $160 million regional distribution center that remains under consideration.

Rudolph Libbe Group is general contractor. As of March 2026 roughly 350 tradespeople were on site, an estimated 60 to 70 percent of them from the Youngstown-Warren area, spanning operators, pipefitters, ironworkers, electricians, sheet metal workers, bricklayers, carpenters and cement finishers. A hard winter slowed exterior finishing in early 2026 without moving the schedule.

Why It Matters

The first major piece of manufacturing equipment installs in 2026, production starts in the first half of 2027, and full capacity arrives in the 2029 to 2030 window. That staged ramp is what an $800 million process plant actually looks like, and it’s why the construction and commissioning workforces overlap for years.

Ohio approved a 1.83 percent Job Creation Tax Credit and JobsOhio put up $17.2 million in grants and loans for an access road. Howland Township trustees added a tax abatement. Permanent employment lands around 491 jobs at roughly $49.1 million in annual payroll, with posted ranges running from about $80,000 to $150,000.

Heavy-industrial brownfield converting to consumer products is not a common move in the Mahoning Valley. Kimberly-Clark cites reach to roughly 117 million consumers as the siting driver, and says the acreage leaves room for more.

Project Team & Details