The Washington state Community Economic Revitalization Board has approved a loan and a grant totaling $538,000 to construct infrastructure to expand one steel supplier and to bring another supplier to the Inland Northwest market.

Together, the companies will invest $5 million in construction and improvements and bring new jobs to Spokane County, CERB says.

The city of Airway Heights will match CERB’s investment with $187,000 in local funds to complete the infrastructure projects, says Derrick Braaten, development services director for Airway Heights.

The steel companies, Seaport Steel and Brown-Strauss Steel Co., have committed to creating a total of 20 new permanent jobs and to retain four permanent jobs, Braaten says.

Seaport Steel is a family-owned, Seattle-based company with a satellite operation at 2634 S. Hayden, in Airway Heights. Braaten says Seaport Steel plans to construct a 60,000-square-foot building where it will expand on the east side of Hayden Road.

Improvements there also will include a half-mile extension of a railroad spur, he says.

Brown-Strauss, a century old, Denver-based company, which claims on its website to be one of the largest distributors of wide-flange beam and structural steel tubing in the U.S., plans to occupy an existing facility being vacated by Spokane-based Scafco Corp., Braaten says. Scafco is expanding into new facilities in East Spokane.

The city of Airway Heights received the largest share of a total of $1.4 million in CERB grants and loans in five counties. In all, those loans and grants are expected to generate more than $19 million in local matching funds and private-sector commitments to create more than 100 jobs.

CERB, a strategic economic development resource administered by the Washington state Department of Commerce, focuses on creating private sector jobs in partnership with local governments by financing infrastructure improvements to encourage new business development and expansion. In addition to funding construction projects, CERB provides limited funding for studies that evaluate high-priority economic development projects.

Since 1982, CERB says, it has approved nearly $168 million for local jurisdictions across the state, generating more than 34,000 jobs.