"Construction is likely to take 2 years and may be 24/7 at times, particularly in the summer months."
That line comes from a City of Evansville staff report written for the October 6, 2026 Plan Commission meeting. It's a more useful guide to the next few years than the photos from October 7. That day, the governor, a USDA deputy secretary, a congressman and Evansville's mayor stood with CHS leadership at the soybean plant site.
According to the city's planning documents, for most people in town, the plant will show up mainly in two places: the construction years, and a short stretch of County Road M on the east edge of the city. The daily train, the trucks and the power demand are all routed or metered so that downtown and the older neighborhoods mostly stay out of it.
The permit comes before the earthmovers
CHS's own announcement of the October 7 event called it a "ceremonial groundbreaking." It also said construction is expected to begin once the required permitting is finished.
The October 6 staff report names the permit. CHS was waiting on a Wisconsin DNR permit for disturbing soil, and that permit was still under review. The same report said site work, meaning grading and tree removal, "should begin this fall." Local and state building permits are also required. The city's contracted inspection firm, General Engineering Company, will handle plan review and site inspections.
If the permit comes through on that schedule, the first visible work will be grading and tree removal on the east side this fall, with building construction following.
Where the work actually happens
The project address is 400 County Road M, on a site of about 316 acres on Evansville's east side. The city's traffic study describes access from County Highway M south of US Highway 14, with drives entering north of Gunter Drive. City staff call it a greenfield site, so the plant is being built new instead of retrofitted into an existing facility.
The location matters for everything below. US 14 and County M already carry through traffic. The site plan puts the plant's front door at that intersection, which keeps it away from Main Street and Union Street.
Two years of building, sometimes around the clock
The construction phase is where the city's own documents say daily life could feel the most change. Staff wrote that the build will likely take two years and "may be 24/7 at times," especially in summer. WKOW's coverage of the groundbreaking also put the plant about two years from operating.
Lighting is still an open question. According to the staff report, CHS and its general contractor, McGough, are preparing more information for the city about construction-site lighting and other impacts. The city says it will share that information when it's available. The city's CHS project page is where those updates are most likely to appear.
The build also brings people. CHS says development will create hundreds of construction and skilled-trade positions. For two years, that's a steady crew of workers coming and going from the east side. When the plant opens, the workforce drops to about 80 full-time jobs.
Once it's running, in the city's numbers
The city's FAQ on its CHS project page covers traffic, rail and electricity.
| What changes | City or CHS projection | Compared with |
|---|---|---|
| Truck traffic | Hourly daytime average of 45 trips in and 45 out, mostly Monday through Friday | Study assumed one-third from US 14 west, one-third from US 14 east, one-third from County M south |
| County M and US 14 intersection | Most lanes at Level of Service B, about 10 to 20 seconds of delay per vehicle | "Largely unchanged" from current conditions; the three left-turn lanes stay at C, as they are today |
| Rail | One daily unit train of 75 to 120 cars | No trains running through city limits to reach the site |
| Electricity | About 12 MW of added load | Roughly what the entire city uses today |
| Permanent jobs | About 80 full-time | Hundreds of construction and trades positions during the build |
All of these are projections for when the plant is operating, not current conditions. The traffic study behind them dates to November 2023. Two points from the city stand out. First, the busiest intersection is projected to work about as it does now. Second, the city says there's no current plan for a roundabout at County Highway M and US Highway 14. Any such project would be led by the Wisconsin Department of Transportation.
The electricity comparison is the largest number in the table: one customer roughly equal to the whole town. Evansville Water & Light says the plant will have its own breaker system, so any outage there stays at the plant. The city also states that residential rates won't go up because of the new load. CHS will be in a separate industrial rate class, and the Public Service Commission reviews utility rates.
The train stays out of town
The rail plan is the clearest example of the plant's impacts landing on the east edge. According to the city's FAQ, one daily unit train will run from Janesville to the plant. It will use a loop track on the CHS site to load and unload, then go back out the same track. "Trains will not be running through the City to access the site," the city says.
The tracks inside city limits aren't part of Union Pacific's regular service, and there are no current plans to improve that line. The place a driver might actually wait is south of the site. The city notes possible traffic impacts at the rail crossings on Weary Road and County Highway M. If your regular route uses either crossing, expect occasional delays once trains start running.
A smaller first phase than the plan approved in 2023
The plant going up now differs a bit from the one approved three years ago. A CHS project description dated October 1, 2026 replaces the full refined, bleached and deodorized refinery with a crude soybean oil degumming process. It also swaps the finished-oil tank farm for crude and degummed oil storage. Grading, drainage, rail infrastructure and stormwater work stay substantially the same as the original site plan. City staff say the full refinery is out of phase one but listed among improvements that could come within five years after opening.
GazetteXtra reported that the Evansville plant won't fully refine food-grade oil. Its oil will go mainly to biofuel markets, with some shipped to CHS's Mankato facility for more refining. Scale stays the same at roughly 80 million bushels of soybeans a year. That works out to about 1 billion pounds of soybean oil and 2 million tons of soybean meal.
The paperwork changed too. GazetteXtra reported that the 2026 amendment to the development agreement adds payments to the city for holding the land. The agreement automatically ends if construction hasn't started by July 1, 2034. At the October 6 meeting, staff recommended approving the amended site plan with three conditions:
- Conditions still unmet from the September 5, 2023 approval stay in force.
- Staff reviews the exterior elevation drawings to confirm they match the renderings submitted October 6, 2026.
- Any major change to the site plan comes back for review under the municipal code.
CHS also announced $50,000 in Evansville community investments, including support for the CARE Closet Program and the Evansville High School agriculture program.
The first new building to open is on North Union Street
The plant is roughly two years from operating, and a smaller project is much closer to done. The Bank of New Glarus is finishing a branch of about 3,548 square feet at 50 North Union St., between Culver's and Casey's. New Glarus 360 reported in August that city-approved plans include two drive-through lanes. It's the bank's first location in Rock County, and the bank expects to open this fall, though no exact date has been announced.
Downtown is getting some light of its own. On April 7, 2026, the Plan Commission unanimously reversed a Historic Preservation denial and allowed neon on the recreated Grange Store blade sign on West Main Street. The sign carries "established 1904," and its illumination is limited to the hours defined for B-1 businesses. The sign was neon in the 1950s, so this brings back a piece of Main Street's past.
If you'd like to talk through how the plant fits into your own plans, whether that's a home near County Road M, your commute, or what the east side may look like a few years from now, Ashley Nelson follows these changes closely and is glad to help. Let's Connect.
