The North Carolina Railroad Co. (NCRR) will provide up to $600,000 to build rail infrastructure serving a planned STERIS plc manufacturing facility in Lee County, North Carolina.

The grant, awarded through NCRR's NCRR Invests program, will fund the design and construction of on-site rail at a $600 million Chemistries Manufacturing Center of Excellence that STERIS intends to build. North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein announced the project in a press release on August 6.

STERIS, a global healthcare company, plans a 600,000-square-foot campus combining advanced manufacturing, research and development, laboratory, warehouse and distribution operations. The site will sit within the Helix Innovation Park at the Brickyard in Sanford — the location given in the announcement appears as "Stanford" in the release.

The rail commitment carries a defined traffic outcome. NCRR officials said STERIS will use the new infrastructure to receive and distribute a minimum of 160 rail cars annually by 2031 once the campus is operational. That volume target is a projection tied to the plant's construction timeline rather than a measured result; neither NCRR nor STERIS has disclosed the construction schedule for the track itself or the serving carrier that will handle the traffic.

The STERIS award continues a funding pattern NCRR has run for a decade. Since launching NCRR Invests in 2016, the short line railroad — which owns the 317-mile corridor between Charlotte and Morehead City and leases it to Norfolk Southern — has funded more than $18 million in rail-related improvements. The program draws on private revenue to pay for rail projects that attract new employers or expand existing industries, which NCRR officials describe as a way to keep North Carolina competitive for industrial investment.

For STERIS, the on-site track gives the campus a direct freight connection for inbound raw materials and outbound distribution, reducing reliance on truck movements at a facility whose logistics footprint includes warehouse and distribution functions.

The award is the latest in a series of NCRR Invests grants directed at industrial development along the railroad's corridor, and it links public-adjacent rail spending to a private capital project ten times the size of the total the program has disbursed since its inception.

Construction timelines for both the campus and the rail infrastructure remain subject to STERIS's project schedule, with the 2031 traffic commitment serving as the first dated milestone against which the investment can be measured.