Excavator found after being stolen from local construction site

By Jenna Wilson

A local construction company saw a rocky start to its work day after an excavator was stolen from the job site at the Shoppes at North Village late Tuesday night.

Scott Gann Construction company has been working on a hotel project expected to be located in the North Shoppes area, but when staff arrived at work Wednesday morning, they found that a Caterpillar 308 excavator had been stolen off the job site.

Officials say it happened around midnight on Wednesday. Obtained footage was able to observe a suspect cutting the lock off the equipment before loading it onto a trailer and truck.

“We do have a lot of equipment and we don’t typically think about somebody being capable of stealing an excavator,” said Jenny Patterson, project manager at Scott Gann Construction. “It’s super heavy and the truck and trailer they put the piece of equipment on was not even weight-rated to hold an excavator, it’s a $20,000 machine.”

Fortunately for the company, the excavator was found by a community member Wednesday. But Gann Construction said this type of theft causes a big setback for small businesses and even has a negative impact on the community as a whole.

“Whenever something like this happens, it hurts a lot of things,” Patterson said. “It affects not only my guys who are in the field because now they’re out that piece of equipment and can’t get their work done, but that’s also impeding economic development and growth because we’re slowing down another project that’s hopefully going to bring more jobs to town.”