Sen. Welch: Funding for Plainville Industrial Site Will Help Taxpayers [Bristol Press]

Article as it appeared in the Bristol Press on March 27, 2012

By Diane Church
Staff Writer

PLAINVILLE — Part of the GE campus has been sold to a Farmington-based aerospace parts manufacturer.

EDAC Technologies Corp. has agreed to purchase a 181,000-square-foot manufacturing building at 10 New Britain Ave. that was formerly part of GE Industrial Solutions, a business unit of General Electric Company.

EDAC plans to consolidate operations now housed in four separate facilities in Farmington in the building. Those operations include several aerospace product lines as well as its APEX Machine Tool and EDAC Machinery product lines.

The 15-acre site is about four miles from most of EDAC’s current facilities.

“The Plainville facility will give us a larger, more flexible and more cost-efficient platform for growth,” said Dominick A. Pagano, EDAC’s president and chief executive officer, in a press release. “It will relieve current capacity constraints and allow us to add state-of-the-art manufacturing equipment to support both our record backlog and future opportunities with our leading aerospace and industrial customers.”

EDAC’s rotating engine components product line will stay in Newington and will not be affected by the relocation.

The building was purchased for $2.65 million and the sale is expected to be complete in April. The company expects to recoup most of the purchase price from the eventual sale of the current Farmington properties.

Relocation is expected to take place over the next 18 months. EDAC also plans to increase capital expenditures by approximately $3.8 million to fund improvements to the property.

EDAC is a diversified designer, manufacturer and servicer of precision components for aerospace and industrial applications.

Last week, Gov. Dannel Malloy announced that a $2 million loan for environmental cleanup of the site has been placed on the State Bond Commission agenda. The commission is expected to meet Friday and approve the loan. The goal of the loan is to create industrial development.

“Cleaning up this site and restoring it to productive use as soon as possible represents a real win-win situation for Plainville taxpayers,” said state Sen. Jason Welch, who represents Plainville, Bristol, Plymouth and Harwinton. “Getting industrial sites back on the tax rolls is a smart investment by our state which moves us in the right direction. This loan also stands to produce long-term dividends for the area business community.”