Metal Recycler Leaving Rhode Island

Metech International, once one of the biggest employers in Burrillville, is leaving Rhode Island after the metals recycling company said it could not find another affordable site in the state and was sold.

Metech, which employs 42 people, will move its operations to Massachusetts and California.

The company was acquired May 17 by MTI Corp., a holding company based in Delaware, according to Jim Gardner, Metech's manager of market development. Previously, Metech was owned by Jersey Holdings, a holding company based in South Africa.

The buyer and seller are both privately held. Metech declined to provide the financial terms of the transaction.

Metech is changing its business model, and the relocations will help make operations more efficient, said Andrew McManus, general manager.

Its precious-metals operations will move to another plant the company owns in Gilroy, Calif. Metech will move the rest of its operations -- its electronic recycling business -- to Worcester. The moves are expected to be completed by July 1, McManus said.

Metech had been looking for a new facility for several years. In 2003, the company said its 10-building Mapleville campus was too large and spread out, since its two plants were separated by the Chepachet River. Materials had to be moved by truck between the two facilities, sometimes a half-dozen times each day, across the Mapleville Main Street bridge.

McManus said the company looked throughout Rhode Island, as well as nearby Connecticut and Massachusetts, for a new facility.

A further complication was that Metech's lease was expiring and the landlord wanted the company off the property, Gardner said.

Metech sought the help of the Rhode Island Economic Development Corp., as well as Town Planner Kravitz and Michael C. Wood, the town manager. The company could not find an affordable site in Rhode Island, McManus said.

"The real estate market is very tight," he said. "There's very little industrial real estate space available."

Andy Cutler, a spokesman for the EDC, said that industrial real estate prices are indeed expensive and that the agency is pushing legislation that would help develop more affordable space.

McManus said that the company's move is nothing against Burrillville.

"I give credit to what the Town of Burrillville tried to do to keep us here," he said. "The town manger and the town planner did their best to keep us here."  Providence Journal