Metalico Inc. has agreed to purchase a 22-acre, 108,000-square foot property in DeWitt, N.Y. The facility is in the Syracuse, N.Y. area.
Metalico intends to open a comprehensive scrap processing facility to serve the Syracuse and central New York market. The new facility will be operated by Metalico Syracuse, Inc., a subsidiary, and will provide ferrous and non-ferrous scrap handling services to existing industrial accounts, auto wreckers, dealers and peddlers of scrap metal.
The company also stated that the new location will serve as a buying center for auto hulks and light iron expected to be transported to a shredder near Rochester, N.Y. Metalico previously announced plans to acquire the shredder by the end of the first quarter.
The DeWitt property formerly housed an aluminum smelting plant operated by Wabash Aluminum Alloys LLC. Metalico plans to conduct extensive aluminum processing activities at the site, including crushing, drying and smelting aluminum utilizing a reverb furnace technology to produce deoxidizing aluminum cones and shot which will be marketed to the steel-making industry.
The Syracuse operation will be developed and operated by Jon Marantz, who presently manages the company's aluminum smelting operations in Lackawanna, N.Y.
The company also announced that it will relocate its existing Lackawanna de-ox production to DeWitt and to increase the production capacity gradually to about 6 million pounds per month of finished product.
Metalico expects to start scrap operations in DeWitt during the second quarter and to ramp up aluminum smelting activity through the year, subject to the permitting process and completion of complementary construction on the site.