Kedrion cuts size of Melville expansion

A blood-products manufacturer has downsized a planned expansion of its Melville plant, officials said.

Kedrion BioPharma Inc. will construct an 18,000-square-foot addition to 155 Duryea Rd., instead of 48,000 square feet. The existing structure is 105,000 square feet.

The move reduces construction costs from $23 million to $7.5 million, according to Carl Nerlich, a consultant to the company. Equipment purchases would be $15 million rather than $42 million.

Nerlich also said Kedrion would create 30 jobs, not the 80 promised last year in return for government aid. However, the company still plans to retain the 150 workers it inherited when it bought the factory from Grifols, also a producer of blood products.

Nerlich, in a letter to Suffolk County, blamed the smaller expansion on "less funding than initially anticipated from [Kedrion's] Italian parent." Last year, officials had said the work done locally could be done in Italy.

The changes mean the company will receive $1.9 million in tax breaks from the county's industrial development agency, not $4.8 million, IDA executive director Anthony Manetta said Friday.

The project is now valued at $30 million, down from more than $80 million when the incentives were initially offered in August.

Kedrion also is in line to receive 1,716 kilowatts of low-cost electricity from the New York Power Authority and $3.3 million in state tax credits, though both could be adjusted downward because of the smaller expansion.