WESCO to add jobs at new Hauppauge plant

WESCO Distribution Inc., a Pennsylvania-based Fortune 500 company, will add at least 20 full-time jobs at a new plant in Hauppauge, officials said Tuesday during a news conference at the site where a developer recently broke ground on the 102,500-square-foot building.

The project, which the developer West Rac Contracting Corp. of Hauppauge estimates will cost $11,550,000, was a "close collaborative effort" between Islip Town's planning department, industrial development agency, West Rac and WESCO, a commercial electrical distributor, said town Councilman Anthony Senft.

He said the site -- a former open pit mine -- presented "lots of challenges" that "required some innovative thinking," and different types of grading and piling "to ensure the integrity of this building." The parcel had become destabilized, constantly flooding nearby streets.

West Rac president Gary Krupnick said they worked with town engineering to develop a private sump they will own. The town allowed them "increased density to build out and relaxed some of the setback rules and some of the other rules to make it work," Krupnick said.

He said he plans to build 200,000 total square feet of work space, which he said could create 500 jobs in the next few years.

The developer also reached a 10-year payment-in-lieu-of-taxes deal with the town, and exemption from sales tax and mortgage recording tax, Krupnick said. The developer will pay 25 percent of property taxes in year one, and by year 10 will pay full taxes, Krupnick said.

"It's a substantial inducement, and that's what is the attraction," Krupnick said. "That's what brought [WESCO] here, and that's what kept them here. Otherwise, there are a half-dozen other places they could have gone."

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WESCO, which is publicly traded and recorded $6.1 billion in revenue in 2011, employs 85 people on Long Island. According to their application to the Islip IDA, the average wage at the Hauppauge location will be $98,000. Construction is expected to be completed by early 2013, Krupnick said.