NEW CASTLE —
A New York recycling organization Thursday bought Ferrotech Corp., paying $2.2 million at a bankruptcy auction.
Adam Weitsman, owner of Upstate Shredding/Weitsman Recycling of Owego, N.Y., said the firm anticipates spending $5 million to $6 million to demolish dilapidated buildings at the site and construct a new 3,000-square-foot office building and 20,000- to 30,000-square-foot nonferrous warehouse.
“I expect to close the first week in February,” Weitsman said. “We’ll begin demolition right after that and construction as soon as possible.”
He said the new facility will be state of the art with new buildings, new machinery, paved surfaces to cut back on dust and dirt and will meet all Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection requirements. He added he expects to hire 30 people and anticipates all will be local residents.
“Our goal is to make this site look nice,” he said. “It’s right on the main entrance of town.
“We’re an out-of-town business, but we have asked for nothing in the way of subsidies from local government. We’re a profitable company and believe in paying our fair share.”
Weitsman said Ferrotech is the second Pennsylvania recycling operation his company has acquired this year. The other is in Scranton.
With this acquisition, Upstate Shredding/Weitsman Recycling has 13 sites in Pennsylvania and New York and more than 400 employees.
Weitsman said he has looked at the local operation for the past several months and anticipated spending $2 million to $2.5 million for it.
The purchase was not a bargain, he said, “but we see a huge potential here. We expect to make this a thriving business, expanding business 10 to 15 fold.”
In addition to dressing up the site with new buildings, scrap will no longer be piled at the facility.
“We plan to ship it out the day it comes in,” Weitsman said. “We’re putting in a new port in Albany. We’ll be shipping scrap from this yard to points throughout the United States and to foreign markets.”
“It was right within the range,” he said adding the other bidder was Ferrotech neighbor Ellwood Quality Steels.
(Email: nlowry@ncnewsonline.com)
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