ALUMINUM MANUFACTURING Exal plans expansion to accommodate clients
The company is building an addition and plans to expand again later this year.
By DAVID SKOLNICK
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
YOUNGSTOWN -- One of the city's fastest-growing companies is getting even bigger.
Exal Corp., located in the Performance Park industrial park off Poland Avenue, is spending $23 million to build a 58,000-square-foot addition and add two additional extrusion lines to manufacture aluminum beer cans for Anheuser-Busch. The aluminum manufacturing company will make about 11 million cans a month for the company.
Exal employs about 250 people, and will add 42 workers to its payroll -- with an average salary of $38,000 -- when the expansion is finished in October, said Brenda Oman, Exal's vice president of finance and administration.
With the addition, the company will have a 293,000-square-foot facility, she said. When the company opened in 1993 with a $25 million investment, the building was 100,000 square feet and employed 50, Oman said.
The company has invested more than $100 million into its facilities since it opened, she said.
But the company isn't stopping there.
Exal is working on a $34 million plan to build a separate 145,000-square-foot building that would start with three new lines and eventually add another three lines, Oman said.
Construction would begin next month or early September, and the building would be ready by December, she said. The new building would service many of Exal's current clients such as Anheuser-Busch, L'Oreal and Unilever as well as a new customer -- a major soft drink company that Oman declined to name.
The company would hire 100 to 120 people for the new building, she said.
"Business is almost out of control," Oman said. "We're so busy. Every major marketer we work with has new products and lines. We're growing exceptionally well."
'Success story'
Mayor George M. McKelvey called Exal "a great success story."
The company's annual sales revenue is about $80 million, according to documents it filed with the city.
The city lists Exal as Youngstown's 14th largest employer among private companies. It would move into the top 5 after the two expansions.
The city's board of control Thursday approved an Ohio Enterprise Zone Agreement with Exal, which has received other tax abatements from the city in the past.
The deal calls for Exal to get a 10-year, 75-percent personal and real property tax abatement on the $23 million expansion. The new abatement will save the company $2,303,435 over 10 years, and Exal will provide $768,344 in taxes, according to the plan with the city.
The city will receive about $43,890 annually in income tax from the 42 new employees.
skolnick@vindy.com