Air Industries expands, lands in Hauppauge

As Seen in Long Island Business News January 18, 2008 By David Winzelberg

Long Island’s largest aircraft parts company is really taking off.

In this year’s biggest lease deal so far, Air Industries Group is doubling its Long Island footprint, expanding into 80,000 square feet in Hauppauge.

Already headquartered in about 76,000 square feet in Bay Shore, the company needs more room, especially since it acquired three firms in the past year.

Air Industries bought Medford-based Blair Industries, a landing gear manufacturer, Sigma Metals of Deer Park and Welding Metallurgy of West Babylon, two firms that work with specialized metals for defense industries and technology.

Air Industries has signed a seven-year sublease at a building on Plant Avenue in Hauppauge, a building owned by Rechler Equity Partners and currently leased by Huttig Building Products, according to Rich Cohen of Ashlind Properties in Hauppauge, who represented Air Industries in the deal. Bill and Dean Greiner of Greiner Maltz in Plainview represented Huttig.

“They afforded themselves a very attractive building at a big discount to the market,” Cohen said, adding that the lease was negotiated at a couple of dollars below the going rate of the area’s industrial property.

About 220 people work at Air Industries, a publicly traded company founded in 1969 with annual revenue of about $20 million. The company boasts Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin as customers. Air Industries’ handiwork includes precision components for Blackhawk helicopters, rocket launching systems for the F-22 Raptor Advanced Stealth Fighter, and gear for the Navy’s E-2C Hawkeye radar plane.

Huttig, a Missouri-based distributor of millwork, building materials and wood products, announced the closing of its Hauppauge distribution facility in February as part of the company’s effort to downsize in light of the recent downturn in the housing market.

“They came in, but they couldn’t compete,” Cohen said about Huttig. Cohen also said this looks like a trend for 2008, where housing-related companies may look to shed space. That will provide opportunities for other companies in faster-growing industries to take their place, Cohen added.

He also said business at the Island’s industrial parks, especially in Hauppauge, should be brisk as demand for space from the technology and defense sectors continue.

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