A start-up Dubai-based firm has chosen a South Buffalo brownfield site as the location of a new $102 million steel factory that will employ 172 workers. The project by Alita USA Holdings is receiving a host of public incentives totaling $10 million along with property and sale tax breaks and low-cost power. The sale of unutilized hydropower from the Niagara Hydroelectric Power Plant is expected to provide $2 million in funding. The WNY Power Proceeds Allocation Board recommended the project’s approval this afternoon.

From The Buffalo News:

Plans call for Alita to build a 340,000-square-foot pipe mill on a brownfield site – vacant lot on Rittling Boulevard. The site also will include a separate 16,000-square-foot building that will be used as a laboratory, office space and for storage.

Alita began looking at Buffalo as a potential site for the plant about a year ago, when it contacted the Buffalo Niagara Enterprise business development and marketing group for assistance. The BNE worked with Alita officials to select a potential site for the plant, as well as helping the company determine the type of financial incentives it might receive.

Buffalo was competing with Houston for the new plant. It is expected to open in 2015 and jobs are expected to average $72,500 a year in salary.

Rittling Boulevard is located on the north side of Tifft Street west of Hopkins Street. The project will be adjacent to where Hydro-Air Components constructed a 152,000 sq.ft. facility that opened in 2007. That company was purchased by the Zehnder Group and renamed Zehnder Rittling.