New Haven Independent

Bruno and his brother Marc started their company in 1990. Suraci Metal powder-coats products ranging from NFL goal posts to lift levers in cars. The 38 factory workers earn an average of $14 an hour; the company splits the cost of health-care insurance with them.

“Come here,” said town officials from the Naugatuck Valley when the Suracis outgrew their State Street plant. “We’ll give you a building for nothing. You won’t pay taxes for five years.”

It was tempting. The Suracis almost said yes. But they kept negotiating with officials from New Haven. The officials had an empty former cold-storage warehouse available on River Street in the Fair Haven neighborhood, part of a largely forgotten industrial stretch by the Quinnipiac River that the city hopes to revive as a district for solid factory jobs. They struck a deal. The Suracis and the city plan to close on the deal next Tuesday. Sale price: $1.4 million.

The Suracis are making up to $1 million in structural repairs to the 82,000 square-foot building (new plumbing, sprinklers, electrical systems). The city will forgive 80 percent of the $54,000 tax bill for five years.

After that point, the Suracis will pay three times the tax bill promised by Valley towns, according to Bruno. Bruno said Friday the brothers were determined to stay in New Haven. The Suracis plan to expand the manual labor force to 50 once they move in. They project growing their workforce to between 100 and 200 in five years.

“Our roots are in New Haven,” said Bruno. He offered a tour of the new space in between overseeing a crew working on the first wave of structural repairs. Bruno is the company’s CEO. Marc is the chief operating officer. Bruno handles the day-to-day shop floor supervision; his brother, who’s more outgoing, solicits the business and schmoozes the politicians, Bruno said.

“If anything is possible, we wanted to stay in New Haven. The city has come a long way. Fifteen years ago it wasn’t as friendly as it is today.”

The Suracis grew up in North Haven, but they consider New Haven home, Bruno said. They always had friends in the city. They hung out here. They had their first apartments, then houses, in New Haven. Bruno’s 37. He and his wife and baby live in Durham now. Marc, who’s 35, lives in New Haven’s East Rock neighborhood.

They negotiated the deal on the River Street project with Helen Rosenberg of the city’s economic development office.

A New World

In their new digs, the Suracis will operate in a much different market from the one they entered 15 years ago. They’re investing $1.2 million in automated equipment to compete with the lower prices offered by Chinese factories. They’re also using the Internet to bid on jobs worldwide.

“It used to be,” Bruno said, “a guy in Wallingford, a guy in New Haven, maybe a guy in New York” competing against the Suracis for contracts. Now it’s people in China, the Philipines, and Mexico.

Some of the steel products they coat are shipped from abroad. For instance, Honda and Toyota send steering column assemblies and tilt levers to Suraci to coat, then to transport to American factories where the cars are finished. Another 15 percent of the materials the Suracis finish get shipped to Europe and Asia.

In Connecticut they’ve done some larger structural steel jobs, at Milford train station and Hartford’s Adriaen’s Landing. The Suracis would like to capture more of those larger-piece jobs. About 75 percent of the NFL goal posts you see on TV were coated on State Street.

“I keep trying to get them to put our name” on the posts, Bruno said. “But they won’t.”