Officials continuing efforts to stop Auburn plant shutdown

AUBURN  —  Daikin McQuay isn’t backing away today from plans to close a manufacturing plant it operates in Auburn, even as the city’s mayor undertakes a second day of efforts to try to keep the facility from shuttering.

“This decision is final,” says Don Winter, Daikin McQuay vice president of marketing. “It’s very important for us in each of our locations to work with local officials on an ongoing basis, but our decision is final.”

Daikin McQuay, a heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning equipment manufacturer with its Americas headquarters in Minneapolis, announced plans yesterday morning, Feb. 20, to close its Auburn facility. It wants to relocate production from the plant to Fayetteville, Tenn. The move will affect more than 300 employees who work at the Auburn plant at 4900 Technology Park Boulevard.

The plant is closing for “operational reasons,” according to Winter. The plant in Tennessee where production is headed has about 1,700 employees and excess capacity, he says. It is too early to discuss severance packages for Auburn workers or the possibility of employee transfers to Tennessee, he adds.

Some production lines are slated to begin moving in April. Daikin McQuay has scheduled the Auburn plant to close by the end of 2014.

Auburn’s mayor, Michael Quill, is vowing to try to stave off the change.

“What we’re going to be working on today is finding out the name or names of people we can contact,” Quill says. “The biggest issue we have right now is this totally caught everyone off guard. We had no idea this was going on. Officials from the facility, from McQuay, were not available at any time yesterday.”

Quill convened a group of representatives from Auburn, Cayuga County, New York State, and the Central New York region to address the manufacturer’s pending departure. The group’s first priority will be to try to find a way to make the company stay, Quill says. If that fails, it will attempt to set up a way to help the manufacturer’s laid-off employees in the area.

Daikin McQuay makes equipment for commercial, industrial, and institutional markets. The company is part of Daikin Industries, Ltd., which is based in Japan.

It closed on the Houston–based heating and air-conditioning manufacturer Goodman Global Group, Inc. for $3.7 billion on Nov. 1. That transaction gave Daikin the Tennessee plant where Auburn production is headed.

Daikin reported net income of 10.5 billion yen in the third quarter of its 2012 fiscal year, which ended in December. That was up from net income of 3.2 billion yen in the same quarter the year before. Net sales totaled 286.3 billion yen, up from 283.6 billion yen a year earlier.

Contact Seltzer at rseltzer@cnybj.com