AUBURN HILLS – Martinrea International Inc. is building a 108,200 square foot technical center in Auburn Hills to combined its sales and engineering office currently located in Troy. The new company also will let the Canadian company expands its R&D.

The structure is financed, in part, by a $420,000 performance-based grant from the state of Michigan and an eight-year property tax abatement valued at $852,000 from the city of Auburn Hills. The new facility will house 160 employees initially and is expected to create 60 additional jobs.

“This is an exciting time for our company,” said Pat D’Eramo, President and Chief Executive Officer.  “We believe that sustainable competitive advantage for our company and our people comes from operational excellence in serving our customers and in technology that supports solutions for them.  Our new technical center, emphasizing expanded research and development, engineering and testing capabilities, will help both.  We are combining our US based sales, engineering and R&D teams in one state of the art facility.  We have significantly grown our business and employee base in the United States and Michigan over the past decade, we are proud to be here, and we want to thank the city, the county and the state for their support.”

Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson said: “Martinrea’s expansion in Oakland County boosts our Emerging Sectors initiative which promotes job growth in the top 10 sectors of the knowledge-based economy, including advanced manufacturing. We are pleased Martinrea selected a site along the I-75 corridor where we are seeing robust investment from automotive technology companies.”

Martinrea International produces metal parts, assemblies and modules and fluid management systems and complex aluminum products focused primarily on the automotive sector.  Martinrea currently employs over 14,000 skilled and motivated people in 44 operating divisions in Canada, the United States, Mexico, Brazil, Germany, Slovakia, Spain and China.

Additional information about Martinrea can be found at www.sedar.com