By JAMES FINK
jfink@bizjournals.com | 716-541-1611

Plans by Moog Inc. to build a centralized corporate headquarters on its Elma campus could open the door for the company to take on more work and hire additional employees locally.

Moog is working on plans to construct a 65,000-square-foot corporate headquarters on the Jamison Road campus. The nearly $13 million project is being planned just west of the company's Space and Defense Division building.

Pending various approvals, construction could start by early summer, said Tim Balkin, treasurer. The building should be ready to welcome occupants by fall 2012, he added.

Besides working with the Town of Elma, the company is seeking an incentive package from the Erie County Industrial Development Agency to help finance the project. The ECIDA will hold a May 2 hearing on the incentive package and directors are expected to vote on the deal when they meet later in May.

"The IDA is always interested in keeping local companies competitive," said Grant Lesswing, the agency's business development officer. "This project clearly fits those needs and criteria."

Balkin said the plan is to move six departments that are scattered among the 13 buildings on Moog's campus into the new facility. The departments include senior executive offices, corporate accounting, treasury, information technology, contracts/legal and purchasing.

Moog currently has 986,356 square feet of space on the campus. The new project will see the company, for the first time, have more than 1 million square feet of space in Elma. The new building increases its square footage there by 6.5 percent.

Fontanese Folts Aubrecht Ernst Architects of East Aurora was retained to design the building, which will be visible from the Route 400 expressway.

More than 200 people work in those six departments. Moog has 2,476 workers in Elma.

"We've been trying to relocate all of the offices for quite some time," Balkin said. "What this also does is free the space we are occupying in other buildings so that the space can be used for other purposes."

Certain buildings, including the Space and Defense Division, are at near-capacity, he said.

"This addresses our short-term needs but also some of our intermediate space needs," Balkin said. "Indirectly, through all of this we will be adding more manufacturing space."

It remains unsure if new workers will be hired because of the available space expected in many of the buildings.

The publicly traded Moog, according to its first-quarter financial report, is on pace to handle more than $2.3 billion in sales in the current fiscal year. First-quarter net sales were $554.4 million, up 12 percent - or $495.2 million - from the same period last year.

The Space and Defense Division reported a 37.8 percent increase in sales, from $69.5 million in 2010's first quarter to 95.7 million this past first quarter.