Lincoln Composites announced Tuesday that it will be the first tenant for the Air Park rail center, where it’ll take up 54,030 square feet in a building now under construction.

The company, which makes carbon-composite fuel tanks and similar items, which it calls pressure vessels, needs additional space so it can make a new, larger product, president Bill Dick said.

Lincoln Composites now occuplies space at 6801 Cornhusker Highway.  Dick said the company will add at least 30 jobs to the 50 it already has.

The new tank to be built is about a meter in diameter, and up to 40 feet in length, Dick said; it’ll be used for bulk delivery of natural gas, and could have a future market transporting hydrogen for fuel-cell powered vehicles.

The largest tank the company makes now is a cylinder 22 inches around and 10 feet long, Dick said.

Lincoln Composites will also invest an unspecified amount in equipment for the new building, Dick said.

Lincoln Composites chose the Air Park site after the company looked at “dozens of sites in Lincoln,” Dick said. Its advantages included a rail siding and an opportunity to determine its configuration, he said.

“We could specify a lot of things,” he said. “It’s easier (to have space set up to meet a user’s needs) than to change something that already exists.”

Lincoln Composites expects to move in Dec. 1, Dick and Lincoln Airport Authority executive director John Wood said.

The company will pay $5 a square foot, or $270,150 a year for the space; it’s a 10-year lease.

There’s no timetable yet for adding to the work force, Dick said, but the company is already hiring engineers, and will soon bring in production people.

Dick wouldn’t discuss wages, but said workers at Lincoln Composites are represented by the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, and the wages they earn are “more than competitive for a company of our size.”

Lincoln Composites has right of first refusal on the other half of the building, and has indicated its intention to exercise that right, Wood said.

Bob Hampton, chairman of the Airport Authority board, said the lease, approved Tuesday, would be effective in letting businesses know that the rail center is available.

“It’s a lot easier to attract additional companies with a building up and occupied,” Hampton said.

Lincoln Composites is owned by a Norwegian company, Hexagon Composites ASA, which bought the company almost two years ago from General Dynamics, a defense products manufacturer that still owns a plant at 4300 Progressive Ave. in Lincoln.

Reach Rodd Cayton at 473-7107 or rcayton@journalstar.com.