BETHPAGE, N.Y. (Sept. 5, 10 a.m. ET) — The Long Island Forum for Technology plans to open an advanced materials center that will focus on composites.

LIFT has purchased a 25,000 square foot building in Plainview, N.Y., that will house its Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Technology Innovation Center.

LIFT President Frank Otto said the center will “serve as a premier resource for composite prototype production across diverse markets, from aerospace, and defense to energy, infrastructure, and transportation.”

The center is scheduled to open in the second half of 2013. It will include automated fiber placement machines, filament winding system, large and small autoclaves, vacuum assisted resin transfer molding system and a compression molding heated press.

The center also will include a clean room with an automated singly ply cutter, walk-in ovens, a machine shop for post machining and tool design, test and inspection cells, a storage area with walk-in freezers, and a training area with CAD/CAM composite software suites.

The center also will be home to training programs covering composite material handling, design and manufacturing. The center will coordinate Farmingdale State College and Stony Brook State University of New York to offer certificate and degree programs in advanced composite technologies.

“I am confident that AMMTIC, as one of the nation’s first dedicated prototype composite facilities, will further position Long Island at the national level as a major driver of the advanced manufacturing initiative,” Otto said in a news release.

LIFT is a non-profit economic development organization that works with the New York State Foundation for Science, Technology and Innovation and the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s Manufacturing Extension Partnership.