Alcoa Inc. said a deal announced Monday to acquire commercial window- and doormaker Traco Inc. of Cranberry will provide the aluminum maker with opportunities to increase its product line in the building and construction industry.

"Traco's strong brand and product lines are well-known throughout the commercial building market, and we look forward to helping the brand continue to flourish," said Glen Morrison, president of Alcoa Building and Construction Systems, in a statement.

Morrison will oversee Traco operations when it becomes part of Alcoa's building and construction business. Alcoa will continue to market products under the Traco name, a spokesman said.

Alcoa, which has its corporate center on Pittsburgh's North Shore, did not release terms of the deal. Alcoa anticipates it will be completed by Sept. 30, pending regulatory reviews.

The acquisition by Alcoa "represents a strategic opportunity for growth in the commercial and architectural marketplace," said Traco CEO Robert P. Randall, in a statement. Randall, whose family owns the business, said he is confident that the decision was "in the best interest" of the company's 650 employees.

Randall was meeting with employees and was not available for comment, said Traco spokeswoman Denise Abraham.

Alcoa sees the Traco brand, with its employees and its operations, as "continuing to flourish," Alcoa spokesman Kevin Lowery said. The building and construction business is a big user of aluminum, and Traco has a strong brand with a great history, Lowery said.

When asked about how the deal will affect employees, Lowery said Alcoa intends to expand Traco's business.

Privately owned Traco was founded in 1943 as the Three Rivers Aluminum Co. and relocated to Cranberry from Pittsburgh's Manchester neighborhood in 1971. Traco's architectural products have been used in buildings including the Empire State and Flatiron buildings in New York as well as the Statue of Liberty, whose crown was rebuilt in the 1980s using the company's custom windows.

In the past two years, Traco sold or closed three plants as the recession hit the commercial and residential construction industries.

Traco sold its residential window plant in Red Oak, Iowa, in December 2008, to Echo Windows LLC, according to the Chicago Tribune, and Echo Windows closed the plant in February 2009.

In March 2009, Traco closed its window plant in Bainbridge, Ga., eliminating 70 jobs because of a decline in the construction and residential markets in the Southeast. Traco announced in September it was closing its commercial window plant in Johnson City, Tenn., eliminating 180 jobs.

Prior to exiting the residential window business, Traco's annual sales were in the range of $100 million to $200 million, said John G. Swanson, editor of Window & Door magazine. Traco was listed in the magazine's Top 100 Manufacturers as recently as 2007, but was dropped from the list because the company left the residential business, Swanson said.

The national window market declined to 38.9 million units in 2009, of which 27.5 million were for the residential market, from 48.3 million units in 2008, including 31.3 million for the residential market. said Jeff Lowinski, vice president at the Window & Door Manufacturers Association, a trade group in Des Plaines, Ill.

The announcement of the sale comes about a week after the Department of Energy said that Traco was awarded a $1.32 million grant to conduct research on producing an energy-efficient R-5 window for commercial purposes. The $2.64 million research project is intended to find more efficient, and thereby less costly, methods of producing window parts.

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