Bozrah — To continue its expansion, the manufacturer Collins & Jewell Company earlier this month purchased an 18.75-acre parcel abutting its new building at 3 Rachel Drive.

Co-owner and chief financial officer Chris Jewell said the space will be used to expand upon specialized welding, largely due to growing need from Electric Boat.

The metal fabrication and installation company has not announced any plans for development, but Jewell said it is looking at doing a manufacturing space expansion of maybe 20,000 square feet.

"There's plenty of space there, which is good," he said of the land purchase. "We don't know what our future growth is going to be, but we anticipate it to continue to grow in this direction."

Collins & Jewell was founded in 1946 and moved in 1989 to a 19,000-square-foot facility in Norwich. In 2014, the company built and relocated to its current 35,000-square-foot space in Bozrah.

Jewell said the company had about 45 employees before its move and is now up to 72.

The broker in the sale of the parcel, which Jewell said is open space and a cornfield, was Lyman Real Estate.

The sale price of the land was $650,000, according to a news release from Lyman Real Estate. The sellers were Paul, Joseph and Anthony Fatone of PJ&A LLC.

Jewell said the land is zoned industrial, which is important to the company, and that its relative flatness will make for easy building. He said the expansion will be similar to the current industrial space, albeit with lower ceilings.

Jewell said that along with specialized welding, the company is "looking at a lot of avenues where we can be of more service to Electric Boat," which he noted has so much work to do that it likes to pass on some things to vendors.

"This is an indication of the great things that are happening in Eastern Connecticut," he said. "There's a lot of growth happening in Eastern Connecticut right now."

Jewell owns the business, in its third generation of ownership, with Brian Dudek.