Honeywell, whose products range from Prestone antifreeze to air-conditioning system controls, will open a data center early next year at Boulden Interchange Park in New Castle that will employ up to 100 workers.

Honeywell plans to hire local people for most of the openings, which will pay between $40,000 and $100,000 a year, company officials said at a news conference Friday.

Sen. Tom Carper, D-Del., and New Castle County Executive Christopher Coons attended the event, which was held at the now-vacant 60,800-square-foot office-and-warehouse facility off U.S. 13 that Honeywell will occupy. The company will invest $26 million to renovate and equip the facility, which will be the company's Eastern data center.

"I'm thrilled to be able to call Delaware one of our homes," said Larry Kittelberger, Honeywell's chief information officer. "It's a place we're going to be for a long time."

The new jobs are the latest in a flurry for Delaware. Earlier this month, state officials said American International Group Inc. will move 500 jobs from Chadds Ford, Pa., to Brandywine Hundred. In February, it was announced that Air Liquide, a French manufacturer of industrial and medical gases, would open a research and development facility in Glasgow that would bring up to 160 jobs to the area.

Carper, who personally lobbied Honeywell Chairman David Cote to consider locating in Delaware, called the announcement, "a day of great good luck for Delaware, but a day we reached because of a lot of hard work."

Honeywell officials credited Delaware's climate -- both its weather and friendliness to business -- for the company's decision to locate here instead of competing sites in New Jersey, Minnesota, Tennessee and Virginia.

The sites duplicate each other in the event of a power outage. Honeywell wanted a second U.S. location that would not be vulnerable to hurricanes, tornadoes or other natural disasters, Kittelberger said. He and other company officials also were impressed with Delaware's business-friendly tax structure, he said.

The building, which will house about half of Honeywell's computer systems, will use huge amounts of electricity, and company officials acknowledged that Delaware's electricity rates -- higher than in some of the other states they considered -- were a factor. However, a $400,000 state jobs creation grant will help offset the impact, said Richard Kriva, the company's vice president for global real estate.

Honeywell will receive $400,000 from the Delaware Economic Development Office for creating 66 jobs with a salary of at least $40,000 a year. As a condition, Honeywell must keep the jobs here for at least five years.

The new positions will boost Delaware's growing number of data center jobs. There are 37 data centers in the state, employing approximately 2,000, said Gary Smith, the office's director of infrastructure and intergovernmental relations.

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