Pfizer Sells, But Not to Local Groups

Pfizer has sent a letter notifying Community Board 1 that they have reached an agreement to sell the last remaining large parcels of land from the drug giant’s ancestral home. The agreement is with a group called 306 Rutledge Street II LLC, a “company acting on behalf of investors who have deep roots in the local community”. The LLC, which has a mailing address of 173 Wallabout Street, appears to have formed within the past week or so.

I have been told that these investors are not the coalition of community groups who had offered Pfizer $10 million for the properties, with plans to develop the sites as affordable housing. Although Pfizer’s letter offered few details, they specifically did not mention housing, affordable or otherwise.

Exploring the Abandoned Pfizer Plant

Scouting NY scouts the former Pfizer plant, which straddles East Williamsburg and Bed-Stuy. The pharmaceutical giant was founded in Williamsburg in 1849, and operated there until about a year or two ago when (despite taking $46 million City tax incentives to bring jobs to NYC) the company closed up and left. But not before demolishing the oldest building on the site, their ancestral home.

Pfizer Plant Sold

02/15/2011 | 1 Comment

Two years after abandoning an attempt to redevelop its sprawling former manufacturing complex in Brooklyn, drug giant Pfizer announced Monday that it had reached a surprise agreement to sell a piece of that property to Acumen Capital Partners of Long Island City.

Surprise move indeed. Then talk for a long time was that this site (the massive industrial building on the south side of Flushing Avenue) would be used for a non-profit industrial development and jobs training project – along the GMDC or Navy Yard model. The good news, though, is that Acumen is a developer of light industrial properties, and their acquisition of the building has the potential to bring a lot of jobs to the neighborhood.

For a company with a 159-year history in the neighborhood, Pfizer has managed to leave town very quietly. In the process, they have demolished significant historic buildings, taken tens of millions in tax credits from the City, and killed a 1,000+ local jobs.

But what about the rest of their property north of Flushing? Will that become affordable housing? Or does Pfizer have another surprise up its sleeve before it packs up its tent and quietly leaves town?