The U.S. division of a German manufacturer of cutlery and cookware plans to relocate its office and warehouse operations next year from Hawthorne to a long-vacant industrial property in the village of Pleasantville.
Zwilling J.A. Henckels L.L.C. is expected to close on its purchase of a nearly 60-acre property and flex building at 270 Marble Ave. in the next 20 to 30 days, according to a broker involved in the deal.
The asking price was $9 million, said Dominick Musilli, executive vice president and principal at RHYS Commercial Real Estate in Stamford, Conn., who represents the property”™s current owner, The Stop & Shop Supermarket Co. of Quincy, Mass. He declined to disclose the purchase price before the closing.
RHYS had listed the property on its website at approximately 117,000 square feet. The listing was removed Sept. 25.
Zwilling J.A. Henckels employs about 60 workers at its Hawthorne plant at 171 Saw Mill River Road.
An executive at Zwilling J.A. Henckels in Hawthorne and Pleasantville Mayor Peter Scherer did not respond to requests for comment.
Scherer in July, quoted in the online Pleasantville Daily Voice, described the Hawthorne company”™s project as “looking great” as it progresses through the village approval process. He said company officials “hope and expect that they will be a linchpin corporate member of our Pleasantville family.”
The Zwilling J.A. Henckels planning team met a few times this summer with the village planning commission regarding the company”™s plans to modify and expand the property”™s office and warehouse space.
The sprawling one-story Pleasantville complex reportedly will be used as a storage and distribution warehouse and house the company”™s marketing, product development, information technology and administrative departments.
The Marble Avenue complex was last occupied in the late 1990s by Medical Laboratory Automation Inc., which acquired the site from Union Carbide Corp.
An affiliate of The Stop & Shop Supermarket Co. in 2001 acquired the property, paying $7 million for it and a second parcel on Marble Avenue, with plans to redevelop the facility as a supermarket. But the grocer”™s plans were dropped after meeting strong community opposition and the prominently located building has sat vacant more than a decade.
Its pending new owner”™s parent company, Zwilling J.A. Henckels AG, is based in Solingen, Germany. The company traces its founding to 1731, when knife maker Peter Henckels registered the Zwilling J.A. Henckels logo with the cutler”™s guild in Solingen. The company, which operates in 100 countries, opened its first U.S. sales office in New York in 1883.
County land records indicate that the company has operated at various locations in the town of Mount Pleasant since 1971.
