Eight contractors claim they are owed a total of about $15.7 million for work and materials they supplied to a biotechnology company”™s renovations project in Ardsley that was canceled last summer by the company”™s new international owner.
Long Island-based OSI Pharmaceuticals Inc., developer of the cancer drug Tarceva, planned to relocate its headquarters and research and development facilities and consolidate its 350-employee operations in the U.S. at the Ardsley Park Science and Technology center in the town of Greenburgh. OSI in 2009 paid $27 million to a Purdue Pharma Inc. affiliate for the largely vacant 43-acre office and laboratory campus and expected to spend about $95 million for the relocation. The company expected to grow to 600 employees in Ardsley by 2012.
Most construction work at the Saw Mill River Road site was halted in June, soon after Astellas Pharma Inc., Japan”™s second-largest pharmaceutical company, acquired OSI in a $4 billion hostile takeover. In August, officials at OSI”™s parent company, Astellas Pharma US Inc., announced plans to close the Ardsley center by June 2011. About 55 OSI employees were said to already have relocated to Westchester.
Since September, eight unpaid or partially paid subcontractors on the aborted project, including five from Long Island, have filed mechanic”™s liens in Westchester County against OSI Ardsley LLC. The largest claim of approximately $8.1 million was filed by the project”™s power-plant contractor, DiFazio Power and Electric LLC. in Deer Park.
The claimants include two Westchester companies seeking a total of about $2.6 million. L.J. Coppola Inc., a plumbing and heating contractor in Thornwood, is owed about $1.91 million. Elmsford Sheet Metal Works Inc. in Cortlandt Manor is seeking about $676,700.
William Prydatko, owner of Craftsman Storefronts and Glass Inc. in Bay Shore, Long Island, said his company had done about $1 million of glass installation work in Ardsley on what was to be a minimum $4 million contract when “they pulled the plug” in June. Prydatko said Astellas Pharma has made one or two payments since the company takeover but still owes him about $355,000.
“It”™s a tough situation. Right now they”™re killing me, because it”™s cash flow,” Prydatko said. Materials for the OSI project are taking up space in his Bay Shore shop.
“They”™re telling us nothing,” Prydatko said. “I felt like a mushroom. I”™m left in the dark and fed” dung.
Officials at OSI and Astellas Pharma US headquarters did not respond to requests for comment.
