One of the two largest vacated industrial plants in Yonkers and Westchester County has a buyer close to completing a deal, while the other has a new marketing agent hearing from both industries and developers interested in the property.
On the market since June 2008, the 201,000-square-foot Stewart EFI plant at 630 Central Ave. is in contract with “a major investor-developer,” said William V. Cuddy Jr., executive vice president at the CB Richard Ellis Inc. office in Stamford, Conn. “It”™s a New York City-based player,” he said.
Cuddy is part of the CBRE team marketing the former precision metal-stamping plant for its owner, Stewart EFI. He and Kevin Langtry, senior associate at CBRE, also lead the firm”™s new campaign to find a buyer for the 243,000-square-foot Precision Valve Corp. manufacturing plant and corporate headquarters at 700 Nepperhan Ave in Yonkers, the largest industrial property on the market in Westchester.
For the approximately 3 1/2-acre Stewart property, Cuddy said, some sale conditions must be addressed before the deal can close. “The seller and the buyer are working on those as we speak,” he said. As for the closing, “We”™re hoping it will be shortly.”
Cuddy said the unnamed buyer will seek new tenants for the property, vacated last year by Stewart after 64 years in operation at the site. Asked whether the industrially zoned site might be acquired for redevelopment, Cuddy said, “The purchaser that we are dealing with hasn”™t publicly come out with their plans for their use of the building.”
Budd Wiesenberg, a CBRE vice president in Stamford, last year said investors and developers might eye the Stewart property for redevelopment in an area of Yonkers being transformed by Empire City at Yonkers Raceway, ongoing major renovations at Cross County Shopping Center and nearby Ridge Hill Village, Forest City Ratner Cos.”™ mixed-use development project.
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Formed in a 1999 merger, Stewart EFI was the successor in Yonkers of Stewart Stamping Corp., which had occupied the Central Avenue plant since 1944. The company employed about 145 workers at the plant when it announced its closing in 2008. Stewart, which shipped 70 percent of metal-stamp products to Mexico, moved its manufacturing operations from Yonkers to a newly expanded plant in El Paso, Texas because of customer demand.
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The vacated plant, built in stages between 1930 and 1983, has about 15,000 square feet of finished office space and 186,000 square feet of manufacturing space on two floors.
Another former industrial mainstay in Yonkers, Precision Valve Corp., earlier this year laid off about 190 employees at its 700 Nepperhan Ave. plant when it consolidated its manufacturing operations in Greenville, S.C. Company headquarters will stay in Yonkers until the approximately eight-acre property is sold; it will then relocate in this region, Precision Valve Corp. President John P. Abplanalp said.
Yonkers city officials were encouraged last summer when another of the city”™s larger industrial employers, Excelsior Packaging Group, seemed poised to acquire the Precision Valve property. Excelsior, which employs about 150 workers at its Alexander Street plant, would have to relocate if the city”™s planned redevelopment of the downtown waterfront corridor goes forward.
“They had a very legitimate expression of interest and it just did not yield a sale,” Cuddy said of Excelsior. “That transaction is not going to mature.” He said CBRE was retained by Precision Valve to market the property when its sale to Excelsior fell through.
Cuddy said the property has attracted “a number of interested parties, both user-occupants and investor-developers.” No asking price has been set, he said.
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Cuddy said while its marketers would welcome “creative solutions” for the Precision property”™s reuse, they hope a buyer would continue to operate or lease it as warehouse and industrial space. Abplanalp, the son of Precision Valve”™s founder, Robert Abplanalp, has indicated to city officials  he wants to find a manufacturer to restore jobs at the plant.
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“Our facility is a coveted industrial warehouse in the prime market of Nepperhan Valley,” Abplanalp said in a statement announcing the marketing campaign. “This location has admirably served as our headquarters for over 50 years. As we redeploy our resources nationally and internationally, it has been identified as a non-core real estate asset and slated for disposition. We intend to retain our executive headquarters in the region.”
CB Richard Ellis on Dec. 7 began marketing one of the county”™s largest flex properties, the Gannett Co.”™s 232,000-square-foot office and warehouse building at One Gannett Drive in the town of Harrison. The home of The Journal News, the 25-acre property in the Gannett Office Park will be sold as Gannett”™s Westchester daily newspaper moves its printing and packaging operations to Rockaway, N.J., in March 2010. The paper”™s publisher recently told Journal News employees that 166 production jobs will be eliminated with the cost-cutting move.
To attract a buyer, Cuddy said, Gannett will lease nearly half of the building”™s approximately 143,000 square feet of office space. The facility also has about 89,000 square feet zoned for warehouse and light industrial use.
Cuddy said the property drew interest from “a couple” prospective buyers even before it was listed on the market.
