OSI seals Ardsley seal

Brokers at Cushman & Wakefield Inc. said OSI Pharmaceuticals Inc. has closed on its $27 million purchase of the 43-acre Ardsley Park Science & Technology Center in the town of Greenburgh.

The company, maker of the lung cancer drug Tarceva, will relocate its headquarters from Melville, Long Island, and consolidate its current operations in Farmingdale, Cedar Knolls, N.J., and Boulder, Colo., on the Westchester biotech campus. The move this year affects about 350 employees.

Representing the seller, Purdue Pharma, were Cushman & Wakefield”™s Tom Giannone, Chris Kinum, Ron Ganter and John Cahill, from its global life science practice group in East Rutherford, N.J., and Andrew Merin, David Bernhaut, Gary Gabriel and Jose Cruz of the firm”™s East Rutherford-based metropolitan area capital markets group.

At 410-460 Saw Mill River Road, the Ardsley Park center includes 400,000 square feet of office, laboratory and manufacturing space, as well as specialty pharmaceutical installations. The six-building campus originally was built for Ciba-Geigy in 1956, which occupied it through 1995. Purdue Pharma purchased the property in phases before vacating it in 2005.

“This campus benefits from its position within the northern cluster of the regional biotech corridor that stretches from Westchester County south to West Chester Township in Pennsylvania,” Giannone said.

“Still, as with any life sciences property, its highly specific infrastructure and technical build-out required just the right buyer, and finding the perfect mid-size biotech company had become increasingly challenging as economic conditions continued to deteriorate.”

Giannone said despite “significant competition,” Ardsley Park met OSI”™s highly specific needs.