The Business Journals have learned that informal meetings have taken place between municipal officials and representatives of the pharmaceutical giant Pfizer on the company”™s planned $470 million expansion of its Pearl River campus in the town of Orangetown in Rockland County. Pfizer has been in Rockland since acquiring Wyeth Pharmaceuticals in 2009 along with the buildings and acreage owned by Wyeth. In 2015, Pfizer sold 207 acres and 25 buildings at 401 N. Middletown Road in Pearl River that it wasn”™t going to continue using to Industrial Realty Group LLC (IRG), which now operates the property as Hudson Valley iCampus. Pfizer continues to own 33 acres and occupies about 850,000 square feet of building space on its Pearl River campus.
Jerica Pitts, Pfizer”™s senior director of global media relations for Pfizer, told the Business Journals, “Pfizer has new plans for a $470 million transformational investment for its Vaccine Research and Development campus in Pearl River. Over the next three years, subject to approvals from officials and other entities as required, Pfizer plans to expand and modernize our campus with a new 260,000-square-foot lab building for 370 colleagues and amenities such as a modern café, fitness center, parking garage and functional outdoor plaza. The rejuvenated campus will feature connected buildings and a prominent main entrance.”
“It”™s heartening to see the renaissance this company has undergone during my administration,” Rockland County Executive Ed Day told the Business Journals. “I”™m happy to see these champions against a global health crisis planning to invest and create even deeper roots within our beautiful county with a $470 million expansion and 100 new hires. I commend Pfizer on its contribution to science and saving lives along with its commitment to calling Rockland home.”
On July 24, Day had gone to Pfizer for a ceremony awarding keys to the county to two of the company”™s employees in view of Pfizer”™s development of a Covid-19 vaccine. Kathrin U. Jansen, senior vice president and head of vaccine research and development along with her colleague Steve Bjornson, who is vice president and COO of vaccine research and development, each received a Key to the County Award for their commitment to science and saving lives.
The expansion is expected to result in Pfizer hiring additional employees. It already employs approximately 1,000 at the Pearl River site. It”™s believed Pfizer wants to break ground by 2024 and complete the expansion in 2026.
“I think all-around it”™s a win-win,” Orangetown Town Supervisor Teresa Kenny told the Business Journals. “They are making a commitment to staying here. There are over 1,000 employees onsite. They always had a lot of employees there but at one point they were down and there was a lot of concern that they were going to sell and leave, so it”™s a commitment to being here long term.”
Kenny said that although as of Aug. 5 site plans had not yet been submitted to begin the review process by the Orangetown Planning Board, Zoning Board and Building Department, the expansion concept was described to her and “it will be a complement to the town.”
Kenny expressed a hope that Pfizer”™s expansion and commitment to Orangetown would attract other bioscience businesses to the area.
Kenny said that she and the town attorney and head of the building department have met informally with Pfizer. Additional informal meetings were expected to take place in the coming weeks.
“They are very anxious, apparently, to move fast on this,” Kenny said. “A lot of how fast they move is in their control. The process itself can take a while but if you listen to the Pfizer representatives, they want it done really fast. We”™ll do our best to work with them.”
Kenny said that she lives about a mile from Pfizer in Pearl River and the company has been a good neighbor in the community.
“When I came into office, they reached out to me immediately and I went on a tour of their facility pre-Covid. They really wanted to be part of the community,” Kenny said. “They”™re a good corporate neighbor and I”™m glad they”™re going to be here for a long time.”
Pfizer says that its Rockland facility is one of its nine major research and development sites.
IRG has been attracting new tenants to its campus and did not yet know whether Pfizer would be leasing space for the expansion or confining any new buildings to the property it already owns. Among the tenants at iCampus are Sanofi US Services Inc., Iris Biogen Corp., Party City and Urban Electric Power Inc.
Jamie Schwarz, president of Hudson Valley iCampus, told the Business Journals that Momentive Performance Materials has signed a lease for about 67,000 square feet of space and is getting it ready for January occupancy.
“We have a bunch of deals in the pipeline, so from a leasing perceptive we”™re pretty happy,” Schwartz said. “The existing infrastructure in some of the buildings already has the elements that a life-sciences or biomed company needs. There are all kinds of technical requirements, although they might need to be updated. That infrastructure would cost somebody a lot of money to build from scratch, so we”™re getting a lot of interest from companies in those fields.”
Schwartz said that Pfizer making a commitment to stay in Pearl River and enhance its presence is a huge vote of confidence and sends a signal to others.
“They already had a vaccine operation here but I think they also are happy with how things are going on the campus,” Schwartz said. “From a leasing perspective, I don”™t think they”™d make that commitment unless they were happy. They do also rent space from us.”
He said that the whole Hudson Valley region benefits from Pfizer”™s planned expansion in Rockland as well as benefitting from the new facilities being constructed in Westchester County by Tarrytown-based Regeneron, which broke ground a few weeks ago for a $1.8 billion expansion.
“It”™s nothing but good news,” Schwartz said.
