|
RCBJ-Audible (Listen For Free)
 |
Tarrytown Pharma Company Will Expand in Westchester; Assessments Underway To Determine If Claw-Back Monies Will Be Owed To Village, Town of Ramapo, School District
By Tina Traster
Tarrytown-based Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, which bought 1 Avon Place in Suffern for $38.9 million in Dec. 2023, had planned to use the facility for research, development and cold storage.
Those plans have been scrapped. The company will sell the facility, and the town will need to determine the assessed value because at the time it bought the building it negotiated a raft of benefits of benefits from the Rockland County IDA, including a 15-year PILOT (payment in lieu of taxes) agreement.
“Regeneron has made the strategic decision to sell our Suffern, NY property, which was acquired in late 2023 to supplement the expansion of our Tarrytown campus,” said a Regeneron spokesperson. “The decision reflects the progress of our Tarrytown project, which is providing additional lab and office space to meet the needs of our growing R&D pipeline, as well as our desire to keep more colleagues together on fewer campuses.”
Regeneron had planned to spend about $70 million on infrastructure and reconstruction of the existing former Avon facility. It also sought and received a sales tax exemption worth about $4 million on an estimated $50 million of improvements. At the time it negotiated with the IDA, Regeneron said it planned to use the facility for research and development, and for cold storage. “The acquisition will enable the company to expand its research efforts against infectious diseases and to further develop its existing portfolio of treatments,” the application said.
In the short-term, Regeneron’s reversal may lead to a “claw back” of monies negotiated under a PILOT (payment in lieu of taxes). Those monies, if owed, will flow back to the Village of Suffern, the Town of Ramapo, and the local school district.
“In regard to the Regeneron project, the IDA is currently determining if and to what amount any recapture of benefits are applicable,” said Steve Porath, executive director of the Rockland County Industrial Development Agency (IDA). “More specifically, we are reviewing the Payment in Lieu of Tax Agreement in place with Regeneron, the IDA and the taxing entities, and are currently determining what taxes have been paid versus what taxes would have been paid if there was no PILOT.”
Meanwhile, the fate of the complex is now uncertain at a time when companies are belt-tightening, and most large buildings are targeted for warehousing and storage. Additionally, Regeneron’s planned move to Rockland County had reinvigorated hopes of the county rebuilding its place in the pharma industry. In Jan. 2024, Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer filed notice with New York State announcing a nearly 30 percent reduction of its workforce at its Pearl River campus in Orangetown. The cut of 285 of its 1,012 workers was necessitated by “economic” conditions, according to the filing. The Pearl River location is Pfizer’s primary location for its global vaccine research and development work.
Suffern Mayor Michael Curley says he’s disappointed but not too worried.
“We will rise from this,” said Curley. “We don’t put all our eggs in one basket. We’re not in trouble. Our budget is safe and secure.”
The mayor added that while Regeneron would have been a sterling addition to the village, the company had only planned 230 jobs at the facility. Curley said the facility should ideally employ 1,500 people, as Avon once did. On Monday, the mayor asked his board to hire a consultant to study the potential sale and future use of the campus.
Asked whether the village might envision using the site for housing, the mayor said “the answer is not a no.”
For many of the last years Avon owned the building, it was empty. The village’s downtown has not benefitted from the site, which was hoped for with Regeneron’s plans.
In 2021, Regeneron said it would invest about $1.8 billion over six years to expand its facilities at the company’s Westchester County campus in Tarrytown. At the time, Regeneron said it would create 1,000 new full-time, high-skill jobs in the Mid-Hudson Region over the next five years.
To encourage Regeneron’s continued expansion in the state, Empire State Development offered the company up to $100 million in Excelsior Jobs Program tax credits if its hiring goals are achieved. Regeneron considered several potential sites in the tri-state area before deciding to expand in Westchester.
The direct and indirect fiscal benefit to state and local government is estimated to be more than $283.3 million, officials said, and the estimated economic benefit to New York is nearly $2 billion.
For the past year, Regeneron’s stock has been in steady decline, losing almost 23 percent of its value. The stock price reached a high of $880 per share and a low of $470 per share in June. However, the company’s stock has rebounded slightly to $640 per share.
“For every dollar we were giving them in incentives, we were projecting to receive $76 back through the durations of the PILOT. That would have been a win. It represented $1.1 billion in benefits to the village, school, town, county and state over the course of 15 years. In turn, benefits we were providing Regeneron would have been $14.6 million, a 76:1 ratio,” said Porath.
“While we’re disappointed, we do have a strong history of more wins and losses, and we’ll just go back to work.” said Porath.
“While we’re disappointed that Regeneron chose not to invest in Suffern, this moment will not define Rockland,” said Rockland County Executive Ed Day. “Over the past decade, we’ve seen record-breaking economic growth and job creation. Since 2024 alone, my administration, working with the Rockland County IDA, has closed on 13 major projects representing $2.4 billion in new investment, 560 permanent full-time jobs, and more than 1,000 ongoing construction jobs, including union work.”
