Firms eat up 137.000 s/f at transformed former Bristol Meyers lab.

Angion Biomedica Corp. has leased 13,000 square feet of space at The Business and Research Center at Garden City. The recently completed transaction brings the total space leased at the unique mixed-use complex now being redeveloped at a former pharmaceutical complex to 137,0000 square--75 percent of the total space--in just 11 months.

Privately owned Angion, based in Manhasset, NY, will relocate from North Shore Long Island Jewish Medical Center facilities to the research and development space at complex at 1000 Stewart Ave., Garden City, NY, during the 2006 fourth quarter.

Angion was represented in lease negotiations by Jim Coogan, a sales associate in the Woodbury office of CB Richard Ellis Inc. and by Patricia Ardigo, a first vice president in CBRE's Stamford, CT-based Life-Sciences Group Brokerage Services. Thomas B. DiMicelli and Douglas Omstrom of Woodbury, NY-based Corporate National Realty LLC, are the leasing agents for the property.

"We're pleased by Angion's decision to lease the remaining R&D space at The Business and Research Center at Garden City, said Joseph A. Farkas, president of Garden City, NY-based Metropolitan Realty Associates LLC, which owns the 186,500 s/f property with its long time New York City-based equity partner, Angelo, Gordon & Co.

The Angion lease brings the total of space leased in the building in the past 11 months to 137,000 s/f. The complex totals 186,500 s/f on 7.55 acres.

Farkas attributed the swift leasing pace to great design and aggressive marketing.

"Sal Ferrara, president of Combined Resources Consulting and Design did a remarkable job of redesigning the former single-user pharmaceutical facility to a multi-tenant, mixed-use property," Farkas said. "Aggressive marketing by Doug Omstrom and Tom DiMicelli of Corporate National Realty during the difficult months of initial construction got the word out to all interested parties in the business and brokerage community. Finally, real estate tax benefits from the Town of Hempstead Industrial Development Agency made an outstanding location at the corner of Main and Main that much more attractive."

Angion joins anchor tenant Lifetime Brands Corp., which will occupy 114,500 s/f, and Home Medical Equipment, which will move into 9,000 square feet, in the distinctive hybrid building, once the home of Bristol Myers Squibb Pharma and Endo Laboratories.

Deals for the remaining space in the complex are already under negotiation. Metropolitan and Angelo, Gordon, who acquired the building in August, 2005, for $7,390,000, are undertaking an extensive multi-million-dollar renovation to transform the one-time single-user pharmaceutical manufacturing facility, one of Long Island's most architecturally significant buildings, into a state of the art mixed-use facility in the heart of Central Nassau County.

Farkas said that in addition to Metropolitan's creative redevelopment plans, the building's architectural significance proved attractive to prospective tenants. The reinforced concrete building was designed by the late-modernist architect Paul Rudolph for Endo Laboratories in 1962.

Low property taxes also helped, Farkas noted. Taxes at The Business and Research Center start at just $2.41 per square foot as a result of a-payment-in-lieu-of-taxes (PILOT) agreement that Metropolitan negotiated last year with the Town of Hempstead Industrial Development Agency.