Metropolitan buys former Bristol Myers Squibb campus.

Bellmore-based Metropolitan Realty Associates LLC and its long-time joint-venture equity partner, New York-based Angelo Gordon & Co., have completed their acquisition for $7.39 million of one of Long Island's most architecturally significant and centrally located properties, the former Bristol-Myers Squibb Pharma Co. corporate campus in Garden City.

The property is comprised of two buildings totaling 190,000 square feet on 7.55 acres of land.

"This is a unique property in a superior location of Nassau County. It is not a generic office or industrial property and at $38 per square foot it offers the opportunity to create substantial value for me and my partners," said Joseph Farkas, president of Bellmore, NY-based Metropolitan.

"We plan to undertake an extensive, but respectful renovation of the property, which will allow us to lease the buildings to a mix of tenants in an effort to bring back more than 400 jobs to the community. The opportunity to redevelop such an important piece of real estate was too good to pass up."

Described as a "Fortress for Pharmaceuticals" by architectural publications at the time it was completed in 1964, the turreted, cast-in-place concrete building received several awards for its bold design by Paul Rudolph.

The building ranks among the major projects designed by Rudolph, who was considered America's most-talented Late Modernist architect.

Originally designed as the world headquarters and manufacturing plant of Endo Pharmaceuticals, the property at 1000 Stewart Avenue, Garden City, NY., and an adjacent 25,000-square-foot, free-standing research and office building at 500 Endo Blvd., also designed by Rudolph, has been renamed The Business and Research Center at Garden City.

Metropolitan plans to restore and redevelop the property from a single-user facility to attract multiple tenants, including businesses seeking office, warehouse, distribution and manufacturing space as well as turnkey wet laboratory space. The Town of Hempstead Industrial Development Agency has granted Metropolitan a PILOT (payment in lieu of taxes) program that will put taxes at $2.37 per square foot, well below competitive buildings in Nassau County.

The property is one of only a handful of works on Long Island designed by the famous architect. After Endo's sale in 1969 to E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Co., the building continued to be used as a pharmaceutical plant until about two years ago by a succession of companies that included DuPont Pharmaceuticals and Bristol-Myers Squibb Pharma. The building never previously has been available for lease to a variety of tenants. Metropolitan is a national real estate investment and development firm established in 2001 by Farkas, a real estate industry veteran. Angelo Gordon & Co. is a $10 billion money management firm with $4 billion in real estate assets.

Corporate National Realty LLC of Woodbury, NY, has been appointed exclusive agent for the building. Douglas Omstrom and Thomas DiMicelli senior directors of the firm, will handle marketing of the property.

The transaction, which closed Aug. 18, was brokered by DiMicelli and Omstrom along with Robert T. Morford and Gerald E. Moore Jr. of the Garibaldi Group, of Chatham, N.J.