Nassau Community College has signed a long-term lease for a 25,600-square-foot office building next to its Garden City campus.

The building at 500 Endo Blvd., owned by Metropolitan Realty Associates, will house additional classrooms and administrative offices.
Metropolitan gutted the 1960s-era building and added windows, new building systems, parking and landscaping.

“We invested substantial capital to make this property visually appealing and appropriate for a 21st century user,” said Joseph Farkas, president of Garden City-based Metropolitan.

 Ray Ruiz , Marianne Duggan and Brian Cruz, all of the Long Island office of CB Richard Ellis, served as leasing agents for the building.

With an Island office crunch, risk is their business.

The Garden City manufacturing facility once used by Endo Laboratories – then Dupont Pharmaceuticals and Bristol Meyers Squibb – may look empty. But most of the gutted, 165,000-square-foot shell of a building is spoken for.

Lifetime Brands has agreed to snap up about 115,000 square feet of the Stewart Avenue site for its global headquarters, where it is planning offices, warehouses, research and development space and a showroom. Angion Biomedica Corp., a drug research and development company, plans to take 13,000 square feet in the building, and Home Medical Equipment has claimed 9,000 square feet.

Welcome to what Joe Farkas calls "Spec 101."

The old Endo building may be "vacant and gutted," but that’s not stopping future tenants from "taking space based on plans that show the building six months from now," noted Farkas, president of Garden City’s Metropolitan Realty Associates LLC.

Build-it-and-they-will-come may be a risky real estate philosophy, but insiders confirm that’s precisely what’s happening on Long Island, where office space is at an ultra-premium. Builders are rushing to construct – or, in Farkas’ case, renovate – new Class A offices, and tenants are snapping up the space, often before it’s even completed.

The We’re Group is building a 134,000-square-foot structure at 50 Jericho Quadrangle in Jericho, and Nixon Peabody has already signed on for more than 40,000 square feet. Rubies Costumes Co., meanwhile, is planning construction of a 102,000-square-foot building along the Long Island Expressway in Melville, although Rubies doesn’t plan to fill more than 5,000 square feet itself.

"We’re talking to some people," said Bobby Schliessman, vice president of MHM Realty Group, Rubies’ real estate arm. "They want to see how the project proceeds."

Developer Ted Weiss, who’s still building his 118,050-square-foot Melville Corporate Center III in Melville, said he’s already in talks with potential tenants, who could begin to move in as soon as November.

"This new project is looking to be filled by the top end of the Long Island business community," said Weiss, citing contract talks with three potential tenants. "We’ve had good inquiries into the building from significant players on Long Island."

Weiss wouldn’t name names, but noted "strong interest from a large New York City investment firm" and another unnamed Long Island financial institution.

The race to fill office space only makes sense, according to Weiss, who believes there’s plenty of room for growth on Long Island, at least in this regard.

"Long island is a large geographic area," he said. "And Long Island has not been overbuilt over the last 10 to 12 years for office space. We’re confident that there’s enough built-up demand. I’m comfortable with additional growth."

Especially, he added, since the Island presents a "very affordable" alternative to New York City, where rents can run easily into the $100-per-square-foot range.

Tenants who sign on for space before a building is completed sometimes obtain cheaper rents than they would after completion. "Once this building is finished, the rents are going to climb $8 a square foot," said Farkas. "I’m essentially building a new building here. The rents will be commensurate with new construction."

Some projects develop as office buildings after earlier deals to build something else fall through. Schliessman said Rubies tried to sell the Melville property over the years, but wasn’t able to reach a workable deal.

"General Motors called wanted to put … an office building with a dealership," said Schliessman. "They offered us $10 million. [Huntington] wouldn’t permit it."

Rubies now has zoning and site plan approval for an office building that, according to current plans, will include a drive-through bank, a high-end restaurant and various office spaces. While the building is only in the planning stages, potential tenants are already surfacing.

"I’m talking to law firms, accounting firms … people that want high-end visibility," Schliessman said. "And many banks. A lot of banks would love to be on that corner."

Although building on spec can pay off, it is for developers a nerve-wracking, nail-biting process – at least, until space is rented.

"I haven’t slept for a year," Farkas noted.

But with Lifetime standing by and ready to move in, the developer can rest easier.

"I believed in the dream," Farkas said. "Build it, and they will come.

By Claude Solnik
Long Island Business News

LONG ISLAND BUSINESS NEWS - GARDEN CITY – Long Island’s converted Bristol-Myers Squibb Pharma factory just scored its second tenant.

Home Medical Equipment LLC has signed a 10-year lease for 9,000 square feet at the Business & Research Center at Garden City, a 186,500-square-foot factory where the painkiller Percocet was once made.

Home Medical Equipment, a distributor of wheelchairs, hospital beds and other convalescent aids, currently occupies about 6,500 square feet elsewhere in Garden City. It should relocate later this year and will use the new digs for warehouse, office and support facilities.

In 2005, developer Joseph Farkas teamed with equity partner Angelo, Gordon & Co. to pony up $7.4 million for the Pharma complex, known for its distinctive architecture with rugged concrete ribs and a hand-chiseled concrete interior.

The multi-million-dollar renovation is paying off. In May, Lifetime Brands Inc., one of the Island’s top public companies, signed a 15-year lease for 115,000 square feet in the former Pharma building – one of the year’s biggest lease transactions on Long Island. Lifetime Brands makes products under such well-known monikers as KitchenAid, Cuisinart, Pfaltzgraff Co. and Farberware.

Such deals “reinforce our initial decision to crate this distinctive hybrid building concept,” Farkas said in a statement.

The Home Medical Equipment deal was negotiated by Thomas B. DiMicelli and Douglas Omstrom of Corporate National Realty LLC.

LONG ISLAND BUSINESS NEWS - GARDEN CITY – Booming housewares giant Lifetime Brands Inc., one of the Island’s top public companies, is moving its headquarters – and more than doubling its space.

In the Island’s biggest lease deal so far this year, the Westbury company has signed a 15-year lease to occupy 115,000 square feet of the 186,500-square-foot Business and Research Center at Garden City. Lifetime will fill the bulk of the former Bristol-Myers Squibb Pharma complex, a turreted concrete shell where the painkiller Percocet was once produced.

The future Lifetime Brands headquarters was purchased in August by developer Joe Farkas, who said Wednesday afternoon he’s elated that a “company of Lifetime’s size and stature recognized the attributes of such a significant and monumental piece of real estate.”

But the deal’s importance goes beyond square feet.

"This is a big deal for everybody,” said Fred Parola, executive director of Hempstead’s Industrial Development Agency, which granted tax abatements to assist the deal. “This is a nationally known, internationally known, highly respected corporation that is enlarging and [sticking with] the Town of Hempstead and Nassau County.”

Lifetime Brands – which designs and markets brands including KitchenAid and Cuisinart and has products in more than 33,000 retail locations – will tap the Stewart Avenue space for executive office, research, warehouse and showroom space, the company said. It is unclear what will happen to the company’s 47,000 square feet in Westbury, where 190 people currently work, after the December relocation.

The company – with a market cap of $375 million and first quarter sales of $75 million, up 73 percent year-over-year – is expanding rapidly. Last month, it paid $55 million for Syratech Corp., marketer of luxury tabletop products and picture frames under labels including Vera Wang and Kenneth Cole Reaction. That deal should boost revenues by $100 million this year, the company said.

Last July, Lifetime Brands spent $37.9 million for the well-known Pfaltzgraff Co. moniker. Two months later, it forked over another $14.2 million for some of the Salton Inc. brand, including Salton’s Block, Calvin Klein and NapaStyle. And in 2004, the company paid $8.5 million for brand names including Farberware and Joseph Abboud Environments.

In 2006, Lifetime Brands expects to develop 1,400 products – double the number of products developed in 2005, according to the company, which was founded in 1945 as Lifetime Cutlery Corp.

The firm, with 1,900 employees worldwide, “has grown significantly over the past few years” and simply outgrew its Westbury space, said Ronald Shiftan, Lifetime’s vice chairman and chief operating officer.

According to documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Lifetime Brand’s annual rent in Garden City will be $1.92 million in the first year and $2.8 million in year 15. Because the company received IDA assistance, designed to encourage homegrown growth, property taxes cost $247,044 the first year and $419,036 in the lease’s final year, according to the documents.

The Lifetime Brands deal is a “boost for the general market” in what has otherwise been a lackluster leasing year, said Bill Greiner, co-founder of Greiner-Maltz Real Estate, one of the Island’s first brokerages. In the first quarter, the biggest office deal was HIP Health Plan of New York’s deal to rent nearly 35,000 square feet in Valley Stream.

The record-breaking l<

But it was Doug Omstrom’s sale of an old painkiller plant, the Bristol-Myers Squibb Pharma Co. shell in Garden City, that won top honors on Thursday. The Corporate National Realty broker received the Most Innovative Deal of the Year award from the Association for a Better Long Island and the Commercial and Industrial Brokers Society.

The award was presented at the Long Island Real Estate Dinner, held at Huntingon’s Oheka Castle.

This is the first time Omstrom, a 23-year industry veteran, received the prestigious honor.

 “I’m glad. I’m happy,” said Omstrom, who praised colleagues Samuel A. Rozzi and Thomas B. DiMicelli, who helped reinvent the building while preserving its distinct architecture.

Buyer Joseph Farkas is transforming the 190,000-square-foot shell into a mixed-use business center with office, laboratory, distribution and warehouse space. Extensive renovations are underway.

 “I think the deal was recognized for its adaptive reuse,” said Farkas, who with a partner paid more than $7 million for the turreted plant. We’re “working within the confines of the existing structure and bringing jobs back to the Town of Hempstead.”

The deal was previously selected as one of Long Island Business News’ Top 10 Deals of the 2005.

In other awards, Bennett Rechler won Developer of the Year. He’s a principal of We’re Associates, which manages 3.5 million square feet of commercial space on Long Island. Family-run We’re was commended for providing Henry Schein Inc.’s new $30 million headquarters.

Oxford & Simpson Realty Services Inc.’s Paul Amoruso, meanwhile, was recognized as a Distinguished Leader.

Amoruso, who develops hotels, shopping centers and office complexes, also volunteers for The Nature Conservancy and is chairman of facilities for the New York Institute of Technology.

REAL ESTATE WEEKLY - New York's newest home for biopharmaceutical and clinical laboratory businesses offers turnkey state-of-the-art lab space; a central location in New York's most populous suburban county and competitive rents in an architecturally significant building.