Pfizer Inc. said Friday that it has officially ended a two-year global effort to sell its Lee’s Summit manufacturing plant and that it now plans to demolish the building. The 271,000-square-foot building is east of Missouri Highway 291 and south of U.S. Highway 50.
Production at the plant will cease in December, the New York City-based company (NYSE: PFE - News) said in a release. The company said it then plans to remove the building’s equipment and other assets early next year and demolish it by the end of 2007.
“Right now our focus is on the process of ramping down our operations there,” Pfizer spokesman Rick Chambers said. “In terms of the future of the property, we hope to sell it to a party that can develop it for the good of the whole community.”
Pfizer said it will restore to a natural state the 23.6 acres where the manufacturing building sits and sell the land, along with about 61 acres of adjacent vacant land. The company’s agent, CB Richard Ellis Inc., expects the land to sell for about $3.50 a square foot, or about $12.8 million for the entire 84 acres.
The company’s logistics center, on 25 acres adjacent to the manufacturing site, is not part of the demolition or sale. This center employs 32 people.
Pfizer attempted to sell the manufacturing plant as an ongoing pharmaceutical or related manufacturing operation but found no buyers in the past two years.
The search for a new operator was made more difficult because Pfizer made penicillin there until 1999, and the site would require remediation if new uses were sensitive to the product. Pfizer manufactured only animal medications at the site for the past seven years.
The plant employs 165 people. Employees are eligible for severance packages, career planning and other assistance.
The Pfizer site is just south of the proposed 134-acre City Walk development, a $317 million, 900,000-square-foot retail center being planned by Greenpoint Development LLC.
Published September 8, 2006 by the Kansas City Business Journal
