HANOVER — Bayer Healthcare LLC will be moving into the long vacant Alcatel-Lucent property on Whippany Road, bringing 2,500 employees and plans to refurbish a main building on the site while adding additional structures and employees in the future, township officials announced today.
“We’ve worked real hard and are blessed to have a major international pharmaceutical company coming into our township,” said Mayor John T. Sheridan. “It will not only boost the Hanover Township economy but it will be a boost to the whole region.’’
Bayer had announced in April that it would combine its East Coast business in New Jersey and that the consolidated headquarters would be in Morris County. Bayer's New Jersey operations currently are in Morris Township, Montville and Wayne.
Rosemarie Yancosek, head of U.S. External Communications, for the company, confirmed a deal had been reached.
“We have signed a contingent purchase agreement for a property at 67 Whippany Road in Whippany, New Jersey, that’s contingent upon the completion of the due diligence process,’’ Yancosek said.
If the process is successfully completed, about 2,500 employees, currently working at the other New Jersey sites plus Tarrytown, N.Y., will be based at the Whippany Road site, she said. People are expected to begin moving into the site in 2013, she said.
The 194-acre Alcatel-Lucent property sold for $18.5 million in December to private equity firm Rubenstein Partners and Mountain Lakes-based real estate development firm Vision Equities. Vision has executed a number of developments in Hanover, including Cadbury on Route 10, and plans to build a shopping center development with apartments called Whippany Village at Route 10 and Troy Hills Road.
The Alcatel-Lucent property is comprised of two adjacent lots. The main lot at 67 Whippany Road has 15 buildings, including offices and research labs, totaling 1,354,751 square feet of space, according to information provided earlier this year by Rubenstein Partners. The 140-acre lot sold for $12.5 million. The other lot at 85 Whippany Road has about 50 acres of open space. It sold for $6 million.
