News Coverage

Done Deal: Pfizer Property Sold to Build Cutting-Edge Technology Park

By Mike Isaacs

Developer Forest City Enterprises announced Tuesday that it has purchased the former Pfizer Pharmaceuticals property occupying 28 acres in downtown Skokie.

Forest City had been negotiating with Pfizer for over a year and purchased the site for $43 million including 1 million square feet of research and office space across nine buildings. The new complex will be called the Illinois Technology Innovation Campus.

"This is an exciting day for the Village of Skokie," said Mayor George Van Dusen. "We are proud to have this important project in Skokie. We anticipate tremendous benefits to our community and all of Illinois."

Van Dusen said all along that he was "cautiously optimistic" about the deal moving forward and stressed the project's importance for Skokie.

"One of the benefits this has for Skokie is that it keeps our local economy diversified," he said Wednesday. "We've done a good job even surviving tough times in this village because of the diversified economy with retail, science research and construction."

He said the project's success was "a team effort" with many working hard to get the deal done. Forest City plans to redevelop the property into a cutting edge "technology innovation campus" and promises that it will serve as a catalyst in transforming the state "from a scientific research hub to an economic engine for bioscience technologies."

The village, which has been kept up to date on negotiations for the property every step of the way, had estimated the campus would create between 1,500 and 3,000 jobs. But Forest City this week said the new technology campus would create more than 3,250 jobs on-site and estimated 10,000 ripple-effect jobs and 1,000 construction jobs.

Skokie officials estimate the 3,250 relatively high-paying jobs created by the project will increase Skokie's private-sector employment base of approximately 35,400 by nearly 9.2 percent.

Drawing on expenditure patterns in other locations, village officials estimate that employees of the Illinois Technology Innovation Campus will spend about $2 million annually in downtown Skokie, just on their lunch hour.

Forest City officials estimate that the campus will generate $1.8 billion annually in statewide economic activity, according to a study conducted by Applied Real Estate Analysis, Inc.

"This project (will retain) the best minds here in Illinois, attracting new emerging technologies businesses to the state and creating a culture of science for generations to come," said Gayle Farris, president of Forest City's University, Bioscience and Technology Group.

"This unique campus will allow relationships to cultivate from the close proximity and tech transfer of academic research and development activities that will be critical in pushing goods to the marketplace more efficiently."

Pfizer closed both its Skokie downtown and northern locations about 1 1/2 years ago in a worldwide reorganization. The state recently announced it budgeted $4 million for public incentives to help bring Forest City to Skokie to purchase the property. Forest City is still looking for more incentives that could include help from the village and other sources.

When Pfizer Inc. announced its shutdown in 2003, it affected 1,500 research and administrative jobs in the Chicago area. The vast majority of those were in Skokie. For decades, the facility under different ownerships was a major boon to the village and conducted significant pharmaceutical research on everything from birth control to Nutra Sweet.

Van Dusen said Pfizer kept its word to the village right after it shutdown. It promised to look for a new buyer that would keep the campus a science park. It kept the village informed during the entire course of negotiations.

The Pfizer property includes nine buildings. Building Q, as it is called,is a state-of-the-art research building and will not need significant renovation. But four buildings will probably be demolished and a couple of other buildings renovated,officials have said.

"Gov. Blagojevich is strongly committed to investing the taxpayers' money efficiently and effectively," said Illinois Department off Commerce and Economic Director Jack Lavin regarding the$4 million incentive from the state.

"This is about turning an existing facility into a powerful economic engine once again for Skokie and the entire region by attracting even more high tech firms to Illinois and by further establishing the state asa leader in the biotech industry."

The village is still working on creating a new Skokie Swift stop at Oakton Street. Creating that stop has been a village goal for years,but now, the village's hope is that it will serve as a gateway to the new technology campus.

The park could have upwards of 14 companies conducting important research with the ability to communicate with each other. Only three facilities in the country have similar setups, Van Dusen said, and there is not a facility like this one in Illinois.

Officials have compared the future technology park to Research Triangle Park in North Carolina, the largest research park in the world and home to more than 100 research and development organizations such as IBM and Cisco Systems, MIT's research park and California's Silicon Valley.