Robert G. McCafferty, senior vice president/director and Peter D. Blanchard, principal of the Garibaldi Group, represented American Home Products. Carol McGuire and Michael Grossmann of Mack-Cali Realty Corp.'s Elmsford office negotiated for the property owner.

Blanchard notes that the lease was necessitated by the company's growth and is for a five-year term. Approximately 400 employees are expected to be housed at the new offices. American Home Products is a major heath care manufacturer and marketer of pharmaceutical and biotechnology products as well as consumer health care and animal health care products. Wyeth is the research-based, pharmaceutical business of American Home Products and employs 40,000 people worldwide. Headquartered in Pennsylvania, Wyeth is involved with women's health care products and also manufacturers vaccines in the US. American Home Products maintains its world headquarters in 500,000 sf of space at Five Giralda Farms in Madison, NJ.

"This was a pretty straight forward deal. Obviously we wanted to keep them pretty close to their Pearl River campus," Blanchard says. Wyeth-Ayerst did review a number of sites in nearby Bergen County, New Jersey and also considered a property in Tarrytown (Westchester County), but eventually decided the Blue Hill Plaza property suited its needs best. The firm did not seek any state or local tax incentives, he adds.