The big news is that the world's largest pharmaceutical company will spend upwards of $400 million over the next five years to expand Pfizer Consumer Healthcare's world headquarters campus here, which it inherited a few years ago when it acquired Warner-Lambert. Pfizer officials are already talking to local officials about a project that would add 900,000 sf to the existing 1.3 million sf on the 175-acre site, boosting its capacity from 3,700 to 5,000 employees.

"We have built a great relationship with the community and expansion of our operations here will enable us to meet our future growth need with minimal disruption," says Marc Robinson, president of Pfizer Consumer Healthcare in a statement. "The Morris Plains site allows our R&D and business teams to operate seamlessly in one location."

"New Jersey is critical to our future success," says Pfizer chairman/CEO Hank McKinnell, also in a statement. "The investment we are announcing today reaffirms our commitment to New Jersey and to the strong partnerships we have established here."

At the same time, Pfizer announced that it would expand its regional sales office in Parsippany, NJ, where it also has a variety of manufacturing, distribution and corporate functions. Expanding the sales office will result in the closing of the existing Pharmacia sales office in Princeton, NJ.

As far as other Garden State locations Pfizer inherited after folding Pharmacia's operations into its own, the company will continue to use the latter's former headquarters campus in Peapack, NJ, as well as a smaller location a few miles away in Bridgewater, NJ. Pfizer officials indicated, however, that the company would put Pharmacia's 250,000-sf facility in nearby Bedminster, NJ on the sublease market, something Pharmacia had already announced plans to do.

And as far as the 1.3-million-sf former AT&T headquarters campus in Basking Ridge, NJ, which Pharmacia acquired for $200 million in July 2002 ostensibly to consolidate its New Jersey operations, Pfizer officials say they do not intend to occupy it. Interestingly, the Pfizer-Pharmacia merger was announced last summer, just weeks after the sale of the property closed, leading many observers to speculate that Pharmacia went ahead with the site acquisition as a means of leveraging up its merger price.

Pfizer will hold onto a small piece of the property, the former AT&T Learning Center, which has been renamed as the North Maple Inn and operates as a conference hotel. Company officials say they are still studying the 171-key hostelry's use in their long-term plans.

A meeting is scheduled for today between New Jersey Gov. James McGreevey and Pfizer officials, including McKinnell, as part of ongoing discussions involving the fate of the former AT&T property. Company and state officials say a number of other related issues are on the table as well.

And while job cuts are expected to be part of the ongoing assimilation process, Pfizer officials remain mum on the exact numbers. Considered to be most at risk are staffers at the former Pharmacia HQ in Peapack, many of whose jobs are redundant with positions at Pfizer's corporate headquarters in New York City.