$103M Land Grab Keeps Canon in Long Island

MELVILLE, NY-Camera giant Canon USA is planning to build a corporate headquarters here, staving off considerations that the company would leave Long Island. The company has finalized a 52-acre land purchase, nicknamed the Pumpkin Farm, this week from the Tilles Cos., a local developer, for construction of the campus.

The purchase price for the South Service Rd. and Walt Whitman Rd. parcel off Exit 49 of the L.I.E. was technically around $74.5 million, but an additional $28.5 million was paid to Holliday Organization, according to published reports. Holliday was slated to acquire the Pumpkin Farm parcel from Tilles, and was then going to flip it to Canon once the camera company had interest in the site. Tilles almost cancelled the sale, but Suffolk County executive Steve Levy ironed out a three-way sale for a total purchase price of about $103 million.

“We are happy to have helped secure the largest number of jobs for Suffolk County since Computer Associates in the 1980s,” Levy touts. “Canon will be bringing to the region quality jobs, upon which people can build careers and take root in Suffolk County.” Canon is moving from Lake Success, where it has more than 1,000 employees in nearly 400,000 sf. Bruce Blakeman, the former presiding officer of the Nassau County Legislature and current member of Abrams, Fensterman, Fensterman, Eisman, Greenberg, Formato & Einige, brokered the land deal.

Among the many people who worked out incentive packages to keep Canon on Long Island, Adachi singled out Gov. Eliot Spitzer, Levy, Huntington Town supervisor Frank Petrone, Huntington councilman Mark Cuthbertson and Empire State Development Corp./Downstate chairman Pat Foye.

The decision will keep 1,100 jobs in the area, and is predicted to add 750 more over the next five years. Canon is looking for a spring 2008 start for its new complex, a six-story structure up to 860,000 sf that will be built with green design standards. New jobs expected for the headquarters include research and development positions currently at Canon’s world headquarters in Tokyo.