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n e w h a v e n b i z . c o m O c t o b e r 2 0 1 8 | n e w h a v e n B I Z 35 lease part of it back to the compa- ny through December 2018. Last February, on Valentine's Day, Calare announced it had closed on the deal. e sale price was surprisingly low — $5 million, far below the town's most recent appraised value of $46 million. News reports said the property had been listed on real estate web- sites for $50 million. At the time, town officials speculated that BMS was cutting its losses, divesting itself of a difficult-to-sell property it was no longer using — and that was likely costing millions annually in taxes and upkeep. Besides lab and office space, the complex includes its own co-gen- eration power plant, a child-care center, fitness center, cafeteria, lecture hall, nature trails and a helipad. "When I saw the $5 million sale I immediately knew they [Calare] were tearing the building down," says Wallingford Tax Assessor and replace it with a business park. "We looked at it as a great piece of dirt." Manley had been eyeing the property since 2015, when Bristol Myers-Squibb first announced plans to close the facility and move jobs to New Jersey and Cambridge, Mass. In 2016, the company said it would pull out of Connecticut altogether in 2018 as part of a nationwide restructuring. Manley says his company reached out to the drug company once a year with an offer, which he declines to dis- close. Each time it was rebuffed. By November 2017, the two sides finally reached an agreement. BMS would sell its state-of-the-art, 915,000-square-foot, amenity-rich R&D complex and the vast acreage it sits on to Calare, which would T H E L O O P W H AT ' S T H E D E A L ? A Bay State investment firm paid $5 million for Bristol Myers-Squibb's Wallingford research campus recently appraised at $46 million. It was autumn 2017 and there were still no takers on Bristol Myers-Squibb's sprawling 180-acre research campus at 5 Research Drive in Wallingford. Months earlier, a town zoning change scuttled the pharma giant's sale to what it de- scribed as its only serious suitor — an unnamed Chinese boarding school. e compa- ny, which had already moved some of its employees to other locations, was planning to vacate the building within a year. Time was of the essence. at's when Bill Manley, CEO of Calare Properties in Hudson, Mass., got the call from the drugmaker's real estate broker. BMS was ready to talk. "We had made several offers on the property over the years. None of them had been accepted," says Manley, whose real estate investment firm has been snatching up industrial properties throughout New England and the Northeast. "But there was a confluence of events at Bristol Myers that made them decide they were ready to sell." For Manley, it was a perfect opportunity: a large tract of land close to a major interstate that was right in Calare's wheelhouse (the company specializes in redevel- oping corporate properties) and a seller looking to unload an asset that was expensive to maintain and no longer fit with the compa- ny's business plan. "It's an incredibly well-placed piece of land right on the highway exit with a tremendous amount of infrastructure," says Manley, who plans to demolish the complex Shelby Jackson, who had just helped negotiate a tax settlement with BMS that gradually lowered the property's fair market value from $121 million in 2015 to the current $46 million. "$15 million for the land minus $10 million for demolition. ere's your $5 million." BMS' real estate broker, James Panczykowski, formerly with Binswanger Management Corp., declines to discuss the sale, citing client confidentiality. BMS did not respond to an email message seeking comment. Immediately aer the sale, state officials were still hopeful Calare could find a tenant that would boost Connecticut's growing bioscience sector. In a statement aer the closing, Calare touted the property's "exciting lease potential" for pharmaceutical and biotech companies. But attempts over the last several months to attract any large corporate tenants have been unsuccessful, Manley says. So Calare is moving on to Plan B: tearing down the complex and replacing it with two one-story flex/industrial buildings housing a combined 1.1 million square feet. Manley is betting there will be more interest in an industrial, manufacturing or warehouse distribution use for the property, saying those types of buildings are in high demand in Connecticut and nationwide. While he's still open to saving the complex if the right tenant comes along before BMS leaves at the end of the year, Manley says waiting years for that to happen would be cost-prohibitive. If the town approves, demolition will begin early next year. "I think it would be wonder- ful if there was a pharmaceutical company or larger employer that would come in, but we haven't been able to find anyone that fits that description," he says. "We have to put something in there that employers want." n — Natalie Missakian The 180-acre site will soon house two single-story flex/ industrial buildings totaling 1.1 million s/f. Bristol Myers Wallingford campus: Great deal on a 'great piece of dirt'

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