Developer gets IDA help for $99.4M Hicksville warehouse project

A project to build a $99.4 million warehouse complex in Hicksville has been approved for economic incentives from the Nassau County Industrial Development Agency. 

Pictor Nassau Logistics Center LLC, an affiliate of Manhattan-based Brookfield Asset Management, is planning to develop a 207,237-square-foot and a 12,400-square-foot office on a long-vacant 15.1-acre site at 125 New South Road. 

A Brookfield affiliate purchased the once tainted site for $45 million in August 2021 from Bronx-based Simone Development. Covestro, a Bayer AG spinoff that manufactured and distributed polymers and plastics on the property, operated a facility on the Hicksville property from 2000 until 2002, when the company closed the plant and decided to demolish the existing buildings. 

The property was deemed a Superfund site by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in June 1986, when the EPA found contaminated groundwater. The land has since been remediated by soil removal and other cleanup efforts and the EPA determined the site no longer poses a threat to health or the environment, though the agency says long-term groundwater treatment and monitoring remain ongoing. 

The new Hicksville project will create 50 full-time-equivalent jobs, as well as 75 jobs during the construction phase, according to an IDA statement.  

“Not only does this project represent an enormous investment into the Nassau community, but it will also allow existing and future Nassau businesses to expand and improve their operations,” NCIDA Chairman William Rockensies said in the statement. “We are looking forward to seeing the potential that this project will bring to our county’s economy.” 

The developer plans to rent parts of the new warehouse and its surface parking out to third-party tenants. Construction is expected to be completed during the second quarter of 2024. 

Over the course of its 20-year payment-in-lieu-of-taxes agreement, the development is set to generate nearly $27.2 million in tax revenue for Nassau County. This is a nearly 250 percent increase over the $11 million of tax revenue the property would have generated without the project, according to the IDA. 

“When a new project is able to increase tax revenue on a property by more than two-and-a-half times than the property would have generated without it, it is easy for us to make the decision to help it succeed,” Nassau IDA CEO Sheldon Shrenkel said in the statement. “Not only that, but our aid also enables other businesses to do their part in expanding Nassau’s economy via this project. We are proud to have provided our assistance on this project and we are eager to see its future success.” 

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