ProLogis in agreement to buy Staten Island property
ProLogis, one of the world's largest industrial real estate developers, has reached a preliminary agreement to purchase a 676-acre tract on Staten Island on the Arthur Kill that was once slated to become a NASCAR racetrack.
The company hopes to complete the purchase from International Speedway Corp. by the end of the year, said Arthur Hodges, a spokesmen for ProLogis.
The company plans to build a large industrial park and believes it will be attractive for distribution. The site can be accessed by road, rail and water.
A report in the Staten Island Advance newspaper earlier this month said ProLogis beat out Worldwide Group for the site. Worldwide, a company led by Carmine Ragucci, former head of the Howland Hook Marine Terminal, and Ragucci's son Christopher, wanted to build a marine terminal there.
The article quoted James Molinaro, borough president of Staten Island, as saying he believed that some of the property might be used as a marine terminal.
The property fronts the Arthur Kill, a waterway used extensively by tankers and barges calling at petroleum and chemical terminals. International Speedway acquired the former tank farm in 2004 from GATX and planned to turn it into a NASCAR racing track, but withdrew the plan two years later after community outcry about traffic congestion that stock car fans might create.
It’s unclear how much work would have to be done to make the site usable by barges or ships — ships calling there would have to contend with a shallower channel than at the major container terminals in the port as well as height restrictions from the nearby Goethals Bridge. But some believe it could be attractive for some oceangoing ships or coastal vessels.
ProLogis has not said exactly how much warehouse space it will build, but similar sites support 3.5 million square feet of warehouses.
ProLogis owns and manages about 447 million square feet of space around the world, including about 20 million square feet in Northern New Jersey. These include industrial parks in rural areas such Cranbury, N.J., and the company has recently been developing parcels in urban areas close to the port.
Both the State of New Jersey and Port Authority of New York and New Jersey have been encouraging development of warehousing and distribution space on brownfields close to the port as part of what they call the Portfields initiative.
One of those ProLogis sites in Woodridge and Carteret will eventually include 3.2 million square foot of space, while another in Elizabeth will have about 1 million square feet.