Pfizer sells W’burg plant to Queens firm

Pharmaceutical company Pfizer has unloaded eight of 13 acres at its shuttered Flushing Avenue manufacturing plant in South Williamsburg to Long Island City-based Acumen Capital Partners, which plans to revive the site, according to the Post. The complex, which is where the 162-year-old pharma giant got its start, had been previously eyed for redevelopment into a mixed-use complex with more than 1,000 apartments, including affordable housing. But Pfizer abandoned those plans two years ago because of the recession, and it doesn’t look like the Acumen deal will involve housing. The price Acumen paid for the site was undisclosed, but its takeover is expected to bring new light-manufacturing and commercial jobs to the area. Assemblyman Vito Lopez said he is “very disappointed” in the deal and is now planning to introduce legislation that would allow the city to seize the remaining five acres at the plant through eminent domain so that an affordable housing plan could still be realized. Lopez made a similar, unsuccessful, move in 2008. [Post]