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The religious organization that purchased the former GEICO property in Woodbury 14 months ago is planning to build on about half of the site and sell the rest.
The Christian Congregation of Jehovah’s Witnesses, which bought the 20-acre property at 750 Woodbury Road for $27 million in Dec. 2022, is seeking approval from the Town of Oyster Bay to subdivide the site, in advance of constructing three new buildingsand selling off 10.23 acres.
The religious group, based in upstate Wallkill, plans to eventually demolish the existing 235,635-square-foot office building, which GEICO had occupied for half a century. But a Jehovah’s Witness spokesman said the office building will remain in place duringconstruction of the three new buildings to serve as an administrative hub, a place to feed volunteers at the site, and obscure construction activity to limit any disruption to the community.
The planned development will bring a new 52,400-square-foot assembly hall, according to the organization’s site plan application to the town. The plans also include constructing a 3,900-square-foot maintenance building and a 2,500-square-foot residence.
The new buildings are planned to be developed on about 9.74 acres towards the southern end of the Woodbury property, with the remaining acreage fronting Woodbury Road being offered for sale.
A Newmark brokerage team of Scott Berfas, Daniel Oliver, Brian Lee and Jordan Oliver have been retained to market the remaining 10.23-acre parcel.
“Give the scarcity of available land in Nassau County, it is extremely rare to bring this size of a parcel in a prime location to the market,” Berfas said via email.“We look forward to ensuring that a variety of uses are considered to create the highest and best use of the property that will benefit our client and the surrounding community.”
The Woodbury property is zoned for light industry, which could accommodate a wide variety of commercial uses, though the town would still have to approve whatever plans a prospective buyer proposes.
However, the religious group’sspokesman said the organization will seek a buyer for the land that is compatible with the group’s educational setting.
“We have a rare chance to choose our own adjacent neighbor who will be compatible to our use and to the surrounding residential communities,” he said.
GEICO had been a fixture in Woodbury since the insurance giant bought the land from the Tilles family some 50 years ago. The four-story, red brick and glass office building had been home to thousands of GEICO employees and served as an anchor for the family’s development of the sprawling Woodbury office park that began to take shape in the 1970s.
GEICO was in contract to sell its Woodbury property to a New Jersey-based developer in 2021, but the deal fell through when it became apparent that the town wouldn’t allow a redevelopment of the site into a warehousing and distribution facility. Real estate sources say GEICO would have realized close to$48 million if that first sale would have gone through.
As of 2021, the annual property taxes on the former GEICO property were about $1.227 million. And though the religious group is seeking tax exempt status for 2024, it paid the 2023 taxes, so the local school district and municipalities wouldn’t be left with a gap in their budgets, according to the spokesman. Depending on who buys the Woodbury parcel that’s up for sale and what is eventually developed there, it could end up back on the town’s tax rolls.
The religious group is currently awaiting a hearing before the town’s Planning Advisory Committee on its subdivision and development plan.
In anticipation of its Woodbury property sale, GEICO signed a lease for 200,000 square feet of office space at 1 Huntington Quadrangle in Melville, where it announced to employees in Nov. 2021 that the company would relocate to. TheChevy Chase, Md.-basedinsurer, a wholly owned subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway,had planned to move into its new digs in the fourth quarter of lastyear, once renovations on the Melville officeswere completed.
Since then, however, GEICO changed its plans and has beentrying to sublease the Melville space. About 40,000 square feet of the office space has so far been subleased to other tenants and several other firms have shown interest in the sublease space, according to Darren Leiderman of Colliers, who along with his colleagues Maria Valanzano and Nicole Alper, are representing GEICO in the subleasing assignment.
