HOLMDEL, NJ-After years of debates and abandoned development plans, Alcatel-Lucent has signed a purchase agreement for its long-vacated Bell Labs building here with Elsie Sterling Oversight LLC for an undisclosed sum, GlobeSt.com has confirmed with the seller.
Mayor Patrick Impreveduto announced the deal at a public meeting at the Senior/Community Center on Feb. 23, according to local newspapers. No closing date has been set, and the new owner currently is investigating a mixed-use plan for the property.
“We’re obviously very pleased and look forward to closing the transaction,” Alcatel-Lucent spokeswoman Mary Ward confirmed to GlobeSt.com. ‘We’re in the very early stages.”
The deal will resolve a long saga over the 472-acre, two-million-square-foot property. Built in 1962, the Eero Saarinen-designed facility saw the creation of the transistor, microwave transmission and cell phone technology, accomplished with the aid of five Nobel Laureates and more than 6,000 employees, according to the National Trust for Historic Preservation. In spring 2005, however, Alcatel/Lucent Technologies, owner of Bell Labs, announced plans to relocate and sell the property. It has been vacant since 2007.
Previous plans for the property have included a residential and wellness complex from Somerset Development. In December, a township vote on the plan which was delayed after Alcatel-Lucent filed a letter of objection because it called for the preservation of the Saarinen building, preventing Alcatel or a future owner from subdividing or making a substantial changes to the site, and because it was based on the Somerset scheme though Alcatel had ended its relationship with the company. At that time, Ward had told GlobeSt.com that the property remained on the market.
Elsie Sterling Oversight LLC’s Elsie Sterling Howard, the retired founder and president of Sterling Public Relations, is the outgoing executive director of The Miami Beach Visitor and Convention Authority, the chairperson of the Sylvester Board of Governors Services Committee of the University of Miami Health System, and a past chair of the Citizens Commemorative Coin Committee for the US Mint, among other activities. She is a past president of the University of Pennsylvania Alumni Society, and is married to real estate attorney Eugene J. Howard.
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