The Prime beneficiary
Real-estate co. strikes gold
Plastics-manufacturer-turned-realestate-dynasty Plaxall was the real winner in New York’s deal with Amazon.
The e-retail giant is expected to pay a mountain of cash to snap up more than 295,000 square feet of Long Island City waterfront property from the family-owned company in order to build its much-ballyhooed HQ2.
Although the terms have not been made public, it’s a safe bet Plaxall will be rolling in dough once Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos’ check clears.
“I think they got very lucky,” local Councilman Jimmy Van Bramer told The Post. “They’re going to make a killing here.”
A Plaxall spokesman declined to say how much the firm stood to gain, or whether it was selling or leasing to Amazon.
“Plaxall stepped into gold,” a realestate source familiar with the firm said.
And the deal couldn’t have come at a better time for Plaxall — the company was angling to build a massive, 5,000-unit mixed-use development on the site, but the $3 billion project faced an uncertain future because it hinged on an unpopular rezoning subject to the public Uniform Land Use Review Procedure.
Lucky for Plaxall, City Hall swooped in and made them a better deal, according to Van Bramer.
“The city said, ‘Plaxall, don’t worry about that 5,000-unit ULURP, which Jimmy Van Bramer was making incredibly difficult to get done anyway.
We’ve got a better plan,’ ” Van Bramer said.
Amazon plans to build up to 8 million square feet of back offices using three lots owned by Plaxall and three owned by the city.
While the ambitious plan would normally require rezoning and a lengthy public review, the state-run Empire State Development Corp. is using its power to sidestep the review by creating a special district — known as a “general project plan” — in order to speed development on the six lots.
As an additional sweetener, the city and state are allowing Plaxall to build its own residential or commercial tower on a spot south of the Amazon site, ESD officials said.
The deal allows Plaxall to avoid a rezoning battle, but any new development will still have to provide affordable housing and open space as normally required under city zoning, state officials said.
The nearly 300,000 square feet of land Plaxall is unloading to Amazon represents a significant share of the roughly 1 million square feet of Long Island City real estate Plaxall has amassed over its 70-year history.
Founder Louis Pfohl moved his plastics-manufacturing operation there in 1950 from Flushing.
Pfohl, an Austrian immigrant, found success as an early adopter of the “thermoforming” plastics-manufacturing process and reinvested his wealth in Long Island City real estate.
Now the company is run by three of his grandchildren — cousins Paula Kirby, Matthew Quigley and Tony Pfohl.