Brooklyn Losing Zoloft but Gaining Affordable Housing on Pfizer Site?

The announcement that Pfizer was shutting down its Brooklyn manufacturing plant--where Zoloft, Cardura XL and other prescription drugs are produced--had barely hit Monday when discussion started about the fate of the company's factory on Flushing Avenue in Williamsburg and several adjacent parcels of land. (The Pfizer land is shaded in the Google map/satellite image above.)

Yesterday, Brownstoner offered that the site should be used for affordable housing, writing:

The availablity of a site this size provides Mayor Bloomberg with a rare opportunity to achieve his affordable housing goals. The area would have to be rezoned for residential, but the Mayor said yesterday that he planned to pursue that course of action.

A huge amount of land will be in play including the 660,000-square-foot plant between Marcy and Tompkins. Pfizer also owns another 15 acres of land nearby, leading a source to write to Curbed:

It's a sizable chunk of real estate in Williamsburg/Bed-Stuy. On the above Google satellite image, it's not just the factory and parking lot, but the three triangular/trapezoidal plots just north of it. It's almost as large as the Marcy Houses to the west. I wonder which developers are going to jump on this? Like Gowanus, they'll need experience in remediating the brown-field/superfund like conditions under the plant. Keep an eye on this story.

Interestingly, in May 2003, Pfizer was promised $46 million in tax breaks and subsidies to expand and add jobs in New York City. The city is said to be taking a look at the incentives in light of the plant closure.