Pfizer tells NL workers they'll soon be moving

About 500 Pfizer Inc. scientists in one of the company's three office towers in New London have been told they will be relocating within the next month, the pharmaceutical firm confirmed Tuesday.

Pfizer spokeswoman Liz Power said in an e-mail that "a business entity with an immediate need for office space" has expressed interest in the New London property. Power would not identify the company involved, but several sources said submarine builder Electric Boat in Groton, which indicated last year a need for 50,000 square feet of space to accommodate a growing engineering department, is contemplating a move.

Pfizer would not say whether the prospective new occupant would buy or lease the property, though Power said it would "continue to move toward finding a high-quality tenant for the (rest of the) facility."

Spokesman Robert Hamilton said Electric Boat, a division of General Dynamics, is still in the process of determining where it will locate. Nothing is final, he said.

EB President John P. Casey previously announced plans to hire designers and engineers required to produce the next generation of ballistic-missile submarines.

A person familiar with discussions among Pfizer, the state and General Dynamics said talks to secure financing for a deal on the Pfizer campus were complete but attorneys were still negotiating remaining issues, including reducing the liability of either company for environmental conditions of the property related to its past use, which included a linoleum factory and a junkyard.

The state assumed liability for the heavily polluted former New London Mills site off Pequot Avenue as part of its package of incentives to lure the company to New London in 1998.

General Dynamics "wants to have zero liability, and Pfizer wants to leave the site like it never occupied it in the first place," the person said.

The source, who was granted anonymity because those familiar with the negotiations have not been authorized to speak publicly, said a deal was not yet in hand but could be close. There is about "a 90-percent shot of getting it over the goal line," the source said.

Power said Pfizer notified employees in Tower C - the office facility closest to the Thames River - that they would soon begin moving to one of the other two towers in New London. She added in a phone interview that an examination of available office space at the Pfizer campus in Groton is currently under way in anticipation of moving personnel across the river within the next year or so.

Pfizer announced last year that it would close its 700,000-square-foot former worldwide R&D headquarters by the end of 2011, moving most of its 1,400 drug-development employees in New London to the company's research site in Groton.