Stony Brook seizes key land

"Stony Brook University has taken title to the 246-acre property it is seizing from a former defense manufacturer, university officials announced yesterday.

After Gyrodyne Co. of America rejected a $26-million offer from Stony Brook for the site, which sits next to the university on Route 25A, negotiations broke down last month and the school moved to condemn the land through eminent domain.

Gyrodyne yesterday received notice that the university had filed an acquisition map with the Suffolk County clerk to formally take the title.

'We own the property,' Shirley Strum Kenny, the university's president, said yesterday. She added, 'we can begin work now on a Center for Excellence and Wireless and Information Technology.'

The proposed center would be made up of 22 laboratories in a 100,000-square-foot building. University faculty, students and local businesses would conduct research focusing on homeland security, cyber security and other technologies, according to the school. Construction is expected to begin in 2006 and the center would open in 2008."