AWARD WINNING EDITORIAL
AUGUST 15, 2022 VOL. 58, No. 33
INCLUDING THE HUDSON VALLEY
westfaironline.com
Stamford entrepreneur begins rolling out Bitcoin purchasing kiosks BY JUSTIN MCGOWN jmcgown@westfairinc.com
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MEETINGS UNDERWAY ON PFIZER $470M ROCKLAND EXPANSION BY PETER KATZ
Pkatz@westfairinc.com
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he Business Journals have learned that informal meetings have taken place between municipal officials and representatives of the pharmaceutical giant Pfizer on the company’s planned $470 million expansion of its Pearl River campus in the town of Orangetown in Rockland County. Pfizer has been in Rockland since acquiring Wyeth Pharmaceuticals in 2009 along with the buildings and acreage owned by Wyeth. In 2015, Pfizer sold 207 acres and 25 buildings at 401 N. Middletown Road in Pearl River that it wasn’t going to continue using to Industrial Realty Group LLC (IRG), which now operates the property as Hudson Valley iCampus. Pfizer
continues to own 33 acres and occupies about 850,000 square feet of building space on its Pearl River campus. Jerica Pitts, Pfizer’s senior director of global media relations for Pfizer, told the Business Journals, “Pfizer has new plans for a $470 million transformational investment for its Vaccine Research and Development campus in Pearl River. Over the next three years, subject to approvals from officials and other entities as required, Pfizer plans to expand and modernize our campus with a new 260,000-square-foot lab building for 370 colleagues and amenities such as a modern café, fitness center, parking garage and functional outdoor plaza. The rejuvenated campus will feature connected buildings and a prominent main entrance.”
Pfizer has its Pearl River site in Rockland County. Photo courtesy Pfizer.
“It’s heartening to see the renaissance this company has undergone during my administration,” Rockland County Executive Ed Day told the Business Journals. “I’m happy to see these champions against a global health crisis planning to invest and create even deeper roots within our beautiful county with a $470 million expansion and 100 new hires. I commend Pfizer on its contribution to science and saving lives along with its commitment to calling Rockland home.” On July 24, Day had gone to Pfizer for a ceremony awarding keys to the county to two of the company’s employees in view of Pfizer’s development of a Covid-19 vaccine. Kathrin U. Jansen, senior vice president and head of vaccine research and development
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nthony Truglia, founder of Bitcoin-Abroad LLC, is pursuing his dream by installing digital kiosks across Stamford that will allow customers to purchase the cryptocurrency Bitcoin quickly and easily. “I think the number one reason I got into this is because I feel there are a lot of people who don’t have access to Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency that could benefit them,” Truglia said. Bitcoin-Abroad is seeking high-traffic areas to install kiosks, which will allow users to buy cryptocurrency from his company for a nominal fee and transfer it directly into a “hot wallet” that the user already owns. The appeal for many unbanked people is that while the value of Bitcoin has the potential to go down, it also has the potential to increase in value at rates much higher than any bank account or cer-
tificate of deposit. If two people both share the key or password that grants access to the wallet, they can also treat it like a joint checking account and avoid the transfer fees associated with services like Western Union if sharing money abroad. At the time of writing, Truglia has installed two BitcoinAbroad locations in Stamford: one at the Dunkin Donuts at 310 Elm St., and the other at Shippan Candies at 320 Shippan Ave. He is already in negotiations with additional locations and plans to order four more kiosks from his Canadian manufacturer in the near future. “I like to select areas that have really high foot traffic,” Truglia said of his selection criteria. “Typically, near highways and certain establishments, such as this Dunkin Donuts for example, that people oftentimes and in large numbers come through.” While his kiosks do not function as ATMs since they can-
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