Former Unilever building could see new owner as food industry manufacturer Sefi looks to expand

An Amityville-based kitchen equipment manufacturer plans to buy a 42,000-square-foot building for $7.65 million to expand its operations and revive the former Unilever facility.

Sefi Fabricators Inc., which makes kitchen countertops and other furnishings, applied for tax incentives in November from the Town of Babylon to buy and renovate the building at 11 Ranick Dr. S. in Amityville, according to a Babylon Industrial Development Agency resolution.

The purchase would revamp the building, which Unilever left in 2024 after the London-based consumer goods seller closed its production facility for beauty product line Sundial Brands, laying off more than 100 workers. 

The project "seeks to revitalize a 42,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in Amityville and support new investment in our local economy," said Babylon IDA chief executive Tom Dolan, who said there was also the potential for creating "additional opportunities through future warehouse use."

Sefi plans to sell its existing building, which sits directly northeast at 50 Ranick Dr. E, and use the new building to "grow and take on bigger manufacturing orders," Mark Cuthbertson, an attorney representing Sefi, told Newsday in an email. The new space will allow Sefi to hire up to four more employees within around a year to its 38-person staff, who make an average of $70,000 per year, Cuthbertson added.

The Babylon IDA gave Sefi its preliminary approval for tax breaks on Nov. 19, which would include a mortgage recording tax exemption of up to $45,900 and 12 years of property tax relief, amounting up to roughly $647,680 in savings, according to the IDA. Sefi plans to spend around $350,000 to renovate the new building.

Those tax breaks "will allow the company to continue to grow," Cuthbertson said in the email. "The IDA benefits and the savings they provide, including the tax savings, are critical to allowing Sefi to purchase and equip the new building. Without them there was the possibility that the company would relocate to another state."

Sefi already scored a tax exemption deal with the IDA in 2022 through two property holding companies, P & M LLC and Sefi Realty LLC, securing tax relief through 2034 when it purchased its current building at 50 Ranick Dr. E. in Amityville for $2.7 million and renovated it, according to its 2022 agreement with the IDA and property records.

The IDA plans to hold a public hearing on Sefi's plans to buy the new building on Dec. 16, according to the IDA.

If the sale closes, it could bring new life into the former Unilever building. The warehouse once held 167 workers manufacturing a line of beauty and personal care products dubbed Sundial Brands, which were primarily marketed to Black women.

But in November 2023, Unilever, the brand’s owner, a multinational corporation and the owner of popular products such as Ben & Jerry's, announced that it would lay off all the Sundial workers and move its operations off Long Island because the building was too small to grow its operations, Newsday reported. It also laid off two workers at the plant’s warehouse in Farmingdale. Unilever declined to comment on its decision to close its operations there.

The current owner of 11 Ranick Dr. S., 11 Ranick Dr South LLC, could not immediately be reached for comment. The LLC purchased the building in 2005 for just under $1.9 million, according to property records.