REAL ESTATE: Man behind Canon's 25-year-drive for new building

Canon U.S.A. had plenty to be proud of as one of the world's largest imaging companies, but top executives found it "embarrassing" that Canon leased - and did not own - its headquarters space in Lake Success.

So Seymour Liebman, Canon's executive vice president, was tasked with finding 50 acres the company could buy and use as a headquarters for its North American operations.

That was 25 years ago. Yes, it has taken Canon a quarter of a century to find a place to break ground, which it did Monday morning at a site off the Long Island Expressway in Melville.

And Liebman lived every minute of the search.

"I thought it [the ground breaking] would happen, but not on Long Island," Liebman said before the ceremony under a giant tent on 50 acres. "New Jersey and Connecticut were giving us all kinds of incentives."

In 1991, Canon built an eastern regional headquarters in on 42.3 acres in Jamesburg, N.J. Liebman said Canon looked at several spots in Nassau, including part of the Roosevelt Raceway. But three years ago Lake Success real estate lawyer Bruce Blakeman called Liebman, suggesting the Melville site. In the end, Liebman said, Canon decided to stay on the Island for fear that a move would mean losing 80 percent of its workforce.

Over the years, Liebman said, there were so many ups and downs in the search that "we gave up making it a priority." But, he said, every time he went to Canon's Tokyo headquarters executives there pressed him to find a spot.

"We had bought property in Dallas, Atlanta and Chicago," Liebman said. It was embarrassing that we didn't own our own headquarters" building.

Amy Newman, a senior adviser in Canon's administration group and a member of Liebman's search team, said the team followed "a winding road. It was one step forward, two steps back," Newman said.

"But we're finally here today," she added.