Brookhaven Town completed the purchase of a 40-acre section of the Lawrence Aviation Superfund site at Port Jefferson Station, which will be preserved for open space protection, officials said Thursday.

The city borrowed $400,000 to purchase the wooded parcel, which will serve as a buffer between neighboring homes and a Metropolitan Transportation Authority solar array and train yard that Suffolk County officials hope to see elsewhere on the 126 site. acres, City Supervisor Dan Panico said in an interview.

The city’s purchase closed Wednesday, Suffolk County spokesman Michael Martino said.

The parcel in the northwest section of the site on Sheep Pasture Road is the first section of vacant property to be sold as part of a complex plan to sell the shuttered aircraft parts manufacturing plant after years of litigation and a federal cleanup of $50 million.

“There are clearly opportunities for development of other areas of the (Lawrence Aviation) site, but it was important to the city of Brookhaven to preserve this site,” Panico said. “We want to preserve as much forested areas as possible.”

The southern section of the Lawrence property has been set aside for a solar energy system, and officials hope to sell the northeast section to the MTA for a possible Long Island Rail Road rail yard.

Lawrence Aviation Industries closed in 2003, three years after the property entered the federal Superfund cleanup program following the discovery of trichloroethene, or TCE, a solvent used to remove paint and grease. Inspectors also found acid waste, oils, sludge, metals and other toxic waste at the site.

Federal prosecutors last year announced a settlement He intended to sell portions of the property to pay off debt accrued by Lawrence Aviation owner Gerald Cohen, who died in 2020, leaving about $17.9 million in unpaid property taxes and $48.1 million was to pay for the federal cleanup, officials said at the time.

The federal agreement temporarily transferred the Lawrence site to the Suffolk County Landbank, a nonprofit arm of the county government that disposes of so-called “brownfields” properties. The land bank reached a deal last December to sell about 40 acres to the MTA for $10.

In June, the MTA asked county officials longer to complete the purchase. MTA officials did not give a reason, but Suffolk and Brookhaven officials said it was to give officials time to reroute a state walking trail that runs through part of the potential MTA property.

County officials extended the MTA deadline to Dec. 31.

MTA spokesman David Steckel said Thursday he had “no updates” on the purchase.