Industry City Rezone In Their Own Words: A Sit-Down With The CEO

SUNSET PARK, BROOKLYN —In just a few short weeks, local leaders will face a decision that could reshape one of Brooklyn's most rapidly changing neighborhoods and what is left of the borough's industrial past.

Industry City owners, who first revealed their expansion proposal earlier this year, are set to resubmit plans to rezone their 16-acre industrial complex at the end of September following a months-long delay at the request of local officials.

The proposal — which will bring two hotels and more than 1 million square feet of retail and education space — is what owners say will be the final nail in a transformation that has been reshaping the property from a forgotten industrial eyesore to a community hub over the past six years.

But it has also brought anxiety, and fervent opposition, from residents who worry it will forever change their working class, immigrant community and the elected officials who represent them.

Patch sat down with Industry City's CEO Andrew Kimball to hear his vision for the property, and how he responds to those that have been organizing against it.

(Provided by Industry City)

New era, new rules

A large part of Industry City's rezoning plan has to do with the industrial complex's long history in the neighborhood, first as a bustling port in the early 1900s and, eventually, as a symbol of the decline of the city's manufacturing industry, Kimball said.

Before its current owners — Jamestown, Belvedere Capital, and Angelo, Gordon & Co.— bought the property in 2013, it had become an unsafe stretch of decaying, largely vacant buildings. Only 1,900 people worked inside compared to the 25,000 at its manufacturing peak.

"This is not an area that you came to after 5 p.m.," said Sudhey Reyes, whose mother worked at Industry City for 30 years and who now owns a bridal boutique in the complex. "When I told (my mom) I was looking at space here she was appalled...but she came back and it was like, 'I can't believe how it's changed.'"

Though about 20 percent of its space is still vacant, the new owners have filled Industry City with more than 500 businesses and now employ 7,500 people. They believe the rezoning can help them more than double that number in 10 years.

The shift, Kimball said, has largely been about redefining the industrial past for today's burgeoning "innovation economy," which replaces large-scale manufacturers of the past with smaller tech start-ups, niche manufacturers and other young, creative tenants. More than 50 percent of the complex's workers are under 35 years old.

"People aren't sitting around thinking, 'I want to have a factory job just like my grandparents did in the 1940s or 50s,'" Kimball said. "They want to be in innovation industries that have a really bright future and those are the kind of sectors we're bringing here.

And while the industry has changed, Kimball said, the zoning laws on the property haven't been updated since they were written in the 1950s.

He contends that rezoning would remove outdated restrictions, like square footage caps for retail, or the inability to set up legitimate classroom space. Industry City's current plan calls for 900,000 square feet of new food and retail space, 600,000 square feet for classrooms and a pair of hotels with about 400 rooms.

These changes, he said, can help fill the vacant spaces and allow current tenants who might not be able to expand into retail do so. And, the education piece, he added, will ensure that the 15,000 or so largely entry level jobs Industry City estimates will come from the rezoning will be able to climb up the ladder.

(Anna Quinn/Patch)

Building on what's there

The rezoning isn't only about the new space, though. Kimball said the success of possibilities opened by the rezoning means that the complex can bring in the capital it needs to finish cleaning up the property that is already there.

Since taking over in 2013, Industry City's owners have redone the electrical systems, added sidewalks, put in 37 new loading docks, added a pedestrian pathway, started replacing 15,000 windows and turned three of the decaying courtyards into public, landscaped hang-out spots.

"We've probably gotten to 35 to 40 percent of the campus, meaning that we have 60 to 65 percent left to go," Kimball said. "(With the rezoning), because we have more flexibility on leasing, retail, academic, we can borrow more money, which means we can invest in the place faster."

Those investments also mean finishing buildings on the southern most portion of the complex that are still either completely vacant or in disrepair.

One of those buildings, closest to the water, cost $5 million to prop up after Hurricane Sandy, but hasn't had much else done to it and stands empty. Another has some tenants inside but is in need of further repairs. And the third, where the Brooklyn Nets practice on the roof, needs about $100 million in renovations, Kimball said.

(Jei Fong)

A neighborhood divided

But the rezoning plan is hardly without it's critics.

Perhaps the largest outcry has been from residents who fear the rezoning will displace low-income immigrants when real estate prices rise or because wealthier, white residents will flock to Sunset Park for the new Industry City jobs. A petition started against the rezoning has 400 signatures from English and Spanish speakers online and another 300 from Chinese speakers on print copies.

Nearly half of Sunset Park's residents are foreign-born and about 51 percent are rent-burdened, according to the 2010 U.S. Census.

"Sunset Park has the largest, working-class industrial waterfront in Brooklyn, but Industry City wants to turn it into a playground for the rich," the petition, started by Protect Sunset Park reads. "Industry City wants to change current zoning to build large chain retail stores and luxury hotels, which may lead to luxury housing. We must protect long-time residents, workers, and small, locally-owned businesses from rising rents and displacement."

Kimball contends, though, that Industry City can actually be one half of a remedy for the pressures on neighborhoods across the city, specifically the Brooklyn-Queens waterfront.

"The answer to gentrification is to create more pathways for education and more pathways for good paying jobs — not to slow those pathways down," Kimball said. "That's what we can do. What the city can do is build more affordable housing and workforce housing."

He added that the numbers show current Sunset Park and Brooklyn residents want to work at Industry City, and that that will only continue with the jobs added in a rezoning. Nearly 60 percent of Industry City's employees are from Brooklyn, including 35 percent from surrounding neighborhoods and 20 percent from Sunset Park specifically.

A majority of the workers placed through Industry City's Innovation Lab, or its job training center, have only a high school degree. But, especially with the rezoning's educational piece, those workers will be able to move up the ladder, Kimball said.

The displacement question, though, also includes local businesses outside of Industry City that worry about the competition of its growing retail hub.

Kimball argues that those anxieties are based on "prospective anxiety and not reality today." Businesses that surround industry city — such as an electrical supply store, a beer distributor or a local hardware store — have had some of their "best years ever" because of both the increased foot traffic and the work created by Industry City's construction projects.

Other concerns have popped up among local elected officials include how the plan would affect surrounding schools, transit, traffic and other infrastructure. Industry City ultimately agreed to postpone its application after Council Member Carlos Menchaca threatened to vote down the proposal if it wasn't delayed.

Kimball said this week that if the rezoning doesn't happen for whatever reason, the complex will need to go to "plan B" options for expanding under existing zoning rules, which could include unlimited office space.

He is hopeful, though, that "plan A" will succeed.

"Anybody who has made the effort to come down here and see it...come away being like, 'Wow I didn't know there was all that upstairs, there's good stuff happening here,'" he said. "We think the rezoning can add to that dynamism and fuel the job creation at an even faster pace, which we think is a really good thing for the local community."