The lack of affordable industrial space in some sections of Brooklyn is impeding one local business’s expansion. Brooklyn Brewery owner Steve Hindy, who started leasing a property on North 11th Street in Williamsburg 12 years ago, tells the Times that his quest to find a bigger space for the brewery in places like Red Hook and Gowanus has been fruitless, and he feels burned by the current administration. Hindy supported the 2005 rezoning of Williamsburg and Greenpoint but now thinks the city didn’t retain enough manufacturing space in the neighborhoods; Hindy’s plan to move the brewery to a pier in the Red Hook container port, meanwhile, fell through after the Port Authority decided to renew American Stevedoring’s lease for the pier. We are the Brooklyn Brewery, and we want to be in Brooklyn, says Hindy. If we can’t find a place, then who can? We’re about as perfect an example of light manufacturing as you can get. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, fewer than 100,000 manufacturing jobs remain in the city.
Double Edge to Brooklyn’s Success [NY Times]
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