Brooklyn manufacturer leasing its former Sunset Park HQ

You can’t build a better mousetrap, but you can certainly improve on real estate in one of Brooklyn’s prime office markets.

AP&G Co., which makes adhesives for products like fly tape and mouse boards, is repositioning its 165,000 -square-foot building in Sunset Park for Brooklyn’s creative/manufacturing office market as the company relocates to a new base in Bayonne, NJ.

Unable to find enough space in Brooklyn for its growing business and seeking more efficiency, the company struck a deal last year with economic development officials in New Jersey to relocate from its headquarters at 170 53rd Street in Sunset Park, which sits between the Brooklyn Army Terminal and Industry City.

AP&G is now considering options to reposition the three-story building, which has 20-foot-high ceilings on the top floor and a 50-foot glass atrium, as either flex-office space or a home for one or two large tenants.

“Depending on how things shake out, we have one really interesting and creative concept on the table that we are leaning towards that would make the building truly unique,” AP&G vice president Jonathan Frisch wrote in an email.

Average asking rents in the South Brooklyn submarket averaged $19.55 in the third quarter, according to CBRE. That was the lowest in the five Brooklyn markets the brokerage tracks, making it a source of price relief from neighborhoods like Dumbo, where rents average $64.47.

The Brooklyn waterfront, which is the sixth-largest office market in the country, has an availability rate of 14.2 percent, compared to 7.9 percent in Midtown South.

CBRE calculates the area stretching from Greenpoint to Sunset Park will add another five million square feet of office or light manufacturing inventory through 2018.