As smaller local purveyors of food and crafts proliferate in New York City, those businesses have developed a need for industrial space that can be difficult to find within the five boroughs, the Wall Street Journal reported. Now, the City Council is stepping in to help firms like People’s Pops, a local popsicle maker, find and pay for warehouse and light industrial space.
People’s Pops has moved its manufacturing operation to a 2,500-square-foot space at A Former Pfizer Factory On Flushing Avenue, in Williamsburg. Landlord Acumen Partners has received $2 million in city funds to subdivide the warehouse, which now serves a number of small local manufacturers, the Journal said.
The city’s Economic Development Corporation has earmarked $8 million to modernize and divide factory spaces that were, until recently, vestiges of the city’s industrial past. “We’re not giving up on our old buildings that don’t have the same tenants or uses they once had,” City Council Speaker Christine Quinn told the Journal. [WSJ] — Guelda Voien