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Recession Keeps Brooklyn Brewery In Williamsburg
By
Ben Muessig
Published Nov 3, 2009
Modified Nov 3, 2009
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By
Ben Muessig
Published Nov 3, 2009
Modified Nov 3, 2009
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If you've been looking for the silver lining in the recession, here it is: Thanks to plummeting industrial real estate values, the Brooklyn Brewery will be able to stay in Brooklyn. Just last summer, the Williamsburg-based lager-makers feared they couldn't afford to stay in their increasingly costly neighborhood when their lease expired, but dwindling property values and receding interest from non-manufacturing interests allowed the Brewery to sign a 15-year lease.
Though the Brewery is located in one of the city's Industrial Business Zones, the area had faced encroachment from non-industrial tenants like a planned hotel and the bowling alley/restaurant/nightclub combo Brooklyn Bowl that had driven property values sky-high, Brooklyn Brewery founder Steve Hindy told the Times. “When the recession hit in, like, August or September last year, all of a sudden the landlords here in Williamsburg were looking much more favorably on us as a long-term tenant."
Details about the new lease — which at an average cost of about $15 per square foot is far higher than the Brewery had been paying, but only about half as much as peak prices in the midst of the boom — come on the heels of last week's announcement that the Brooklyn Brewery won an $800,000 government grant to help its $6.5 million expansion in Williamsburg. This is all well and good, but one question remains unanswered: How long until bacon beer hits the taps?
Tagged
brooklyn brewery
real estate
recession
williamsburg
Ben Muessig
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