Industry City Attracts Global Film & TV Equipment Company

NEW YORK CITY—VER Technologies will be leasing 25,000 square feet at Industry City. Founded 35 years ago, the global provider of TV and film production equipment works on six continents. They will be moving their New York City headquarters from 620 12th Ave. between 47th and 48th streets in Manhattan to the expansive complex on the waterfront at Sunset Park, Brooklyn during the first quarter of 2019.

VER signed a five-year lease for space on the second floor of 147 41st St. Rents at Industry City range from $15 to $40 per square foot.

The company will use their new location as an equipment hub for clients in the TV, cinema, live events, broadcast and corporate markets. Approximately 40 employees will work at the new location, once it’s fully up and running.

Industry City spans six million square feet. Originally called Bush Terminal, it historically was a manufacturing, warehousing and shipping development dating back to the early 1900s.

Now, more than three dozen media and production companies have brought Industry City into the 21st century. This includes the animation studio Buck, production equipment rental shop AbelCine, VR/AR/livestream company 30 Ninjas, livestreaming service provider B Live, drone operator Aerobo, and LED film and TV lighting provider, LiteGear. 

Condé Nast and Serious Eats have content studios at the site. Essence Magazine will also join the group, moving its headquarters later this year.

Sunset Park’s growing media and production corridor is stretching beyond the manufacturing and innovation hub. The City of New York invested $136 million to develop its Made in New York campus that’s scheduled to open in 2020 next to Industry City. In addition to creating a 200,000-square-foot garment manufacturing center, the project includes building a 100,000-square-foot TV and film production facility.

“New York City’s film and production industry is booming,” says Kathe Chase, director of leasing at Industry City. “The industry is much more than the TV and movie filming operations you see on streets across the city. It’s equipment rental companies like VER; it’s post-production, animation and content studios, and its drone operators and set designers. All of those ancillary businesses are coming together at Industry City to create this incredible ecosystem that you can’t find anywhere else.”

Joel H. Schneider of Hilco Real Estate represented VER and Sam Gewirtzman of Industry City’s internal leasing team represented the landlord property owners.

Industry City’s owners, led by Belvedere Capital, Jamestown and Angelo Gordon & Co. are redeveloping the 16-building, 35-acre campus. Industry City states that over the past five years it has invested over $300 million in the property and leased more than three million square feet of space including one million square feet of manufacturing space. The owners note during this period, businesses based at the property have collectively grown by an average of 100 jobs per month, more than tripling from 1,900 jobs in 2013 to 8,000 jobs today.