Jamestown Said to Close on Huge BK Industrial Complex

NEW YORK CITY-A partnership led by Jamestown has acquired a 49.9% stake in Industry City, a six-million-square-foot complex of 16 industrial properties located on the Sunset Park waterfront in Brooklyn, Crain's New York Business said Thursday afternoon. A Jamestown spokesman did not respond to GlobeSt.com's requests for comment by deadline late Thursday afternoon; however, a source familiar with the proceedings confirmed that the transaction had taken place.

As reported on GlobeSt.com in August, a partnership that also included Angelo, Gordon & Co. and Belvedere Capital eyed the Industry City complex, formerly known as Bush Terminal, as a future hub for new-manufacturing industrial as well as office tenants. Crain's reported that the deal, worth at least $150 million, gives the Jamestown partnership control over the complex, although Ruby Schron and the Fruchthandler family, who had previously been its sole owners of the complex, will continue to hold a 50.1% interest.

“There's a variety of different uses, from food manufacturing to clothing to technology to media, that all want to come together and be near each other, where their creativity feeds off of one another in this kind of space,” Michael Phillips, Jamestown's COO, told Crain's last month. “The definition of manufacturing has changed, and there's a broader base of tenants who can use these types of spaces.”

This past spring, Jamestown hired Andrew Kimball, formerly president and CEO of the city-owned Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corp., who had turned the navy yard into a redevelopment success story. Marty Markowitz, Brooklyn borough president, told Crain's last month that Kimball's hiring demonstrated that the Jamestown partnership was committed to bringing that level of success to Industry City. Click here for Thursday's article in Crain's.