Originally home to single-tenant identified buildings, in 1920, Ann Page Corp.—the precursor to A&P—occupied one building, and American Tobacco Corp. occupied another building. As years went on, spaces were broken up and the flexibility of the building allowed it to be broken up into smaller or larger configurations. It subsequently became the largest multi-tenant industrial property in the US, employing almost 25,000 workers in shipping, warehousing and manufacturing for the textile, automotive and machinery industries.

The terminal also contributed to the war effort during World Wars I and II, housing tenants like Topps, which produced baseball cards at the facility. Bush Terminal operated through 1974, but was re-branded as Industry City in the mid-1980s.

Acknowledging the rise of imports and decline in manufacturing in the American economy, the property needed a new strategy. “Like everyone else, we are of the opinion based on market conditions that the days of having heavy industrial use here occupying large swathes of square footage is over," Federman says. "What we do see happening is a smaller, more flexible mixed-use tenancy, and that has nothing to with residential. It’s about commercial/business use and office use that fits into our zoning and use category that absorbs the plates that we put out, which were huge floorplates -- about 75,000 to 100,000 square feet -- and they were just chopped up.”

In an effort to create an incubator-type atmosphere, a 10-year renovation plan was launched at the property in 1999 that included repaving the streets that separate the property’s buildings, bulkhead renovation to the buildings that line the Brooklyn waterfront, installation of overhead power distribution and buss ducts and a complete modernization of the property’s 150 elevators.

Federman says current occupancy is around 73%, including tenants like the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Virginia Dare Extract Corp., Galaxy Visions, HealthPlus, the Brooklyn Museum and city agencies, in addition to hundreds of artists occupying commercial condos who did not want to be named. In addition, the property also hosts special events, such as the Brooklyn Fashion Week[end] , which will take place on March 29 through April 1.

Rents range depending on the size of the unit, but asking rents for office space start at $20 per square foot, $15 per square foot for creative studios and $6-8 per square foot for industrial/warehouse space.

Federman explained that given the property’s existing infrastructure, high ceilings, heavy floor loads and existing power sources, the site is finally coming into its own, even despite a challenging leasing environment post-2008.

“We suffered some vacancies, but right now we’ve been ramping up and we’ve been very, very active because we’ve hit an appropriate niche,” he says. “The industrial user, the warehouse distributor, we have properly-sized units to fit their needs, but for the original artist, creative user or IT user, after we rehab certain properties, we’re hitting a good mark and we have a consistent upward trend going on now, and we’re trying to capitalize on that momentum.”