The Sunset Park waterfront, once one of the busiest shipping ports in the country, today serves as a major industrial, manufacturing, and employment hub in NYC. The area’s continued prominence as a manufacturing center is due in part to the large footprint of publicly owned industrial campuses dedicated to preserving and growing the area’s manufacturing legacy. The New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC) manages more than 200 acres of this area including the Brooklyn Army Terminal (BAT), Made in New York Campus at Bush Terminal, and the South Brooklyn Marine Terminal. The Brooklyn Army Terminal was built in 1918 by Cass Gilbert and was originally used as an American military supply and troop deployment facility. Today, BAT is New York City’s premier affordable hub for innovative industrial businesses and entrepreneurs, serving more than 100 businesses and 4,000 employees. BAT is being positioned as a future home for climate innovators and industrial businesses developing and fabricating technologies that support climate solutions. The Made in New York Campus at Bush Terminal is undergoing an investment of more than $265 million to reposition this historic shipping yard as a creative industrial hub with events facilities and public waterfront open space. Along with Industry City, a privately owned and operated creative industrial hub in Sunset Park, these campuses born out of the same historic shipping ports are being reimagined as modern industrial facilities supporting a vast workforce.

Hunts Point is home to over 12,600 residents, a thriving industrial business zone (IBZ), and the Hunts Point Food Distribution Center (FDC)—one of the largest wholesale distribution centers in the world and the single largest geographic cluster of food sources for the city (measured by annual distribution volume in pounds to NYC customers). The FDC is composed of over 155 public and private wholesalers, distributors, and manufacturers, including the Hunts Point Terminal Produce Market, the Hunts Point Cooperative Meat Market, and the New Fulton Fish Market. It is estimated that 4.5 billion pounds of food is distributed through the Hunts Point FDC annually, with roughly 50 percent going to NYC and 50 percent going outside the city. Together, the FDC directly employs 8,500 people. In all, 12 percent of all food distributed to NYC comes from the Hunts Point FDC. Forty nine percent of the customers at the FDC are independent restaurants and cafes, 20 percent are bodegas, 18 percent are supermarkets, and 13 percent are food markets.

This tour will include stops at the businesses within the FDC and will give participants a better understanding of this crucial piece of city infrastructure, and how it supports the city’s food economy. Additional stops will include the Peninsula, the former Spofford Juvenile Detention Facility that is currently being redeveloped into a mixed-use project with affordable housing, open space, and manufacturing uses.