Brooklyn Offices Catch Media-Tech as Vacancies Drop: Real Estate

The 1890s-era warehouse sits across from the Brooklyn Navy Yard, a relic of the New York borough’s industrial past. Originally a shoe factory and later a root-beer bottling plant, its arched windows were bricked over long ago.

The building, home of Lockaway Self Storage since 1989, is part of some 20 million square feet (1.9 million square meters) of properties in Brooklyn and Queens that are ripe for conversion to offices, according to Tucker Reed, president of the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership. The organization is seeking to create a “world-class” business district across the East River from Manhattan in the city’s most populous borough.