Everyday we come to work with the end goal of creating jobs for folks when they come home from prison. Often times, all someone needs is a chance to show the world and their family that they have in fact changed for the better. We hope more people and organizations join us to help provide opportunities for people to change.
In the above interview from npr.org, Michel Martin discusses reentry and recidivism with Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis and Jennifer Gaskins who was incarcerated for several years.
It’s always great to hear success stories. If all goes to plan, we will have a number of our own very soon.
Last week, we went to visit Acumen Capital’s other building in Long Island City. The meeting was truly inspiring and eye opening. These are pictures of us touring the rooftop farm.
Approximately one week before Thanksgiving, we had the pleasure of touring a historic Brooklyn building, a potential location of our new regional food distribution and processing company. Not many people know this, but Pfizer used to be Brooklyn’s largest employer. They had a fortress of a building in South Williamsburg that they recently sold to Acumen Capital, a forward thinking real estate company. Acumen Capital has an impressive investment track record. They previously bought the Standard Motor Products Building in Long Island City, which returned over 800 jobs to the area and currently houses the Brooklyn Grange Rooftop Farm.
We are very grateful to the office of Council Member Reyna for telling us about this tremendous space and for touring it with us. Acumen’s broker Nick was great, but it was extra helpful to understand the significance of the building from the local City Council Office.
As it stands, the fourth floor of this building is slated for food manufacturing. Some tenants have already moved into the ground floor as they wait for the facilities upstairs to be outfitted. It turns out that many of the safety precautions needed for producing pharmaceuticals are the same for processing food. Food manufacturing and processing are therefore logical second uses for the space.
We are very excited about the building and Acumen Capital, but this deal is not yet done. There are a number of details to be checked and confirmed on both sides, and hopefully, these can be handled quickly.
In summary, it was a pretty cool morning in Williamsburg.
This week has been all about finding space that works and calculating how much we will need. That’s why we went to Hunts Point to check out a few potential locations
