American Stevedoring, a shipping company that employs 600 people, has
been operating on the Red Hook and Columbia Street piers without a lease
since the end of April.
But on Thursday the company, which runs the only container port in Brooklyn,
came to an agreement with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey
and the city Economic Development Corporation on a new three-year lease,
sources close to the negotiations told The Brooklyn Papers.
The lease is likely for piers 7-10, with American Stevedoring losing piers
11 and 12 to the city’s efforts to build a cruise ship dock on the
Brooklyn waterfront.
“American Stevedoring is also working to have Phoenix [Distributing]
and Brooklyn Beer incorporated into the master plan,” a source said.
A spokesman for Brooklyn Brewery could not be reached for comment by press
time.
Negotiations on Piers 7-12 had stalled over American Stevedoring’s
insistence on at least a three-year lease. The city had reportedly been
offering two.
But shipping contracts generally run two-and-a-half years, and in order
to secure business, company officials have said they would need a three-year
lease. The city was trying to limit the lease term to allow for the construction
of cruise ship docks on at least one of the piers, sources told The Papers.
A passenger ship terminal is now tentatively planned for Pier 12 and the
city announced this week that it is hoping to use Pier 11 as a vehicular
entrance to the terminal.
Final negotiations on that pier are expected to conclude next week.
American Stevedoring operates out of all but one of those piers and with
their lease expiring last month, the city and Port Authority commissioned
a study on uses for the piers, saying they wanted to examine alternative,
and perhaps more lucrative uses.
Owner Sabato “Sal” Catucci has estimated that the city’s
study of best uses for piers 6-12 cost the shipping company — the
largest importer of cocoa in the nation — half of its contracts,
because it cast uncertainty about the company’s future on the piers.
Port Authority spokesman Steve Coleman said Thursday that negotiations
with American Stevedoring were ongoing.
