Food Start-Ups Flock to Old Pfizer Factory in Brooklyn The rise of artisanal food like small-batch pickles, basement-cured charcuterie and hand-churned ice cream has been a boon to Brooklyn's image. Now those products are helping the borough revive its manufacturing base, in a former pharmaceutical factory in South Williamsburg. Acumen Capital Partners, which bought the nearly eight-acre site from Pfizer last year for $26 million, has begun leasing space to several local food businesses. Among them are McClure's Pickles, Brooklyn Soda Works, Steve's Ice Cream and Madécasse, which makes chocolate bars. The news that jobs are returning to the factory, which borders the public housing project Marcy Houses, is a relief for community leaders. They saw the loss of the 600 Pfizer jobs when the factory closed in 2008 as a major blow. "What Acumen is doing is functioning like an incubator," said Michael F. Rochford, the executive director of St. Nicks Alliance, a neighborhood development group. In the long term, it will start to bring jobs back into that building. Other tenants include Kombucha Brooklyn, which sells tea-based drinks and kits to make kombucha at home, and People's Pops, which makes ice pops. All told, the companies employ a total of about 70 people, at wages of $10 to $12 an hour. The news that manufacturing has a future here has not lessened the sting of Pfizer's departure. The pharmaceutical giant was founded in 1849 on the site of the factory and at one point employed several thousand workers here. When Pfizer shut the plant in 2008, it severed a 160-year relationship with the neighborhood, unleashing deep anger. "They were born and raised in Brooklyn and they turned their back on their birthplace," said Marty Markowitz, the Brooklyn borough president. Pfizer's decision prompted a feverish community effort to convert the property to a mixture of affordable housing, retail and manufacturing. But those hopes were dashed when Pfizer abandoned plans to convert the factory to affordable housing. In February 2011, it sold the eight-story plant and adjoining parking lot to Acumen, a firm that specializes in adapting industrial properties for new uses. Pfizer is still trying to sell several remaining parcels. Pfizer provided Acumen with financing to purchase the factory and parking lot, a decision that Pfizer officials point to as an example of the company's commitment to the neighborhood. Acumen has a track record of reinventing industrial buildings for mixed use. In 2008, the company bought the Standard Motor Products building in Long Island City, transforming it into a multiuse property with a farmers" market in the lobby and a Brooklyn Grange farm on the rooftop. Acumen has a similar vision for the Pfizer building, with plans for a mixture of light manufacturing, ground-level retail, a farmers" market, a gym and a rooftop farm. Already, film crews are using the space to shoot movies and television shows like "Unforgettable" and "The Good Wife." "The whole building is going to be transformed," said Jeffrey N. Rosenblum, a co-founder of Acumen. Converting a single-use property has its challenges. Built in 1946, the factory is in pristine condition but has quirks unique to Pfizer's needs, like a doctor's office for employees, nine-foot-tall stainless steel mixers and room-size refrigerators. "It is so site-specific to what Pfizer had built that it's difficult to assess what is up and running," said Robert M. McClure, a co-owner of McClure's Pickles, which is paying $15 a square foot to lease about 600 square feet of space for offices, warehousing and research and development. The company produces its pickles in Detroit. But quirkiness has benefits, too. The building has a sophisticated 13-bay loading dock and a 600-car parking lot. It also has rooms with washable floors, in-floor drains and exhaust systems. "It's overkill for food - it's basically sterile," said Antonio Ramos, a co-owner of Brooklyn Soda Works, which is leasing 1,000 square feet of temporary storage space, which it is using as production space to make soda. The company is negotiating a long-term lease with Acumen for 2,000 square feet at $15 a square foot, where it will produce and distribute soda. Acumen is leasing space at about $15 a square foot, according to Mr. Rosenblum, slightly above average rent for industrial space in Brooklyn, which was $12.58 a square foot in the fourth quarter of 2011, according to a report by the real estate service firm Newmark Knight Frank. The plant is largely cut off from the neighborhood, hidden behind fortresslike walls. Acumen plans to remove some of the walls, exposing Art Deco lobbies with terrazzo floors that open onto Flushing Avenue. The public could eventually have access to the 10,000-square-foot gym and 21,000-square-foot cafeteria. The company also plans to start a farmers" market in the parking lot. "We're trying to tell the community that it's part of the community," Mr. Rosenblum said. Although neighborhood groups are optimistic about Acumen, they are dismayed that Pfizer sold the land off in chunks. Pfizer still owns several parcels, including two block-long pieces of undeveloped land. Residents worry that the end result will be a hodgepodge of projects with no cohesive development plan for the neighborhood. The vision is everything. If you piecemeal it out, it becomes a business deal instead of a community vision," said Rob Solano, the executive director of Churches United for Fair Housing, a community group. Churches United, along with five other neighborhood groups, submitted a $10 million bid to purchase the two large parcels for residential use. All of the properties are zoned for manufacturing. According to Pfizer, several prospective buyers have expressed interest in the properties in recent months. "While it was always our original intent to dispose of all of our properties as one comprehensive development deal, market conditions and the financial crisis dictated otherwise," Christopher Loder, a Pfizer spokesman, said in a statement. For now, the factory has the feel of a start-up. Pfizer slogans and signage still line the walls. On the day a reporter visited, employees of Kombucha Brooklyn were packaging kits for the homebrewed tea as the owner's 9-month-old son toddled among the boxes, his mother helping him along. The small-business owners envision a factory where they can collaborate on new products, pool resources to lower distribution costs and share equipment. David Carrell, a co-owner of People's Pops, which moved into its 2,500-square-foot manufacturing space March 1, said: "It feels like the first days of summer camp. This is going to be fun and it's going to be good.