Modular Manufacturer Leaving NYC Due to Rising Rents

Here's some sad news: Capsys, one of the city's oldest and best-known manufacturers of modular apartment units, will be closing its doors come March. The nearly 20-year-old company recently lost its lease for its Brooklyn Navy Yard headquarters, and in an interview with The Real Deal, founder Nicholas Lembo said that rising rents throughout the city have made it impossible to stay within the five boroughs. "New York City is too expensive, the only spaces that I found were out far out in New Jersey and Pennsylvania," he explained. (That sounds depressingly familiar.) The problem with moving there: Capsys would basically have to restart from scratch, according to Lembo, who said that "we would not be able to retain any employees and would be starting a new business."

Capsys is responsible for the units that make up some of the city's most high-profile modular projects, including the My Micro NY building at 335 East 27th Street. The company also worked on BLDG 92 at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, an area whose increased popularity eventually led to Capsys's demise. Its lease on a space at the Navy Yard's foundry building was a bargain, with the company paying only $4 per square foot; in comparison, leases at the forthcoming Building 77 are allegedly going for $20 (or more) per square foot. There's also more competition: Forest City Ratner now has its own modular company, which is also based out of the Brooklyn Navy Yard.

Capsys is working on one final project before it shuts its doors: Nehemiah Spring Creek, the 800-home affordable housing project currently underway in East New York.
· Capsys, New York's oldest modular company, to shutter [The Real Deal]
· Inside the Brooklyn Factory Birthing NYC's New Micro Units [Curbed]
· Watch New York's First Prefab Micro-Unit Building Get Stacked [Curbed]