BY JESSICA PARKS
The Brooklyn Chamber of
Commerce is packing up its
Downtown Brooklyn offi ce and
relocating to Sunset Park’s Industry
City in mid-July — a
move the organization’s head
says will bring the group closer
to its constituency.
“My constituency is out
there in the neighborhoods all
over this borough,” said Randy
Peers, president and chief executive
offi cer of the businessboosting
group, “and we need
to be closer to that.”
The move comes after an
especially active year for the
business promoter, which
worked to keep storefronts
open through the COVID-19
pandemic by providing loans
and grants, among other initiatives,
to aid Brooklyn’s businesses
in their recovery.
“It has been quite an extraordinary
year for the Chamber,”
Peers told Brooklyn Paper.
“The pandemic forced us,
through business recovery, to
get to every corner of the borough.”
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The Chamber’s new location
in Industry City’s Building
3 will bring the organization
and its staffers closer to
the types of businesses they
can best cater to, Peers said,
as the waterfront space serves
as more of a hub for small business
than the more commercialized
Downtown Brooklyn
location the group has called
home for more than a century.
“Industry City being the
center of the creative economy
here in Brooklyn, representing
more on the small business
side of the economy, is really
more in tune with the kind of
Chamber we’ve become and
the businesses we serve on a
daily basis” Peers said. “For
us, it was a really good fi t.”
Along with better access
to small businesses, Industry
City provides the networking
group an opportunity for collaboration
and better outreach
through the Innovation Lab —
the complex’s own career services
center.
The Chamber’s new digs —
ripe with shops, food, and fun
at Industry City — will help retain
talent at the chamber, as
the increasingly-young staff
is attracted to “campus-type”
spaces, Peers said.
“For them, they want to be
in a vibrant, creative campustype
environment,” Peers told
Brooklyn Paper. “Between the
food courts and the event, and
the opportunities to interact
and collaborate and coordinate
across businesses.”
To be a good neighbor, the
Chamber will launch a special
membership program for fellow
tenants — that will include
a mix of on-site programming
for Industry City tenants, promotions
on the chamber’s media
channels, and access to the
group’s events at the complex.
The business-boosting
agency will also host its annual
trade show at the campus,
which is expected to bring
From left: Andrew Kimball, chief executive offi cer of Industry City, Lorraine
Lowe, the chamber’s membership director and Randy Peers, the
chamber’s president, and chief executive offi cer. Brooklyn Chamber
400 attendees and can help
raise awareness of tenant businesses.
Along with the new types of
services they offer, Peers said
the chamber’s move to Industry
City fi ts with his mission of
modernizing the organization
to provide the tools that businesses
need to be successful in
today’s world.
“I have this funny saying
we put out there, not your
grandfather’s chamber of commerce,”
Peers said. “Chambers
are generally old-school models
of business associations,
and what I’ve tried to do coming
here… was really to transform
our chamber to a modernday
chamber that is responsive
to new consumer trends in
terms of serving the business
community.”
Peers, who took over the
agency in September of 2019,
says the modernization plan
was put in superdrive when
the pandemic hit and they
quickly needed to adapt their
services to fi t the needs of businesses
that faced shutdowns
and changing regulations.
And Peers said he hopes the
chamber will one day celebrate
another 100-year history in
their new location in the growing
and thriving Sunset Park
development.
“We’re just now looking forward
to setting the history for
the next 100 years,” he said.
BK Chamber headed
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