Local companies are leaning on one another more now too, Ms. Reynolds said. For example, accessory businesses in the garment district are using a company in Brooklyn to print their labels and packaging. “It’s a really beautiful network our companies are building,” she said.
Supply chain problems have given local manufacturers a competitive edge. “I would say weekly we are offered up various projects that other manufacturers can’t do because they can’t get their components,” said Shakil Ahmad, a vice president at Coronet LED, a lighting company based in Totowa, N.J., which has a showroom in Manhattan. “They are coming to us and saying, ‘They can’t deliver for 16 weeks. Can you guys do it?”
Coronet LED’s paint supplier is down the street in Totowa; its lens manufacturer is a short drive away. “Our claim to fame is we have always kept everything as close to us as possible,” Mr. Ahmad said. “We didn’t know this pandemic would happen, but it has worked out so incredibly well. It shows how important it is to manufacture locally.”
Now, Mr. Ahmad, who lives in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, walks around his neighborhood and imagines what all the empty factory buildings can be. “If you go on McGuinness Boulevard you see all these empty warehouses,” he said. “A lot of them are being converted into high-end residential properties, but they are removing opportunities for more manufacturing to occur.”
Gregg Thompson, the executive director of Crye Precision, a Brooklyn Navy Yard company that makes uniforms, body armor, helmets and other military equipment, has been surprised by some of the businesses that have placed recent orders.
“The weirdest thing we’ve seen is the CrossFit market,” he said. “People who do CrossFit buy stuff that looks like military equipment, and they couldn’t get their equipment from other places, so they started calling us.”
