Otto Environmental Takes 60K SF at Canarsie Warehouse

Otto Environmental Systems, the company that New York City tapped to provide homeowners trash cans, has signed a 60,000-square-foot lease at Turnbridge Equities’ warehouse at 807 Bank Street in Brooklyn’s Canarsie neighborhood.

Otto signed the long-term lease, with an asking rent in the mid-$30s per square foot, for part of the 172,000-square-foot warehouse, which is owned by both Turnbridge and Dune Real Estate Partners, according to Ryan Nelson, Turnbridge’s managing principal.

“We’re extremely excited to have a strong and growing company, such as Otto Environmental, to cap off our leasing at 807 Bank Street,” Nelson said in a statement to Commercial Observer.

Cushman & Wakefield’s Rico Murtha, Helen Paul, Amanda Gerhardt and Joseph Hentze, who brokered the deal for Turnbridge and Dune, did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Murtha and Paul represented Otto in the deal. The lease was first reported by The Real Deal.

Turnbridge and Dune acquired 807 Bank in December 2021 for $22.5 million and demolished two dilapidated buildings on the lot in late 2022 that were “an eyesore to the community,” replacing them with a “new and sustainable warehouse space,” Nelson said.

Otto’s lease, along with two previous deals, brings the warehouse to 100 percent occupied within two months of completion, showing continuing demand for industrial space in New York, Nelson added.

The deal also represents a new location for Otto, which won the city’s coveted 10-year contract to sell millions of trash bins to homeowners and landlords across New York as part of Mayor Eric Adams’s effort to prevent residents from just leaving garbage bags on the curb to help curtail the city’s rising rat population.

In April, a city board reviewed an agreement between the Department of Sanitation and North Carolina-based Duramax Holdings LLC, also known as Otto, to sell bins for residences with no more than nine units, The City reported.

Now, Otto is the sole vendor of garbage containers for New Yorkers for 10 years, with an option to renew the agreement for two more five-year terms, the contract said. The company hopes to sell 3.39 million bins at $50 a pop by November, The City reported.

Isabelle Durso can be reached at idurso@commercialobserver.com.