American Industrial Center Celebrates Half-Century Hosting Small Businesses

On a typical day at the American Industrial Center, Greg and Diane Markoulis can be found in the building’s management office alongside their dogs, distributing produce, grown in the backyard of their South Bay home and handling paperwork and maintenance issues for their predominately small business tenants. Greg – who met Diane while both were working at the Center –  is the second generation of a family that for 50 years has been offering flexible commercial space to a myriad of enterprises.

AIC’s buildings span two blocks of Third Street; some liken the complex to a horizontal skyscraper.  It housed The American Can Company from 1915 to1969, which employed upwards of 800 individuals at its peak, creating cans for food and beverages distributed throughout the United States.

Angelo Markoulis, an immigrant from Crete who arrived in America as a young man, purchased the complex in 1975. He converted the mostly vacant former factory into roughly 40 warehousing and manufacturing spaces. According to Diane Markoulis, the tenant mix has evolved with political and technological shifts. In the 1980’s the buildings housed almost 60 photographers, who cycled out with the invention of the digital camera. In the 1990’s the structure was replete with garment businesses, until the North American Free Trade Agreement incentivized a shift to Mexican production in 1994. 

Jacky Recchiuti of Recchiuti Chocolates, who has been in AIC since 1997, believes the way the Markoulis family operates its buildings is a testament to their belief in small businesses. She said AIC declined an opportunity to sell the entire 800,000 square foot space to Google because they didn’t want to displace the 200-plus enterprises housed there. 

According to Charles Bililies, founder of the Greek restaurant chain Souvla, Greg was the first person to walk through the door on the eatery’s opening day. He handed the cashier a $100 bill, which has hung in the office of the establishment since it opened in 2022. 

Hang Nguyen, of Olivier’s Butcher, said the AIC building is an incubator for startups, with tenants often outgrowing their spaces and the Markoulis family helping to expand their footprint. Olivier’s evolved from a small private butchery in 2011 to a facility with a retail storefront in 2019. 

The Center hosts an annual holiday party, usually catered by a tenant, with the entry fee consisting of donating an item to the San Francisco Toy Drive. When the City tried to put parking meters on Third Street the family protested the idea to protect parking for the thousands of employees in the buildings, many of whom are blue-collar workers, said Spain Salinas, owner of Global Gourmet Catering.

As longtime tenant Tommy Halvorson of Foxtail Catering put it, it’s important to be a part of a community where “a handshake still means something.”