Waterfront Stronghold

Brooklyn Navy Yard attracts a variety of small and large tenants.

By Debra Wood

Located on the banks of the East River, the Brooklyn Navy Yard contains 300 acres and is home to more than 240 businesses. (Photo courtesy of the Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corp)

More than 40 years after New York City purchased the Brooklyn Navy Yard for conversion to an industrial park, 243 tenants lease space, and many are expanding their presence.

“We have found while there is a lot of bad economic news in the city, the country and the world, our tenant base is holding strong,” says Andrew H. Kimball, president and CEO of the Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corp., a not-for-profit corporation that manages the Navy Yard for the city. Founded in 1801, the Navy Yard once served as a shipbuilding facility and naval base.

More than 98% of the 300-acre waterfront industrial park’s 4 million sq ft of existing space is leased. Tenants include art restorers, a film production company and food processors. More than 70% of the tenants occupy less than 5,000 sq ft and employ fewer than five people.

“They tend to be very nimble, which helps them get through the tough times, and they don’t have a lot of overhead and payroll,” Kimball says.

Many of the 40 buildings date back to the Civil War and World Wars I and II.

“Our mission is to create industrial jobs, particularly manufacturing where we can, and to develop and revitalize old, multistory industrial buildings,” Kimball says. “We also put up new industrial buildings in vacant spaces and generate as much revenue as we can, so we can keep reinvesting.”

Kimball says New York City’s 2006 commitment for $200 million in utility, pier and road infrastructure improvements has helped BNYDC leverage more than $250 million in private investment in new buildings. A two-year expansion will add 1.7 million sq ft to the yard.

“It’s growing,” says president & CEO Carl Hum, Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce. “New construction is happening within the yard, and all of it is in line with green principles and LEED design standards. Smokestacks are no longer, but we recognize the need for industrial production within the city. And the Navy Yard meets that need.”

The Perry Building

One of those new construction projects is the $25 million, 90,000-sq-ft, three-story Perry Building being built by TDX Construction Corp. of New York. Work was substantially complete in the fall. Stantec of New York designed the structure.

The structural-steel frame building sits on a timber-pile foundation and is clad with metal panels, says Prakash Shah, project manager for TDX. He calls the structure’s LEED elements the most interesting aspect of the job. It will feature solar-powered trash compactors, building-mounted wind turbines and a stormwater management system that captures rainwater for use as gray water in the building. The Perry Building team aims for LEED gold certification.

“It will be the nation’s first multistory, multitenant green industrial building,” Kimball says. “As a result, we have leased the entire building to a company called SurroundArt, which treats and restores fine art.”

SurroundArt of Brooklyn will sublease space to its contractors, many of whom require a clean and green environment.

Expansions

Brooklyn Navy Yard also is converting two approximately 30,000-sq-ft warehouse structures into manufacturing centers. Existing tenant Duggal Visual Solutions will adaptively reuse Building 268 as a two-story, 60,000-sq-ft manufacturing facility and a laboratory for green printing and lighting. Kimball expects the $7 million project to start this spring. Studios GO of New York designed the renovation.

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Agger Fish Corp., another existing tenant, will turn Building 269 into a $5 million fish manufacturing and processing center, designed by Cybul and Cybul Architects of Edgewater, N.J. Kimball anticipates a spring start for this job as well.

Retailer B&H Photo-Video of New York is building a $75 million, six-story, 600,000-sq-ft warehouse and distribution center for its products. Kutnicki Bernstein Architects of New York designed the structure, with construction to begin this year.

In partnership with the Brooklyn Navy Yard, Steiner Studios is adding to its 300,000-sq-ft, five-stage studio complex. It will convert a seven-story brick building, unused since World War II. The BNYDC invested $3 million, the federal Economic Development Administration $2 million and Steiner will contribute more than $50 million toward the conversion designed by Dattner Architects of New York. Construction will begin in late 2009.

None of the business that are expanding at the industrial park would comment for this article.

Even with all the new activity, the Brooklyn Navy Yard has 40 more acres of developable land, much of it vacant. BNYDC will ask for requests for qualifications later this year to develop a 16-acre parcel and a six-acre site, both on the perimeter of the yard and suitable for a combination or retail and industrial spaces.

The Chamber of Commerce’s Hum says the Brooklyn Navy Yard provides a sense of permanency for industrial jobs in a city that has lost much of that type of space to other uses, including residential.

“Overall, the Navy Yard is a real model for how you provide a wide range of industrial jobs in an urban center,” Kimball adds. “The manufacturing sector lost a lot of jobs in the last couple of decades, but the businesses that survived and are growing and have a long-term future in the city.”

Useful Sources:

Brooklyn Navy Yard
http://www.brooklynnavyyard.org/