Three Huge Construction Projects Happening in the Brooklyn Navy Yard

In just the last 10 years, the Brooklyn Navy Yard has become a hub for the next generation of Brooklyn manufacturing. With more than 300 businesses calling it home, the Navy Yard is at full capacity but continues to field daily inquiries from interested start-ups. Naturally, they’re expanding.

Brownstoner just checked in on the progress of three major construction projects in the Navy Yard — the Green Manufacturing Center, Building 77, and Dock 72. Poised to add even more space for Brooklyn business, these sites will bring an estimated 8,000 more workers to the Navy Yard over the next several years and solidify its status as a nexus of the new economy.

Green Manufacturing Center
Use: Manufacturing space, business incubator, coffee HQ
Square Feet: 250,000
Status: Some portions complete and move-in ready, final phase complete in spring of 2016

For decades, the shells of two colossal machine shops and a circa-1900 power plant lay empty and exposed to the elements. Starting in 2014, these three buildings underwent a $66,000,000 gut renovation to create more manufacturing and business space.

Brooklyn Roasting Company, the tenant of the former power plant building, is already moving in. Crye Precision Body Armor will soon migrate its manufacturing process from a number of separate Navy Yard spaces into a centralized HQ occupying an entire wing of the newly renovated building. A third tenant, New Lab, will offer incubator space and equipment to small-maker start-ups in another section of the building.

Crye Precision Body Armor will occupy this 80,000-square-foot wing of the Green Manufacturing Center

The renovation saved several of these massive gantry cranes formerly used to build ship engines

This 60,000-square-foot wing still needs a tenant. You can see the east wall of the brick Brooklyn Roasting Company headquarters on the right

Practically everything but the skeleton of the building was replaced. It’s made of high-carbon Carnegie steel — “the porsche of steel,” according to a Navy Yard source

Rendering of New Lab’s future Navy Yard space by Marvel Architects, from New Lab

Workers are excavating the elevator pit in the future New Lab incubator space. This wing of the building will be finished next year

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Building 77
Use: Mix of businesses with 21st-century manufacturing
Square Feet: 1,000,000
Status: Renovation of the upper floors just began, renovation is slated for completion in 2016

Building 77 is one of the largest structures in the Navy Yard. But its distinct lack of windows posed a huge hurdle for using the space efficiently. Built in 1942, Building 77 was used as a storage facility — possibly a munitions depot — with commandant’s offices on the upper floors.

A major part of the $140,000,000 renovation led by architect firm Beyer Blinder Belle will be punching windows into the building’s facade to turn it into a more human-friendly space.  The bottom floor will also house a 60,0000-square-foot common space and food court designed by Marvel Architects.

Rendering of Building 77 from Beyer Blinder Belle

Workers take a break from demolition on an upper floor

Next year, this space will be a food hall serving the thousands of people who work in the Navy Yard

Marvel Architects has said that they will keep the yellow, orange, and blue paint on the columns of the ground-floor space

Here, you can see rails embedded in the floor of the building that were used to move equipment in and out of the storage areas

A new sign for Building 77

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Dock 72 rendering by S9 Architecture

Dock 72, Future WeWork Building
Use: Co-working space, tech and media offices
Square Feet: 675,000
Status: Slated to begin in late 2015, finishing in late 2017

The $380,000,000 building will be constructed on a slim peninsula jutting into Wallabout Bay between wet docks. Developed by Boston Properties (the country’s largest office developer) and Rudin Development (a family-owned operation with about 14,000,000 square feet of holdings), Dock 72 was designed by S9 Architecture and looks a bit like an enormous, futuristic ant farm.

The building’s future amenities will include luxurious 14-foot ceilings, a health and wellness center, massage room, specialty food sellers, and valet bicycle parking — all cradled within a sleek LEED Gold-certified building.

WeWork is slated to occupy 220,000 square feet of the new building. The other two-thirds will likely be rented to media and technology companies. Tenants are required to pay their employees a living wage of at least $13.30 an hour.

The site currently serves as parking

This circular pad is a former pump well that’s been filled in

The bollards dotting the site are actually upside-down cannons left over from the Navy Yard’s ship-building days. The old cannons were repurposed to tie off boats as they docked

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What’s Next for the Navy Yard?

If you think the Green Manufacturing Center, Building 77, and Dock 72 isn’t enough, you’ll be pleased to know that the Yard has two other major projects in the queue.

The much-delayed, much-discussed development of Admiral’s Row is about to kick off, with completion expected in 2017. The $140,000,000 redevelopment by Steiner NYC will include a Wegman’s grocery store, light industrial space, community space, and a four-story parking garage.

Steiner NYC is owned by Doug Steiner, who also happens to be chairman of the Navy Yard’s largest tenant — Steiner Studios. The film and television production facility is poised to embark on Phase III of an ambitious expansion, including six soundstages (one of which is an underwater soundstage) and production support space in renovated hospital buildings.

More reading:

Navy Yard Coverage [Brownstoner]
Green Manufacturing Center Coverage [Brownstoner]
Building 77 Coverage [Brownstoner]
Dock 72 Coverage [Brownstoner]
Admiral’s Row Coverage [Brownstoner]
Steiner Studios Coverage [Brownstoner]