Brooklyn Navy Yard to double in size with $2.5B investment

The Brooklyn Navy Yard will expand in a major way in the coming years with a $2.5 billion investment, Bloomberg first reported. Along with the ongoing revamp and expansion of the complex, this latest proposed addition will more than double the usable space at the Yard.

That cash infusion will add 5 million square feet of manufacturing space, and bring an additional 10,000 jobs to the yard. That means that eventually, as many as 30,000 people could be working at the Yard, as the campus undergoes a transformation into a hub for tech companies, and one of the major spaces for urban manufacturing in New York City.

“We are at the start of a multi-generational period of growth that in the years ahead will return employment at the Yard to its highest levels since the 1940s while fueling a continued surge of manufacturing across the city,” said David Ehrenberg, the president of the Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corporation (BNYDC), the non-profit real estate developer that manages and operates the Yard on behalf of the city.

Ehrenberg was referring to the Yard’s peak productivity as a shipyard in the early 19th century and well into the 20th century, particularly during World War II, when the yard employed 70,000 people.

At present, a host of projects in various stages of development are transforming the Yard. These include the manufacturing hub Building 77, the futuristic office tower Dock 72, the Green Manufacturing Center, Steiner’s Admirals Row development (future home of New York’s first Wegmans), and the expansion of its film and television studio empire.

This new expansion will add 5 million square feet of development to the Brooklyn Navy Yard, and will be spread out over three sites on Kent Avenue, Flushing Avenue, and Navy Street, respectively. Details on the expansion remain a bit scarce, but instead of getting outside developers to build these new structures, the BNYDC is planning to fundraise and build them itself, according to Bloomberg.

• The $2.5 Billion Plan to Turn Brooklyn’s Navy Yard Into a Tech Hub [Bloomberg]
• Brooklyn Navy Yard archives [Curbed]