Former boat factory at Brooklyn Navy Yard will get modern makeover

Hot on the heels of a new master plan that outlined the longterm future of the Brooklyn Navy Yard, the developers behind the onetime shipbuilding center’s transformation have announced the restoration of one of its historic structures. Building 127, located on Morris Avenue between Third and Fourth streets, will be renovated by S9 Architecture.

The structure dates back to 1904, when it was used as a shipbuilding facility, and it was most recently the home of the Cumberland Packing Corp., best known as the manufacturer of Sweet’N Low. The company moved out of the facility in 2017, citing competitive pressure as the reason for the closure.

Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corporation

In its new iteration, Building 127 will get an additional 95,000 square feet of space, and each of its floors will have huge, column-free floor plates with high ceilings—similar to what’s envisioned for the Navy Yard’s new, “vertical manufacturing” buildings that are a part of its new master plan. There will also be loading areas, as well as one floor that the Navy Yard sees as fit for a design firm looking for a “showcase headquarters.”

This is the last of the Navy Yard’s historic buildings to undergo a transformation. Others on the site include Building 92, once a naval officer’s residence and now a visitors’ center; and Building 77, a World War II-era Navy warehouse that, after a $185 million renovation, is now an active manufacturing facility. (Another cluster of vintage buildings at Admiral’s Row were demolished in 2016 to make way for a new Wegman’s supermarket, part of a parcel being developed by Doug Steiner.)

The next phase—the “vertical manufacturing” one—will consist of three new buildings, as well as increased public access to the Navy Yard.

• The Brooklyn Navy Yard is reinventing architecture—and itself [Curbed]