Innovation, entrepreneurship, manufacturing, services and jobs will all emerge from the opening of a renovated Brooklyn Navy Yard’s Building 77 in New York, a one-million-square-foot, state-of-the-art manufacturing hub and the largest on the 300-acre industrial campus.
Mayor Bill de Blasio celebrated the opening of the World War II-era storage facility that with a $ 185 million renovation promises to be a milestone for the growth of manufacturing in New York City.
The facility is being hailed as a milestone de Blasio administration’s push to build 100,000 good-paying jobs across a range of industries.
Located within the City-owned Brooklyn Navy Yard at the corner of Vanderbilt and Flushing Avenues, the 16-story building will be home to more than 3,000 jobs, the NY Mayor’s office said..
The office says Building 77 is the centerpiece of a billion-dollar investment currently underway at the Yard to add over two million square feet of space and 10,000 good-paying jobs by 2020.
“As a major driver of quality middle-class jobs, investing in and expanding manufacturing space is key to growing and diversifying our economy and boosting wages. As we re-open this historic building we re-imagine New York’s future,” Mayor Bill de Blasio said.
A symbol of America’s industrial might, the Brooklyn Navy Yard is among the country’s leading urban manufacturing centers, with some 400 companies currently employing more than 7,000 New Yorkers. In the next three years, that number is expected to more than double to 17,000 accessible middle-class jobs.
The Mayor’s New York Works plan to create 100,000 good-paying jobs in 10 years is squarely focused on industrial and manufacturing jobs:
Twenty thousand of the total jobs, or one fifth, are in the industrial and manufacturing sectors.
Building 77, the largest in the Navy Yard, includes a 60,000-square-foot ground-floor Food Manufacturing Hub that will serve as a public gateway to the Yard, as well as the central gathering point for Navy Yard businesses, employees and guests.
Built in 1942 as part of the U.S. Navy’s wartime mobilization, the huge concrete building had been a storage facility with fewer than 100 jobs and no windows on its first 11 floors. More than three million pounds of concrete have been removed and replaced with 50,000 square feet of windows as one component of the upgrade.
The project is financed through a combination of BNYDC investment, $73.1 million of Mayoral City Capital and $7.1 million from the City Council and Brooklyn Borough President.
“Let there be no doubt that in cities across America both existing manufacturing firms and new enterprises need modern space to thrive,” said Alicia Glen, Deputy Mayor for Housing and Economic Development. “Industrial jobs are a springboard for social mobility for many New Yorkers, in particular those without advanced educational degrees.”
“The Brooklyn Navy Yard has been a center of innovation, growth and opportunity for New York City for more than 200 years, and Building 77 represents an incredible continuation of that tradition,” said Brooklyn Navy Yard president and CEO David Ehrenberg.
“Building 77 will contribute tremendously to our mission of creating accessible middle-class jobs and securing a vibrant future for manufacturing in Brooklyn. We are grateful to Mayor de Blasio and his team for their unflagging commitment to this bold project and look forward to building on this national model for urban manufacturing we have created together.”
