Andrew M. Cuomo - Governor
May 24, 2012
Brooklyn Navy Yard Press Release
Andrew M. Cuomo - Governor
The Blue Network Panel at TransTrans
May 18, 2012
The Wall Street Journal, 'Green' Center to Cultivate Manufacturers
By LAURA KUSISTO for WSJ
The Brooklyn Navy Yard has landed two anchor tenants for an
industrial center focused on environmentally friendly tenants, giving
hope to state and city officials trying to establish a modern
manufacturing base in the borough. Crye Precision, a manufacturer of body armor and clothing for the
U.S. military, will lease 80,000 square feet of space in the planned
Green Manufacturing Center, state officials said. The company is already
a Navy Yard tenant, renting about 45,000 square feet and employing
about 110 people. The expansion would allow the firm to hire about 100
new employees over the next five years.
"We are thrilled that our future will remain here," said Caleb Crye, executive director of Crye Precision, in a statement.
Another New York company, Macro Sea, will open a more than
50,000-square-foot facility called New Lab, for designers, digital
manufacturers, architects and university researchers to create new
products. A number of colleges and designers have expressed interest in
working at the lab, including Cooper Union, Columbia University's
Laboratory of Applied Building Science, Terreform ONE, a Brooklyn based
nonprofit design group, and Within Lab, a London-based design
consultancy.
The two anchors are set to be announced on Friday by state and city
officials. They are part of a broader strategy to revitalize the city's
manufacturing base by drawing on its strength as a hub of design
schools, universities and, increasingly, technology companies.
"This project…highlights the very close links between local
universities and this new generation of design-intensive manufacturing
that's going on in New York," said Andrew Kimball, president and chief
executive of the Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corp.
The Green Manufacturing Center will be at the heart of this effort,
officials said. Construction is set to begin this summer, and it is
scheduled to be completed in 18 months at a cost of $46 million. It will
be housed in three former World War II-era machine shops, and its
tenants are expected to create more than 300 new permanent jobs.
The three buildings, totaling 220,000 square feet, have sat vacant
for half a century, and they became "a hulking structure of a building
that symbolized years of neglect and decay," said Mr. Kimball.
David Belt, managing principal of Macro Sea, said he
sees the new lab as a model for the kind of innovative light
manufacturing in which New York still has a competitive advantage.
"The U.S. is never going to be able to compete with developing
countries like China when it comes to traditional manufacturing, but
when it relates to innovation…we can compete on that level," Mr. Belt
said.
The Green Manufacturing Center is part of a much larger expansion of
the Brooklyn Navy Yard, which is expected to add more than 1.8 million
square feet of new space and more than 2,500 new jobs over the next two
years. The center is being funded by the Empire State Development Corp.,
the Brooklyn Borough President's Office and the City Council, along
with a federal program that awards green cards to foreigners who invest
in U.S. businesses.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo
in a statement called the project an example of the state investing "in
a productive and sustainable innovation economy that will put New
Yorkers back to work now and for years to come."
A version of this article appeared May 18,
2012, on page A17 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with
the headline: 'Green' Center to Cultivate Manufacturers.
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