Brooklyn Navy Yard Development [Archive]

Kris

July 15th, 2004, 02:06 AM

July 15, 2004

City Has 5-Year Expansion Plan For Navy Yard Industrial Park

By WINNIE HU

Calling it one of the city's great economic success stories, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg announced a five-year plan yesterday to expand the industrial park at the Brooklyn Navy Yard to attract hundreds of new jobs.

Mayor Bloomberg said the city would spend $71 million on infrastructure improvements at the Navy Yard, laying the groundwork for private development of 560,000 square feet of manufacturing, industrial and retail space along the west side. That development is expected to cost $60 million, to be raised from investors.

Already under construction is Steiner Studios, a $118 million film and television complex. The mayor said he expected to cut the ribbon in a few months on one of the largest sound stages on the East Coast.

The Navy Yard also houses about 3.5 million square feet of industrial space, which is nearly all occupied by more than 220 industrial and manufacturing businesses, including a billboard and graphics company, a seafood distributor and several specialty furniture makers. "In fact, the Navy Yard is bursting at the seams," he said.

Under the plan, construction would begin next year on a 180,000-square-foot industrial building on what is now part of a Police Department tow pound. A 100,000-square-foot food-processing complex with freezer and refrigeration storage would break ground in 2006. The rest of the industrial and manufacturing space would be built in subsequent years.

In addition, work would begin next year on 60,000 square feet of commercial retail space along Flushing Avenue, which would be used for neighborhood-oriented stores.

City officials said the expansion plan would bring an additional 500 to 800 new jobs to the Navy Yard, which currently has about 4,000 employees, and improve the quality of life for residents in nearby communities.

Mayor Bloomberg said that the city would hire a consultant to coordinate efforts to help local residents secure jobs at the yard. The city's $71 million will be used for capital improvements: paving streets, upgrading electrical systems and installing water and sewer lines.

"We are confident that these public investments will be repaid many times over in private investments and jobs for residents of all five boroughs," the mayor said.

The Brooklyn borough president, Marty Markowitz, who appeared with the mayor at a news conference yesterday at the Navy Yard, was one of several Brooklyn officials who praised the expansion plan. "Brooklyn's ship has come in, for sure," he said. "This represents Brooklyn yesterday, it represents the best of Brooklyn today and the opportunity and hope and expectation of Brooklyn tomorrow."

Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

Kris

February 26th, 2005, 10:56 AM

February 27, 2005

SQUARE FEET | BROOKLYN

Working in a Walled-Off Boomtown

By SUZANNE HAMLIN

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2005/02/27/realestate/27sqft.583.jpg
SPACE GALORE With more than 3.5 million square feet of space in a property of 300 acres, the Brooklyn Navy Yard has a long list of potential tenants.

http://graphics10.nytimes.com/images/dropcap/e.gifRIC DEUTSCH, president and chief executive of the Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corporation, said his children, Adam, 8, and Emily, 6, who beg to visit his workplace, call the Navy Yard "gigungus," probably as dead-on accurate as one descriptive could be. Now a virtual theme park of 21st-century commerce housed in 19th- and 20th-century shipyard buildings, the Navy Yard is experiencing the same real estate demand taking place in most of the rest of the city.

The complex on the East River, today the largest commercial leasing space in the city, covering 300 acres, has been in continuous operation since 1801, when the federal government bought it for $40,000 from a local landowner and commissioned it the New York Naval Shipyard. It may also be one of the city's most beautiful industrial spots, a mishmash of old warehouses filled with natural light, offering unobstructed views of the Manhattan skyline directly across the East River.

During the 19th century, it was the builder of Navy vessels that fended off Barbary pirates and fought in the War of 1812, the Civil War and the Spanish-American War. During World War II, it was the largest naval construction facility in the United States.

But in 1966, when increasingly large ships were blocked by the Brooklyn Bridge, the Navy moved its shipbuilding to warmer climes. The Navy Yard was sold to the City of New York for $22 million, and the historic shipyard gradually became a desolate site, emblematic of the city's economic decline.

Today, this seems a very distant memory. The Navy Yard has become a virtual boomtown, a walled mall of 3.5 million square feet of commercial space. Its 40 warehouses and old shipyard buildings are almost fully leased by 230 industrial and manufacturing enterprises, from food and book distributors to small manufacturing companies, and a substantial number of artists and craftsmen.

The leasing program, in effect since the late 1960's, has expanded significantly in the last two years, since the Navy Yard became part of the city's capital budget, gaining $71 million for infrastructure improvements. Because the Navy Yard is nonprofit, tenants pay rents that do not include real estate taxes.

Annual rents are $6 to $16 a square foot, depending on the space (smaller spaces pay the higher rates). With ample parking for trucks and cars, the Navy Yard has none of the loading and unloading hassles of many other New York City locations. It is strategically located between the Brooklyn and Williamsburg Bridges, with easy access to the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway and two major airports.

Parking doesn't appear to be a problem. Loading and unloading are a comparative breeze compared with Lower Manhattan, where many sculptors and architectural fabricators have traditionally had their workshops. The huge freight elevators in the old commercial buildings once used for shipbuilding are still commodious heavy load lifters.

The central location makes the appeal of the yard obvious for warehouses and distribution centers. For artists and craftsmen, the quick access to Manhattan is ideal.

And then there are the space, light and views. The vast windowed warehouse spaces, the most precious commodity for many artists and sculptors, are suffused with clear light from the East River. The unobstructed views of Lower Manhattan seem to belong to another era.

Midway between the Brooklyn Bridge and the Williamsburg Bridge, the Navy Yard takes up all of Wallabout Bay, with a clear view across the East River to Corlears Hook, a projecting point of land on the Lower East Side.

For Robert Ferraroni, co-owner with Jeff Kahn of Ferra Designs Inc., a metal fabrication company, parking in Manhattan when he delivers his work is still a problem. He has, however, eliminated the parking tickets he amassed in Williamsburg, where his shop was located until three years ago. At the Navy Yard, the huge cranes once used by shipbuilders and still in place have proved invaluable for hoisting a recent project, a glass and stainless steel catwalk that will span open space in a Manhattan town house.

Owned by the city and managed by the not-for-profit Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corporation, the yard has annual rent revenues that are approaching $18 million, according to Thomas Maiorano, vice president of the corporation and the leasing manager. "I've got stick-it notes all over my computer right now from people looking for space," he said.

The largest space, one million square feet, is now leased by S&F Warehousing, a commodities warehouse, although smaller spaces, from 1,200 to 1,800 square feet, are particularly sought after.

Susan Woods, an artist who owns Susan Woods Studios, moved to the Navy Yard from nearby Dumbo in 1998, when the rents went up. "I couldn't afford to live there anymore, much less work there," she said.

Her only quibble with the Navy Yard is not being allowed to have an on-site retail studio. It is not open to the public, and there are five 24-hour security gates.

That security, though, is part of the yard's appeal to its commercial tenants. "Sometimes I work here late at night, and I feel absolutely safe, even when I'm working by myself," Ms. Woods said.

For Scott Jordan, the owner of Scott Jordan furniture, the Navy Yard, where he has been a tenant since 1988, is a complete package of amenities. His 15,000 square feet of warehouse, inventory and workshop space, filled with computers, woodworking tools and high-tech machinery, is secure. He bikes to work from his home in Brooklyn Heights and except in truly inclement weather, across the Brooklyn Bridge to his retail shop on Varick Street. And his large open workshop, flooded with natural light, is like a woodworking shop of 100 years ago. Although each of his seven furniture makers is responsible for a different aspect of each piece of hand-assembled furniture, "we can all see what the other is doing - it's a complete flow operation."

Both gorgeous and gritty, the Navy Yard is an irresistible photographic journey; Henri Cartier-Bresson, Richard Avedon and Annie Leibovitz have all shot there. Episodes of "Law and Order," "Criminal Intent" and "CSI New York" have been filmed here.

And almost completed on 15 leased acres of Navy Yard land, the newly built Steiner Studios, a $118 million film and television studio complex, the largest on the East Coast, already has one production under way: "The Producers," starring the Brooklyn-born Mel Brooks, is being filmed now in and around a custom-designed set, including a five-story replica of 42nd Street.

For Douglas C. Steiner and his father, David S. Steiner, partners in Steiner Equities Group, the 280,000-square-foot studio is a first. It was designed after a year of consultation with West Coast filmmakers and producers. The resulting studio is a state-of-the-art space, including sound stages with a towering 45-foot grid height.

Created for start-to-finish production of major movies, television shows, videos and commercials, Steiner Studios is a movie lot within a space that could be a movie lot.

With the East River on one side, the entire complex is surrounded on its land side by a serpentine stretch of high walls and fences, enclosing it completely, much like a medieval walled city. Even to many longtime New Yorkers, the Navy Yard remains an enigma, open to romantic interpretation, although the yard's new incarnation has had a decided impact on its surrounding neighborhoods, where real estate, both old and newly developed, is getting more expensive by the week.

Vinegar Hill, to the west of the Navy Yard, is experiencing increased condo development, as is Williamsburg to the north.

Along Flushing Avenue, which runs parallel to the Navy Yard and where condominium developments are already rising, construction is to begin on 60,000 square feet of commercial space, with much of it planned for neighborhood-oriented stores.

Members of the present Navy Yard community must hope fervently that some of those stores will be food-related. As of now, the 7,000 workers in the Navy Yard either brown-bag it or order takeout from Myrtle Avenue, a good 15-minute walk away. "We tried having a food service facility here, but the menu planning got complicated, trying to accommodate all the ethnic groups who work here," Mr. Deutsch said hurriedly one afternoon recently as he jumped into his van, heading up to Brooklyn Heights, a couple of miles away, for a pizza.

Copyright 2005 (http://www.nytimes.com/ref/membercenter/help/copyright.html) The New York Times Company (http://www.nytco.com/)

Derek2k3

June 3rd, 2005, 04:12 PM

Newsday
May 1, 2005

Blueprints for the future
A Navy Yard building could become a visitor center to explain the yard's history and display its newly preserved document
BY BILL BLEYER
STAFF WRITER

http://www.newsday.com/mynews/ny-citylifecover4237665may01,0,1761490.story?page=1

When Daniella Romano was hired right out of Pratt Institute to be the archivist at the Brooklyn Navy Yard a year ago, she had no idea just what she was getting into.

What she got into were 33,000 documents and architectural drawings, most of them rolled up, disorganized and brittle, along with ship plans and other artifacts that comprised its "archives."

"They had two rooms here that contained roughly 2,200 cubic feet of rolled-up plans that had been left behind by the Navy," she said.

Blueprints and other documents were crammed into a heating-ventilation space and storage closet in a building erected in 1942 as a mess hall.

"Some of them were ruined by being exposed to water," she said. Some were so fragile, in fact, that Romano was afraid to unroll them and left them to be treated by a professional conservator in the future.

Valuable information

Executives of the Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corp., the quasi-public entity that manages what is now a city-owned industrial park, certainly have an interest in history. But Elliot Matz, the chief operating officer, hired Romano more for practical reasons.

"Elliot recognized that with all the development that's going on in the yard there would be a lot of information here that would be valuable," Romano said in her office with tables full of folders containing blueprints. "There are no records, so we can dig in an area and not know what's underground. Now we're finding out."

The Navy Yard, closed by the U.S. Navy in 1966 and sold to the city the following year, is home to more than 220 private-sector tenants, with an estimated 4,100 jobs. Its buildings are 97 percent occupied.

Seeking restoration grants

The corporation is seeking grants to restore the documents and is considering turning one of the historic buildings into a visitor center to explain the yard's history and exhibit some of the documents.

Among the more interesting items is a drawing on waxed linen of the U.S.S. Maine in 1890, just before it was launched. The battleship blew up in Havana Harbor, helping to precipitate the Spanish-American War in 1898. The drawing is about eight feet by three feet and shows how to construct a steel-armored belt around the hull for added protection from enemy shells.

"We've got a good number of plans from World War I," Romano said. One dated 1914 shows how to construct platforms for funeral services. "It wasn't very busy here during the '20s, so we don't have much from that era. In the late '30s through World War II, the number of plans explodes."

1858 plans found

The oldest document unearthed so far dates to 1858. It is a design by a local artisan for a monument that was erected at the yard to honor sailors and Marines who died during the Battle for the Barrier Forts in Canton in 1856, during the Opium Wars in China.

The plan for the monument, along with the plan for the U.S.S. Maine, have been sent to the Municipal Archives in Manhattan for restoration.

"We have just under 33,000 drawings," Romano said. "I don't think it's even 10 percent of the drawings that were created here." The rest are kept by the National Archives at a site in lower Manhattan.

"Every time they replaced a lightbulb, they had a drawing to show them how to do it," quipped David Lowin, the corporation's vice president for planning and development. "Now that we have them somewhat organized, whenever we have a capital project, one of the first things we do is to come to Daniella and say, 'Do you have drawings of this building that we want to work on?'"

So far, Romano explained, "I've gone through and unrolled all the rolls that I can; some are too fragile, and I'll have to wait for conservators."

She has separated the documents by material and subject so blueprints or drawings on waxed linen paper are together in archival storage sleeves.

When she unrolls a set of plans, Romano said, "I feel a pretty direct connection to the people that were here."

Lowin said that yard executives have been talking to community groups as they work on a development plan to build more industrial buildings. "One of the things that always comes up is the fascination with the place," he said.

So the corporation is thinking of restoring an old building, possibly a gatehouse that dates to the 1890s and is now used as the entrance to the city pound for towed cars, as a small visitor center with a few displays and some documents.

"There is potential that we would do guided bus tours at some date in the future," Lowin added.

In the meantime, the corporation is talking to local museums and historical organizations about finding a more appropriate permanent home for the documents. Another possibility is housing them in another old building that would be restored or in a proposed new centralized services building.

While these decisions are pondered, Romano keeps looking for pieces of the Brooklyn Navy Yard's past - both at the yard and elsewhere.

"There's so much out there in people's attics," she said. "I'd love to get my hands on it."

Noteworthy sites at the Navy Yard

1. Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corp. office and archives

2. Sands Street

gatehouse, which could become a

visitors center

3. Drydock No. 1, a

city landmark

4. The 1838 naval hospital, a city

landmark, where

Confederate prisoners were held during the Civil War

HISTORY OF THE NAVY YARD:

1781: John Jackson and his brothers buy a small portion of the current site and built a shipyard.

1801: The federal

government purchases Jackson's land for $40,000.

1814: Congress allocates funds for construction of the United States' first steam-powered warship, the Fulton Steam Frigate, at the yard.

1838: The Naval Hospital is built. It will house Confederate prisoners

of war in its basement. Now a vacant city

landmark.

1841-1851: The yard's first drydock is built. Now a city landmark.

1915: Battleship Arizona is launched. In 1941, it's destroyed at Pearl

Harbor.

1939-1945: World War II boosts workforce to 70,000, including first women.

1966: Secretary of

Defense Robert

McNamara closes the Navy Yard.

1967: Site sold to the City of New York for

$24 million.

1971: Yard reopened as a city-owned industrial park, which has 300 acres and more than

220 tenants.

Photos around the Brooklyn Navy Yard area.

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Gulcrapek

June 3rd, 2005, 11:09 PM

Lots of good pictures. The 'Moishe' building is bursting with potential - every time I pass it, my eyes go right to following its curve. It could be reclad in glass with horizontal accents and it would be beautiful.

Odd, how many huge buildings there are there, but how relatively unknown...

Derek2k3

June 3rd, 2005, 11:52 PM

Yea, seriously. The amout of natural light the area gets makes them even more stunning. Can't be long until this area is converted and sterilized.

Kris

October 25th, 2006, 05:16 AM

October 25, 2006
Brooklyn: Navy Yard Expansion Begins
By DIANE CARDWELL

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and a bevy of officials broke ground yesterday on the largest expansion program of the Brooklyn Navy Yard since World War II. The project is to bring 401,900 additional square feet of industrial space and a 60,000-square-foot supermarket to a complex that once housed Confederate prisoners of war and launched ships into battle. The project is expected to generate 800 new jobs, and officials said they would seek to channel them to residents of neighboring Fort Greene, Williamsburg and Bedford-Stuyvesant and to employ minority- and women-owned contractor companies.

Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

antinimby

April 23rd, 2007, 08:39 PM

CITY ANNOUNCES NEW MIXED-INCOME DEVELOPMENT AT BRIG SITE

Three-Quarters of the More Than 400 Residential Units Will Be Affordable

http://www.myrtleavenue.org/blog/enclosures/B%20-%20Rendering.jpg

Monday, April 23, 2007 (http://www.nyc.gov/html/hpd/html/pr2007/pr-04-23-07.shtml)

Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) Commissioner Shaun Donovan announced today the selection of Navy Green Joint Venture, a partnership of Dunn Development Corporation and L&M Equity Participants, Ltd, for the redevelopment of the Navy Brig site in Wallabout, Brooklyn. The redevelopment of this 103,000 square foot former prison site will create a unique mixed-use community, consisting of 434 residential units, commercial space, open space and a community facility. To oversee the development of the site’s master plan, design and LEED certification, Navy Green Joint Venture has selected the architectural team of FXFowle Architects, Curtis + Ginsberg Architects LLP and Architecture in Formation. By combining affordable rental and homeownership units with market-rate co-ops, townhouses and supportive housing, the redevelopment of the Brig will result in an unprecedented mixed-income community.

Approximately 77 percent of the residential units will be affordable to families earning between 30 percent and 130 percent of the Area Median Income (AMI), which is equivalent to a salary range of $21,250 to $92,170 for a household of four or $14,900 to $64,480 for a single household. The affordable units will be part of Mayor Bloomberg’s ten-year New Housing Marketplace Plan to build and preserve 165,000 units of affordable housing for 500,000 New Yorkers, more than the entire population of Atlanta. The Mayor’s Plan is the largest municipal affordable housing initiative in the nation’s history.

“The City has selected a redevelopment proposal that will transform the Brig site into a vibrant mixed-use and mixed-income community and will provide affordable and supportive housing, as well as much needed community and open spaces to the Wallabout neighborhood,” said HPD Commissioner Shaun Donovan. “By developing mixed communities through the Mayor’s New Housing Marketplace Plan, the City is preserving the diversity and affordability of our neighborhoods, which is critical to our city’s economic future. This development proposal would not have been possible without the insight and support of the Wallabout residents and their elected officials.”
Out of the 434 residential units:

203 units will be for homeownership, of which 179 will be co-op apartments and 24 will be townhouse units:
-75 percent of the co-op units will be affordable to households earning up to 130 percent of AMI, which is equivalent to $92,170 for households of four or $64,480 for single households. The remaining co-op units will be sold at market-rate.

-20 percent of the townhouses will be affordable to households earning up to 130 percent of AMI, which is equivalent to $92,170 for households of four or $64,480 for single households. The remaining townhouse units will be sold at market-rate.

231 units will be rentals ranging in affordability as follows:
-97 rental units will be for supportive housing affordable to individuals earning up 60 percent of AMI, which is equivalent to $29,760.

-67 rental units will be affordable to households earning up to 60 percent of AMI, which is equivalent $42,540 for households of four or $29,760 for single households.

-30 rental units will be affordable to households earning up to 80 percent of AMI, which is equivalent to $56,700 for households of four or $39,700 for single households.

-The remaining 37 rentals, which will be part of the townhouses, will be market-rate.

The site’s community facility will include a visual arts center and a day care center. It is anticipated that a café, restaurant and/or an environmentally-friendly dry cleaner will occupy the site’s commercial space.

HPD hosted an International Design Workshop in December 2003 to create a vision for the redevelopment of the site. Community residents, local business and community-based organization leaders, elected officials, and staff from HPD and other City agencies participated. The three-day workshop resulted in a set of planning principles, a tentative development program, and a conceptual site plan. Following the workshop, HPD established a 14-member community task force to help the City refine the site plan and continue the dialogue with area residents, community representatives and elected officials. The task force met five times and its members approved the Request for Proposals (RFP). The task force played a critical role in the selection of the development team.

“Thanks to the creativity and hard work of HPD and the community task force, the mixed-use development of the Brig site will be contributing to the vitality of this growing area of Brooklyn,” said Borough President Marty Markowitz. “I have been proud to help make the site’s affordable-housing component a reality, which will help preserve the ethnic and economic diversity that makes us strong. When it comes to adding more affordable housing, Brooklyn says, ‘Brig it on!’”

“At the outset, I want to thank Commissioner Donovan and the community task force for the dedication of their time and talent to this wonderful project which represents an excellent example of high-quality sustainable design, community planning and affordable housing,” said Council Member Letitia James.

As a pilot for New York City’s Design and Construction Excellence Initiative, this project will serve as an outstanding example of high-quality, sustainable design and construction that is financially feasible and responsive to the community. All buildings in the project will achieve Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification. LEED is a green building rating system, developed by the US Green Building Council that provides a list of standards for environmentally-sustainable construction. The redevelopment proposals were reviewed by HPD with input from the New York City Department of Design and Construction (DDC). The Navy Green team proposed the most comprehensive plan that emphasized design excellence while including the greatest number of affordable units. The proposal received the support of the community task force, community groups and local electeds.

"HPD is to be congratulated for once again demonstrating that the City's Design and Construction Excellence Program can bring high-quality design and construction to the successful and affordable development of New York City neighborhoods. FXFOWLE, Curtis and Ginsburg, and Architecture in Formation are design leaders and will develop a thoughtful, sustainable housing environment for the Wallabout community," said DDC Commissioner David Burney.

The 103,000 square foot site is bounded by Flushing Avenue to the north, Park Avenue to the south, Clermont Avenue to the east, and Vanderbilt Avenue to the west. The Brig was built in the early 1940s and served as a naval prison. After the closing of the Brooklyn Navy Yard in 1966, the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service used the Brig as a detention center until 1984 when, faced with severe overcrowding in its prisons, New York City sought ownership of the prison for its lower risk prisoners. The Brig served as a minimum-security prison until it was closed in December 1994. The last occupants of the Brig were volunteer workers involved in the post-September 11th cleanup effort. HPD completed demolition of the Brig building and site clearance in August 2005. Construction is anticipated to begin in the late spring or early summer of 2008.

Copyright 2007 The City of New York

antinimby

April 23rd, 2007, 08:42 PM

Here's the site of the Navy Brig:

http://img442.imageshack.us/img442/3630/brigsitedv3.jpg

pianoman11686

May 10th, 2007, 07:45 PM

Last updated: May 10, 2007 09:13am

B&H Photo To Build Up to 600,000-SF Facility

By Katie Hinderer
GlobeSt.com (http://www.globest.com/news/903_903/newyork/160539-1.html)

BROOKLYN, NY-B&H Photo-Video has a huge expansion plan in the works. The retailer of imaging products has plans to build more than double its space with the construction of a green facility that will be between 400,000 sf and 600,000 sf.

The company is currently located in a 160,000-sf building in the Brooklyn Navy Yards, and plans to construct the new multi-level location nearby. Construction for the $50-million project is slated to begin this summer and finish by 2009. The new facility is needed to handle B&H’s growing business. “The new green distribution building will enable the company to expand its work force and better serve its customers in the metropolitan area and around the world,” says Herschel Jacobowitz, CIO of B&H.

Once construction is complete, the building will apply for Silver LEED certification. The silver certification is now a requirement for any new buildings being built at the Navy Yards, a movement that is due in part to the mayor’s greener New York plan called PlaNYC.

The Navy Yard has housed B&H, which is one of the park’s largest tenants, for more than 10 years. “For more than 30 years, B&H has provided jobs for hard working New Yorkers and over that time, grown to become not just a New York success story, but an industry leader,” says Mayor Michael Bloomberg, in a statement. “Their expansion is proof that our five borough economic development strategy is working and creating jobs and it’s a testament to the critical role that the Brooklyn Navy Yard plays in providing space to meet this demand in a way that is consistent with the green building goals we laid out in PlaNYC.”

The up to 600,000-sf facility is expected to add 300 employees to the 160 that already work for the company at the Navy Yard location. “They are a terrific local employer that will make every effort to fill these new jobs with Brooklyn residents, particularly those living in the communities surrounding the Navy Yard,” says Andrew Kimball, president and CEO of the Brooklyn Navy Yards Development Corp. “The B&H expansion, when combined with expansions previously announced, will result in over one million sf of new industrial space constructed in the Navy Yard over the next three years creating over 1,500 new jobs.”

The Navy Yards are 99% occupied, and plans are in place to expand the 300-acre, 40-rental-building site. The expansion will produce more than 400,000 sf of additional rental space and includes a 60,000-sf supermarket on the edge of the site. Earlier this year, Steiner Studios announced its plans to build a 289,000-sf expansion facility. It is said the studio’s new site will create 550 jobs. With the expansion plans of Steiner and B&H, and the Navy Yards planned growth this industrial area of Brooklyn will add more than one million sf of space to the area in the next three years.

Copyright © 2007 ALM Properties, Inc.

brianac

November 8th, 2007, 05:30 AM

New York

Brooklyn: Navy Yard Development

By DIANE CARDWELL (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/c/diane_cardwell/index.html?inline=nyt-per)
Published: November 8, 2007

The Brooklyn Navy Yard will become home to a historic center as part of its expansion and redevelopment, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/b/michael_r_bloomberg/index.html?inline=nyt-per) and Council Speaker Christine C. Quinn (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/q/christine_c_quinn/index.html?inline=nyt-per) said yesterday. The center, scheduled to open in early 2010 in the Marine Corps commandant’s residence, is to use multimedia exhibits, including oral history projects, to tell the story of the Navy Yard and provide meeting space and offices for the Brooklyn Center for the Urban Environment. The City Council has promised $10 million of the $15 million needed to renovate and expand the building, which was erected in 1857.

ZippyTheChimp

January 22nd, 2008, 02:15 AM

Navy Yard supermarket on hold as feds consider ‘Row’

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By Dana Rubinstein
The Brooklyn Paper

A plan to tear down 10 historic houses at the Brooklyn Navy Yard and replace them with a supermarket has been delayed indefinitely thanks to a decision by federal officials to review whether the dilapidated 150-year-old mansions can be saved.

“There is absolutely no way we can give any sort of end date at all … there is no mandated time limit,” said Kristin Leahy, the manager of the National Guard Bureau Cultural Resources Program, which is investigating the mansions’ historical integrity — to the frustration of those eager to see the run-down buildings torn down.

Leahy said the earliest that she could hold a meeting with the city, area residents and preservationists is March. And that meeting would be just the first of a series.

Admirals Row, which overlooks Flushing Avenue near Navy Street, sits on six acres of federally owned land in the otherwise city-controlled Navy Yard.

The National Guard wants to sell the land, and according to local law, must give the city first dibs. But because of the houses’ historic significance, the Guard must also go through an arduous public comment and historic review process.

“I’m disappointed,” said Councilwoman Letitia James (D–Fort Greene), a proponent of the supermarket proposal.

“We’re trying to expedite the process,” added James. “[And] we’ve been in touch with some federal elected officials [to help do that].”

The Navy Yard’s proposal is popular in the surrounding community, particularly among residents of the Farragut, Ingersoll and Whitman public housing projects, who have little access to fresh produce.

“Saving historic homes may be significant to some people, but to the people who live in a neighborhood that doesn’t have easy access to fresh fruits and vegetables, it is of much less importance,” Ed Brown, the president of the Ingersoll Tenants Association, recently said in a letter to The Brooklyn Paper.

Even so, neighboring and city preservationists argue that the houses should be rehabilitated, and are pleased that the federal government is taking its responsibilities seriously.

“I think they’ve handled themselves well,” said Scott Witter, a Clinton Hill artist and one of the most outspoken opponents of the city’s plans.

Simeon Bankoff, another opponent of the city’s plan and the executive director of the Historic Districts Council, agreed, saying that the National Guard’s deliberate approach has convinced him that there would not be “a rush to judgment.”.

©2008 The Brooklyn Paper

http://www.brooklynpaper.com/assets/photos/31/3/31_03_admiralsrowsketch_z.jpg
To bolster their case that the 150-year-old houses on Admirals Row should be restored, preservationists have been showing off Lucy Sikes’s renderings of what they may have once looked like. Today, the houses are a tumbledown mess, and the Brooklyn Navy Yard wants to finish the job and put up a supermarket.

The Gowanus Lounge (http://gowanuslounge.blogspot.com/2008/01/federal-goverment-not-rushing-admirals.html)

BrooklynLove

January 22nd, 2008, 08:03 AM

such a shame what has become of these buildings. demolition of at least some seems inevitable at this point.

brianac

February 24th, 2008, 06:25 AM

Brooklyn Navy Yard

Amid Weeds and Rust, a Ruin Seeks a Second Act

By ALEX MINDLIN
Published: February 24, 2008

FOR as long as most people living in Farragut Houses can remember, the 10 weed-choked town houses around the corner have lain in ruins, partly hidden behind a high fence and ignored by all who pass.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/02/24/nyregion/admi450.jpgGabriele Stabile for The New York Times
“Those buildings are disintegrating, and nobody’s ever done anything with them,” a local resident said of Admirals’ Row.

Although the ornate 19th-century buildings on Admirals’ Row had an illustrious history, housing high-ranking officers at the Brooklyn Navy Yard from the 1850s until the 1970s, they now stand in ruins. Trees poke through their fallen roofs, ivy coats their walls, and rust blooms on their delicate wrought-iron railings.

“Those things there? They’ve been there forever,” said Elijah Knox, a resident of the Farragut project who was hurrying across its wind-swept courtyard the other day. “They need to tear them down.”

That is precisely the thinking of the Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corporation, a nonprofit group that oversees the Navy Yard. The city is asking that the National Guard, which owns the property, give the land to the city so that the corporation can demolish the houses and replace them with a supermarket of roughly 60,000 square feet and a large industrial building. Residents of Farragut and two other public housing projects nearby would be given preference in hiring.

Although preservation groups, including the Landmarks Conservancy and the Historic Districts Council, have publicly attacked that proposal, it has met a mostly warm reception among Farragut residents, who regard the vacant town houses as neglected eyesores.

At a meeting on Tuesday night of residents of Walt Whitman (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/w/walt_whitman/index.html?inline=nyt-per) Houses, few of those present could recall ever having even seen the houses, which are four blocks away.

“Those buildings are disintegrating, and nobody’s ever done anything with them, so put in a supermarket,” suggested Barbara Russ, who has lived in Whitman Houses for more than half a century. “Something reasonable, a ShopRite.”

The National Guard has embarked on a months-long review to determine whether it must require any potential buyer to preserve the houses. A report commissioned by the agency and released last month put the cost of preservation at roughly $20 million, but representatives of the development corporation say that the figure underestimates the costs and that the corporation will walk away from any deal that would include preserving the buildings.

If the Navy Yard abandons the project, Councilwoman Letitia James, whose district includes the town houses, said in an interview, “we’ll have buildings that are falling down, and I’ll have no supermarket.”

But not all of the project’s neighbors agree that demolition is the best course.

“My windows look down on those houses,” said Carla Thomas, a Farragut resident. “We sit there and ask each other: ‘Why don’t they fix them up, and make something for tourists? There’s enough money in Brooklyn.’ ”

Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company.

Tectonic

February 25th, 2008, 08:59 AM

Thanks for that article, I saw those buildings last week and wondered why they were in that condition. The streets around them are also terrible.

brianac

February 25th, 2008, 10:03 AM

I agree with BrooklynLove.

When things have been (purposely) allowed to get to such a bad state, they will use this as an excuse to demolish.

Such a pity.

brianac

April 23rd, 2008, 05:34 AM

Admirals' Row

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/04/23/nyregion/lens1000.jpg
Admirals’ Row in the Brooklyn Navy Yard once housed high-ranking naval officers and their families, but the houses have stood empty since the 1970s. Right, inside one of the houses. The houses, built between 1864 and 1901, were part of a six-acre site, including stables and tennis courts.
They have been unoccupied for decades, and their future is undetermined.

Copyright 2008 (http://www.nytimes.com/ref/membercenter/help/copyright.html)The New York Times Company (http://www.nytco.com/)

FlushingPhil

April 23rd, 2008, 04:17 PM

I drove for Mystic Bulk Carriers some years ago and I remember loading cement at Norval's terminal in the old Navy Yard.

I believe this is it:

http://maps.live.com/default.aspx?v=2&FORM=LMLTCC&cp=qsj5rd8v245h&style=b&lvl=1&tilt=-90&dir=0&alt=-1000&scene=1789989&phx=0&phy=0&phscl=1&encType=1

Notice the large rectangular vessel at the dock, that's what brought the cement.

Alonzo-ny

April 28th, 2008, 11:26 PM

Its gems like Admirals row that make cities great, they definitely should be saved.

brianac

May 18th, 2008, 07:15 AM

Historic Brooklyn Navy Yard gets modern makeover

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: May 18, 2008
Filed at 12:33 a.m. ET

NEW YORK (AP) -- When the Pentagon closed the Brooklyn Navy Yard in 1966, it became an obsolete facility awash in history but torpedoed by time.

Yet within the past 15 years, the 40-plus buildings behind the nondescript facade have become a modern beehive of activity that includes almost everything but, well, bees.

Its old machine shops and warehouses hum with small entrepreneurs -- makers of furniture, clothing, industrial equipment, theatrical sets and computer software -- as well as medical suppliers, fashion designers, printers, carpenters and artists, altogether employing 5,000 people.

Andrew Kimball, president and CEO of the Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corp., a not-for-profit that manages the city-owned site, said current plans call for spending $250 million in public and private money to add 1.3 million square feet of space and 1,500 more jobs by 2009. In a decade, he said, there should be 5,000 more jobs.

''The Brooklyn Navy Yard has added another chapter to its rich history by becoming a thriving hub of industrial business,'' Kimball says.

It didn't happen overnight.

With the Navy gone, the drydocks and cranes that helped win seven wars fell into disrepair. The carved eagles-on-pillars guarding the main gate vanished and front entrance eventually became a police department auto pound, where citizens pay $200 or more to reclaim stolen and towed vehicles.

At the old naval hospital, a marble ghost dating from 1837, the wide corridors and patient wards echo with emptiness. On Admiral's Row, six graceful turn-of-the-century mansions once occupied by top officers and still owned by the federal government, are falling into ruin, their future still unclear.

Kimball and Daniella Romano, the Navy yard's resident archivist, said the new development will give the Navy yard's past its due, including include oral histories of former workers such as Audrey Lyons who was a $40-a-week parts inspector in 1944 when Margaret Truman was invited to christen the brand-new USS Missouri.

The daughter of Sen. Harry S. Truman (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/t/harry_s_truman/index.html?inline=nyt-per), who was soon to be president, needed help to break the champagne bottle on the third try -- a less than sparkling debut for the ''Mighty Mo,'' the last truly famous warship among hundreds produced at the yard since 1801.

''We all took time off to see it,'' recalls Lyons, now 84 and retired in Essex, Conn.

The first ship built there, in 1798, was the frigate USS Adams, burned by its crew in 1812 to avoid British capture. The last, the amphibious transport USS Duluth, slipped into the East River in 1965.

Other noteworthy vessels included the Fulton II, the first U.S. steam-powered warship to go to sea, in 1837; USS Niagara, which helped lay the first trans-Atlantic undersea cable; and USS Monitor, built elsewhere but commissioned at the yard in 1862. Within weeks it faced the Confederates' CSS Virginia in history's first clash of ironclads -- a standoff, but a death knell for wooden warships.

USS Maine, America's first battleship, was commissioned in 1889 and exploded at its dock in Havana in 1898, triggering the Spanish-American War that recast the United States as a world power.

The battleship USS Arizona, launched in 1915, remains the best-known symbol of America's entry into World War II. Moored near its sunken hulk at Pearl Harbor is the Missouri, now a floating museum symbolizing the Allied victory in 1945.

At the Brooklyn Navy Yard, a parking lot will replace the police auto pound and building near the main gate will offer guided tours and an exhibit of photographs and artifacts.

The gate itself is to be restored as nearly as possible to its turn-of-the-20th century look.

The continuing expansion of the Navy yard will emphasize ''green'' construction. Hospital buildings and an overgrown cemetery that once held 1,500 bodies await transformation into a 20-acre ''media campus'' focused on entertainment, TV and graduate educational programs. (The bodies were reburied in a cemetery in Queens.)

Some of the six drydocks remain in use for maintenance. On a recent day, one held a large Singapore-based oil products tanker. The U.S. Coast Guard (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/c/coast_guard/index.html?inline=nyt-org) tug Sturgeon Bay occupied another. ''Maritime is still part of what we do,'' Kimball said.

The yard's biggest tenant is Steiner Studios, a Hollywood-style operation in a cavernous former machine shop with sound stages where large pieces of vessels were once assembled. It, too, is expanding.

There is a fish wholesaler to fancy restaurants, a shroud-maker for Orthodox Jewish funerals and a factory producing coffee-sweetener packets.

At Ferra Designs, Inc., partners Robert Ferraroni and Jeff Kahn use a powerful water jet to cut steel for custom-designed furniture and sculpture. They found space at the Navy yard after rising rents forced a move from the nearby Williamsburg neighborhood.

''The Navy yard is a great resource for networking with other businesses,'' Kahn said. ''I feel like we're in a community here. We do business together, and it reinforces the feeling that we are in the right place.''

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Torpedoed-by-Time.html

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press (http://www.ap.org/)

brianac

August 21st, 2008, 07:02 AM

August 20, 2008, 5:15 pm

A Call to Preserve Admirals’ Row at the Navy Yard’s Edge

By Sewell Chan (http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/author/schan/)

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/08/20/nyregion/admiralrow-533.jpg
In one proposal from the Municipal Art Society, historic houses along Flushing Street would be preserved, with ground-floor retail stores and a central green space for pedestrians. (Image: Andrew Burdick/Architecture for Humanity New York)

Admirals’ Row, at the southwestern edge of the Brooklyn Navy Yard, housed high-ranking officers from the 1840s until the early 1970s. The city wants the Army National Guard, which owns the property, to transfer the land to the city so that the Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corporation (http://www.brooklynnavyyard.org/) can demolish the houses and replace them with a supermarket and a large industrial building (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/24/nyregion/thecity/24admi.html). Residents of nearby public housing projects would be given preference in hiring.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/02/24/nyregion/admi190.jpg
The 11 buildings of Admirals’ Row are in considerable decay. (Photo: Gabriele Stabile for The New York Times)

Preservation groups, like the New York Landmarks Conservancy and the Historic Districts Council, want to save the buildings from destruction. On Wednesday, the Municipal Art Society (http://www.mas.org/) presented six alternative plans to the Army National Guard, arguing that the historic buildings could be incorporated into the new retail and industrial space planned at the Navy Yard.

The society argues that the Admirals’ Row buildings can be saved, since they occupy only about 25 percent of the six-acre site slated for redevelopment. Under Section 106 of the federal National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, certain “consulting parties” — including, in this case, the preservation groups — have the right to offer input when federal property is transferred.

Wednesday, the Army National Guard had its third meeting under the Section 106 process, weighing alternatives to full demolition of the structures. “There was a lot of discussion among the different parties, so what we plan is to take a look at those and factor them into our decision-making,” Kristin E. Leahy, a contractor working on cultural resources issues with the Army National Guard, said in a phone interview.

At the end of the process, the Army National Guard will draft a memorandum of agreement with the City of New York, a legally binding document that governs how the land may be used in the future. Ms. Leahy said that there was no firm timetable, but that a draft might be ready by late fall.

Army National Guard officials also heard testimony on Wednesday from the development corporation and from Brent Porter (http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F0CE7D81739F936A35751C1A9659582 60), a professor of architecture at the Pratt Institute, representing the Society for Clinton Hill (http://societyforclintonhill.org/).

In a phone interview, Lisa Kersavage, director of advocacy and policy at the Municipal Art Society, said the society’s plan would not imperil any of the economic development for the site, nor the job creation that would accompany such development.

“Creative site planning with involvement of the community enabled us to create alternative plans that meet the Navy Yard’s program for a grocery store and retail and industrial space while allowing for the restoration and reuse of the historic buildings,” she added in a statement.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/08/20/nyregion/admiralsrowoption-190.jpg
The Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corporation’s plans call for a “suburban-style sea of parking,” according to the Municipal Art Society. (Image: Andrew Burdick/Architecture for Humanity New York)

Convincing the development corporation could be a tall order. Its plan calls for more than 300 parking spaces around a 65,000-square-foot supermarket (about the size of the Fairway in Red Hook). Ms. Kersavage said that the parking could be reconfigured or reduced, producing “a greener and more pedestrian-friendly site.”

Admirals’ Row, at the southwestern edge of the Navy Yard, at Flushing Avenue and Navy Street, is a collection of 11 historic buildings: 10 houses, built between the 1840s and 1901, and a timber shed from around the 1830s. The shed — 33 feet tall, 60 feet wide and 103 feet long — was used to store new wooden ship masts as they cured and is believed to be the only such surviving shed among naval yards in the United States. Preservationists think the shed is prime for “adaptive reuse” as, say, a farmers’ market or even light manufacturing.

Melissa Baldock, fellow for historic preservation at the Municipal Art Society, said in a statement:
Together, these buildings are a remarkable collection of residential and naval service buildings that are incredibly significant to the Navy Yard, the borough of Brooklyn, and even the larger history of the United States Navy. The buildings of the Brooklyn Navy Yard were executed on a grander scale with more ornate details than comparable buildings at other navy yards throughout the United States.

Although they have been abandoned and allowed to deteriorate since the early 1970s, they retain a great deal of both exterior and interior architectural detail, and most are structurally sound.
Andrew Kimball, president of the Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corporation, said in a statement:
There is a simple reason that the vast majority of the community and all of the elected officials support the Navy Yard’s plan for Admirals’ Row: It is economically viable and delivers on the two-decade commitment to provide fresh, affordable produce and hundreds of jobs for the community. The alternatives presented by MAS and others, however well-intentioned, do nothing to change this reality as well as the fiscal reality that the buildings cannot be saved or the fact that development realities require the kind of plan we have put forward. It is time for the federal government to keep its word to the people of this part of Brooklyn — people who do not have a place to buy fresh groceries, who need jobs, and who want to enjoy a decent quality of life.

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/08/20/a-call-to-preserve-admirals-row-at-the-navy-yards-edge/

Copyright 2008 (http://www.nytimes.com/ref/membercenter/help/copyright.html) The New York Times Company (http://www.nytco.com/)

antinimby

August 22nd, 2008, 03:52 AM

Andrew Kimball is an idiot. They should tear him down and build a parking lot over him.

NYC4Life

August 22nd, 2008, 03:20 PM

NY Daily News

What's in the Brooklyn Navy Yard?

By JASON SHEFTELL
Daily News Real Estate Correspondent
Thursday, August 21st 2008, 8:09 PM

http://assets.nydailynews.com/img/2008/08/22/alg_navy-yard.jpg
McCory/News The Kearsarge, a 27,000-ton aircraft carrier, launched from the Brooklyn Navy Yard on May 5, 1945.-

http://assets.nydailynews.com/img/2008/08/22/amd_navy-yard-fence.jpg
Gill for News The same building as above - 63 years later, and boatless.

http://assets.nydailynews.com/img/2008/08/22/amd_navy-yard-interior.jpg
Gill for News
Shells of commercial airlines and taxis cut in half are a common site at the Navy Yard, once the site of reseach by the NTSB into a ferry crash. These planes, however, are for film sets.

On a sunny day in July, I jumped around the Brooklyn Navy Yard (http://www.nydailynews.com/topics/Brooklyn+Navy+Yard) with a photographer, amazed at the scope of the 300-acre, 40-building site.

We saw cavernous buildings the size of stadiums rotting away. Airplanes were cut in half. Eighty-year-old cranes with operating cabs bigger than two-bedroom apartments hovered in the sky. Circle Line boats were parked for the night. Huge environmental cleaning machines hummed behind closed doors of ominous-looking buildings. Secrets and wonders seemed to be lurking in every corner.

Now inhabited by more than 200 tenants, including designers, artists, blind-makers, film-storage companies, architects, office equipment companies, a U.S. Department of Agriculture (http://www.nydailynews.com/topics/U.S.+Department+of+Agriculture) field office, and security organizations such as Brinks, this could quite possibly be the coolest place to work in all of New York City (http://www.nydailynews.com/topics/New+York+City). In truth, it's nothing more than a huge industrial office park.

Security is tight, and the gates are always manned - rumors swirled after Sept. 11 when certain doors and buildings were allegedly surrounded by armed military personal.

Dating to 1801, the Brooklyn Navy Yard was the manufacturing site for the first steam-powered warship, the Fulton Steam Frigate, which was never actually deployed before it exploded, killing 29 men. A Brooklyn Navy Yard Historical Center (http://www.nydailynews.com/topics/Brooklyn+Navy+Yard+Historical+Center) will open soon. The yards get their fair share of celebrities, with Steiner Studios (http://www.nydailynews.com/topics/Steiner+Studios) drawing shows such as "Law & Order" and a host of top films starring the world's leading actors (A-list names like Robert De Niro (http://www.nydailynews.com/topics/Robert+De+Niro) and Russell Crowe (http://www.nydailynews.com/topics/Russell+Crowe)).

So how much is space? Rents range from $10 to $20 per square foot. For more information, go to www.BrooklynNavyYard.org (http://www.brooklynnavyyard.org/).

brianac

August 22nd, 2008, 03:51 PM

August 22, 2008, 2:39 pm

Fire at Brooklyn Navy Yard Has Been Put Out

By Christine Hauser (http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/author/chauser/)

Firefighters battled flames on three floors of a building leased to one of New York City’s largest movie studios in the Brooklyn Navy Yard (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/29/business/29navy.html?scp=4&sq=brooklyn%20navy%20yard&st=cse) midday on Friday. There were no reports of casualties in the fire at the building, which was unoccupied as it was being renovated, Navy Yard and fire officials said.

The fire broke out at about noon, when the 911 call came in, and progressed to a three alarm fire with about 140 firefighters fighting flames from the third through the fifth floors. Glass in the building’s grid of windows was shattered as firefighters shot water from high-pressure hoses into the six-story building.

Within an hour the main body of the fire had been put out and firefighters were hosing down pockets of flames.

The 289,000 square feet building had been leased to the adjacent Steiner Studios (http://www.steinerstudios.com/projectsummary.html) sound stages for use as production and office space. Steiner Studios had announced last November that it had joined forces with the Navy Yard to transform a 20-acre segment of the yard into a media and entertainment center that would also contain a studio lot.

Steiner Studios opened at the industrial park in 2004, and this year took a long term lease on the building, which is located at the Washington Avenue gate of yard. Laborers were seen working on the renovations at the brick building on Friday morning.

The Brooklyn Navy Yard is a 300-acre industrial park with more than 40 buildings located along the East River between the Williamsburg and Manhattan Bridges.

Daryl Khan contributed reporting.

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/08/22/fire-at-brooklyn-navy-yard-has-been-put-out/

Copyright 2008 (http://www.nytimes.com/ref/membercenter/help/copyright.html) The New York Times Company (http://www.nytco.com/)

brianac

March 31st, 2009, 05:04 PM

March 31, 2009 1:25 PM

Time runs out for Brooklyn’s Admiral’s Row

A compromise deal between the National Guard and the Brooklyn Navy Yard's operator is set to raze all but one of the crumbling historic homes, sources say.

By Theresa Agovino (http://www.crainsnewyork.com/apps/pbcs.dll/personalia?ID=123)

Most of the buildings that comprise the historic Admiral’s Row in the Brooklyn Navy Yard will be torn down to pave the way for a supermarket in an agreement reached by the Yard’s operator and the homes’ owner, the National Guard, sources close to the negotiations say.

The plan, which is slated to be revealed to community groups in late April, would salvage only one of the 10 crumbling residences and a structure known as the Timber Shed, according to sources. The compromise would likely enrage preservationists who were hoping for a plan that would save all the buildings.

A request for proposals for a developer to build the supermarket and an industrial building is expected to go out after the compromise plan has been released.

The fate of the homes, which are more than a century old, has been in limbo for at least two decades. Preservationists have pushed to salvage the decaying mansions while the Brooklyn Navy Yard sought to raze them to make way for retail and additional industrial space. A study conducted for the National Guard found that it would cost about $25 million to restore Admiral’s Row, a figure that Navy Yard officials insisted was unrealistically low.

Kristin Leahy, project specialist at the National Guard, said no decision has been made and that it is still working with interested parties. Andrew Kimball, president and chief executive of the Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corp., declined comment.

The city owns the Navy Yard and has spent years working with neighborhood activists, preservationists and the Guard to create a proposal for Admiral’s Row that everyone would find acceptable. One source feared preservationists would attempt to block the compromise reached by the Yard’s management and the Guard.

The Navy Yard is a now a 300-acre industrial park. Its management has been trying for years to bring a supermarket to the site that will provide jobs and fresh produce to the surrounding Brooklyn neighborhood of Fort Greene, which is in need of both.

Preservationists, who say they haven’t been told of the compromise, have argued that the buildings could be saved while still leaving room for a supermarket.

“The Navy Yard made this an either-or situation, and it didn’t have to be that way,” said Peg Breen, president of The New York Landmarks Conservancy.

Lisa Kersavage, director of advocacy and policy for the Municipal Art Society said that the organization is pleased that at least some of the buildings will saved. However, she says she would have preferred to have all the buildings remain.

http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20090331/FREE/903319987

contents © 2009 Crain Communications, Inc.

brianac

April 9th, 2009, 06:39 PM

April 9, 2009, 1:29 pm

From Navy Blue to Green

By Andy Newman (http://wirednewyork.com/author/andy-newman/)

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/blogs/fort-greene/posts/listen-windmill-480.jpgAndy Newman
Listen to the wind: Radio reporters captured the sound of renewable energy at the mayor’s press conference in the Brookln Navy Yard this morning.

With a bank of propellers harvesting the winds of the waterfront just behind him, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg stood on a rooftop in the Brooklyn Navy Yard this morning to unveil what the city says is the nation’s first multi-story green industrial facility.

The $25 million, recycled-aluminum-clad Perry Avenue Building, which also features solar panels, high-efficiency lighting and rainwater-driven toilets, has been rented to SurroundArt, an art-handling company that presently has quarters elsewhere in the Navy Yard. SurroundArt plans to keep its old building and add about 70 jobs at the new one, CEO Mick Murray said.

Just across the parking lot, a wind-and-solar-powered streetlamp marks a building that Duggal Visual Solutions, an industrial-display maker, is converting into a laboratory for new sustainable products.

“When you think about this,” the mayor said, “you really have to have a great deal of confidence in the future of New York City.”
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/blogs/fort-greene/posts/bloomberg-wind-480.jpg Andy Newman
Big green fan: Mayor Bloomberg sings the praises of renewable energy atop a new building at the Navy Yard as, left to right, Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz, a wind turbine, and Deputy Mayor Robert Lieber look on.

The Perry building will get about 10 percent of its energy from wind and sun — not a ton, perhaps, but enough to power the lobby and common areas of the 89,000-square-foot building. The Duggal building is LEED-certified platinum, while the SurroundArt building is on track for gold certification.

Of course, progress comes at a cost, not just to the city’s coffers but to the tenant’s. SurroundArt’s CEO, Mick Murray, said he was paying $20 per square foot in the new building — nearly triple his $6-a-foot rent in his other Navy Yard space, about double the $11-a-foot going rate for his kind of industrial space and 15 percent above the rate for new industrial space.

“That’s the price you pay for being in a green building,” Mr. Murray said. It was worth it, though, he said, because, “It makes a really big statement to our industry.” He said his customers are keen to have their art kept in an environmentally friendly place.

The new buildings are part of the city’s $250 million capital funding program to fix up the Navy Yard and help make it into a green-industry hub. The Navy Yard is in the process of installing several dozen of the wind-and-solar-powered streetlights that Duggal designed, and many buildings, including the Perry building, have solar-powered trash-compacting garbage cans out front (compressed trash means the garbage trucks only have to come a quarter as often).

Old habits die hard, though. While skylighted corridor beneath the roof where the mayor spoke was flooded with sunshine, the overhead fluorescent lamps were on, too.

“When we put them on this morning, it was dark,” said Andrew Kimball, the Navy Yard Development Corporation President.

Anyway, it occurred to us, the power in the hallways was free and non-polluting.

“That’s the way to spin it,” he said.

http://fort-greene.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/09/from-navy-blue-to-green/

Copyright 2009 (http://www.nytimes.com/ref/membercenter/help/copyright.html)The New York Times Company (http://www.nytco.com/)

BrooklynRider

May 29th, 2009, 02:14 AM

Admirals Row will come down

By Mike McLaughlin
The Brooklyn Paper

The city and National Guard reached an agreement to save two decrepit, yet historic, buildings in the Brooklyn Navy Yard and destroy eight others, ending an impasse and allowing the Navy Yard to proceed with its controversial plan to build a supermarket.

The deal, announced by a spokesman for the city-run Navy Yard, does not guarantee the preservation of the low-slung Timber Shed and one of the former officers’ homes, known as Building B, which faces Flushing Avenue.

But it allows for the transfer of the federally owned “Admirals Row” area to the city, which owns the rest of the Navy Yard.

As part of the deal, the city would then solicit bids from developers to build a supermarket and an industrial building as well as to “test the market” to rehabilitate and maintain the two crumbling 19th-century structures.

It’s unclear how the historic buildings would be reused. The other eight buildings along the row could be demolished by the city, under this agreement.

The city rejoiced at the compromise.

“If a viable proposal is received, the Brooklyn Navy Yard will move forward with the acquistion of the property, resulting in new jobs, additional revenue for the city and state, a vitally important amenity of a new supermarket — the only one to serve the community — and the reuse of what has become a blighted eyesore that has burdened the community and the Brooklyn Navy Yard for decades,” said Navy Yard President Andrew Kimball.

The fight over the once-grand structures in the Admirals Row began in earnest after the city announced plans to acquire the land and build the supermarket. Locals, many of them from nearby public housing projects, craved the idea of a large grocery store near their homes and sided with the city. (http://www.brooklynpaper.com/stories/31/30/31_30_admirals_debate.html)

(http://www.brooklynpaper.com/stories/31/30/31_30_admirals_debate.html)But preservationists (http://www.brooklynpaper.com/stories/31/30/31_30_admirals_debate.html), including local activists and the Muncipal Art Society, a city-wide group, objected. Late on Wednesday, the art society put out a statement demanding that more buildings be preserved.

“We have hoped, and continue to hope, that more of these very significant historic buildings will be retained and incorporated into the development,” said Lisa Kersavage, the Society’s director of advocacy and policy. “We will continue to work with [the National Guard] to … preserve more of the buildings. The Navy Yard is seeking to demolish the buildings to create a very large surface parking and we strongly believe that more … buildings could be preserved by reconfiguring their plan.”

©2009 The Brooklyn Paper

BrooklynLove

May 29th, 2009, 08:46 AM

I can understand why this is the outcome but still a bummer. Even more a bummer that the Row was left to end up in this condition in the first place. So many stories to be told of how different the Yard, Farragut and Ingersol were back during WWII times.

Merry

October 2nd, 2009, 10:35 PM

A Museum of Stuff, but Also of a Mission to Still the Wrecking Ball

By ANDY NEWMAN

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2009/10/03/nyregion/03metj_600.jpg
Scott Witter is trying to halt the city’s plan to raze most of Admiral’s Row, a string of old residences at the Brooklyn Navy Yard.

The museum in the private house near the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway announces itself in blue letters spelled out in painter’s masking tape.
“Don’t let Pirate Mike steal our heritage,” reads the sign, above a row of illustrations of gorgeous brick-fronted mansions and the legend “Landmark Admiral’s Row.”

Not much more information is forthcoming until Tuesday nights, when Scott Witter sets a piece of slate on the doorstep of 109 Hall Street that says “B.O.M.B. Open” in the same blue tape and Brooklyn’s Other Museum of Brooklyn (http://www.brooklynsothermuseumofbrooklyn.com/) stirs to life once more.

Thirteen blocks away, Admiral’s Row (http://www.officersrow.org/), the string of 19th-century Italianate officers’ quarters on the edge of the Brooklyn Navy Yard — to which Mr. Witter’s museum is a discordant but impassioned love song — crumbles on.

The museum and the mansions lie in opposite corners of Wallabout, a sliver of a semi-industrial neighborhood wedged between Fort Greene, Clinton Hill and the Navy Yard. But while the museum — a collection of somewhat random artifacts including porcelain smoking pipes dug from a nearby backyard and an almost-drivable 1920 Briggs & Stratton Flyer — remains oddly vital, Admiral’s Row is just about out of time.

The city, which owns the rest of the Navy Yard and is in the process of acquiring Admiral’s Row from the National Guard, says the houses, occupied until the 1970s, would cost too much to rebuild — $20 million or more. On Oct. 19, the Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corporation will collect proposals from developers interested in knocking down 9 of the 11 buildings on the row and building a jumbo supermarket (badly needed in the neighborhood), plus more commercial space and a parking lot.

This makes Mr. Witter, a 61-year-old architect, pack rat, gadfly and preservationist who lives next door to the museum, upset, to say the least.
“The government has had the responsibility to maintain these buildings up to military standard, which they haven’t,” he said the other day, standing on Flushing Avenue outside the wire-topped fence that is as close as civilians are allowed to Admiral’s Row. “For 30 years, they’ve been derelict in their duties.”

He is hardly a lone voice. The Municipal Art Society, the New York Landmarks Conservancy and the Historic Districts Council have all pleaded with the city to save Admiral’s Row. A Pratt architecture professor, Brent Porter, has released a model showing how the 6.5-acre site could be redeveloped without knocking down the residences. A 2008 report commissioned by the Army Corps of Engineers found the superstructures of the Admiral’s Row houses to be generally “sound, level and plumb.”

None of which cuts much ice with the Navy Yard Development Corporation. If the federal government required the Admiral’s Row buildings to be rebuilt as a condition of transfer, the Navy Yard’s chief executive, Andrew Kimball, wrote in 2007, “neither the city nor the B.N.Y.D.C. are interested in acquiring and developing the site.”

Late last month, Mr. Witter, in his ever-present skull-and-crossbones ball cap adorned with a full set of Admiral’s Row pins, led a stroll along Flushing. He paused in front of Building C, once a mansard-roofed beauty joined to its neighbor, now hardly more than a three-story ivy trellis.

“This is the latest fiasco on the row,” Mr. Witter said. After a partial collapse earlier this year, he said, “the Fire Department came in and disassembled the thing to the ground.”

He went down the line — Building H, the only limestone structure and fairly intact-looking; Building D, circa 1851, possibly built by Thomas Walter, designer of the United States Capitol dome; Building I, maple sapling sprouting from its smashed porch steps — doomed, doomed, doomed.

Only the yard commander’s residence, with its grand ballroom and gardens, and the 1838 timber shed are to escape the wrecking ball. A few blocks east, though, the Marine Corps commandant’s residence is being turned into a Navy Yard museum. Mr. Kimball has said it might have an exhibit about Admiral’s Row.

For now, there is Mr. Witter’s museum, a five-year-old movable smorgasbord, now on the second floor of a sturdy 1876 wood-frame house with severely weathered shingles. It is open Tuesdays from 7 to 9 p.m.

On Sept. 22, Mr. Witter opened promptly at 7:23 and launched into a guided tour, beginning with the metal practice bomb in the stairwell that he found in the Utah desert and that gave his museum its Gertrude Steinesque name.

He moved on to the Flyer, a bare-bones motorcar that looks like a sled on wheels with a gasoline engine mounted on the back. “I flipped this on my dad’s lawn,” recalled Mr. Witter, who grew up outside Binghamton. The two seats of the Flyer were occupied by a poster of the local city councilwoman, Letitia James, who supports the city’s plan, and a Mickey Mouse head wearing a rat mask that is Mr. Witter’s symbol for Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg.

At 7:37, a guest arrived: Freddy DeChirico, 49, a retired handyman.
“Do you want a beer, Freddy?” Mr. Witter asked, leaning over a bathtub stocked with Budweiser. “Sure,” Mr. DeChirico replied.

“Sometimes I tell people, ‘I’m going to the museum,’ and they say, ‘What museum?’ and I say, ‘Brooklyn’s Other Museum,’ ” Mr. DeChirico said as he sat down next to Mr. Witter’s companion, Karen Polack. “People don’t know what I’m talking about.”

Mr. Witter offered an explanation of his curatorial philosophy.

“The museum is dedicated to landmarking and preserving Admiral’s Row and the sane development of Brooklyn,” he said. “But the stuff in the museum is just the stuff in the museum.”

Later, as Mr. Witter stood on Hall Street in front of the house, another semiregular, Richard Cooper, wandered by.

“Any women up there?” he asked. “Karen,” Mr. Witter replied, referring to his partner. “She’s taken,” Mr. Cooper noted.

The conversation turned, as it often does, to Admiral’s Row. Mr. Witter was asked if his basement might someday hold pieces of it.

Mr. Witter leveled his gaze. “They’re not going to demolish it,” he said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/03/nyregion/03metjournal.html?ref=nyregion

Derek2k3

October 2nd, 2009, 10:43 PM

I think it looks beautiful as ruins. Just leave them alone. Knock down and replace all those public housing complexes around the site instead.

Stroika

October 4th, 2009, 12:12 AM

That would be an indescribably good idea ... meaning that it would be politically untenable :(

I fundamentally don't understand 3 things about this project:

1. What is wrong with the Pratt plan to salvage the houses and build the market within them? Why isn't it being taken seriously?

2. Why does this supermarket need a parking lot? Especially if it is being built specifically for the people in the nearby housing projects who can easily walk here, this doesn't make a whole lot of sense ... and when you consider that this is being built in downtown Brooklyn, and not Westchester County, and that the parking lot's construction would necessitate the destruction of one of the more significant historic sites in Brooklyn, I'm at a loss.

3. Why don't they just put a market in the ground floor or yard of one or a number of the housing project buildings? As it is, the ground floors of these buildings are generally unused and 70% of the territory of these projects are unused lawns and/or parking lots. The use of space is extremely inefficient, and there is ample unused space to certainly accommodate a market or markets. Moreover, putting in a market would also open the projects up to non-residents; whereas, at present they're literally a gated community.

I get the sense that something borderline-fishy is at play ... maybe the Mafia has infiltrated more than just the NYC DOB?

antinimby

October 4th, 2009, 01:29 AM

^ No, I think it's just stupidity on the part of the people running this city that's all.

Stroika

October 13th, 2009, 02:27 PM

Looks like the state is willing to spend $15M to build a visitors center at the Brooklyn Navy Yard (for what sort of visitors, I don't know), but won't spend $20M to save Admirals Row. I hope the visitors enjoy their tour of the new C-Town parking lot...

Ground To Be Broken This Month for Navy Yard’s New Exhibit/Visitor Centerby Linda Collins (linda@brooklyneagle.net), published online 10-12-2009
http://www.brooklyneagle.com/images/1x1.gif

Plaza Construction Will Oversee Project, Beyer Blinder Belle Will Design it By Linda Collins
Brooklyn Daily Eagle

BROOKLYN NAVY YARD — Ground will be broken this month for the planned restoration and addition to the Brooklyn Navy Yard’s historic exhibition and visitor center.

The project, estimated to cost $16.5 million, involves the restoration of Building 92, a three-story mid-1800s brick building and former Marine Commandant’s House plus the construction of a new addition — both with an expected completion date of February 2011. Plaza Construction has been tapped as construction manager for the center, to be called BNYC92; Beyer Blinder Belle Architects & Planners and Workshop/APD have been named the design architects. LEED Platinum certification will be sought, according to Andrew Kimball, president and CEO of the Navy Yard Development Corp.

The Manhattan-based firm will oversee the restoration of the existing 9,500-square-foot building, as well as the construction of a 23,500-square-foot addition, which will comprise several multi-purpose rooms and future tenant space.

When complete, the 33,000-square-foot BNYC92 will become the official exhibition/visitor center, housing displays and artifacts that tell the story of the 200-year history of the Yard from inception to present day.

The Brooklyn Eagle reported in September that $15 million, over three years, in capital funds had been secured by Brooklyn state Senators John Sampson, Velmanette Montgomery and Daniel Squadron for the redevelopment of two facilities at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, creating nearly 300 “green-collar” jobs — including this one and the adaptive reuse of three connected former World War II-era machine shops to create a 220,000-square-foot complex to be called the Green Manufacturing Center.

“Thanks to the leadership of the state Senate majority, particularly Conference Leader Sampson, the green transformation of the Navy Yard will be accelerated,” said Kimball at the time of that announcement.

Saying he was “thrilled” to be tapped for “this high-profile project,” Michael Winship, senior project manager at Plaza Construction, said, “It’s rewarding to work on an historic preservation project that commemorates such a famous landmark.

“The challenge is to seamlessly combine existing 200-year old architecture with a new 21st century addition, retaining the same authentic ambiance, but offering modern amenities.” Reportedly the sixth largest contractor in the New York region, Plaza was ranked by Engineering News Record in 2008 as 51 out of the nation’s top 400 contractors. The firm has offices in Manhattan and Miami (operating under the name KM Plaza).

http://www.brooklyneagle.com/categories/category.php?category_id=5&id=31253

Merry

November 18th, 2009, 05:03 AM

Make It Green

State invests in sustainable manufacturing in Brooklyn

http://archpaper.com/uploads/image/Green-Manufacturing.jpg
A rendering of the new green manufacturing center at the Brooklyn Navy Yard,
designed by Cybul Partnership.

As development touched nearly every corner of the city in the last real estate boom, the manufacturing sector, which traditionally takes up a lot of space and yields low rents, was increasingly pinched. With the downturn, the rate of encroachment on industrial areas has slowed, allowing for a green reincarnation of an industry not usually known for being clean.

In late October, New York State gave manufacturing in Brooklyn a push in the right direction by chipping in to help build a 220,000 square foot Green Manufacturing Center at the Brooklyn Navy Yard and to outfit an expansion of the Brooklyn Brewery in Williamsburg with green technology.

The Navy Yard center will be built on the foundations of three old machine shop facilities recycling some of the existing structure. The building will get a new skin and roof, outfitted with one of the city’s largest solar arrays.

Tenants will be able to rent spaces ranging from 5,000 to 50,000 square feet. “Most of our tenants are currently in spaces under 5,000 square feet,” said Andrew Kimball, executive director of the Brooklyn Navy Yard. “This space will give those tenants the opportunity to grow and expand.”

Possible tenants could include a carpet and electronic waste recycling facilities and green building product manufacturers. Kimball sees the growth of green manufacturing as directly tied to new sustainability regulations.

“As the city requires the greening of buildings and more clean energy, there are huge business opportunities in this area,” he said. The state is providing nearly $16 million for the project.

Amy Anderson, a project manager for the New York Industrial Retention Network (NYIRN), is encouraged by the state’s support. “The symbol that it represents is very important. It shows the state’s investment in green manufacturing and technology,” she said. “It’s a growing subsector. The demand is real.” The design industry is a driving force for the growth of green manufacturing, she noted, particularly in the area of locally sourced interior finishes.

The center is the latest push in an ongoing process to make the Yard a sustainable industrial park, including infrastructure improvements like wind powered street lights, porous paving to prevent run-off, and a smaller building with the city’s first building-integrated wind turbines.

“We’re trying to green everything at the Navy Yard,” he said. “We want to exceed city standards and have all of our new buildings meet at least LEED Silver standards, which we think will, overtime, command better rents.”

Cybul Partnership of Edgewater, N.J. is designing the project, which is expected to be complete in late 2011. Two other LEED certified manufacturing buildings are also in the pipeline at the Yard.

Meanwhile at the Brooklyn Brewery, owner Steve Hindy has been a vocal advocate for the importance of manufacturing in the city and has written editorials on the subject. And while the Brooklyn Brewery has been looking to expand in the borough for years, he had been unable to find space for reasonable rents. (The Brewery is paying approximately $15 per square foot, which is more than many industrial businesses can pay.)

As the economy softened, Hindy was able to negotiate a fifteen-year lease in three buildings at that rate, including 13,000 additional square feet of space. “We’re thrilled that it’s worked out this way. A year ago it didn’t seem possible,” Hindy told AN. “Our first preference was always to stay in the neighborhood.” As encouragement, the state is giving the Brewery a $800,000 grant, which will allow the company to build a waste grain recycling facility and a solar water heaters. The additional space, which is being designed by Fradkin & McAlpine Associates, will allow the facility to produce more than 50,000 barrels a year up from 8,000.

While both projects are good news for green manufacturing in the city, the sector is still highly threatened, according to NYIRN. The advocacy group believes the city should do more to preserve and develop private industrial space. “The Brooklyn Navy Yard is an ideal model, but it’s not necessarily practical for the city to buy up all the industrial zones,” Anderson said.

“There have been a lot of rezonings recently, and the city has been permitting too many commercial uses in industrial zones. Mixed use is great in many areas, but it drives up rents in industrial zones and drives out industry.”

Hindy agrees that landlords often hold out for commercial tenants who are able to pay higher rents. “Though I don’t think it’s a forgone conclusion that industrial tenants would be clamoring to fill those spaces,” he added.

http://archpaper.com/e-board_rev.asp?News_ID=4038

Derek2k3

December 3rd, 2009, 06:03 PM

Of all the places to build a supermarket. Why are our politicians idiots? It seems that the people that run this city feel that buildings are just enormous cash registers and filing cabinets.

http://newyork.construction.com/new_york_construction_news/2009/1001_ProposalsSought.asp

Proposals Sought to Transform Admiral’s Row
October 2009

The Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corporation has issued a Request for Proposals to develop a six-acre site, known as Admiral’s Row, and turn it into a neighborhood retail center attached to a supermarket on the western edge of the yard.

The RFPs are looking to find developers interested in building the retail center that will include a large format supermarket of no less than 40,000 sq ft and an additional 20,000 sq ft of neighborhood retail space. According to the RFP, ideal development of the site would also include a minimum of 40,000 sq ft on an upper floor to accommodate light industrial uses and could include additional upper floor commercial uses.

“In addition to the rapidly growing surrounding communities, nearly 40,000 residents live within a ten-minute walk of the site and 5,000 people work at the Navy Yard everyday providing a built in consumer base for the retail center,” said Andrew Kimball, president and CEO of the Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corporation, which manages the 300-acre industrial park on behalf of the City. “Our goal is to put this property back to productive use by providing a unique opportunity for developers with the capacity and track record of establishing supermarkets and community-oriented retail that will serve the community and create local jobs.”

The development of Admiral’s Row will build on the BNYDC’s commitment to sustainable infrastructure investments and new green buildings while continuing the expansion currently underway at the Brooklyn Navy Yard- the largest growth since WWII adding over 1.5 million sq ft of new space and 2,000 jobs over the next two years with the help of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s Administration and the $200 million in city capital funding they allocated.

All responses to the RFP are due back October 19, 2009