
Rendering of 399 Sands Street. Image credit: Steiner NYC.
Addition of manufacturing and creative space supports City goals to provide more middle-class jobs. On June 13, 2018, Deputy Mayor for Housing and Economic Development, Alicia Glen, together with the Brooklyn Navy Yards and Steiner NYC, announced the beginning of construction at 399 Sands Street. The project will add manufacturing and creative office space at the 300-acre Brooklyn Navy Yard, an urban manufacturing center, and is expected to bring manufacturing jobs to the area. The project is also part of Steiner’s Admirals Row Development, a six-acre site at the southwest corner of the Navy Yard being developed for commercial and industrial use. (read more…)

- Admirals Row Plaza project view on the corner of Navy and Nassau Streets. Image: Courtesy of GreenbergFarrow.
Community and labor groups supported project, but sought assurances that Brooklyn Navy Yard would not lease space to Wal-Mart. On November 29, 2011, the City Council approved the Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corporation’s Admirals Row Plaza project at the corner of Nassau and Navy Streets in Brooklyn. The six-acre site is located at the southeast edge of the Brooklyn Navy Yard, near the New York City Housing Authority’s Farragut, Ingersoll, and Whitman Houses.
The mixed-use project includes the construction of three new buildings and the rehabilitation of two of the site’s existing, but severely deteriorated, historic structures. The Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corporation will convert an 1830s Timber Shed and a Civil War-era Naval Officers’ Quarters into retail and community facility use, respectively. A new five-story building will provide space for a supermarket and light manufacturing uses. Two other two-story buildings will provide retail space, and a 266-space parking lot will occupy the site’s interior.
The project required approvals to allow the City to acquire the federally owned property, and to then lease it to the Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corporation. The Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corporation applied to rezone the property from M1-2 to M1-4 and requested special permits for signage and parking. (read more…)
Brooklyn Navy Yard proposal would add supermarket and additional light industrial space. On October 19, 2011, the City Planning Commission approved the Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corporation’s Admirals Row Plaza mixed-use project on the southeast edge of the Brooklyn Navy Yard at the corner of Navy and Nassau Streets in Brooklyn. The United States National Guard Bureau retained control over the six-acre project site after the City purchased the Brooklyn Navy Yard. The federally-owned site is occupied by multiple vacant and deteriorated buildings including a row of Civil War-era naval officers’ quarters and a large timber shed along Navy Street dating to the 1830s.
The Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corporation plans to demolish the majority of the existing buildings, except for one of the officers’ quarters (Quarters B) and the timber shed. Quarters B would be converted into a community facility and the timber shed into retail space. Three new buildings would be developed on the site including a five-story building with a 74,000 sq.ft. supermarket and four floors of industrial space, and two, twostory buildings with retail space. A 266-space surface parking lot on the interior of the site would be accessible from Navy and Nassau Streets. The proposal would create 600 jobs and incorporate a job training program for residents of three nearby public housing communities. 8 City- Land 90 (July 15, 2011). (read more…)
Working-class 19th century buildings along Vanderbilt Avenue designated as a historic district. On July 12, 2011, Landmarks voted to designate the Wallabout Historic District in the Clinton Hill area of Brooklyn. The new district encompasses approximately 55 buildings along a stretch of Vanderbilt Avenue between Myrtle and Park Avenues near the Brooklyn Navy Yard.
The district’s name is derived from the Belgian Walloons who settled the area in the 17th century. The district is notable for its rare conglomeration of wood-framed dwellings constructed in the mid- 19th century which largely housed Brooklyn Navy Yard workers. The area was not considered prestigious, and the laborers and tradesmen who lived there constructed less-expensive wooden buildings, rather than the brick and stone architecture that characterized other Brooklyn neighborhoods developed in the same period. The district includes Greek Revival, Italianate, and Gothic Revival architecture. (read more…)
Mixed-use project at southeast corner of Brooklyn Navy Yard would include adaptive reuse of two historic buildings. On June 20, 2011, the City Planning Commission certified the Brooklyn Navy Yard Economic Development Corporation’s proposed mixed-use development, known as Admirals Row Plaza, on a federally owned site at the southeast edge of the Brooklyn Navy Yard at Navy and Nassau Streets in Brooklyn. The site is occupied by ten residences along Nassau Street built between 1850 and 1901 to house naval officers, and a large timber shed along Navy Street dating from the 1830s that stored ship-building materials. The buildings have been vacant for more than 20 years and are severely deteriorated.
The U.S. Army National Guard Bureau retained control of the six-acre site after the City purchased the rest of the Brooklyn Navy Yard complex in 1967. In 2007 the Bureau commenced the federal review process to transfer control of the property to the City, which plans to lease the site to the Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corporation. (read more…)