Brooklyn Navy Yard Looks For New Food Manufacturing Tenant

FORT GREENE, BROOKLYN — The Brooklyn Navy Yard is hoping to add another food manufacturer to its tenant list.

The Yard announced Tuesday that 20,000 square feet of space is available in Building 50, a building toward the Flushing Avenue border of the Yard near Ordnance Avenue. The hope is to turn the building into a food manufacturing hub that can bring in a significant number of food production jobs, the Yard said.

They will be accepting "expressions of interest" applications for the space over the next few months.

“Brooklyn is a hotbed of culinary creativity and entrepreneurship, and we’re looking for an operator to spearhead a new hub of the city’s food production economy by working with local businesses and creating high-quality jobs,” Yard President David Ehrenberg said. “By integrating this initiative with the work of our existing tenants, our on-site vocational high school and our Employment Center, the new Building 50 will further enhance the Yard’s role as a leader in food manufacturing and job creation in New York City.”

Building 50 is a two-story building as first built in 1936. The structure is undergoing upgrades that will make it ready for a new tenant and "the ideal location to be retrofitted for food manufacturing," Yard officials said.

Once its upgrades are complete, Yard officials say that the building's space can help boost the local food manufacturing industry by helping address the need for affordable production space and equipment, a lack of co-packing and distribution options and access to retail points-of-sale, technical assistance, financing, and skilled labor.

Any new tenant in Building 50 will add to the Yard's existing food and beverage companies and will have access to the Yard's Employement Center, which recruits and places more than 400 people annually at tenant businesses.

The other food and drink tenants at the Yard include the Building 77 Food Manufacturing Hub, which is home to Russ & Daughters, Transmitter Brewery, Brooklyn Roasting Company and Grandchamps. The Yard is also home to Kings County Distillery, Food Sermon, Pizza Yard, Jalapa Jar, Rustik Tavern, and We Rub You.

The city's first Wegmans Supermarket is scheduled to open at the Yard this fall.

Interested applicants can find a copy of the Request for Expressions of Interest at the Yard's website. All responses should be submitted before 11 a.m. on Oct. 1.