'Construction Kids' Camp Leaves NYC After Closing Headquarters

FORT GREENE, BROOKLYN — The popular children's camp Construction Kids has left New York City after leasing disagreements led it to close down its home-base at the Brooklyn Navy Yard.

The camp — which served 11,000 children last year — had run camps and after-school programs throughout the five boroughs and Westchester, including 80,000 teaching hours from its spot in Building 92 at the Brooklyn Navy Yard.

But after a request to extend its lease at the Navy Yard building wasn't granted, the company was forced to move out of state, COO Anthony Kent said. It officially left the Yard when its lease ended Oct. 31.

" We were blindsided and extremely disappointed that we are no longer able to provide programs out of our old BNY workshop," Kent said, adding that he tried to find alternate locations with no luck. "This was completely out of the blue considering our success and the work we had done with placing interns through the Brooklyn Navy Yard employment center."

Kent said Construction Kids had asked two years before its lease was up for an extension so that it could confidently start investing in repairs to the location. But, Brooklyn Navy Yard President David Ehrenberg told Kent they were not part of the reimagining of Building 92, he said.

A representative for the Navy Yard, though, contends that the Yard didn't necessarily turn down the request, but wasn't prepared to discuss it given that it was "far in advance" of the end of the lease.

"At the time, we were considering an expansion of our Employment Center and were not ready to have a conversation about a lease extension," the representative said. "Construction Kids then elected to leave. And we are indeed now moving forward with the expansion of Employment Center in Building 92 to serve more job seekers from the local community."

The representative did not provide answers to other specific questions sent by Patch.

But Kent argues that a request two years in advance is typical in commercial lease agreements in order to give enough time to go through the process of finding and securing a new location. The timing hadn't been an issue, he added, in previous lease extensions since the company first opened there in 2011.

"We wanted to stay," Kent said. "We could not do that without the extension. So we closed the NYC program and moved the program with me out of state."

Before leaving, Kent said he searched all over Brooklyn, Manhattan and Staten Island for a new location, but couldn't come to a "workable outcome."

As of now, he plans to stay out of state, but said he would be willing to partner with someone who wants to open a Construction Kids in New York City.

"I am always interested in hearing from people who might have great locations for CK or want to license our intellectual property," he said.

Photo from GoogleMaps.