Brooklyn Navy Shipyard

“The momentum of the Brooklyn Navy Yard in creating jobs and attracting investment is undeniable.  The Brooklyn Navy Yard is proving that modern manufacturing has a bright future in New York City.”

--Robert K. Steel, Deputy Mayor for Economic Development

 

The Business

The Brooklyn Navy Yard (the Yard) is a mission-driven industrial park that is home to over 330 businesses employing more than 7,000 people and generating over $2B per year in economic impact for the New York City.

Most of the businesses located in the Yard have sourced a large number of their employees from the employment center run by the Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corporation. The employment center provided 351 job placements in 2015, 120 of which were local residents, most of whom reside in public housing just outside the Navy Yard gates. The full-time average salary for all employees placed through the center is roughly $16.50/hour, well above living wage. A significant portion of the residents placed in jobs are formerly incarcerated, or unemployed veterans.

Building 128 has become the home for New Lab, a hub for innovation and design firms in the realm of robotics, engineering, and nanotechnology. Over 350 employees for the companies who reside in the building, enjoy a full metal-and-wood shop, a 3-D printing lab, and digital manufacturing tools.

Businesses located at Building 128 including Cyre Precision, a designer and manufacturer of uniforms and body armor for U.S. military personnel, MacroSea, an architectural design firm, and Mast Brothers Chocolate which also received a small business loan from TruFund five years prior to its expansion at the yard.

TruImpact

TruFund’s CDE, the Empowerment Reinvestment Fund invested $8 million in NMTCs toward a $73 million project to renovate Building 128, a 215,000sf facility for use as manufacturing space for a textile manufacturer space for multiple small businesses at below-market rents.  This allocation helped promote local industrial economic development and employment in a FEMA designated disaster area where the poverty rate is greater than 25%.  The project created 333 new permanent jobs for low-wage workers sourced from the surrounding low-income community.