Brooklyn Project Lands $250M in Financing

By Keith Loria, Contributing Editor

Dock 72

New York City—A joint venture between Boston Properties Inc. and Rudin Development has received a $250 million construction loan for Dock 72, a 16-story, 675,000 square-foot creative office development located at the Brooklyn Navy Yard.

The financing was led by J.P. Morgan, M&T Bank and U.S. Bank.

“It’s going to be the first ground-up office building to be built in Brooklyn since MetroTech, and we’re really capitalizing on that and being able to provide all the features and amenities that go into a modern-day office building that haven’t been brought to the area in quite some time,” Michael Rudin, a partner in Rudin Development, told Commercial Property Executive. “There’s a big difference between retrofitting an existing building and a brand new building.”

Upon completion, the building will feature floor plates ranging from 40,000 to 60,000 square feet, offering contiguous and easily devisable blocks of space for a variety of tenant sizes. Amenities in the building include a health and wellness center, specialty food and beverage offerings and a rooftop conference center.

“We’re very excited to be able to deliver a truly new product to the marketplace,” Rudin said. “We have a great number of amenities in the building. There is over 35,000-square-feet of indoor amenities and almost another 25,000 of outdoor amenity spaces. We hope that helps to attract a great roster of tenants.”

The building was designed by S9 Architecture, with Fogarty Finger Architecture designing the lobby, common areas and amenities. The building celebrates the surrounding maritime and industrial history of the Navy Yard and is designed to drive innovation and collaboration between tenants.

Dock 72 is centrally located within the Navy Yard on a 60,000 square-foot strip of land jutting out into Wallabout Bay in the East River between two active dry-docks, offering panoramic views of the City and the activity of the Navy Yard.

“We were looking at Brooklyn for a while and hadn’t been able to find the right project, and this ended up working out,” Rudin said.

The project broke ground in May of last year and the development will be ready for tenant fit-out in late 2017 and will be completed in early 2018. WeWork will anchor the new building with a 222,000-square-foot lease.

“Representing an investment of nearly $400 million, Dock 72 is already having a strong impact on the area’s economy, putting hundreds of people to work in what will be a truly iconic addition to the Brooklyn Navy Yard,” David Ehrenberg, Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corp. president & CEO, said in a prepared release. “In the long term, the building’s tenants will bring thousands of good-paying jobs to the Yard, significantly contributing to the Yard’s largest expansion in 50 years. Achieving this important milestone affirms the private sector’s confidence in both Dock 72 and in the Yard itself.”