Mayor Bloomberg yesterday opened a $25 million building in the Brooklyn Navy Yard’s industrial park that is the city’s first with mounted wind turbines.
The Perry Avenue property is the first multistory structure in the nation to be classified as a “green industrial facility” by the US Green Building Council, a Washington-based organization that rates properties for their effect on the environment, according to a statement from Bloomberg’s office.
The mayor, who is making an effort to create “green” jobs, also unveiled plans for a 60,000-square-foot building at the industrial park that will make environmentally friendly products.
The investments at the yard will create more than 1,700 permanent jobs, 40 percent in so-called green manufacturing, as well as 800 construction jobs, Bloomberg said.
“The Brooklyn Navy Yard has been enormously successful providing a haven for small industrial businesses that help diversify the city’s economy,” he said in the statement.
“Today, it’s becoming a national model for the development of a sustainable industrial district.”
The 300-acre site on the Brooklyn waterfront, once a shipbuilding facility, is now a gated industrial park with 40 buildings, three functioning dry docks and four piers to attract creative industries, such as media and set design. The city is implementing a $250 million initiative to expand the Navy Yard with more than 1.5 million square feet of new space.
The three-story, 89,000-square-foot Perry Avenue building will power its lobby and common areas with electricity from the turbines and rooftop solar panels. It will feature reflective roofing and pavement to lower surface temperatures, recycle rainwater for use in toilets, and incorporate high-efficiency lighting fixtures and natural ventilation.
The city will contribute $2 million to a $7 million project by Duggal Visual Solutions, a New York-based photo-imaging company, to convert a one-story, 30,000-square- foot building into two stores. The planned Duggal Greenhouse will be certified as platinum, the highest designation in the Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design rating system, Bloomberg’s statement said.
Bloomberg, who announced the green initiatives on the roof of the Perry Avenue building, unveiled one of 90 wind- and solar-powered street lights to be installed at the navy yard.
The lights will save the not-for-profit Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corp. about $600,000 in the first year and $11,000 each year thereafter on its electricity bill, he said.