Brooklyn Navy Yard's warehouse known as Building 77 to be renovated, de Blasio says

A manufacturing facility with 3,000 new, permanent jobs will rise at the site of a Brooklyn Navy Yard warehouse now being used for storage, growing the industrial park's employment by 40 percent, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Monday.

The renovation of the Building 77, which accounts for about 25 percent of built space at the Navy Yard, will accommodate existing tenants of the industrial park seeking to expand and in turn create space for new tenants elsewhere in the park, city officials said.

"The city's investment is about more than just physical building and the businesses that will be here," de Blasio said, wearing a hard hat at the news conference in Building 77. "It is about jobs. It is about building the economic future for our people."

The renovation is financed by the nonprofit Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corporation, $73.1 million in mayor's office capital and $3.7 million from the City Council and the Brooklyn borough president's office, officials said. The corporation also secured a $42 million loan and $4 million in tax credits.

The 16-floor building is currently used for "extremely passive storage" and employs only a couple dozen people, said corporation president David Ehrenberg. Renovations should be completed by mid- to late-2016, officials said.

The corporation will lease 240,000 square feet to a medical diagnostics company, officials said. There is backlog of more than 100 prospective tenants jostling for the remaining space, officials said.

The Navy Yard, which employed tens of thousands of people during World War II and produced warships until it was decommissioned in the 1960s, has become what de Blasio called "a vibrant hub for modern manufacturing."