In The Navy: Andrew Kimball and Brooklyn’s Morphing Manufacturing District

Despite pulling in tenants, though, there had been no public investment in the place in nearly 50 years. Mr. Kimball was met with rotting sewer and water lines, crumbling piers and a lack of electrical infrastructure. So his team convinced the city that they had a business model that was working. The Bloomberg administration began investing, but asked that the BNYDC find a private model to get up new buildings.

“That’s led to $250 million of public investment that we’ve leveraged for well over half a billion dollars of private investment just for new buildings alone,” he said, adding that companies also invest in their buildings.

Still, finding ways to put up new buildings—and to create more leasable space and jobs—has required creative thinking. “There’s a reason that you don’t see a lot of industrial buildings getting built in the city and it’s not because there isn’t demand for that space. It’s because it’s very hard to make the economics work because it’s the lowest return form of real estate.” Industrial tenants pay less rent but there are very few financing tools available, he added. “If you look at affordable housing, there is a very broad range of tools available. If you want to put up industrial space, it’s very, very difficult.”

One boon for the yard has been the federal government’s EB-5 program, or Immigrant Investor Program. Created by Congress in 1990 as a way to stimulate the economy, it gives green cards to foreigners who invest a minimum of $500,000 in a geographic area. Mr. Kimball pegged it as “probably the most creative thing we did.” They’ve already borrowed $60 million to jumpstart projects, he said, and they are looking to borrow another $40 million.

Cruising through the yard in Mr. Kimball’s SUV, we climbed a slight hill parallel to Flushing Avenue on the western end of the yards, and entered an area that is also of concern from a fund-raising perspective—the media campus. Yard tenant Steiner Studios, already expanding on adjacent lots, plans to expand onto the site, putting up additional sound stages and bringing a graduate film program there with an educational partner.

Along with the Admiral’s Row project, these are incremental steps toward being more outward facing for an entity whose future actually depends upon remaining separate.

Mr. Kimball said that he wants to figuratively break down the Navy Yard’s walls, while literally keeping them up, so tenants know they can make noise there, avoid having their trucks ticketed and invest in the place themselves, knowing there is some long-term certainty about zoning.

With the RFP out for the Admiral’s Row project, Mr. Kimball said he hoped to have good news to share by the end of April. He added that, in his six years at the BNYDC, Admiral’s Row had been “the most vexing, difficult project.” When he arrived, some cautioned to avoid it. “There were people who said, ‘Don’t touch it—it’s going to be a nightmare anyway you cut it,’” he told The Commercial Observer. “But I was hired to get stuff done here, and I’ve got a great team and we like to have a lot of balls in the air.”

He predicted that, in the end, when all is said and done, “Admiral’s Row will be one of the great success stories of the Navy Yard for redevelopment because of the marriage of industrial space, retail and historic preservation.” He also downplayed any potential drama about worlds and pricing expectations colliding at the supermarket.

It will sit, after all, between nearby NYCHA public housing and Dumbo. However, Mr. Kimball pointed to Red Hook’s Fairway as an example of a supermarket that has met such a challenge.

cgaines@observer.com