Pratt Moving Photography Program to Dock 72 With 63K-SF Lease
By Mark Hallum January 29, 2024 11:05 am
reprints![Dock 72, the 16-story office building in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, whose anchor is WeWork.](https://commercialobserver.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2019/09/ax7b9311-edit.jpg?quality=80&w=755)
Aspiring photographers studying at the Pratt Institute will soon have plenty of light to work with at Dock 72.
Pratt has signed a lease for 62,570 square feet on the entire third floor of the BXP and Rudin-owned building in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, where it will operate its fine arts and photography program, the New York Post first reported.
The landlords did not disclose the asking rent or the length of the lease, but Brooklyn office asking rents in the fourth quarter of 2023 averaged $51.77 a square foot, according to a report from Colliers.
Pratt’s fine arts and photography program will relocate from the Pfizer Building at 630 Flushing Avenue.
“In partnership with BXP, we have created New York’s most dynamic, next-generation waterfront destination at Dock 72,” Michael Rudin, co-CEO of Rudin, said in a statement. “Pratt’s forthcoming fine arts and photography studios are exactly the sort of creative use that will flourish in this environment.”
Andrew Levin of BXP and Robert Steinman of Rudin negotiated on behalf of the landlords in-house while Pratt also brokered the deal internally.
It’s unclear how much of an expansion this deal represents for Pratt, which has three campuses, including 25 acres in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn, and in Chelsea at 144 West 14th Street. It’s also unclear if Pratt will vacate all of the Pfizer Building, which may still have a 15,000-square-foot space for the college’s Brooklyn Fashion and Design Accelerator that it leased in 2013.
“There is a long-standing connection between manufacturing and art, much of which is steeped in the practice of making and creating,” Pratt Institute President Frances Bronet said in a statement. “The corridor that connects Pratt and the Brooklyn Navy Yard brings together emerging artists with Navy Yard designers, fabricators, inventors and business owners.”
The last major lease for Dock 72 — which had exposure to WeWork’s bankruptcy — was for marketing and design firm Huge, which took about 71,000 square feet across the entire 15th and part of the 14th floors in 2022.
Mark Hallum can be reached at mhallum@commercialobserver.com.