March 28, 2025 Fostering the ‘Next Generation’ of Manufacturing

Volume 28 | Issue 1

A cornerstone of urban advanced manufacturing.

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For nearly two centuries, the Brooklyn Navy Yard was a bastion of American industry, churning out vessels that powered our nation’s military and maritime endeavors. Today, it stands as a cornerstone of urban advanced manufacturing, hosting over 550 businesses at various scales that generate more than $2.5 billion annually for New York City’s economy and employ over 13,000 people. While the Yard is no longer fitting out and launching warships, our mission to innovate, produce and employ New Yorkers remains.

Modern manufacturing, often called advanced manufacturing, looks and feels nothing like the traditional images we see in everyday culture. We might still picture the old photographs from the Yard’s archives, showing men— and occasionally women—laboring in difficult, hazardous tasks, but those scenes no longer reflect the reality of today’s high-tech, safety-focused manufacturing environments. The reality of today’s factories and R&D centers differ dramatically from the pasts but bridging that gap has required – and still requires – intentional planning, strategic investment and a hefty bit of aspiration and persistence. Our story at the Brooklyn Navy Yard is a model for cities worldwide for how to reinvent underutilized or historical industrial spaces and transform them into ecosystems of equitable economic growth and community development in the 21st century.

Place Matters: Grow Manufacturing in Authentic, Adaptable Spaces

Truly incubating and growing industries locally is not merely about siting physical production plants, but also creating ecosystems where shared resources, ideas and opportunities converge and where businesses grow through stages of their life cycle in one place. By rehabilitating and repurposing the Yard’s historic buildings, we’ve created spaces that reflect our rich history while flexibly accommodating the infrastructure needs of today and tomorrow’s advanced manufacturing companies.

The message is clear: history can serve as inspiration rather than an obstacle. Many of our tenants, and even the investors who visit them, point to the Yard’s history as a reason why they are here and what makes the Yard special.

Instead of constructing nondescript facilities on the city’s outskirts, rooting a manufacturing business ecosystem within a vibrant urban setting enables immediate access to a diverse talent pool, accessible transportation, educational institutions and business connections. Furthermore, a campus setting allows multiple companies to converge in the same place and add value to each other. It creates enough scale where beneficial services – such as talent sourcing and placement, worker training and original research facilities – can be localized very close to business operations. Companies choose the Yard for several reasons that are “bigger” than the spaces they are leasing – they want to be in New York with its array of talent and general urban vibrancy, and they want an ecosystem of like-minded entrepreneurs. The synergy between place and purpose fosters a collaborative ecosystem, ensuring big ideas have a place to be tested and advanced with ample though partnership.

Cultivate Aligned Foundational Partnerships in the Mission

How we at the Brooklyn Navy Yard create that ecosystem is based on our foundational relationships with anchor partners who share our vision for creating a modern manufacturing and innovation hub. To state the obvious, incubating industries requires actual incubators and organizations that support businesses in their infancy. At the Yard, we have two such institutions: Newlab and The Research Yard.

Almost a decade ago, we partnered with Newlab, a multi-faceted business that helps startups grow and achieve impact by leveraging a unique space built with shared fabrication and product development labs. These labs are surrounded by flexible office spaces and shared amenities like a self-serve food & beverage area, conference rooms and an event space for conferences and product showcases. The concept of Newlab was created through the same public- private collaborations that allow the broader Yard to flourish – a mix of real estate, property management and program expertise working together to support job and company creation and growth. Newlab played a huge role in seeding the idea that modern manufacturing can thrive in an urban setting. Today, over a dozen companies have evolved from their infancy at Newlab and are part of a growing group of maturing startups with their own dedicated spaces at the Yard, such as Amogy and 10xBETA. Dozens of new entrepreneurs have taken up residence in the spaces left at Newlab, creating a virtuous cycle of new economic activity.

Similarly, in the last two years, we worked with Pratt Institute to create a multi-institution academic research facility focused on “producing” activities. Faculty and students from the university come to the Yard to work on projects they hope to turn into business endeavors, ranging from robotics to sustainable materials like AquaSteady.

These partnerships exemplify our ability to support a business from research to early stage through growth and commercial operations. Having this variety is only possible through partnerships with other institutions who share our goals.

Invest in Workforce Development at Every Stage of Talent

Successful business growth campuses and communities don’t just host startups; they help fuel growing industries and prepare the future workforce. This is truer in the rapidly evolving manufacturing sector. One of the Yard’s unique flagship initiatives is our CNC Operator Training Program. Participants gain skills, industry certifications, and most importantly, an upskilled pathway to employment in advanced manufacturing. Once complete, our employment center connects them with job opportunities at the Yard and beyond – ensuring a steady pipeline of skilled workers to support the very businesses we host. This also grows the talent pool required to fill in-demand jobs. Crucially this program does not require prior technical experience or degrees, simply familiarity with a production environment and general technology comfort.

This program, along with our on-site employment center, is centered on the Yard’s commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion, actively recruiting women, people of color and economically disadvantaged individuals who have historically faced barriers to entry in the manufacturing industry. By breaking down hurdles, we pave the way for participants to achieve economic mobility and attain higher-paying leadership roles. In many cases, newly certified workers are also armed to pursue their own entrepreneurial pathways—launching micro-enterprises or applying their expertise to product development—ultimately fueling a virtuous cycle that transforms job seekers into job creators and energizing the entire urban industrial ecosystem.

Additionally, we incubated and are an anchor partner to the Brooklyn STEAM Center, an on-site “next generation” technical high school that trains students in six pathways. The pathways are rooted in growing industries in our local economy and supported by industry-based faculty who work alongside traditional teachers with curriculum, internships and work-based learning experiences, often developed and hosted by the modern manufacturing businesses at the Yard. STEAM scholars not only graduate with advanced high school diplomas, but also with professional credentials and college credits.

Integrating workforce development throughout stages of growth has proven to be an investment among tenants, trainees and established companies. Startups gain access to a local labor pool that is well-trained and diverse and aspiring professionals find a clear route to growth in interesting, tactile industries.

When incubators actively cultivate these connections, they become the nucleus of a healthy, thriving economic ecosystem.

Prioritize Community Engagement and Visibility

To achieve real success, economic development projects cannot exist in a silo or isolate themselves from surrounding neighborhoods. We’ve learned the power of this principle through our public facing amenities—like the Market @77 food hall and intentionally curated public programming that supports small businesses while bridging the gap between community and industry.

Inviting the public to experience the fruits of manufacturing innovation—whether it’s accessing quality jobs or attending an open house or middle school tour—breeds awareness and plants seeds of opportunity. In turn, this fosters a culture where local communities champion the success of projects and see themselves as part of the project, rather than viewing them as gentrifying forces or unapproachable sites.

Lead with Sustainability and Innovation

Urban manufacturing centers must help solve the challenges of our time—one prime example being the sustainable use of energy and resource scarcity. Through adaptive reuse of our historic buildings, investments in renewable energy and educational events, we’ve shown that sustainability can coexist (and thrive) in an industrial manufacturing setting.

Tenants at the Yard span cutting-edge fields like clean energy, sustainable transportation and building decarbonization, all benefiting from an environment that encourages responsible, forward- thinking production practices. This focus on sustainability is a global imperative and drives markets forward.

More recently, the innovation ecosystem at the Yard has seen the growth of med-tech and medical device businesses working to solve healthcare challenges for people with disabilities or rural preventive care access. Many of these companies are collaborating with each other and with other producers at the Yard, reinforcing that disparate industries can be value-add neighbors.

Create Pathways to Scale and Collaborate

Finally, for manufacturing ecosystems to succeed, they must be more than just a collection of startups sharing buildings or production space. They need to offer structured avenues for collaboration, supply chain connectivity and scalability, and a network of service partners to support the evolution of small businesses (i.e. capital providers, experts in operational systems and advisors in marketing and legal issues). Furthermore, these business advancement resources must also be well-crafted to support entrepreneurs from various backgrounds across industries. At the Brooklyn Navy Yard, we’ve built relationships with local universities, government agencies and industry partners all under the mission to connect businesses and entrepreneurs with resources to grow beyond the prototype stage. From city procurement opportunities to research and development collaborations, our network helps innovators expand within the supportive ecosystem that nurtured them.

Dream Big, Persistently

Cultivating modern manufacturing communities in the U.S. where “factories” have an outdated and relatively one-dimensional identity and the idea of working in manufacturing no longer carries the same level of dignity and pride that it once did, requires consistent commitment to a vision. The road will be tough. All manner of stakeholders will doubt why you are doing what you are doing. The national dialogue around industrial policy and how the U.S. has or has not succeeded with its policies exemplifies this tension. Some of the new companies that seem promising in their early days will not survive and some established companies will struggle to evolve. Do not let these examples and the skepticism they create be a deterrent. Entrepreneurs must think bigger than they can immediately see or realize. Charting a new path for economic development that supports entrepreneurs and builds real and accessible middle-class careers and economic opportunities for all requires that same mindset.

Conclusion

Manufacturing and innovation ecosystems do more than just propel fledgling companies — they catalyze entire industries, invest in neighborhoods and make cities stronger. In an era where manufacturing is taking center-stage in the national economic conversation, the Brooklyn Navy Yard can serve as a model for business incubation centers in industries where rapid advancement and strategic investment is most critical. If we want economic development projects that sustainably deliver on the promise of industry growth, they must be thoughtfully integrated into the communities where they are located, provide robust workforce development opportunities, cultivate a diverse group of entrepreneurs and support the formation of an ecosystem that supports strong partnerships and helps emerging companies scale.

We have seen firsthand the revitalizing impact a well-rounded manufacturing incubator model can have on businesses and communities, growing meaningful job opportunities in urban environments.

About the Author:
Lindsay Greene is the President & CEO of the Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corporation, which includes managing and operating six million square feet of industrial real estate across 300-acres in the heart of New York City. Greene is charged with deepening and expanding the Yard’s mission, investing in future career pathways, and creating pipelines for underserved communities to fill these jobs. She previously served as Chief Strategy Officer of the New York City Economic Development Corporation, where she oversaw economic analysis, business development, inclusive job growth, and innovation strategies. school group.

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