Dropping $50 million in Brooklyn

B&H Photo-Video (my favorite photo retailer, might I add) announced on Wednesday that it will add a 400,000-square foot, $50 million expansion to its 160,000-square-foot facility in the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Construction for the new multi-story building is expected to be completed by 2009, and B&H plans to create about 300 new jobs.

B&H, which is headquartered across the East River in Manhattan, will concentrate its phone and customer service operations in Brooklyn, and will use additional space as a warehouse. The company will also apply to the U.S. Green Building Council for a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) silver rating for the new buildings.

The Brooklyn Eagle reported a Navy Yard spokesperson as saying,ŅIt will be the biggest building constructed at the Navy Yard since World War II, and one of the largest multi-story industrial buildings built in the country in recent years."

The Brooklyn Navy Yard, a former shipbuilding yard founded in 1981, is a 300-acre industrial park in New York City. Today it boasts over 200 tenants and 3.5 million square feet of available space.

Sources: Commercial Property News, The Brooklyn Eagle,