Wegmans Will Open in Brooklyn Navy Yard This Fall, Start Hiring 500 Next Month

The highly anticipated Wegmans will open in the Brooklyn Navy Yard this fall. The beloved upstate grocer has a manager for the store, has opened a hiring office there, and will make job offers and start training in February, Fox 5 NY reported.

The opening will bring some variety and choice to a part of Brooklyn that has long been a food desert, although a Red Apple supermarket opened on Myrtle Avenue in 2011. The development, more than a decade in the making, is part of a planned expansion of the Navy Yard that will bring more of the public onto the campus and add 500 jobs, including 150 full-time ones.

The supermarket will be bigger than the Whole Foods in Williamsburg and include a cafe on the second floor with a full bar, according to Brooklyn Paper. The grocer is making an effort to hire locally, including residents of nearby NYCHA housing. The Navy Yard’s employment office has been recruiting for the grocer since last year, sending representatives and help wanted flyers to local community board meetings, reaching out to tenant associations and holding information sessions about the jobs, Patch reported December 21.

The structure replaces a grouping of 10 historic houses and a timber shed known as Admiral’s Row. All but one of the houses on the six-acre site at Flushing Avenue and Navy Street were demolished in 2016 to make way for the grocery store, a parking lot, and other retail and light manufacturing.

Originally constructed between the 1860s and 1901, the houses of Admiral’s Row served as residences for officers of the Brooklyn Navy Yard. The Navy Yard closed in 1966 and the houses were vacated in the 1970s — and then they languished for decades, abandoned and decaying. Ownership of the site was finally transferred from the federal government to the Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corporation in 2012.

While the residences were listed on the National Register in 2014 as part of the Brooklyn Navy Yard Historic District, they were not designated as New York City Landmarks.

Last we checked, back in August, the steel structure had topped out but walls had not yet begun to rise.

Plans for a supermarket at the Navy Yard had been discussed as least as far back as 2009, and the proposal went through three RFPs and two other developers over the years. Ultimately, real estate developer Steiner NYC filed plans for the entire complex in 2016. Steiner NYC also developed Steiner Studios, a movie-making complex and the Navy Yard’s biggest tenant.

The architect for the project is S9 Architecture, also behind Dock 72, also under construction at the Navy Yard. (That complex, built for WeWork, is set to open in March, according to the coworking company.)

The remaining Admiral’s House, Quarters B, will be restored and become a community facility. The Timber Shed, which has apparently been dismantled, is also supposed to be restored.

Related Stories

• Wegmans Inches Closer to Reality With Construction Under Way at Admiral’s Row
• Lone House Remains at Admiral’s Row as Site Is Prepped for Construction of Wegmans Grocery
• Steiner Adds a Building to Admiral’s Row Development at Brooklyn Navy Yard

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