The gleaming, 675,000-square-foot glass building on Brooklyn’s waterfront, Dock 72, opened last fall after nearly three years of construction. The project — a joint venture between the Rudin family and Boston Properties — was built on a former dry-dock in the Brooklyn Navy Yard and received a tremendous amount of fanfare; it had an ambitious design and landed one of the most coveted names when WeWork signed as its anchor, taking about a third of the property.
Ofer Cohen, the founder and president of Brooklyn-based brokerage TerraCRG, said it’s always been a struggle to pre-lease buildings before they are completed because many tenants want to move in immediately, especially in the Brooklyn market.
“Businesses, in general, are looking for a plug and play,” Cohen said. “People want the buildings to be finished because they can’t plan two years ahead.”
Rudin said they’re offering a lot of flexibility in the amount of space tenants can take and have built out the sixth-floor space as pre-built units. Cohen said that’s key for new developments in the borough since most Brooklyn tenants want between 5,000 and 50,000 square feet for offices.
“Now that all these projects are built, the developers are responding to the market and creating different size spaces there’s going to be a little more velocity in leasing,” Cohen said. “Boston and Rudin really did a great job at this building. Now that the sizing is being addressed and the building is finished, and all the stuff is up and running we should start hearing some announcements soon.”
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