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Trust for Gov­er­nors Island Announces New Mul­ti-Ten­ant Sus­tain­abil­i­ty Hub for Off­shore and Coastal Solu­tions to Cli­mate Change at Build­ing 301

Nov 29, 2021 10:50 am

The Trust for Gov­er­nors Island today announced that But­ter­milk Labs, a new mul­ti-ten­ant office, research, train­ing and con­ven­ing hub ded­i­cat­ed to envi­ron­men­tal sus­tain­abil­i­ty, off­shore and coastal cli­mate solu­tions, and urban resilience, adap­ta­tion and mit­i­ga­tion will take space with­in the Gov­er­nors Island His­toric Dis­trict under a long-term lease. A part­ner­ship led by New York City-based real estate devel­op­ment firm North Riv­er Com­pa­ny and BJH Advi­sors, But­ter­milk Labs was des­ig­nat­ed as the lessee for Build­ing 301 fol­low­ing a pub­lic RFP process seek­ing a devel­op­er to ground lease, rede­vel­op, and oper­ate the his­toric struc­ture as a hub of com­mer­cial, non-prof­it, and/​or aca­d­e­m­ic uses relat­ed to sus­tain­abil­i­ty and cli­mate change solutions. 

But­ter­milk Labs, the select­ed project announced today, will reimag­ine Build­ing 301 as a dynam­ic, 23,000 SF hub ded­i­cat­ed to fos­ter­ing and grow­ing busi­ness­es and non-prof­its that advance local cli­mate solu­tions with poten­tial for glob­al scale. A curat­ed ven­ture space led by Green­wood Strate­gies and Bar­ret­to Bay Strate­gies will anchor the project and pro­vide sup­port and men­tor­ing to a mix of star­tups focused on design and engi­neer­ing for cli­mate adap­ta­tion, renew­able ener­gy research and mon­i­tor­ing, and the tran­si­tion to a low-car­bon econ­o­my. The space will offer New York’s rapid­ly-expand­ing cli­mate-tech com­mu­ni­ty a full ros­ter of indus­try con­ven­ings, pub­lic events, and com­mer­cial­iza­tion and growth programming. 

The project will also host work­force and train­ing pro­grams ded­i­cat­ed to build­ing an edu­ca­tion pipeline for cli­mate jobs in under­served com­mu­ni­ties by part­ner­ing with Asian Amer­i­cans for Equal­i­ty, Red Hook Ini­tia­tive, and the Bed­ford Stuyvesant Restora­tion Cor­po­ra­tion. The project will be com­plet­ed in ear­ly 2024 and is antic­i­pat­ed to cre­ate over 150 per­ma­nent jobs on Gov­er­nors Island. 

“Grow­ing green busi­ness­es and non-prof­its is a crit­i­cal part of an eco­nom­ic recov­ery for all, as well as our fight against cli­mate change,” said Vic­ki Been, Deputy May­or for Hous­ing and Eco­nom­ic Devel­op­ment. ​“Con­grat­u­la­tions to But­ter­milk Labs, North Riv­er Com­pa­ny, BJH Advi­sors, Bar­ret­to Bay Strate­gies, and Green­wood Strate­gies: wel­come to the Gov­er­nors Island fam­i­ly, and we’re thrilled that you’ll be a part of this administration’s focus on cli­mate solutions.” 

“The Trust for Gov­er­nors Island is thrilled to wel­come But­ter­milk Labs to its grow­ing com­mu­ni­ty of ten­ants and part­ners ded­i­cat­ed to address­ing the cli­mate cri­sis through research, inno­va­tion and train­ing,” said Clare New­man, Pres­i­dent and CEO of the Trust for Gov­er­nors Island. ​“This project will sup­port New York City’s lead­er­ship in cli­mate pol­i­cy and green jobs while restor­ing one of Gov­er­nors Island’s most trea­sured his­toric structures.” 

In addi­tion to $4 mil­lion in sup­port from the City of New York, Empire State Devel­op­ment, through the New York City Region­al Eco­nom­ic Devel­op­ment Coun­cil, is sup­port­ing But­ter­milk Labs with a $2,500,000 grant award­ed in Round XI. ESD’s invest­ment rein­forces the NYCREDC’s mis­sion to sup­port projects that align with the Council’s work­force devel­op­ment strate­gies. The NYCREDC’s com­mu­ni­ty-based, bot­tom-up approach towards region­al eco­nom­ic growth has deliv­ered near­ly $625M to New York City com­mu­ni­ties since 2011.

Empire State Devel­op­ment Act­ing Com­mis­sion­er and Pres­i­dent & CEO-des­ig­nate Hope Knight said, ​“Com­pa­nies ded­i­cat­ed to cre­at­ing a clean­er envi­ron­ment are cru­cial to New York’s efforts in mov­ing the State toward a green­er econ­o­my. Empire State Devel­op­ment is proud to pro­vide fund­ing for this project, which will sup­port busi­ness­es focused on cli­mate change and cre­ate a pipeline of tal­ent for jobs in the indus­try. With But­ter­milk Labs, New York State will con­tin­ue to lead the fight for cre­ative cli­mate solu­tions, and a future focused on boost­ing our econ­o­my with green jobs.”

New York City Region­al Eco­nom­ic Devel­op­ment Coun­cil Co-Chairs Win­ston Fish­er, Part­ner at Fish­er Broth­ers, and Félix V. Matos Rodríguez, CUNY Chan­cel­lor, said, ​“But­ter­milk Labs advances the NYCREDC’s goal of prepar­ing New York’s econ­o­my for a cli­mate-friend­ly future. We are proud to sup­port the Trust for Gov­er­nors Island and its part­ner­ship with But­ter­milk Labs, which will cul­ti­vate busi­ness­es and non­prof­its focused on cli­mate change and help pre­pare a work­force that will pro­tect the environment.” 

“North Riv­er Com­pa­ny has a deep his­to­ry restor­ing his­toric struc­tures and car­ing for envi­ron­men­tal issues dat­ing back to our founder, Cole­man Burke, who with his team, remod­eled the 1890’s Ter­mi­nal Stores Build­ing as well as oth­er brick and beam struc­tures,” said Christo­pher Flagg, Pres­i­dent of North Riv­er Company. ​“Coley also served on the board of the Woods Hole Oceano­graph­ic Insti­tu­tion and sev­er­al oth­er envi­ron­men­tal not-for-prof­its. Being award­ed this project des­ig­na­tion by the Trust for Gov­er­nors Island as the first step of their broad­er ini­tia­tive to estab­lish the island as a glob­al hub of cli­mate inno­va­tion would be an hon­or for any appli­cant, but cer­tain­ly holds a par­tic­u­lar mean­ing­ful­ness for our team.”

Locat­ed min­utes from Gov­er­nors Island’s Yan­kee Pier, But­ter­milk Labs is planned to include 10,000 SF of office and co-work­ing space for small busi­ness­es and non-prof­it orga­ni­za­tions in the envi­ron­men­tal sus­tain­abil­i­ty sec­tor, R&D lab­o­ra­to­ry space, 2,000 SF of event and con­ven­ing space, and oth­er pub­lic ameni­ties for Gov­er­nors Island vis­i­tors and ten­ants. The project is engag­ing with prospec­tive ten­ants in the rapid­ly-grow­ing off­shore wind and urban resilien­cy sec­tors. Prospec­tive stake­hold­ers who have pro­vid­ed let­ters of inter­est include Duro UAS, a New York City-based com­pa­ny that makes autonomous sub­mersible sys­tems for under­wa­ter mon­i­tor­ing and data col­lec­tion; the Water­front Alliance, which plans to offer STEM-based estu­ary edu­ca­tion and pub­lic pro­gram­ming under its Rise to Resilience cam­paign; Rebuild by Design, which helps com­mu­ni­ties iden­ti­fy and design solu­tions for large-scale cli­mate change chal­lenges by forg­ing durable pub­lic, pri­vate, and non-prof­it sec­tor col­lab­o­ra­tions; and Brook­lyn-based Brown But­ter Craft Bar and Kitchen. 

Upon com­ple­tion, But­ter­milk Labs will fea­ture sev­er­al new pub­lic ameni­ties for Gov­er­nors Island, includ­ing year-round food and bev­er­age ser­vice, a 2,000 SF indoor event space, com­mon areas open to the pub­lic, exhi­bi­tion spaces, and sev­er­al out­door ameni­ties, includ­ing des­ig­nat­ed space for out­door events. But­ter­milk Labs will be designed to achieve excep­tion­al ener­gy per­for­mance stan­dards, includ­ing a com­mit­ment to a min­i­mum of LEED Gold cer­ti­fi­ca­tion, led by project archi­tect Angel Ayón of AYON Stu­dio (Cer­ti­fied MBE). 

This announce­ment rep­re­sents a key mile­stone as part of the Trust’s ongo­ing strat­e­gy and vision to reac­ti­vate the Island’s near­ly 1.3M SF of his­toric build­ings and rep­re­sents the first com­mer­cial ten­ant on Gov­er­nors Island ded­i­cat­ed to cli­mate solu­tions. Con­struct­ed in 1934 and expand­ed in 1959, Build­ing 301 is a Neo-Geor­gian brick build­ing that orig­i­nal­ly served as a school for chil­dren of US Army and US Coast Guard per­son­nel sta­tioned on Gov­er­nors Island. The But­ter­milk Labs project includes $4M in sup­port from the City of New York as part of May­or Bill de Blasio’s Recov­ery Agen­da and $2.5 mil­lion in sup­port from the New York State Region­al Eco­nom­ic Devel­op­ment Coun­cil Ini­tia­tive (REDC) and Empire State Development. 

Occu­pants of But­ter­milk Labs will join Gov­er­nors Island’s grow­ing com­mu­ni­ty of year-round ten­ants, includ­ing the Urban Assem­bly New York Har­bor School, the Low­er Man­hat­tan Cul­tur­al Coun­cil Arts Cen­ter at Gov­er­nors Island, the Bil­lion Oys­ter Project, Shan­dak­en Projects, Beam Cen­ter, the Insti­tute for Pub­lic Archi­tec­ture and QC Terme, a des­ti­na­tion day spa that is cur­rent­ly under con­struc­tion. In June, 2021, May­or Bill de Bla­sio and the Trust for Gov­er­nors Island announced a com­pe­ti­tion to estab­lish a Cen­ter for Cli­mate Solu­tions on Gov­er­nors Island, and is cur­rent­ly seek­ing an anchor uni­ver­si­ty and research insti­tu­tion through a Request for Expres­sions of Inter­est. May­or Bill de Bla­sio recent­ly announced that Gov­er­nors Island will be open to the pub­lic on a year-round basis for the first time in his­to­ry begin­ning in 2021, with NYC Fer­ry expand­ing ser­vice to sev­en days a week on the South Brook­lyn route.