Dive Brief:
- A consortium of Los Angeles and New York City economic development nonprofits is creating a 200,000-square-foot climate innovation hub on the waterfront in Brooklyn, New York.
- The BATWorks hub — named after the Brooklyn Army Terminal, an industrial campus where it’s located — will provide green-economy startups with space to conduct research and development and will include workforce training and job placement programming for New Yorkers, according to a press release from New York City Economic Development Corporation, which is part of the consortium.
- BATWorks is “cutting edge,” said Andrew Kimball, NYCEDC president and CEO, in a statement. The innovation hub “will unlock new opportunities for startups and entrepreneurs, advance new innovative climate solutions, fuel job growth and strengthen Brooklyn’s working waterfront,” he said.
Dive Insight:
BATWorks will join several cleantech incubators that have opened throughout the country over the past decade. Nonprofit Greentown Labs has opened workspace to environmental and energy sector startups in Houston; and Somerville, Massachusetts. The University of Tennessee launched the Spark Innovation Center in Knoxville. And this year, the Seattle Climate Innovation Hub launched through a collaboration involving the city of Seattle and the University of Washington.
NYCEDC announced its BATWorks partnership with Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator on May 22.
LACI, which has taken a leading role in providing space and support for cleantech startups since it was founded by the city of Los Angeles and its Department of Water and Power in 2011, launched the National Coalition of Clean Energy Incubators in 2020. Tech and science coworking space company Cambridge Innovation Center will also lead the BATWorks consortium.
LACI will advise climate programming for the new hub and lead a pilot program that allows emergency climate technology companies to test products in a live built environment — part of its Climate Innovation Challenge, which provides funding and assistance to companies testing out their innovations, the NYCEDC press release stated.
BATWorks is also part of New York Mayor Eric Adams’ development plans for the city’s waterfront and its Green Economy Action Plan, which lays out the city’s goals for addressing climate change and creating 400,000 green economy jobs by 2040, the press release stated.
NYCEDC, which invested $100 million into the new hub, says it expects BATWorks will create more than 600 jobs, service 150 startups over 10 years and generate $2.6 billion in economic impact for New York City.
The new facility will provide companies with space to build products, quickly prototype new technology and carry out research and development, the press release stated. It will also provide green-economy job workforce training to people living in the city.
Construction will begin on the hub this year, and it is expected to open in 2028, said Chelsea Sudaley, an NYCEDC spokesperson.
