Demolition is underway on the Hudson Avenue Generating Station, the site of Con Edison’s Brooklyn Clean Energy Hub in Vinegar Hill. Dubbed “The Hub,” the transmission substation will be capable of powering around 750,000 homes with up to 1,500 megawatts of electricity from offshore wind power. ConEdison designed the new structure to allow for future expandability, with a maximum processing capacity of 6,000 megawatts. The site is bound by Marshall Street to the south, Hudson Avenue to the east, and Gold Street and the Con Edison Farragut Station to the west. A groundbreaking ceremony was held last September and construction is expected to begin around the middle of this year.
Photos from late December show scaffolding and black netting beginning to envelop the 92-year-old brick building, which was the largest electric generator in the world at the time of its completion. The windows on the northern elevation facing the East River have been covered with corrugated sheet metal, and a hoist is attached around the center of the structure to aid in the demolition process. Some portions of the building above the flat roof parapet have already been razed.
Photo by Michael Young
Photo by Michael Young
Photo by Michael Young
Photo by Michael Young
Photo by Michael Young
Photo by Michael Young
A mobile crane and excavators were brought in to help dismantle some of the smaller low-rise structures surrounding the main building. Construction barges will help deliver materials via the East River in an effort to limit vehicular congestion and road blocks.
The property also formerly housed three gas combustion turbines that were decommissioned before the property was cleared. Several pieces of machinery and trailers sit on site awaiting the start of construction later this year.
Photo by Michael Young
Photo by Michael Young
Renderings show The Hub standing directly west of the original plant, featuring a sleek, reflective metallic surface with curving roof lines and sweeping arches at the base. A long ramp is depicted running beside the building parallel with the East River, a green roof is tucked behind the protruding edges of the façade.
There development also appears to include a riverfront extension along the eastern corner, an expansive concrete slab bordering the Brooklyn Navy Yard piers. It is unclear at the moment what use this land will serve.
Rendering courtesy of Con Edison.
The Hub is planned to serve as a “plug-in point” for clean energy made by offshore wind farms, and other renewable sources like solar that can interconnect to the city’s power grid. The facility will disperse electricity using a network of underground transmission lines to various locations, including the proposed Gateway Park Area Substation in Canarsie for the expansion of John F. Kennedy International Airport.
The Hub will also include a rooftop solar panel array. The building will be constructed five feet higher than the 2015 FEMA 100-year flood elevation criteria, and is engineered to withstand winds up to 130 miles per hour.
New York State is currently developing five offshore wind farm projects off the coast of Long Island and New Jersey that are expected to generate 4,300 megawatts of electricity. This will make up around half of the state’s goal of 9,000 megawatts by 2035, according to The Energy Research and Development Authority.
The Brooklyn Clean Energy Hub is estimated to cost $810 million and create over 500 skilled union jobs. The project is aiming a completion date in 2029.
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Good that it’s right on the waterfront because we all know climate change is a hoax, right? Oh, it’s not? Uh, then…
The shore in that part of Brooklyn is over 15 feet above sea level. While DUMBO floods during hurricanes, Vinegar Hill never does. According to maps showing ocean rise, Vinegar Hill will eventually become an Island.
Um because winds farms are offshore?
What part of constructed 5 feet above FEMA 100 Year flood elevation requirement do you not understand?
wow, see it go. I spend much time in that plant selling specialized mechanical services- as well as all the other Con Ed fossils- back in the nineties. Amazing plants..learned much from the engineers there.
A clean future is our only option.
I hope they learned their lessons from the disasters in Chicago and Pennsylvania and don’t try to blast the stack.
I hope they are gonning to knock down that smoke stack. What a bad memory it brings, of it’s suffocating for decades, the families with smoke and invisible lethal gasses in that poor neighborhood
An old Bk Navy Yard landmark makes way for a new Bk Navy Yard landmark. Hope it turns out as slick looking as the renderings suggest.
OMG… How sad to see such a historic industrial structure being raised. And not one person seems to care, I’m really surprised. Where are all the calls to “re-purpose” the historic structure and keep it as a base?
Very sad.
Served it’s purpose—let’s move on.
And could continue to serve. The new structure looks quite similar in size, I’m shocked that all the “green” folks wouldn’t want to just gut the inside and replace the power gen technology within.
I agree in principal but these old power plants are loaded with nasty stuff… asbestos, pcb’s… Obviously some repurposing makes sense… Tate for example… but this building… here… I have my doubts.
I think a much better candidate would have been the Waterside Generating Station in Manhattan… but that’s all water under the bridge unfortunately.
Is the smokestack and associated building going to be knocked down too? It don’t see the purpose of it once the steam plant is demolished. The rendering leaves as many questions as it answers.
Still, it’s a good move, future-forward and welcome in many ways.
Demand for clean energy because nowadays there is so much pollution, but can the chimney be kept? Thanks to Michael Young.