A redevelopment of Brooklyn’s Made in New York Campus will bring 460 new jobs in sustainable fashion to the borough, and provide training opportunities for 500 people, Mayor Eric Adams has announced.
The redevelopment of the campus at Bush Terminal in Sunset Park will expand Brooklyn’s footprint in City’s fashion industry, and provide a $57 million boost to New York’s economy, Adams said in a statement.
Climate justice lab Slow Factory will be the first anchor tenant in the MiNY Garment Manufacturing Hub, from which it will deliver educational programming and workforce training, a product studio and a research and development lab.
The location will also be home to Slow Factory’s “Open Edu” program, a free education series on climate justice, climate solutions and climate-positive design. The programming will be integrated with Slow Factory Labs, a physical manufacturing facility for regenerative material innovation that focuses on their plant-based leather, Slowhide.
Slow Factory Executive Director Céline Semaan said the team was working “to fill a critical educational gap that focuses on climate justice and human rights, while creating a community hub for education and skills training.”
“This school presents a revolutionary opportunity to offer a pragmatic, future-oriented curriculum in Sunset Park, Brooklyn.”
Other training programs will focus on design for disassembly that allow designers to work from thousands of pounds of discarded clothes, returned goods and textile waste delivered to the Slow Factory through brand partners.
According to a press release from the mayor and the New York City Economic Development Corporation, Sunset Park is home to the second largest concentration of garment manufacturers and employment in New York City. Sunset Park residents will have free access to all programming and events held by Slow Factory, including youth-oriented climate adaptation events and waste-led design workshops focused on skills training.
Adams said Slow Factory’s opening would help create the hundreds of fashion jobs onsite and would bring tens of millions of dollars of direct economic output to New York City. He said Slow Factory would also show the city was leading the way and “showing that prioritizing sustainability can go hand-in-hand with the fashion industry.”
“New York City was already the fashion capital of the United States, but the redevelopment and creation of new fashion jobs at the Made in NY Campus in Brooklyn will only solidify our place as the city of swagger,” he said.
NYCEDC President and CEO Rachel Loeb said in a statement that Slow Factory would build on Sunset Park’s strong foundation of garment manufacturing and green innovation “with cutting edge solutions and meaningful workforce development that puts New York City on a path to strengthen, grow, and change the manufacturing industry for the better.”
“Reducing fashion’s carbon footprint is not only trendsetting, but necessary in the fight against climate change.”
The Garment Hub at the Made in New York Campus is expected to be complete before the end of this year. Business owners can visit edc.nyc/MiNYGarmentHub to lease space and learn more.
