Category: Marinas & Floating Infrastructure
Location: Brooklyn, NY
Type of Project: Marina
Products Used: Hazelett Elastic Mooring Systems
Details of Installation: Improved stability and reduced maintenance.
Challenges Overcome: Urban installation constraints, waves & tides.

The Brooklyn Bridge Marina project is a strong case study of how advanced mooring design supports high-profile floating infrastructure in one of the most demanding urban waterfront settings in the United States. Public project materials from Hazelett Marine identify Brooklyn Bridge Marina in Brooklyn, New York, as a marina application for Hazelett Elastic Mooring Systems, while the marina’s current public-facing materials describe it as New York City’s first new marina in 50 years. Today the facility is marketed as Brooklyn Bridge Marina, and earlier public reporting identified it as ONE°15 Brooklyn Marina, which helps connect the project’s development history to its current brand.

What makes the Brooklyn Bridge Marina project especially compelling is its location and use case. The marina sits just south of the Brooklyn Bridge between Piers 4 and 5 in Brooklyn Bridge Park, directly across from Lower Manhattan. Official marina and park materials describe it as a waterfront destination with over 100 floating docks, accommodations for vessels up to 300 plus feet, a sailing club and school, and community-oriented waterfront programming. In practical terms, Brooklyn Bridge Marina was built not just for private docking, but to expand public water access, support recreational boating, host sailing activity, and strengthen Brooklyn’s role in the life of New York Harbor.

The regional setting adds depth to the story. Brooklyn Bridge Park is an 85-acre sustainable waterfront park stretching 1.3 miles along Brooklyn’s East River shoreline. That means the Brooklyn Bridge Marina project had to function inside a dense, highly visible, public environment where design quality, reliability, and safety all mattered. This is not a remote dock system hidden from view. It is part of one of New York City’s signature waterfront public spaces, serving local residents, visiting boaters, and the broader harbor community.

The engineering challenges behind Brooklyn Bridge Marina were also unusually complex. Public reporting from Brooklyn Bridge Park Corporation and project coverage explains that the marina team had to work around the R train tunnel beneath the site while also dealing with the East River’s tides, commercial-vessel wake, and choppy harbor conditions. That combination of hard urban constraints and active marine forces is exactly the kind of environment where mooring performance matters over the long term. For a marina like Brooklyn Bridge Marina, improved stability is not just a comfort issue. It affects day-to-day usability, vessel movement, dock behavior, and the maintenance burden that comes with repeated loading in a wave-exposed tidal setting.

That is what makes Hazelett’s role meaningful here. Hazelett Elastic Mooring Systems were used to improve stability and reduce maintenance. Framed against the public record of the project, that positioning makes sense. Brooklyn Bridge Marina needed a solution that could help manage wave and tide-driven motion while fitting an installation shaped by urban construction limits and a premium public-facing location. The end result is a marina project that demonstrates how elastic mooring can contribute to better operational performance in a constrained waterfront environment where conventional solutions may be harder to install, harder to maintain, or less effective at controlling movement over time.

• Hazelett Marine identifies Brooklyn Bridge Marina in Brooklyn, New York
• The marina is publicly described as New York City’s first new marina in 50 years.
• Early public launch coverage described the marina as an 8-acre development with a project cost of more than $28 million (Ocean News).
• Current public marina materials advertise over 100 floating docks.
• Current public marina materials say the facility can accommodate vessels up to 300 plus feet in length.
• The marina includes a sailing club and school, seasonal docking, and community programming (ONE°15).
• Public materials state 2 percent of marina services revenue is dedicated to community programming.

• Brooklyn Bridge Marina is located just south of the Brooklyn Bridge between Piers 4 and 5 in Brooklyn Bridge Park.
• Brooklyn Bridge Park is an 85-acre sustainable waterfront park stretching 1.3 miles along Brooklyn’s East River shoreline (overview).
• Brooklyn Bridge Park states the marina serves the local Brooklyn community, New Yorkers, and boating enthusiasts from around the globe.
• Brooklyn Bridge Park states the marina offers what it describes as the calmest waters in New York Harbor because of its swell attenuation and layout (press release).
• Brooklyn Bridge Park reporting said there were fewer than 1,600 slips around New York Harbor at the time of the project’s development.
• The same reporting describes how the project team had to work around the R train tunnel beneath the site and address rough East River wave conditions driven in part by ferry traffic.

Brooklyn Bridge Marina demonstrates that successful marina infrastructure in a major city depends on much more than dock capacity or waterfront views. It also depends on how the floating system is stabilized, how it responds to tide and wave energy, and how well it fits a difficult site. In Brooklyn, those challenges were amplified by the realities of urban construction, public visibility, and the East River’s active marine environment as described by Brooklyn Bridge Park reporting.

For Hazelett Marine, Brooklyn Bridge Marina is a case study of where elastic mooring systems deliver real value. The project combines a high-profile civic waterfront, challenging tides and vessel wake, and the need for lower-maintenance long-term performance. That makes Brooklyn Bridge Marina a useful proof point for marina developers looking for mooring strategies that improve stability while supporting demanding operating conditions in urban harbors.