Creative Office, Affordable Housing Will Move the City Forward

NEW YORK CITY—Every point in the economic cycle creates its own set of benefits and challenges. In the current local market, the rise of technology companies and other creative class firms is unofficially setting forth a new mandate on office space while the complex issue of creating and maintaining affordable housing is taking many twists and turns. Those were among the observations of commercial real estate professionals during a panel discussion in Midtown on Thursday.

“There isn’t a lot of modern office space in the city so a lot of the growing sectors of the economy are being forced into buildings that weren’t meant as commercial office space,” said Seth Pinsky, EVP of RXR and the former president of the city’s Economic Development Corp., under Mayor Michael Bloomberg.