Downtown has Become Vibrant. Now What?

Left to right: Experts Gail Brewer, Jessica Lappin, Peter Poulakakos and Laura Pomerantz discuss Downtown.

NEW YORK CITY—Downtown’s rise post-9/11, and its conversion from an area where ‘the streets were rolled up at 5 p.m.’ to a bustling community of residents, retail and restaurants has been meteoric.

But the creation of a community—coupled with developers’ desires to build and the need for landlords to fill office space—has created new issues for the area, a panel of area experts candidly discussed earlier this week at the Lower Manhattan offices of Stroock & Stroock & Lavan.

“Downtown is now a 24-hour place; it’s a city unto itself,” asserted Gale Brewer, Manhattan borough president. She is working to get the South Street Seaport declared as a historic district and is counting on Mayor Bill de Blasio’s increased ferry service proposal to boost Lower Manhattan.

Added Jessica Lappin, president, Alliance for Downtown New York, “For a long time we wanted 24 hour community and we’ve come a long way. The egg has hatched and there are places for people to go and have brunch on the weekend or have an incredible craft cocktail after work at The Dead Rabbit.

However, she continued, “We’re still evolving.” For example, at the South Street Seaport, “Residents say they don’t have a place to shop for groceries; Le District—the market at Brookfield Place—is far. So we’ve been working on getting retail infill on Water Street. Other lobbies and arcades are being filled in across the city, it would be a shame not to do that in an area that needs it most.”

Resiliency also is a concern in the wake of Hurricane Sandy. Said Peter Poulakakos, owner/partner, HPH Hospitality Group, “At Pier A Harbor House,”—a multi-experiential food and beverage space owned and operated by HPH that opened in 2014—“We built everything waterproof four feet down, we used tile like you would in a bathroom, and movable equipment. The big thing is for the utility companies to set up something to protect themselves and then everything trickles down. Everything fills up with water, that’s unavoidable, but it’s a question of how quickly you’re able to recover.”

Others see issues on the office front. “With museums, the memorial, Brookfield Place, other shopping and 110 million square feet of office space below Chambers Street, Lower Manhattan is one of the most vibrant areas in the city,” declared Laura Pomerantz, vice chairman, head of strategic accounts at Cushman & Wakefield.

“But people are loathe to go East of Broadway,” she asserted. “From a transportation standpoint, the hub has become the Fulton Street station, not so much up and East, so that’s a little problem. But some companies have moved East to West, such as Goldman Sachs, and they’ve become magnets for other companies to move. That’s what you need when a neighborhood gentrifies.”

Downtown has been boosted by the new inventory of the World Trade Center, Brookfield Place and more, while many area older office buildings are renovating, she added. “As office buildings renovate, there should be an emphasis on meeting the retail needs. There should be stipulations that x amount of retail be included in the project.”

Still, retail is coming: another two million square feet of it is slated for delivery by 2019, according to the Alliance for Downtown New York. If it’s the right mix, it could push Lower Manhattan’s success into the stratosphere, predicted Poulakakos.

“A lot has happened in Lower Manhattan in the last five to six years,” he said. “We are finding that our brands are supporting the residential community as much as the business community. Now we have Brookfield Place, and with what’s happening at the Seaport, we need the bridge of Westfield from East to West. If we connect all these dots, Downtown New York will be the place to live in the US.”