The award winning Digital NYC, having received the International Development Research Council's Global Innovator's Award last year, is an endeavor of the Economic Development Corp. The Sunset Park Technology District is one of seven districts in the city participating in the Digital NYC program. The program offers tax incentives and other financial assistance for locating within the city. The EDC also worked with the Southwest Brooklyn Industrial Development Corp.

The EDC released a statement from its president, Michael Carey, following confirmation of the lease deal. He credits the mayor for his efforts to support drawing high-tech and new media industries to the city and says they have risen to become an important part of the city's economy in a very short time.

"By offering hundreds of thousands of square feet of affordable, Internet-ready office space throughout the city, the Digital NYC: Wired to the World program is expanding the boundaries of Manhattan's Silicon Alley and allowing the other boroughs to participate in and perpetuate the success these industries have enjoyed," Carey says. "In just eight months the program has attracted some of the industry's biggest and most exciting companies, bringing jobs and opportunity to once neglected areas."

Spokespeople for the EDC and Digital NYC report the BIDC is located in the largest federally designated historic district in the Northeast. The building itself is 360,000 sf of highly wired space renting for below market prices. Neither the EDC nor the BIDC revealed the cost of the transaction.

This deal begins the new year with a bang for Digital NYC and adds fuel to the mayor's ongoing response to criticism from such sources as US Senator Chuck Schumer that the city is not doing enough to keep from losing business to New Jersey. While industrial tenants have been driven out of the city to some extent and even some big name financial companies, such as Chase Manhattan, have sought office space across the river, the mayor points to deals such as this as evidence that the city is not losing, but reinventing itself.

Instant Insights /

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