 | Daily Real Estate News | September 11, 2007 |
Real Estate, Retail Bustling Near Ground Zero
Today marks the sixth anniversary of the terrorist attack that destroyed the World Trade Center and made local officials wonder whether New York City’s financial district would ever again be a place where residents or businesses would want to be.
Despite the slow pace of reconstruction at Ground Zero, the nearby area below Chambers Street is humming with activity — much of it designed to appeal to the well-heeled professionals who are transforming the neighborhood.
"There were very few who would have predicted that Lower Manhattan would have rebounded as quickly as it has, despite all of the false starts and delays and emotional overlays,'' Carl Weisbrod, president of Trinity Real Estate and former president of the Alliance for Downtown New York, told the The New York Times. ''There were few people who were quite that optimistic.''
Projects Under Way
Already, the area has added hundreds of condominium units and hotel rooms, a thriving row of restaurants, a private prep school, a free wireless Internet service, a BMW dealership, and an Hermes boutique. Coming soon: A Tiffany & Company jewelry store and a couple of grocery stores, which the area has long lacked. More evidence of the area’s vibrance:
- New office space is slowly replacing the nearly 20 million square feet that has been lost since 9/11, from the destruction of the World Trade Center, the damage to the Deutsche Bank building and the conversion of older office buildings to residential use. Over the next several years, around 14 million square feet of commercial space is scheduled to be built, according to data compiled by real estate brokerage Cushman & Wakefield.
- Office rents are higher and vacancy rates are lower, in large part due to the shortage of space. Office rents downtown are 10 percent higher than before the terrorist attacks, at $45 a square foot, and the vacancy rate has dropped below 7 percent, according to data from Cushman & Wakefield.
- The population of Lower Manhattan has increased by more than 10,000 in the last six years, according to census data culled by The New York Times. To house all of these new residents, more than 6,000 apartments have been created in the last four years through conversions or construction, and 5,000 more are planned, according to the Downtown Alliance.
While some local residents and business owners complain about the noise and dust from the constant construction, the overall sense is that this part of Lower Manhattan is changing for the better.
''You see children in baby carriages all the time,'' Michael C. Koffler, CEO of MetSchools, which is operating the prep school that opened in a former Bank of America building, told The New York Times. ''You see people walking dogs. There will be many more apartments with three bedrooms, meaning the development community is acknowledging that this will be a community of families.''
Source: The New York Times, Patrick McGeehan (09/11/07)
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