Making Midtown
Creating a hive for innovation and urban production
Making Midtown is an initiative to create policy, zoning and design strategies to position the Garment District as one of New York’s emerging centers of urban innovation. This study moves beyond the current protective zoning, which has preserved floor space for manufacturers but also resulted in millions of square feet of vacant, underutilized and illegally converted space. This study suggests strategies for creating an even more diverse and productive district: development bonuses/development rights transfers for new industrial/residential mixed-use projects, new mixed-activity street designs, and a public realm strategy that includes a new pedestrian corridor one story above grade that links buildings in the middle of the long blocks and connects to the Highline.
This work was funded by the Design Trust for Public Space where Mr. Lane, co-author, was a Design Fellow.
