A Plan for the Garment Center Emerges
Today we expect the certification of zoning changes in New York City’s Garment Center to eliminate the Special District designation. In its place will be introduced tax incentives for building owners to rent to manufacturers and, more importantly, a commitment by the City to fund the acquisition of space by a mission-driven nonprofit. Like the implementation of the Special District 30 years ago, these actions are smart moves in a long-term strategy to ensure that the fashion industry in NYC remains vibrant for decades to come.
New York City’s Garment Center is the greatest concentration of fashion design and production on the planet. The lasting vitality of this industry was made possible by the creation in 1987 of a Special Garment Center District, which mandated a diversity of spaces to sustain the diverse user types that make up the fashion ecosystem. Despite an almost complete lack of enforcement during that time, the ecosystem continues to innovate and create fashion that generates $11 billion in wages and 184,000 jobs. As garment production has dropped in the United States and technology has made existing workers more productive, the need for production space in proximity to design workers, while still important, has decreased. At the same time, the City cites a need for additional low-cost office space to house new, emerging sectors.
Pratt Center for Community Development has long advocated that the Special District zoning could be replaced with alternative strategies to preserve the diversity of spaces needed to sustain the ecosystem and that the best way to achieve this would be through the ownership of space by a nonprofit organization dedicated to strengthening the industry. The industry must control its own space to ensure its future. Click here to read Pratt Center Director Adam Friedman’s full statement.
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