HR&A developed investment strategies to secure $75 million in private investment and create 500 jobs in three downtown neighborhoods.

In 2016, New York State launched the $100 million Downtown Revitalization Initiative to transform 10 formerly declining downtowns into places where tomorrow’s workforce will want to live, work, and raise a family. HR&A worked with three downtown communities – Jamestown in Western New York, Plattsburgh in the North Country, and Jamaica, Queens – on a seven-month strategic planning effort to identify targeted public investments that will spark private investment and create jobs.
 
With a team of planning, landscape design, engineering, and public engagement professionals – in concert with local planning committees composed of leaders from government, business, and civic organizations – HR&A identified local strengths, challenges, and priorities through technical analysis, public workshops, and deep engagement with local planning committee members. HR&A’s work resulted in 32 project recommendations across the three communities, including:

• Gap financing in Jamestown to redevelop two vacant properties into a 140-key full-service hotel and a brewery, which would draw on visitation from the National Comedy Center.
• Public infrastructure funding to unlock development potential in Plattsburgh, including redevelopment of a publicly owned site in the historic downtown.
• Development of an inviting gateway plaza in Jamaica, plus investments to support local job and industry growth, including a 10,000-square-foot co-working space and high-speed broadband. Final awards are forthcoming.

 
HR&A framed the proposed projects within long-term revitalization strategies and developed implementation plans, which were summarized in strategic investment plans submitted to the state on behalf of each downtown. In total, awarded projects will leverage nearly $30 million of state funds to attract more than $75 million in additional private and public investment, create at least 500 direct jobs, and set the stage for further downtown growth and community development.

Based on the success of first round of the Downtown Revitalization Initiative, New York State announced the launch of a second round in the spring of 2017.

To learn more about this project, please contact Partner Kate Collignon

HR&A Partners led New York City and State efforts to reinvigorate Times Square, and begin the process of building its strong brand.

Following World War II, through the 1980s, Times Square, while the heart of New York City’s entertainment district, suffered from crime, urban decay, pornography, social disaffiliation and general economic deterioration. Today, Times Square is the nation’s best example of the successful transformation of a symbol of urban decay into a world class center for entertainment.

HR&A conducted the first economic impact analysis of Times Square on the New York City economy since its transformation in 2007.

Beyond measuring traditional impacts, HR&A quantified how Times Square promotes the City to the world by serving as a tourist destination, global headquarters, premier public gathering space and prime event location. The Times Square Alliance used the study to engage in the City’s PlaNYC process, securing the district’s future as one New York’s most important public spaces and vibrant mixed-use neighborhoods. In 2011, HR&A completed an update of the 2007 impact analysis.

HR&A Partner Kate Coburn created a comprehensive retail strategy for Times Square.

Working with the Times Square Alliance, Kate developed a strategy to diversify the retail tenant mix in the Times Square area extending retail and restaurant opportunities to Eighth Avenue. She created an implementation plan to attract new tenants to the area, outlining a marketing strategy that included public relations, retailer outreach, outreach to area landlords and broker contacts.

After creating a landmark study in 2013 that analyzed the size and complexity of the Tech Ecosystem in New York City, HR&A released a new study in 2021 exploring how New York City’s Tech Ecosystem has changed in the last decade.

HR&A worked with a consortium of tech and civic organizations including Association for a Better New York, Tech:NYC, and Google to assess the changing landscape of the tech industry in New York City. Our methodology form 2013 established a new bar for Tech Ecosystem assessments and has been adopted widely in many other cities and has been included in academic literature on the subject. Most Tech Ecosystem studies now use the broader definition we established in 2013, which includes all jobs at tech companies and jobs in tech at companies where tech is not their core business.

READ THE FULL 2022 REPORT HERE

This working definition for the “Tech Ecosystem” divided tech into three broad categories

HR&A used this working definition to estimate the number and distribution by occupation and firm type of tech ecosystem jobs, and to model and evaluate the ecosystem’s economic and fiscal impact to the City.

Tech jobs are increasingly prevalent across all sectors in New York City, including in industries not traditionally associated with “tech.” While 65% of tech ecosystem jobs are in tech industries, a notable 35% share of jobs are in non-tech industries. Nearly 1.5X more tech workers are employed in non-tech industries (131,000) than in tech industries (89,000), particularly in sectors that are key to the city’s current and future economic health – healthcare, film and media, finance, and advertising. About 60% of the tech jobs in non-tech industries can be considered “high-tech,”* focused on the creation and management of sophisticated tools, products, systems, and support services, such as network and computer systems administrators, data administrators, information security analysts, and computer and information system managers. In today’s fast-changing world, these digital skills and jobs that leverage technology will only continue to grow in importance in every sector.

New York City’s tech ecosystem generates significant economic and fiscal impacts for the city. The direct, indirect, and induced impacts of the tech ecosystem account for a total of 809,000 jobs, $291 billion in economic output, and $3.63 billion in fiscal revenue for the city and the state.

Tech jobs have larger multiplier effects on employment compared to other industries. The 369,000 direct jobs in the tech ecosystem contribute 440,000 additional multiplier jobs in New York City, representing 15% of the city’s total workforce. In 2013, this share was 13%. Every 1 tech ecosystem job creates an additional 1.2 jobs, considerably higher than other top industries in the city like Finance and Insurance or Professional Services.

The city’s tech ecosystem generates $109 billion in worker earnings from direct and multiplier jobs, equivalent to 16% of the city’s total worker earnings. Of that, $66 billion is generated from direct jobs and $43 billion from additional multiplier jobs. In other words, for every dollar of earnings within the tech industry, an additional $0.65 in earnings is created within the city’s economy.

Economic output from the tech ecosystem accounts for 28% of the city’s overall economic output. This is twice the share of the tech ecosystem’s output in 2013. The tech ecosystem’s $195 billion in direct economic output contributes an additional $96 billion in multiplier effects. In other words, tech ecosystem investments drive additional spending in the New York City economy: every $1 spent in the tech ecosystem supports an additional $0.49 in economic output.

New York City’s tech ecosystem workers also contribute billions of dollars to City and State fiscal revenues in the form of sales and income taxes. In 2021, the tech ecosystem was responsible for $696 million, or 8% of the City’s sales tax revenue, and $1.10 billion or 9% of the City’s income tax revenue. Similarly for New York State, the city’s tech ecosystem generated $677 million in sales tax collections and $1.15 billion in income tax collections. Overall, the tech ecosystem generated $1.80 billion and $1.83 billion in taxes for New York City and New York State, respectively, in 2021, contributing a total of $3.63 billion in fiscal revenues.

Manhattan serves as the nucleus of the tech ecosystem in New York City. Adding 73,000 jobs over the last decade, the borough now contains nearly three quarters of the city’s entire tech ecosystem workforce. Manhattan provides the advantage of density in businesses, workers, and office space and benefits from historic investments in tech incubators, accelerators, and other programs that grow the tech ecosystem. The remaining jobs are distributed across the outer boroughs, of which Brooklyn has the largest share with 12% of tech ecosystem jobs.

Brooklyn experienced the largest percent growth in tech ecosystem jobs of all the boroughs in the last decade. The unprecedented growth of Brooklyn’s tech ecosystem can be attributed to investments in the Brooklyn Navy Yard and the Brooklyn Tech Triangle over the last ten years. By contrast, Queens, which held a similar share of jobs in 2012, has only added 3,000 tech ecosystem jobs in the last decade. The Bronx and Staten Island have seen no meaningful growth.

The report has been featured in:

The City

The Brooklyn Daily Eagle

READ THE FULL 2013 STUDY / READ THE 2017 UPDATE

HR&A developed winning resiliency solutions for Hurricane Sandy-affected regions through the Rebuild by Design Competition.

In addition to the disaster recovery grants awarded to the winning designs, our proposal for the Red Hook neighborhood in Brooklyn resulted in a $100 million joint commitment by New York City and State for the development of an integrated flood protection system.

Launched by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the Rockefeller Foundation in response to Hurricane Sandy’s devastation in the Northeast United States, Rebuild by Design leveraged public input and cross-sector collaboration to encourage scalable, regional, and implementable development proposals from an iterative design process. HR&A led one design competition team and participated in two additional teams, which were all selected from a first round of 150 applicants to participate in two phases of effort and focused on:

• Pilot initiatives for the resiliency and vitality of commercial corridors;
• A comprehensive urban water management strategy;
• A peninsula-wide resiliency strategy, including a perimeter levee and independent district energy grid.

The HR&A led a team, supported by architecture and urban design experts, including Cooper, Robertson, and Partners, to develop the Commercial Corridor Resiliency Project focused on the resiliency and vitality of commercial corridors and retail destinations throughout the flood-impacted areas of the northeast. Pilot initiatives were developed in Red Hook, Brooklyn, the Beach 116th Street corridor in the Rockaways, and Asbury Park on the New Jersey Shore. The team’s proposal included physical design proposals to enhance commercial resiliency from the individual business to neighborhood scale, and outlined programs to support capacity-building and technical assistance for businesses.

On the Office of Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) team, HR&A provided economic and policy advisory support for the development of four design opportunities as part of a Comprehensive Strategy for Hoboken, New Jersey:

• Enhanced resiliency and disaster response communications and information systems;
• A regional development framework;
• An infrastructure-anchored development vision for JFK Airport and the Jamaica Bay; and
• A comprehensive resiliency and community development strategy.

As the competition progressed, HR&A continued to support the OMA team in developing a comprehensive resiliency strategy for the City of Hoboken. In June 2014, Secretary Donovan announced the OMA team as one of the winning recipients of funding for the Rebuild by Design competition. HUD announced a $230 million award for implementation of the first phase of the proposal for a Comprehensive Urban Water Management Strategy to defend the community of Hoboken and neighboring areas in Weehawken and Jersey City.

HR&A also provided economic and policy analysis to support the team co-led by PennDesign and OLIN, which developed Hunts Point Lifelines. In the second phase of the competition, HR&A developed an analytical framework to assist the team in shortlisting cities and towns in the coastal Northeast that are susceptible to abandonment or declining economic value due to sea level rise and increased storm activity. In June 2014, HUD announced a $20 million award for further study of “Hunts Point Lifelines,” for which HR&A provided market and economic analysis. “Lifelines” envisions a peninsula-wide resiliency strategy, including a perimeter levee that incorporates recreational access to the waterfront, a network of cleanways that function as both stormwater mitigation and roadway improvements, and an independent district energy grid that ensures continued food access during storm emergencies.

In 2015, Rebuild by Design published a book telling the story of the competition.

HR&A advises city, state, federal, nonprofit and private entities as they develop projects across the northeastern United States that both promote recovery from Hurricane Sandy and make people, property and infrastructure more resilient in light of increasing hazards and vulnerabilities in the future.

Our work includes contributions to the transformative visioning and community planning efforts of Rebuild by Design in Red Hook, the Rockaways, the New Jersey Shore, Hunts Point and Hoboken, delivery of the New York Rising Community Reconstruction Program, and capacity building within the National Disaster Resilience Competition, as well as feasibility analysis and project design for infrastructure and community development projects in New York and New Jersey, and groundbreaking studies of key resiliency issues such as flood insurance and incentives and tools for business adaptation. HR&A deploys creative approaches to public-private financing, policy change, and community and stakeholder engagement to improve projects and maximize their viability.

On behalf of the New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC) and the Mayor’s Office of Recovery and Resiliency, HR&A led the economic, planning, and regulatory components of a multidisciplinary feasibility study of a Southern Manhattan Multi-Purpose Levee that could integrate flood protection with new housing, commercial development, and open space uses. HR&A:

• Managed a team composed of planners, lawyers, and consultants that evaluated regulatory obstacles for project implementation;
• Tested multiple scenarios against a set of project goals, including enhancing flood protection for Southern Manhattan;
• Led real estate and financial analyses for the project, including preparation of a dynamic pro forma to test multiple alternatives.

HR&A supported the development of a comprehensive tidal barrier and wetlands strategy for Coney Island Creek and a plan for storm surge barrier systems for the Gowanus Canal and Newtown Creek. As part of a holistic approach to assessing the feasibility of new flood protection systems, HR&A:

• Supported the consideration of social and economic impacts of flood protection on adjacent neighborhoods, including the value of risk reduction and amenity creation;
• Conducted an initial market analysis of the areas surrounding Coney Island Creek to identify highest and best use of suitable redevelopment sites;
• Supported the creation of an implementation and phasing strategy to inform phasing for the Coney Island Creek flood protection system and surrounding redevelopment opportunities;
• Identified opportunities to integrate flood control infrastructure with current and future real estate and infrastructure development activities along the Brooklyn-Queens waterfront;
• Created a funding strategy for barriers along Gowanus Canal and Newtown Creek that integrates both conventional and innovative infrastructure capital and O&M funding sources.

For NYCEDC and the Mayor’s Office of Recovery and Resiliency, HR&A led a team to study the impacts of flood insurance on New York City’s multifamily and mixed-use housing stock. In light of recent changes affecting flood insurance regulations, including revised federal flood map boundaries and impending premium increases, HR&A:

• Built a comprehensive database of the city’s multifamily building stock, categorizing this data by type, including age, number of units or stories, and owner vs. rental tenure);
• Designed and implemented a survey to determine flood insurance costs and incidence for a range of multifamily buildings;
• Recommended actionable policy changes and mitigation strategies as responses to changing flood insurance costs for multifamily and mixed-use buildings.

As part of a team led by Curtis + Ginsberg Architects, HR&A supported work on behalf of the New York City Housing Authority’s (NYCHA) Sandy Resiliency & Renewal Program in Coney Island. For three NYCHA developments in Coney Island, including O’Dwyer Gardens, Surfside Gardens, and Coney Island Site 8, HR&A collaborated with the team to identify potential uses for ground-floor space created by the development of new infrastructure on-site and other resiliency improvements. The results of the preliminary analysis informed the team’s broader basis of design and scope for comprehensive resiliency improvements across the sites, as well as NYCHA’s investment decisions with regard to the campuses.

HR&A has led a number of other projects guiding the transformative visioning and community planning efforts taking place throughout the region. For the New York Governor’s Office of Storm Recovery, HR&A led a multidisciplinary team of engineers, architects, planners, and healthcare specialists through both rounds of the NY Rising Community Reconstruction Program. HR&A led or participated on three of ten finalists teams in the Rebuild by Design competition launched by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to promote resilience for the Hurricane Sandy-affected region. From 2014-2016, HR&A was program manager for The Rockefeller Foundation’s Capacity Building Initiative in support of HUD’s National Disaster Resilience Competition.

The Brooklyn Tech Triangle, which includes the neighborhoods of DUMBO, Downtown Brooklyn, and the Brooklyn Navy Yard area is becoming the City’s largest cluster of tech activity outside of Manhattan, with nearly 10% of the sector calling this area home. Individually, these neighborhoods have attracted the interest of innovative tenants in the last several years, especially in DUMBO, which has become a recognized tech hub. The challenge of nurturing this influx of innovation requires ensuring that the right kind of space and environment is available for tech firms, and both opportunities and talent are encouraged. However, a lack of appropriate office space and adequate job preparation, among other factors, threatens to stifle this growth and send companies to invest and hire elsewhere. Led by the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership, the DUMBO Improvement District, and the Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corporation, the Brooklyn Tech Triangle Strategic Plan seeks to address these challenges by providing a blueprint for nurturing the growth of this sector and ensuring New York can capitalize on the job creation of the industry.

As part of a consultant team led by WXY Architecture + Urban Design, HR&A spearheaded the real estate and economic analysis supporting policy recommendations to foster the area’s tech sector growth. HR&A helped develop a working definition of the target tech and creative industry sectors, assessed the current status of tech and creative companies in the Tech Triangle area, and recommended changes in public and private real estate development and management policies. The team as a whole also considered workforce development, transportation, and open space and streetscape strategies to foster the growth of the technology and creative economy in the area.

The final report focuses on actionable recommendations for implementation by both the public and private sectors, to nurture the growth of creative industries within the Tech Triangle while maximizing the employment benefits for local residents. The report describes five categories of recommendations to ensure that the Tech Triangle remains a world-class center for innovation and resources and the 2^nd largest cluster of tech and creative companies for New York City: creating space for tech to grow, connecting Brooklyn’s educational institutions to the tech sector, improving physical connectivity across the district,  improving the urban fabric of the Triangle, and marketing Triangle-created new technologies, while also bolstering the digital infrastructure of the area.

Specific recommendations conceived and analyzed by HR&A included: a master lessee program to align tech tenants’ leasing preferences with traditional landlord financing requirements  and a special innovation district to create more active space for the innovation economy in existing storage and warehouse buildings.

As of January 2016, a number of the initiatives we described are underway, and the Tech Triangle is now home to 1,351 innovation companies and 17,302 employees, up from 1,107 and 11,967 in 2012, respectively. In November 2013, the New York chapter of the American Planning Association honored the Brooklyn Tech Triangle Strategic Plan with its annual award for Meritorious Achievement citing the ambitious scale of the plan to serve as a model for economic development in urban centers.