New York developers are trying to lure young infotech companies out of SoHo's burgeoning Silicon Alley and toward Wall Street, which has been infertile for developers since the 1980s real estate and financial bubbles burst.
Now, the City Agency Alliance for Downtown New York, with the NYC Economic Development Corporation, could dramatically redraw the landscape of new media in New York with six new wired office complexes that will offer a combined 120,000 square feet of Net-ready space when they open just south of Wall Street next week.
In the four weeks since the agencies started pushing the "Plug 'N' Go" program, the complex management has received more than 150 inquiries about the new offices. Not only do the offices include satellite links, T3 lines, and video-conferencing terminals, but their rents will be far below market prices, around US$15 per square foot. The thinking behind the program, says EDC president Charles Millars, is simple: "If we build it, they will come."
The start-up companies are coming for high-powered networking as well as high-powered networks. "They like to be ... close to the business and the advisers in the financial industry and because downtown has the densest fiber infrastructure in the city," said Sharon Greenberger, IT director of City Agency Alliance.
For others like Tom Kwon of DynaMind, it is simply a matter of time. Kwon, who heads the Web design firm that was one of the first to settle in the new offices, claims that "if you wanted to move into Midtown, and you call Nynex to get an ISDN or T1, you're looking at six weeks or longer." DynaMind moved from Connecticut to downtown in January because of the package of pre-installed technology, and since the move, Kwon has become a convert. "You see all these old financial guys and all these new-media guys with earrings and piercings," he says, "It's an incredible mix."
But other new-media firms think Wall Street, which turns ghostly after business hours, can be a serious liability. "The lack of places to go and get a snack at 2 a.m. is detrimental," says Craig Kanarick, creative director at the innovative design firm Razorfish, located in SoHo. "There just ain't jack to do that far downtown."
Without restaurants or bars to entertain clients, downtown firms may struggle to compete with their tony uptown rivals. For Kanarick, location also has a critical social cachet. "There seems to be this weird social thing with this industry maybe it's just for all the geeks involved but if you are in this industry, you just have to have a cool address."
In response to those very concerns, the Alliance will create a "community extranet," an electronic network which Greenberger said will link young businesses, allowing them to share information about events downtown, post products to be beta tested, and develop technology chat rooms.
Downtown itself, says Greenberger, is also diversifying. Mayor Rudolph Guiliani's new housing program, begun last year, has made more than 1,000 new apartments available in the area. This residential development, in tandem with these new businesses, could potentially extend Silicon Alley down to Wall Street. In testament, the trendy SoHo Kitchen and Bar has opened a location on Wall Street. "Restaurants are staying open late, and there's activity on the weekend," says Greenberger, "It's all changing."
From the New York Wired News bureau at FEED magazine.
