Midtown East needs revitalized infrastructure in order to stay competitive: op-ed

There is no time like the present to reflect on the state of New York City’s infrastructure. As an op-ed from Crain’s reminds us, the office stock in our city is woefully outdated, and the city has neglected to make a big push to modernize office buildings, as other global cities — such as Chicago, Tokyo and London — have recently done.

If the city is to continue to attract top-tier businesses, it must build more Class A office space, Robert Yaro, president of the Regional Plan Association, a think tank that tackles urban policy issues in the Tri-state area, said in the piece. While the average age of a building in London’s financial district is 40 years, in Midtown on the east side of Manhattan, that figure is 73 years.

The solution to the city’s impending lack of appeal to global companies is not just to rezone that region, as the Bloomberg administration has proposed. The city must dedicate resources to keeping the city competitive, Yaro argues, beginning with the Second Avenue subway and extending to a willingness to consider innovative new approaches to urban planning across the board. [Crain’s] –Guelda Voien