The Lower Manhattan Real Estate Overview report for the third quarter of 2016, from the Downtown Alliance contains good news for those who suffer from an acute fear of being alone: With 3,198 new apartments currently under construction, and another 921 planned for development in the square mile below Chambers Street, our masses are are to get a bit more huddled. The same report notes that the average household size in Lower Manhattan has grown to 2.0 persons (up from 1.7 in 2006), which means that these 4,119 apartments will bring more than 8,200 additional residents to a community that is already home to some 61,000 people.
This means, roughly speaking, that Lower Manhattan’s population is expected to grow by more than 13 percent in the next four years, swelling by 3.25 percent every 12 months. This contrasts sharply with population growth estimates for New York City as a whole, where the headcount is expected to jump from the current 8.55 million residents to nine million people by 2040. This indicates that, for all of New York, population is slated to expand by only 5.2 percent in the next 23 years, or just 0.22 percent each year. With Lower Manhattan’s census tally growing at more than ten times that of New York as a whole, this community’s population would (if its rate of growth remained steady) more than double during the same period.
This raises sobering questions about the availability of civic infrastructure, such as transportation and healthcare facilities, and, above all, school space. In January of this year, the City announced plans for a new elementary school on in the Financial District, on Trinity Place. Shortly afterward, officials at a meeting of the the School Overcrowding Task Force (a joint panel convened by elected officials representing Lower Manhattan) noted that more than 4,000 new apartments would come online in the neighborhood in 2017 and beyond.
Eric Greenleaf, a Tribeca parent who has long served on the Overcrowding Task Force observed that the City’s own standard for projecting the need for new schools, “says that a community needs 12 schools seats for every 100 apartments. So the projections for new apartments in Lower Manhattan mean that we need another new, 500-seat school, in addition to the one that was just announced.”
Although local elected officials and community leaders are lobbying for such an additional school, the City has yet to announce plans for one.