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Lower Manhattan is becoming a focal point for the healthcare and not-for-profit sectors, according to a new report from the Downtown Alliance. The analysis notes that more than 1,000 organizations in the two sectors are now based in the square mile south of Chambers Street, employing 38,000 workers. This tally has grown 78 percent since the depths of the recession in 2009, and has now surpassed the same metrics for the period immediately prior to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. In fact, healthcare and nonprofits account for 35 percent of the net increase in private sector employment since the 2009 recession.
In a striking indication of robust growth, that 78 percent jump is nearly three times the rate of growth for four industries in the City as a whole, according to the Alliance. The report cites three reasons for the local renaissance in healthcare and not-for-profit organizations: the profusion of affordable space (square footage in Lower Manhattan office buildings is still available at a discount compared to Midtown), buildings with large floor plates that offer flexibility for more specialized space layouts than traditional
offices allow, a robust array of local transportation options, and the area’s growing residential population, which is particularly attractive for healthcare providers.
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Jessica Lappin
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“Lower Manhattan has become a magnet for healthcare companies and nonprofits,” notes Jessica Lappin, president of the Alliance. “Being here offers more affordable space with unparalleled access to public transportation as well as close proximity to key partners, government offices and potential funders.”
Among the more prominent non-profits that call Downtown home are nonprofits like Teach for America, Planned Parenthood Federation of America, the American Civil Liberties Union, the National Urban League, and the Legal Aid Society. In the healthcare sector, the roster includes New York-Presbyterian Lower Manhattan Hospital, Weill Cornell Medicine, Beth Israel Medical Center, and NYU Langone at Trinity.
In a related development, a report compiled last fall by CBRE, a commercial real estate services and investment firm, found that non-profit organizations now occupy five percent of all office space in Lower Manhattan, a higher proportion than in any other community. This figure has jumped from 3.9 percent in 2008, during which the percentage of space occupied by non-profits fell in Midtown and Midtown South.
Among the recent arrivals Downtown in the non-profit sector are MRDC(a group develops strategies for combatting poverty and improving public education), which took 55,000 square feet at 200 Vesey Street, within Brookfield Place, in 2018. Another entrant is Community Access (an organization that advocates for supportive housing and social services in for people with mental health concerns), which leased 25,000 square feet at 17 Battery Place. And EarthJustice (once known as the Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund), a team of lawyers who litigate on behalf of environmental advocates, recently expanded by 15,000 square feet the space it has occupied for several years at 48 Wall Street. In 2015, the Girl Scouts of Greater New York also moved Downtown, locating their new Leadership Center at 40 Wall Street.
In some cases, entire buildings in Lower Manhattan have come to house public-service groups, such as 40 Rector Street, which is now home to the China Institute, Metropolitan College of New York, the Urban Justice Center, the Grace Institute, Big Brothers Big Sisters and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
Matthew Fenton