Garment District Rezoning Reselling

Garment District detritus by Lodigs on Flickr.

This week it was reported that the City is considering plans to rezone the area that has traditionally housed the city’s garment manufacturers–roughly from Broadway to 9th Avenue, from 34th Street to 40th Street. Amanda Burden, the chair of the City Planning Commission recently cited declining numbers of manufacturing jobs and disinvestment in building infrastructure as reasons for the rethinking of the neighborhood. Today Crain’s reported that the lifting of the restrictions on mixed-use development in the area would “spark a flurry of buying and selling” as developers seek to snap up undervalued space in this area so close to Midtown. Obviously, the unions are not happy, but the writing seems to be on the wall and the Garment District may be going the way of the withering Meatpacking and Flower Districts.