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New City Industrial Initiatives Move to Modernize a Vital Sector
Today, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn announced a series of new initiatives to support New York City's manufacturing sector, by increasing access to modern industrial space, creating new financing resources -- including a new capital fund targeted to food businesses -- and strengthening connections between manufacturers and the city's economic development agencies.
New initiatives include a $10 million fund through Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses program that will capitalize food businesses combined with investments in reopening a building at East Harlem's La Marqueta as a food processing space. A new Industrial Business Advisory Council is one of the vehicles through which the City's economic development agencies will stay informed about the ever-evolving needs of manufacturing businesses.
The Pratt Center participated in the announcement with a statement of support. “The initiatives announced today are important building blocks in the creation of a modern manufacturing sector,” said Pratt Center Director Adam Friedman. “Renovating and right-sizing space, promoting high-design, high-value sectors that provide quality jobs, and moving to strengthen zoning protection of valuable manufacturing land are important steps toward ensuring that the sector can thrive and grow in New York City.”
Friedman was also quoted in The New York Times on the new initiatives. "New York is like this great big test kitchen,” he said, a place where a mingling of culinary traditions creates "new ideas for food."
Through the New York Industrial Retention Network, the Pratt Center provides technical services, research, and marketing assistance to New York manufacturers, as part of its mission to build economically thriving and environmentally sustainable neighborhoods. The Pratt Center is working to support manufacturers and pro-manufacturing policy amid growing recognition nationally that manufacturing, and especially urban manufacturing, is key to America’s economic recovery, providing high-quality jobs and access to opportunity for a diverse workforce.
