Manhattan’s trendy Meatpacking District may soon lose the last physical trace of its namesake as New York plans to add housing to a neighborhood that’s been reshaped as a commercial hub including shops from Apple to Hermès.
Gansevoort Square — located on Little West 12th Street between Washington Street and 10th Avenue in Manhattan — currently houses the Gansevoort Meat Market, which elected to terminate its lease early in cooperation with the nonprofit New York City Economic Development Corp. and the city, opening up 66,000 square feet for development and other uses, New York Mayor Eric Adams’ office said in a statement.
There are seven vendors at the co-op market currently, the last remaining ones in the Meatpacking District, a spokesperson for NYCEDC told CoStar News, adding each will determine next steps based on their commercial needs.
The city’s plan for the lot includes building up to 600 mixed-income housing units, about half of which are affordable units, without any requirement for public subsidy, the mayor’s office said. A request for proposal in the coming months will be released for a housing developer, the NYCEDC spokesperson told CoStar.
The city also plans a new, 11,200-square-foot public open space on the lot while a 45,000-square-foot space could include a potential expansion of the Whitney Museum of American Art, which has a right of first offer on the former meat market site, the city said, adding the lot also could include a potential expansion of the operations building for the popular High Line elevated park nearby.
“This is an incredible opportunity to not only deliver needed housing for New Yorkers, but create a vibrant 24/7 live, work, play, and learn community right in the heart of one of New York’s most iconic neighborhoods,” NYCEDC President and Chief Executive Andrew Kimball said in the statement.
The city will kick off a community engagement process.
The move comes after the city and state proposed a plan in 2022 to remake New York’s commercial hubs as 24/7 domains to help with the city's economic rebound from the damages of the pandemic.
For the neighborhood, the exit of its last remaining meatpacker would spell an end of an era.
The Gansevoort Meat Market has operated in the Meatpacking District for nearly a century, John Jobbagy, president of Gansevoort Meat Market, said in the statement, adding many of its members are “multigenerational family businesses” that employ hundreds of people who serve the city’s restaurants and stores.
"With technological advances, our industry processing practices have changed, and the market building does not meet up-to-date standards for processing and distribution,” Jobbagy said in the statement. “For the last decade, we have been exploring options for new facilities and better ways of serving our customers.”
The Meatpacking District dates back to the 1880s, when New York upgraded its public markets and relocated them to the neighborhood, according to the Meatpacking District Business Improvement District’s website. A spokesperson for the BID said the area is now a predominantly commercial district. Much of the neighborhood is protected as a landmark.
Total commercial square footage in the area totaled 7.6 million square feet this year, up 5% from the level in 2011, according to a study the BID did for CoStar News, citing data from the Department of City Planning. In contrast, residential square footage rose 4% to 2.53 million square feet during the same time.