Data Distillery: Garment District Development Under the Midtown South Mixed-Use Plan

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Planning

Mapping future redevelopment sites

April 14, 2025

Welcome to the MAS Data Distillery, a monthly series where we extract important data from a current planning project and present it in an easily digestible form. Each installment of the Data Distillery will focus on publicly available information that may not be easily accessible, but which we feel is important for New Yorkers to understand.

Home to Penn Station, Madison Square Garden, Macy’s Department store, Herald and Greeley Squares, the Empire State Building, and the Garment Center Historic District (Garment District), Midtown South is one of the city’s busiest areas. The public review process is currently underway for the Midtown South Mixed-Use Plan (MSMX), the City’s proposal to rezone the area. Under MSMX, 42 Midtown blocks now zoned for mostly manufacturing and other non-residential uses would be rezoned to allow high density residential development and a variety of manufacturing and commercial businesses. The Garment District, which has historically been the center of New York City’s garment sector, occupies the northwest portion of the MSMX project area.


Excerpts from NYC Department of City Planning’s Certification Presentation to the City Planning Commission. Left: Proposed zoning districts in each affected area (quadrant) of MSMX. The Garment Center is located in the northwest quadrant. Right: Conceptual image by DCP that visualizes density in the northwest quadrant under MSMX. Images cropped and edited for screen.

MSMX, like any rezoning, must go through City Environmental Quality Review (CEQR), the City’s process for disclosing environmental impacts of a project before it can be approved. In this inaugural installment of Data Distillery we mapped development sites in the Garment District and compiled information about historic properties that may be affected according to the MSMX Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS). Click into the interactive feature below to explore.

About the Garment District

Characterized by loft buildings constructed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the Garment District was the center of the world’s fashion industry and New York’s single largest employer during its 1950s heyday. Garment manufacturing began a slow decline over the ensuing years due to a combination of cheaper overseas labor, changing fashion trends, and development pressure for residential and commercial office space. By 2018, despite many attempts by the City to preserve manufacturing businesses through zoning regulations in the face of growing development pressure, only four percent of businesses in the Garment District were garment related. The same year, the City lifted zoning restrictions on manufacturing to office conversions to allow a broader variety of businesses in the area. Today the area features a mix of artists, architects, graphic designers and other commercial office tenants. Overall employment in the Garment District reached 149,000 jobs in 2020. Despite its struggles, twenty-five percent of all New York City garment businesses still reside in the Garment District and it remains New York City’s oldest garment-related industry district.

Additional Links

  1. NYC Department of City Planning’s Certification Presentation to the City Planning Commission (January 2025)
  2. MAS’ preliminary comments on MSMX (February 2025)
  3. List of historic sites in the Garment District affected by MSMX

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