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Transport
Reconfigure a full-scale street, then watch how curbs, micromobility, shuttles, charging, transit technology, and wayfinding reshape movement in real time.
Make New York's FiDi the World Capital for Urban Solutions.
Cities are under pressure from the climate crisis, AI and surging energy demand. Nearly all population growth through 2050 will be urban, straining every city system. will soon run many of those systems; some experts warn it could pose an existential risk. is already costly: protecting FiDi and the Seaport from flooding will cost $5–7 billion, and without it, damages could top $20 billion. demand from cooling, EVs and data centers is outpacing planned grid capacity.
Invent.City turns these pressures into investment opportunities for corporations, small companies and start-ups, building a marketing engine that sells to cities worldwide. It works in four steps:
For New York: 13,173 jobs, $2.4B a year in direct economic activity, $219M in taxes and fees, and $71M in recurring real-estate revenue. Empty floors, back to work.
2. STRATEGY
Convene Events. Build a Trade Mart. Grow a Cluster. Seed a Model City.
Policy is falling behind. Current paths blow past 1.5°C and approach 3°C by 2100, bringing higher seas, harsher weather, food shocks and cascading city risks. Economics gives cities a faster reason to act.
Doing nothing is expensive: Swiss Re projects climate could cut global GDP about 14% by 2050, or roughly $23T a year. Invent.City frames the upside: a projected $43.3T urban-solutions market.
Cities are massive markets under pressure. Climate, AI and energy are the urgent forces; demographics and geopolitics add momentum. Invent.City uses them to point investment toward what cities must buy next.
CLIMATE
CRISIS
ENERGY +
RESOURCES
TECHNOLOGY +
INFRASTRUCTURE
PEOPLE +
SOCIETY
ECONOMY +
GEOPOLITICS
Trade Marts are a proven business model in cities around the world. They bring together buyers and sellers and make buying continuous. In FiDi, city leaders can see working systems, compare vendors, test performance and arrange financing through New York’s financial network, with architects and engineers close by.
RAI
Amsterdam / Brussels
Chelsea Harbour
London
The Mart
Chicago
World Trade Mart
Dallas / Austin
PDC
Los Angeles
World Trade Centre
Dubai
Hannover Messe
Hanover
Americas Mart
Atlanta
New York gives Invent.City a global stage: a leading international city, financial capital, media center and technology hub, and home to the United Nations. FiDi adds exceptional transit connectivity and significant , turning global reach into a place where buyers, companies and investors can meet.
FIDI ADVANTAGE
Transit
Transit
FIDI ADVANTAGE
Open Space
Open Space
FIDI ADVANTAGE
Blue Highway
Blue Highway
FIDI ADVANTAGE
Institutions
Institutions
FIDI ADVANTAGE
Flood Defense
Flood Defense
FIDI ADVANTAGE
Global Reach
Global Reach
Immersive showrooms put products inside working environments, so buyers can see smart buildings, transit, wayfinding and charging operate together. Simulations and stress tests turn browsing into proof.
Buildings
Turn up the heat, cut the power, and adjust controls inside occupied-room simulations to see how building systems protect comfort and continuity.
Power
Balance generation, storage, microgrids, charging, and demand from a live control room, then stage an outage to see which systems keep the district running.
Waste
Send materials through collection, sorting, composting, reuse, and energy recovery, tracing where contamination appears and where discarded material becomes a valuable input.
Agriculture
Harvest from working grow rooms, taste the output, and trace water, energy, compost, labor, and cold-chain decisions from seed to sale.
Consumer
Use low-waste products inside apartment, hotel, office, and retail settings, revealing how they perform where residents, guests, employees, and customers encounter them.
Energy
Combine solar, heat pumps, thermal storage, smart meters, and efficiency controls in a building-scale lab, then tune the system through changing demand.
Water
Trigger a cloudburst and heat wave across a working streetscape, then watch drainage, cooling, leak detection, irrigation, reuse, and flood protection respond together.
Wastewater
Follow a single stream through sensing, treatment, reuse, and nutrient recovery, seeing what can return safely to buildings, landscapes, or industry.
AI
Run a city digital twin from an immersive command center, testing permitting, emergency response, and daily operations as recommendations change under pressure.
Robotics
Direct inspection, delivery, cleaning, maintenance, and emergency robots through real street and building obstacles, exposing where autonomy succeeds, hesitates, or requires human judgment.
Logistics
Route one delivery from vessel to microhub, cargo bike, locker, and electric fleet, seeing how each handoff affects the curb and final mile.
The Trade Mart is the anchor; media, events and online channels extend it. Stories create attention, gatherings convert it into meetings and pilots, and virtual showrooms keep buyers engaged between visits.
FiDi’s 10.7 million vacant square feet are a strategic asset. Invent.City can directly use 1M SF and indirectly support another 2M SF. Significant vacant space means flexibility and lower costs, complementing , which work only where buildings fit.
Current Initiatives
New York already has real projects in FiDi: thermal energy, microhubs, Blue Highway freight and coastal resilience. Invent.City turns active public work into demonstrations that attract companies and speed investment.
Model cities are often fanciful. Grand plans like NEOM and Telosa start from scratch, and many never leave the drawing board; a few, like Curitiba, changed how the world builds. FiDi is different: it updates a city that already exists. That is the challenge most cities now face, as AI, the climate crisis and energy demand outpace aging systems. Invent.City's Model City is an aspiration, not a blueprint: a direction for showing how a working district can be remade, block by block. The Trade Mart is a form of : one focused intervention that can trigger greener streets, more public space, better transit connections and stronger district systems around it. Companies participate because the reach extends well beyond FiDi: proof in New York can increase sales to cities, institutions and investors worldwide.
TRADE MART
SEE • COMPARE
FINANCE • BUY
CLUSTER
COMPANIES • TALENT
RESEARCH • CAPITAL
CITY
JOBS • PUBLIC SPACE
HOSPITALITY • REAL ESTATE
A showroom displays a product. A model city proves the system: clean energy, water reuse, rooftop food, pedestrianization, new mobility and urban hubs for public uses, including logistics hubs, micro waste transfer and public toilets, working together. Carlos Moreno, author of The 15-Minute City, has called public bathrooms essential to urban life. City leaders see, test and buy before deploying at home.
The value doesn’t stop at the showroom door. The Mart brings tenants, buyers and visitors back to the same blocks every week. Revenue helps pay for better streets, cleaner sidewalks and a stronger district.
3. TACTICS
Build the Market Now. Build Out the District Next.
Invent.City brings buyers, suppliers and investors together around , and . Roundtables build on TransTrans with the Manhattan Chamber of Commerce and Cargo Wars. They turn ideas into pilots and deals before the Mart opens. Invent.City publishes every session.
A Future City exhibit shows two versions of 2100. In the city, climate action and accountable AI make life safer. In the city, delay, extreme heat and unsupervised AI overwhelm public control. New York, Lagos and London show both.
Current
Utopian
Dystopian
At full build, the Trade Mart occupies 1 MSF and draws 2 MSF of supporting offices: 3 MSF in all, over a quarter of FiDi’s vacancy. Invent.City takes it in phases. Real-estate debt, sponsorship, venture and private equity, and civic tools each fund the phase they fit.
| Funding Tier | Capital Source | Target Allocation | Primary Use Cases |
|---|---|---|---|
| Phase I: Pre-Development & Site Selection | Public-Private Grants, Anchor VC, Sponsor Equity | $50M – $100M | Master planning, digital twin software, initial lease commitments, regulatory approvals. |
| Phase II: Real Estate & Buildout (FiDi Mart) | Commercial Real Estate Debt, PILOT / IDA Bonds, Con Edison / NYSERDA Incentives | $500M – $1.2B | Commercial lease acquisitions, physical infrastructure (microgrid, water systems loop, street labs). |
| Phase III: Showroom & Sub-Market Expansion | Corporate Anchor Tenant Capital, Vendor Fit-Out Financing | $300M – $500M | Immersive sector room buildouts (AI, Energy, Transport, Robotics, Water). |
| Phase IV: Global Project Fund (Invent.City Capital) | Infrastructure Funds, Green Bonds, Sovereign Wealth | $1.0B+ Deployment Pipeline | Direct project financing for cities purchasing turnkey urban solutions from showroom vendors. |
Near-Term (Months 0–12):
Secure seed funding from anchor real-estate partners and non-binding letters of intent from 20–30 founding vendors.
Medium-Term (Months 12–36):
Finalize NYC incentives (IDA/PILOT), explore bond financing through NYC IDA or Build NYC, and sign anchor leases in Lower Manhattan.
Long-Term (Months 36+):
Launch the project-finance marketplace linking cities that buy in the Mart with infrastructure funds.
Pilots stall because nobody funds the step after them. Invent.City opens four places to invest: the initiative, the buildings, a single showroom, or projects buyers have already committed to. The money goes where demand is proven.
Cities are the buyer, the regulator and the problem owner at once. Invent.City engages all three, at city, state, federal and international levels. No other partner is all three.
Evidence and access come from groups already in the field. Invent.City partners with and that identify needs, document what’s failing and convene the residents these systems serve.
The Mart needs its suppliers in the room first. Invent.City recruits the companies that design, build, finance and operate : the sell side of the market. Founding partners bring products, delivery capacity and the credibility that draws the rest.
Every showroom needs something new next year. Incubators and accelerators supply it: a global network already selecting, funding and testing the companies the Mart will host. Invent.City plugs into that pipeline instead of rebuilding it.
100%
Invent.City scores FiDi buildings and public spaces on visibility, access, flexibility, cost, ownership readiness and event capacity. A three-stage sorts each property into an anchor, cluster, flex or pop-up tier. The portfolio flexes with FiDi’s market.
FiDi Venue
4. BENEFITS
Cities Get Solutions. Companies Get a Market. New York Gets a New Economic Engine.
| Base-case annual public revenue reconciliation | Amount |
|---|---|
| Tourism taxes and feesFrom 4.1, excluding tourism PIT | $ 86,751,875 |
| Trade Mart modeled public revenueFrom 4.2, including payroll-related and sales taxes | $ 132,569,719 |
| Gross recurring NYC real-estate revenue capacityFrom 4.3; gross capacity, not net incremental revenue | $ 70,675,722 |
| Combined modeled public revenue and gross capacity$ 219,321,594 modeled taxes and fees + $ 70,675,722 gross capacity | $ 289,997,316 |
How these numbers were built
These are planning scenarios, not forecasts. The headline combines three cases: tourism, the Mart and real estate. Tourism models visitor volume, mix, stay, spending, taxability and jobs. The Mart models occupied area, job density, wages, procurement and tax rates.
Real estate models 3 million square feet (1 million direct, 2 million supporting offices): rent, operating costs, capitalization, assessment, tax rates, phase-in and commercial rent tax.
Real-estate capacity is gross, not net: existing assessments, taxes, exemptions, abatements and transitional values are not deducted. Sections 4.1–4.3 show the assumptions, formulas and sources.
700K annual visitors $1.31B annual impact 6,173 supported jobs
| Tourism summary | Downside | Base | Upside |
|---|---|---|---|
| Annual visitorsFrom 4.1.2 Details: Table 1, Base assumptions | 400,000 | 700,000 | 1,000,000 |
| Traveler spending ($/yr)From 4.1.2 Details: Table 2A, Hotel and other traveler spending | $379,000,000 | $864,500,000 | $1,620,000,000 |
| Total economic impact ($/yr)From 4.1.2 Details: Table 2B, Total economic impact | $576,080,000 | $1,314,040,000 | $2,462,400,000 |
| Tourism-supported jobsFrom 4.1.2 Details: Table 3, Tourism-supported jobs | 2,706 | 6,173 | 11,567 |
| Modeled taxes and fees ($/yr, no PIT)From 4.1.2 Details: Table 4C, Tax totals roll-up | $38,518,438 | $86,751,875 | $160,889,063 |
| Rounded taxes and fees ($/yr, no PIT)From 4.1.2 Details: Table 4C, rounded grand total | $38.5M | $86.8M | $160.9M |
| Tourism PIT is excluded pending a separate tourism wage-and-residency model. Jobs scale with direct traveler spending using NYC's 2025 spending-to-jobs ratio. Scenarios assume 1.25 guests per occupied room and a 75% taxable share of non-hotel spending. | |||
7,000 on-site jobs $1.2B on-site payroll $1.5B direct activity
| Trade Mart summary | Base |
|---|---|
| On-site jobs (1,000 showroom + 6,000 supporting offices)From 4.2.2 Details: Table 1, Jobs based on area | 7,000 |
| On-site payroll ($/yr)From 4.2.2 Details: Table 2B, Base-case payroll detail | $1,165,000,000 |
| Local procurement ($/yr)From 4.2.2 Details: Table 3, Local procurement | $349,500,000 |
| Total direct activity ($/yr)From 4.2.2 Details: Table 4, Direct campus activity | $1,514,500,000 |
| Note: Direct activity shown here is kept separate from tourism and real-estate modules to reduce double counting. | |
The 3 MSF is 1 MSF of Trade Mart plus 2 MSF of supporting offices it draws in. Invent.City proposes taking it in phases, not at once.
3 MSF back to work $1.8B implied asset value $70.7M/yr recurring NYC revenue
| Real estate summary | Downside | Base | Upside |
|---|---|---|---|
| Stabilized leased area (sf)From 4.3.2 Details: Table 1, Leasing assumptions | 3,000,000 | 3,000,000 | 3,000,000 |
| Annual rent ($/yr)From 4.3.2 Details: Tables 1 and 1A, rent total | $165,000,000 | $165,000,000 | $165,000,000 |
| NOI ($/yr)From 4.3.2 Details: Table 2B, Total NOI on 3.0 MSF | $102,000,000 | $106,860,000 | $111,750,000 |
| Illustrative implied value at 6.0% cap ($)From 4.3.2 Details: Table 2C, Implied value from capitalized NOI | $1,700,000,000 | $1,781,000,000 | $1,862,500,000 |
| Modeled recurring NYC revenue capacity ($/yr)From 4.3.2 Details: Table 4C, Total modeled recurring NYC revenue capacity | $66,744,900 | $70,675,722 | $74,303,100 |
| Rounded recurring NYC revenue capacity ($/yr)From 4.3.2 Details: Table 4C, rounded total | $66.7M | $70.7M | $74.3M |
| Gross capacity is shown separately from modeled taxes and fees because current assessments, existing taxes, exemptions, abatements, and transitional values have not been deducted. | |||
