1. MISSION

Make New York’s FiDi the World Capital for Urban Solutions.

More people live in cities than at any point in human history, and the number climbs every year. Those cities face and the at once, and they cannot buy their way out: the solutions exist, but they are scattered across continents, unproven at city scale, and almost impossible to compare side by side. Invent City turns vacant FiDi offices into the world’s permanent marketplace for urban solutions.

11,224 jobs counted once $2.5B direct annual activity $315M public revenue + capacity

Illustrative annual impact at full buildout, which follows demand and is expected by 2035.

Objectives

Accelerate urban solutions worldwide, starting with the most urgent: climate and AI.

Build a new growth engine for New York: companies, talent, investment, visitors, and jobs.

SHOW

TEST

COMPARE

FINANCE

BUY

DEPLOY

SCALE

2. STRATEGY

Create a Trade Mart. Spark an Urban Solutions Cluster.

Start with the stakes: a $43.3T annual urban market set against $32T in annual climate damage by mid-century. have delivered more pledges than action, have slowed progress, and warming still tracks toward 2.3–2.5°C. shows the rewards of action —lower costs, solar dominance, auto exports, and a narrowing AI gap. This is an economic race for the industries, jobs, investment, and market share that will build tomorrow’s cities.

Four connected forces shape urban demand: Planet + Resources, Technology + Infrastructure, People + Society, and Economy + Geopolitics. Three require decisive action. rewires city operations while adding cyber, autonomy, and city-scale system risks. forces investment in cooling, resilient power, coastal protection, drainage, and water. powers every response; its cost, reliability, and supply decide what cities can build next.

PLANET +
RESOURCES

TECHNOLOGY +
INFRASTRUCTURE

PEOPLE +
SOCIETY

ECONOMY +
GEOPOLITICS

A is a year-round B2B marketplace where companies, city buyers, investors, and stakeholders meet around working solutions. Unlike a one-week trade show, it keeps technology visible, testable, comparable, and easier to buy. Decision-makers return to see what is new, meet suppliers, and evaluate systems in context. New York gains firms, investment, jobs, and visitors; owners turn vacancy into activity that strengthens demand, rents, and property value.

FiDi combines location, infrastructure, space, institutions, and global recognition. It concentrates capital, government, finance, talent, and buyers; transit connects the region, while the waterfront and Blue Highway open the harbor. About 10.8 million square feet of vacant office and retail space can house the Trade Mart. Showrooms, labs, and offices open faster and at lower cost than housing conversions, generating near-term returns and preserving flexibility.

Showrooms make the Trade Mart tangible. They let buyers see, test, compare, and trust urban technology in a real city—buildings, streets, infrastructure, utilities, and people included. AR, VR, projection, digital twins, displays, and live data show how buildings, microgrids, mobility, water, robotics, and logistics perform under changing conditions. Tailored to each buyer’s city, budget, risks, and goals, they build engagement, education, emotional connection, sharing, understanding, and confidence. Urban systems reinforce one another—energy with buildings, AI with transportation, water with resilience, logistics with streets—creating informed buyers, more sales, and faster deployment.

concentrate companies, talent, capital, research, and customers until critical mass accelerates innovation, cuts costs, and attracts more activity. Benefits spread across hospitality, retail, services, and property values. Milan’s design and Napa’s wine economies show how clusters become destinations. Anchored by the Invent City Trade Mart, FiDi can turn vacant space into a self-reinforcing urban-solutions ecosystem that draws firms, capital, and partners.

From Vacancy to a Mixed-Use Economy

Hudson Yards and the World Trade Center have taken demand for new Class A offices, so FiDi keeps significant vacant space — and many of those buildings are hard to convert to housing. Conversions take what can become housing. Invent City takes what can’t: the deep floorplates and dark cores no architect can turn into apartments. It expands with the market, making FiDi mixed-use the way SoHo and Tribeca became mixed-use.

100%

Vacancy is not FiDi’s weakness—it is a strategic asset. New Class A offices at Hudson Yards and the World Trade Center leave older buildings east of Broadway unlikely to recover through conventional leasing. works only where floorplates, cores, light, and economics support housing. Invent City activates the rest: deep-floorplate offices, vacant retail, institutional space, alleys, POPS, and transit areas become showrooms, demonstrations, labs, and productive uses. They open far faster at far lower cost, generate revenue sooner, and grow with demand. Shell-and-core space stays flexible without blocking redevelopment. Invent City puts existing FiDi space to work now.

By 2040, FiDi can become a working showcase for the future of cities. Streets, plazas, waterfront connections, underused spaces, and historic corridors can support demonstrations, events, mobility pilots, climate infrastructure, public art, dining, and daily commerce. The images below offer a tour of how these places could form a connected public realm serving residents, workers, visitors, buyers, and international delegations.

The Trade Mart is more than a destination—it is a global market engine. FiDi provides the physical hub; events, media, virtual showrooms, market intelligence, and AI extend it . Buyers discover solutions, sellers build relationships, investors find opportunities, and deals move from introduction to deployment across every time zone. Physical space gives Invent City gravity; the platform gives it global reach. The Mart never closes.

3. TACTICS

Build the Market Now. Build Out the District Next.

The situation is urgent. Using FiDi as the base case study, Invent City will start up its roundtable initiative with a focus on the triple threat.

AI — from promise to deployment. How AI is reshaping city operations, infrastructure, buildings, mobility, logistics, and public services, and what cities need to test, govern, and scale it responsibly.

ENERGY — the power system cities need next. The lifeblood of society. Cheaper renewables, distributed generation, storage, electrification, microgrids, and smarter grids, judged on reliability, resilience, cost, and what cities can deploy now.

CLIMATE — rising risk into action. Practical solutions for extreme heat, flooding, sea-level rise, water stress, storms, and infrastructure vulnerability, connecting risk directly to investment, procurement, and new urban markets.

Utopian — The City That Works

A full-scale, immersive vision of a city in 2050 where technology, design, and public policy have converged to improve everyday life. Visitors move through a walkable district with autonomous transit, quiet electric streets, buildings that generate more energy than they consume, urban farms, restored waterfronts, abundant public space, and AI systems that make city services faster and more responsive. Real-time displays show cleaner air, lower household costs, shorter commutes, reduced waste, and healthier residents. The exhibit presents the future city not as science fiction, but as a collection of solutions already emerging—and asks what it would take to deploy them at urban scale.

Dystopian — The City That Failed

The same city in 2050, but after decades of delayed investment and poor choices. Extreme heat empties streets, flooding regularly shuts down neighborhoods, aging infrastructure fails under growing demand, housing becomes increasingly unaffordable, autonomous systems displace workers without creating new opportunities, and surveillance technology quietly replaces public trust. Visitors pass abandoned storefronts, overwhelmed transit systems, water restrictions, climate-migration shelters, automated security checkpoints, and digital displays showing rising costs and declining quality of life. The exhibit makes the consequences of inaction tangible: the dystopian city is not destroyed by one catastrophe, but by thousands of decisions postponed.

New York, 2100

Lagos, 2100

London, 2100

Attract investors to finance Invent City itself, individual showrooms, real estate activation, demonstrations, and projects. Connect capital directly to companies and buyers so solutions move from interest to deployment. Contact tom@invent.city.

Recruit city, state, federal, and international public partners as buyers, problem owners, regulators, funders, and hosts for demonstrations and pilots.

Engage nonprofits to identify needs, build evidence, convene communities, represent users, and connect Invent City to projects and buyers worldwide.

International

C40 Cities
ICLEI
World Resources Institute
RMI
The Climate Group

New York City Area

Transportation Alternatives
Lower East Side Ecology Center
Urban Green Council
Regional Plan Association
Open Plans
Center for an Urban Future

Recruit companies that sell, buy, finance, insure, design, install, and operate urban solutions. Founding partners bring products, customer demand, implementation capacity, and credibility.

Transportation
Buildings
Power
Waste
Agriculture
Consumer
Energy
Water
Wastewater
AI
Robotics
Logistics

100%

Score FiDi buildings and public spaces on visibility, access, flexibility, cost, ownership readiness, and event capacity. Open where Invent City can start fastest and matter most.

Scoring FiDi Addresses

Candidate buildings and public spaces across the Financial District, ranked on how fast each could open and how much visibility it would carry.

4. BENEFITS

Cities Get Solutions. New York Gets a New Economic Engine.

For the world. Cities need AI and climate solutions fast, but they struggle to find them, compare them, and buy them with any confidence. Invent City closes that gap by putting the products, the buyers, and the capital in one place, year-round. A resilience system shown in FiDi gets specified in Lagos. A grid technology financed in New York ends up running in Jakarta. The market does the work that conferences cannot.

For New York. Vacant floors become showrooms. Showrooms draw buyers. Buyers draw the companies that sell to them, and those companies stay — bringing jobs, payroll, tourism, and tax revenue to a district that has been losing all four since the offices emptied. This is not a building, and it is not a subsidy — it pays for itself. It is a new economic engine for the city that invented the modern skyline.

700K annual visitors $1.5B modeled impact 4,224 supported jobs

Tourism summary	Low	Mid	High
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	$414,000,000	$944,125,000	$1,768,750,000
Total economic impact ($/yr)From 4.1.2 Details: Table 2B, Total economic impact	$641,700,000	$1,463,393,750	$2,741,562,500
Tourism-supported jobsFrom 4.1.2 Details: Table 3, Tourism-supported jobs	2,414	4,224	6,034
Modeled taxes and fees ($/yr, no PIT)From 4.1.2 Details: Table 4C, Tax totals roll-up	$49,473,750	$111,468,438	$206,796,875
Rounded taxes and fees ($/yr, no PIT)From 4.1.2 Details: Table 4C, rounded grand total	$49,500,000	$111,500,000	$206,800,000
Note: PIT excluded to avoid double counting with City Trade Mart payroll impacts. Jobs scale with visitor count (6,034 per 1M visitors). Low/Mid/High vary both visitor volume (400K/700K/1M) and spending rates.

7,000 direct jobs $1.2B direct payroll $1.5B direct activity

City Trade Mart summary	Mid
Direct on-site jobsFrom 4.2.2 Details: Table 1, Jobs based on area	7,000
Direct payroll ($/yr)From 4.2.2 Details: Table 2B, Mid-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.

3M sf back to work $1.8B implied asset value $70M/yr revenue capacity

Real estate summary	Low	Mid	High
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 3.0M sf	$111,750,000	$106,860,000	$102,000,000
Illustrative implied value at 6.0% cap ($)From 4.3.2 Details: Table 2C, Implied value from capitalized NOI	$1,862,500,000	$1,781,000,000	$1,700,000,000
Modeled recurring NYC revenue capacity ($/yr)From 4.3.2 Details: Table 4C, Total modeled recurring NYC revenue capacity	$69,704,500	$70,675,890	$71,313,250
Rounded recurring NYC revenue capacity ($/yr)From 4.3.2 Details: Table 4C, rounded total	$69,700,000	$70,700,000	$71,300,000
Note: This module is kept separate to avoid double counting with jobs, tourism, and construction modules.

1. MISSION

Make New York’s FiDi the World Capital for Urban Solutions.

Objectives

SHOW

TEST

COMPARE

FINANCE

BUY

DEPLOY

SCALE

2. STRATEGY

Create a Trade Mart. Spark an Urban Solutions Cluster.

2.1. LEAD WITH ECONOMICS

2.1.1. Start with the Costs and Benefits

2.1.2. Follow the Market Forces

PLANET +RESOURCES

Sea Level*

Energy Trends*

Air Temperature*

TECHNOLOGY +INFRASTRUCTURE

AI Customers

AI Uses

EV Takeup*

PEOPLE +SOCIETY

Population*

Developing Markets*

Migration Trends

ECONOMY +GEOPOLITICS

The Gap*

Chasm*

Hotspots*

2.1.3. Identify the Industries Building Cities

2.1.4. Engage with Current and Future Stakeholders

2.2. LOCATE A TRADE MART IN FIDI

2.2.1. Bring together Buyers and Sellers

RAI

Chelsea Harbour

The Mart

D&D Shopping

World Trade Mart

Pacific Design Center

World Trade Centre

Big Sight

NECC

Hannover Messe

AmericasMart

Messe

2.2.2. Leverage FiDi's Extensive Advantages

2.2.3. Populate Mart with Immersive Showrooms

2.3. CREATE AN ECONOMIC CLUSTER

2.3.1. Achieve a critical mass, attract companies

From Vacancy to a Mixed-Use Economy

2.3.2. Put Existing FiDi Space to Work

2.3.3. Travel to FiDi in 2040

2.4. REACH 24/7, WORLDWIDE

2.4.1. Extend the Mart 24/7, Worldwide

3. TACTICS

Build the Market Now. Build Out the District Next.

3.1. BUILD MOMENTUM

3.1.0. Convene Future Roundtables

The situation is urgent. Using FiDi as the base case study, Invent City will start up its roundtable initiative with a focus on the triple threat.

AI — from promise to deployment. How AI is reshaping city operations, infrastructure, buildings, mobility, logistics, and public services, and what cities need to test, govern, and scale it responsibly.

ENERGY — the power system cities need next. The lifeblood of society. Cheaper renewables, distributed generation, storage, electrification, microgrids, and smarter grids, judged on reliability, resilience, cost, and what cities can deploy now.

CLIMATE — rising risk into action. Practical solutions for extreme heat, flooding, sea-level rise, water stress, storms, and infrastructure vulnerability, connecting risk directly to investment, procurement, and new urban markets.

3.1.1. Launch a Future Exhibit

Utopian — The City That Works

Dystopian — The City That Failed

New York, 2100

Lagos, 2100

London, 2100

3.2. GROW PARTNERSHIPS

3.2.1. Attract Project Investors

3.2.2. Engage City + Regional Partners

3.2.3. Build Nonprofit Partnerships

International

New York City Area

3.2.4. Recruit Corporate Partners

3.2.5. Connect with Incubators

3.3. IDENTIFY LOCATIONS

3.3.0. Move to Specific Addresses

PLANET +
RESOURCES

Sea Level

Energy Trends

Air Temperature

TECHNOLOGY +
INFRASTRUCTURE

EV Takeup

PEOPLE +
SOCIETY

Population

Developing Markets

ECONOMY +
GEOPOLITICS

The Gap

Chasm

Hotspots