1. MISSION

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

is rising. Power and water demand are surging. is adding new demand and new risks. The solutions exist. Deployment is the bottleneck.

Invent.City turns vacant FiDi offices into the place that breaks that bottleneck: a permanent Trade Mart for urban solutions. A new economic engine for FiDi.

For the world: one year-round market to compare, test, finance, buy, and deploy urban solutions.

For New York: 13,173 direct and tourism-supported jobs, $2.4B in annual activity, $219M in taxes and fees, and $71M in recurring real-estate revenue.

pressure pressure pressure pressure pressure
2. STRATEGY

Create a Trade Mart. Spark an Urban Solutions Cluster.

Global warming pathways comparing the 1.5 degree Celsius target, current policy projections, and observed warming

Policy has not delivered at the speed cities need. Current pledges still point to 2.3–2.5°C of warming, while current policies point nearer 2.8°C. The need is immediate, the spending is unavoidable, and the market is forming now. Invent.City starts there. The record of commitments and shows why cities need an implementation engine now.

Urban solutions market size and climate damage compared with metro NYC, California, Texas, and Florida GDP, 2050 projections

The economic case combines market demand with the cost of inaction. By 2050, climate-related are projected to form a $43.3T annual urban market. Swiss Re Institute projects that the will cut global GDP by about 14%, or $23T, under the current temperature trajectory. That annual loss is roughly equal to the combined projected 2050 economies of California ($10T), Texas ($7T), and metro New York ($6T)—showing that climate risk operates at the scale of the world’s largest regional economies. Invent.City brings city buyers together with suppliers across infrastructure, energy, water, mobility, buildings, and , turning urgent demand into deployment.

Forces shaping future city demand

Five forces are changing what cities must buy: hardens infrastructure; the transition rewires it; change how it operates; change reshapes demand; and is a major force in its own right. Its scale and speed are already redefining solar, EVs, and robotics—and will likely do the same in AI.

CLIMATE
CRISIS
430 ppm
Sea Level
Air Temperature
ENERGY +
RESOURCES
430 ppm
Energy Trends
EV Takeup
TECHNOLOGY +
INFRASTRUCTURE
AI Customers
AI Uses
NYC
PEOPLE +
SOCIETY
Population
Developing Markets
Migration Trends
ECONOMY +
GEOPOLITICS
The Gap
Chasm
Hotspots

Buyers and sellers meeting in permanent showrooms

Cities need a simpler way to procure urban solutions. Invent.City proposes a year-round B2B Trade Mart in FiDi: permanent showrooms that place working systems and their vendors side by side, giving buyers direct evidence for procurement decisions.

RAI in Amsterdam / Brussels
RAI

Amsterdam / Brussels

Chelsea Harbour in London
Chelsea Harbour

London

The Mart in Chicago
The Mart

Chicago

World Trade Mart in Dallas / Austin
World Trade Mart

Dallas / Austin

PDC in Los Angeles
PDC

Los Angeles

World Trade Centre in Dubai
World Trade Centre

Dubai

Hannover Messe in Hanover
Hannover Messe

Hanover

Americas Mart in Atlanta
Americas Mart

Atlanta

Economic cluster

FiDi’s advantage starts with New York City: the nation’s largest urban market, at the center of a region of 58 million people, and a diverse global capital of finance, media, technology, tourism, and research. FiDi turns vacancy into economic infrastructure. Cushman & Wakefield counted of direct and sublease vacancy across Financial East and Insurance in Q2 2026, giving the Mart room for showrooms, companies, and events. Global visibility, exceptional transit, a working waterfront, and nearby innovation hubs give the Mart its reach and operating advantage. FiDi is a district .

Transit connectivity map
Transit Access
Vacancy heatmap
Available Space
Blue Highway / Hubs
Institutional Anchors
Lower Manhattan Coastal Resilience map
Coastal Resilience
FiDi identity graphic
Global Recognition

Experiential showrooms in the Trade Mart

Urban systems cannot be judged from a brochure. Across twelve immersive showrooms, city teams operate each system under real conditions. A common scorecard records performance, integration, emissions, resilience, lifecycle cost, and deployment readiness.

Map of existing public initiatives in FiDi

New York City already has major initiatives underway in FiDi: Blue Highways and the Downtown Skyport, the FiDi Microhub and curb-management programs, thermal energy and station modernization, commercial waste zones, and coastal resiliency. Invent.City brings this work into one visible district, where the Trade Mart can show progress, surface procurement needs, connect agencies and vendors, and help successful pilots become repeatable systems.

FiDi’s 10.7 MSF of vacant office space across Financial East and Insurance, measured by Cushman & Wakefield in Q2 2026, is the initiative’s strategic advantage. Residential works only where floorplates, cores, light, and economics align — so Invent.City does not compete with it. It completes it. Conversion takes the buildings that can become housing; Invent.City takes the deep floorplates and dark cores that cannot. That is how SoHo and Tribeca became mixed-use districts. Housing alone does not make an economic district.

Phase one starts light. Adapt existing shells, open the spaces that can earn revenue first, and expand only where buyer demand follows. Initial capital funds tenants, demonstrations, and sales instead of a district-wide buildout, while leases, sponsorships, and events begin funding the next phase.

Pedestrianization

Turns traffic corridors into economic and civic space.

The value does not stop at the showroom door. Invent.City brings tenants, buyers, visitors, and investment into FiDi; supports local businesses; funds better streets and public spaces; and improves logistics, sanitation, and public amenities. The Mart grows by making the neighborhood work better. Explore the Mart’s and plan for .

Broader and deeper global reach

The Trade Mart is physical, but the market is . Events concentrate demand. Media builds trust and reach. Digital showrooms, data rooms, simulations, and AI matching keep evidence, relationships, and next steps moving across time zones.

24/7 365 days Global

3. TACTICS

Build the Market Now. Build Out the District Next.

Join Invent.City’s roundtables on , , and . Put your solutions in front of buyers and partners, help shape FiDi’s future, and build awareness through shared insights and stories beyond the room.

Forces shaping the city
NYC 2050: Building the Future City We Have event poster
FiDi 2050: A Living Lab for the Future City event poster
Housing the City of 2050 event poster
Moving NYC 2050: Transit, Streets, and Hubs event poster
The Blue Highway: Moving New York by Water event poster

Invent.City stages a Future City exhibit presenting two versions of 2050: a shaped by technology, design, and effective policy, and a shaped by delay, climate stress, failing systems, displacement, and surveillance. Together they make the stakes tangible — the choices cities make now decide which one arrives.

A vision of New York City in 2100
New York, 2100
A vision of Lagos in 2100
Lagos, 2100
A vision of London in 2100
London, 2100

Capital is the gap between interest and deployment — pilots stall because nobody funds the step after them. Invent.City connects investors to the initiative itself, to individual showrooms, to real estate activation, and to the projects buyers commit to.

The Trade Mart needs its suppliers in the room before it needs anything else. Invent.City recruits companies across that sell, buy, finance, insure, design, install, and operate city systems. Founding partners bring products, demand, implementation capacity, and credibility.

Cities are the buyer, the regulator, and the problem owner at once. Invent.City engages public partners at city, state, federal, and international level — as customers, as hosts for demonstrations, and as the source of the problems this market exists to solve.

Evidence and access come from organizations already in the field. Invent.City partners with and that identify needs, build evidence, convene communities, and represent the residents these systems ultimately serve.

Invent.City is evaluating FiDi buildings and public spaces for visibility, access, flexibility, cost, ownership readiness, and event capacity. A three-stage screens for meaningful vacancy, scores Trade Mart suitability, and sorts each property into an anchor, cluster, flex, or pop-up tier. The portfolio expands and contracts with FiDi’s real estate market rather than competing with it.

FiDi Venue
4. BENEFITS

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

Benefits of Invent.City for cities worldwide and New York City
Attract to NYC diagram
Cross the Chasm diagram
Value Chain diagram
Value diagram
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 the base tourism, Trade Mart, and real-estate cases. Tourism uses assumptions for visitor volume, visitor mix, length of stay, spending, taxability, economic impact, and jobs. The Mart case uses assumptions for occupied area, job density, wages, procurement, and effective tax rates. The real-estate case uses three MSF with assumptions for rent, operating costs, capitalization, assessment, tax rates, phase-in, and commercial-rent-tax coverage. Gross real-estate capacity is not net incremental revenue: existing assessments, taxes, exemptions, abatements, and transitional values have not been 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 direct jobs $1.2B direct payroll $1.5B direct activity
Trade Mart summary Base
Direct on-site jobsFrom 4.2.2 Details: Table 1, Jobs based on area 7,000
Direct payroll ($/yr)From 4.2.2 Details: Table 2B, 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.

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.

AI

The Climate Crisis

Demographics

The IDCNY Location Lesson

NEOM and Telosa

Economic Clusters

Vacant Office Space in FiDi

New York City Initiatives

Sources

COP Summits

U.S. Climate Reversals

China: An Industrial Force

Urban Market Components

Energy Trends

Sea Level

Air Temperature

Population

Developing Markets

EV Takeup

The Gap

Chasm

Hotspots

Lower Manhattan Residential Conversions

Benefits to FiDi

Vacant office

Vacant retail

Vacant land

Open space

POPS

Educational

Alleyways

Transit nodes

Utopian — The City That Works

Dystopian — The City That Failed

International Nonprofit Partners

New York City Area Nonprofit Partners

Corporate Partner Sectors

Three-Stage Building Selection System

Always On, Everywhere

Pedestrianization Creates Economic Value

Well-designed pedestrianization can turn streets from transportation corridors into productive economic space—supporting retail, restaurants, events, longer dwell times, and stronger real-estate demand.

The lesson for FiDi: pedestrian streets can function as economic infrastructure—places to demonstrate products, hold markets and events, dine, meet, shop, and spend time rather than simply pass through.

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