NEW YORK CITY-“Sixteen acres of some of the most intensive infrastructure development are outside this window,” Cas Holloway, deputy mayor for operations, told a NAIOP NYC audience gathered at 7 World Trade Center Thursday morning. Holloway cited the World Trade Center redevelopment, with its interlinked mix of office and transit components, as an example in reaffirming the Bloomberg administration’s commitment to infrastructure spending during its remaining 19 months. He stressed such investment’s importance to maintaining and increasing the region’s competitiveness, whether it comes from the public sector, private initiatives or combinations of the two.

Noting that infrastructure improvements facilitate development, Holloway said, “We’re already starting to see the rise of an entirely new neighborhood on the West Side of Manhattan” thanks in part to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s extension of the number 7 subway line westward from its current terminus near Times Square. “And that is only going to continue.”

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During the first of three panel discussions that comprised NAIOP NYC’s “Building the Future of New York City” symposium and followed Holloway's keynote, Michael Horodniceanu, president of MTA Construction, was even more emphatic about the difference this project is making. “The number 7 extension is the quintessential transit-oriented development,” he said. “Without it, the redevelopment of the West Side”—including the Related Cos.’ massive Hudson Yards project—“would not happen.”