To show what the busy office, retail and restaurant area will look like after some 13 projects are completed, the Meatpacking Business Improvement District has created a new 3-D video.
Vectuel created the 8 ¹/₂-minute work by using architectural renderings borrowed from the various projects that range from the redesign of Ninth Avenue and several public plazas to a variety of new boutique office buildings and retail shops.
The narrated video provides a virtual-reality-like depiction of soon-to-be reset cobblestone streets, planters and streetscapes, new bike lanes and truck loading areas, upcoming buildings and the future traffic patterns.
On Ninth Avenue, for instance, pedestrians will now have a full 30 feet of sidewalk on each side — twice the current allotment — plus with two lanes of traffic, a bike lane, planters, seating and truck parking all on a new cobblestone street.
“Describing the user experience has been a challenge,” explained Lauren Danziger, the BID’s executive director on the reason for its creation. “There are businesses that have been operating through all of this change.”
The BID encompasses an area from West 17th Street to Horatio and from the east side of Ninth to Eighth avenues, but most of the construction projects are centered between Gansevoort and West 15th Street and along Ninth and Tenth avenues and won’t be complete for 18 months.
