Long-planned but slow to change on the street level, Manhattanville's burgeoning Factory District is now really starting to transform before our very eyes.
Not only are the final two developments by Janus Property Company coming along quickly, but more new businesses and art spaces are starting to crop up in and around the area.
They include the second location of Plowshares Coffee at 1351 Amsterdam Avenue, complete with an in-house roastery, set to open sometime in August; the Studio Museum's new satellite space at 429 West 127th Street, home to both its curatorial offices and the art space Studio Museum 127 while its new building rises on 125th Street, and Charm Thai Express, a new Thai takeout spot that recently opened at 1346 Amsterdam Avenue.
Ever since Janus first began investing in the Factory District, the area has looked more or less the same. That's because the first two developments–the Mink Building at 1361 Amsterdam Avenue and the Sweets Building at 423 West 127th Street–were renovations of existing 1910s industrial buildings.
But now the skeleton of the third, the Malt House, is rising quickly above the older building at 439 West 127th Street, already occupied by the art gallery Gavin Brown's Enterprise.
The last of Janus's four major developments–the Taystee Building at the intersection of West 126th and 127th Streets–is a shiny new 300,000-square-foot commercial building that's expected to be finished in July 2020.
The site is currently a big pile of rubble, with bulldozers working furiously to remove the detritus. Although it looks like this part of Harlem is burning, it's about to resemble something more like the trendy Meatpacking District very soon.
