STAKEHOLDERS
Connecting owners, developers, and cities.
AREA enables owners and developers to transfer air rights as cities intended. We promote air right liquidity, built density, and historic preservation for posterity.
INFORMATION AND AGENCY FOR OWNERS
“I would've sold them in a second.”
Too often property owners do not know they have air rights. Beyond that, there are few places where an owner can initiate a transfer themselves. For the 63% of Manhattan air rights owners who have less than 10,000 square feet, it is rarely economical to pay for air rights diligence with today’s layered air rights transfer costs.
AREA published the first free, public air rights registry and valuations to fill this information gap. More importantly, AREA allows owners and pass-through neighbors to initiate air rights transfers themselves, without waiting to be approached by an uncertain counterparty.
By connecting owners and pass-through neighbors interested in transferring their air rights, AREA is able to facilitate transfers that would not have seemed to be worth pursuing on their face. This owner-first model has been validated in consultation with Arnold & Porter LLP and the Harvard Law Entrepreneurship Project.
REDUCED COST AND COORDINATION FOR DEVELOPERS
“Using air rights was an incredibly expensive and painfully slow process.”
Today’s air rights transfers are custom tailored by brokers, attorneys, consultants, expediters, and title companies. For supertall skyscrapers and other complex transfers, this is a fitting model. But for midsize developers, affordable developers, and small air rights transfers, high transaction costs can mire deal economics.
By standardizing diligence, contracting, and filing, AREA has created a repeatable transaction workflow that reduces cost for small, simple transfers. AREA continues to work with counsel and traditional service providers, but reduces the hours required to facilitate a standard transaction.
By managing relationships with service providers in the air rights transfer flow, AREA also absorbs the coordination costs that could otherwise complicate smaller projects. Reduced cost and coordination allow midsize and affordable developers to incorporate air rights that would otherwise have not been economical to build.
HOUSING AND PRESERVATION FOR CITIES
“There ought to be a way to do remote transfer for historic buildings, so they can raise money and get an advantage that overcomes being designated.”
Through the City of Yes for Housing Opportunity zoning text amendments, New York City has already broadened opportunities for individual landmarks to create more housing while preserving their history. But historic districts do not enjoy the same benefits. And that more than half of the square footage zoned by the City already sits unused means that future upzonings are less likely to yield new buildings.
Enabling more air rights transfers means building more of the square footage that cities intended. In New York City, roughly 14 billion square feet have been zoned in total—inclusive of all uses. 5.7 billion square feet have been built. By reducing transaction costs, reusing transfer chains, and facilitating owner-led transfers, AREA creates new opportunities for air rights transfers than can deliver the housing and preservation our cities demand.
AREA’s public benefit mission allows us to incorporate these civic goals into our operations.