When we first moved here we were surprised at all the openings, it seems most of the financial companies have folded up or left the area and it's being rapidly developed as a residential area.
The building I live in is something like 9 years old and all around us new buildings are going up with signs all over them about new residential housing. Still many other buildings are being refurbished to support residential housing and "fully furnished" housing.
When I heard Conde and Media Math were moving in I told my wife "Here it comes Silicon Valley on a single campus". I recently learned of another very large tenant in Media and Tech that's moving in (can't share the name) along with several others related to the media and tech scene in NYC.
My wife and I had been considering moving to another part of the city until we realized I'd have a 10 minute walk to most of the tech and media companies I'd either work for or consult for.
Maybe the buildings are filling up slowly, but if they keep filling with tech and media companies the surrounding residential spaces will fill up quickly as the employees snag walking distance housing. This could create a really nice synergistic geographic location for tech and media innovation.
I know this won't be a popular comment since most of HN is valley based, I spent 5 months of 2014 in the SF area, working for a start-up and consulting for clients in the valley. I burned so much time on the road my wife offered to commute with me so I could be in the carpool lane. Our company sold and I came back home to NYC. I've enjoyed being back home.
One of my frustrations with "The Valley" is having to own a car to really be able to move around. Yes there is some transit but nothing like NYC. I lived most of my life in Los Angeles so I am overly aware of how horrific the car culture becomes. You lose so much time in the car, you're less productive, you have less family time and you're stressed and burnt before you even sit in your chair in the morning at work. When you have to start your own bus company to get your employees in and out of work something is amiss.
I am hopeful that downtown could become the next challenger to the valley and do it with less people stuck on a freeway somewhere.