Valuing Central Park's Contributions to New York City's ... - Appleseed

2
Rest of New York City
$456 billion
68%
Central Park Area
$114 billion
17%
Rest of
Manhattan
$104 billion
15%
Fig. 7. Department of Finance real estate market values,
by area, 2007
$2,000/sf
$1,500/sf
$1,000/sf
$500/sf
Central Park area average: $979/sf
Manhattan average: $462/sf
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
Fig. 8. Average market value of block per lot square foot,
by number of blocks from Central Park, 2007
prices on the blocks closest to the Park were 20 to 84 percent higher than the
prices of those farther away. 2 And in 2006, a study conducted for the Friends of
Hudson River Park found that the Park increased the value of nearby properties by
15 to 20 percent. 3
Although Central Park’s impact has varied over time, reflecting both the condition
of the Park itself and underlying conditions in the City’s economy, the power of the
“Park effect” has been particularly evident during the last ten to fifteen years.
In order to gauge the size of the Park effect, Appleseed analyzed data provided by
the New York City Department of Finance on the market value of properties in the
Central Park area, both for 2007 and for prior years.
(It should be noted that “market value” as measured by the Department of Finance
is not a property’s true market value, in the sense of a price that the owner could
realistically hope to obtain under current conditions. Instead, it is best viewed
simply as a step in the process of determining assessed value for purposes of the
City’s real property tax. Department of Finance market values are, generally
speaking, lower than true market values. They can nevertheless be useful for
analyses such as ours, since they make it possible to compare relative values from
one location to another, and to explore how differences in value change over time.)
In 2007, the total Department of Finance market value for all properties within the
Central Park area was $114 billion. For Manhattan as a whole, the total value of all
properties was $218 billion. Real property in the Central Park area thus accounted
for 52 percent of the total market value of all property in Manhattan, as defined
by the Department of Finance. Manhattan in turn accounted for 32 percent of the
total market value of all real property in New York City.
2 New Yorkers for Parks and Ernst & Young, Analysis of Secondary Economic Impacts Resulting from Park Expenditures,
2002.
3 Friends of Hudson River Park, Annual Report 2006, p. 3.