Meatpacking District to lose its last beef businesses as trendy Nabe eyes new housing deal

The last remaining meatpackers in the Meatpacking District could soon make way for 600 rental apartments, an expansion of the Whitney museum and new facilities for Friends of the High Line, Realty Check has learned.

Butchers, who once numbered in the hundreds, dwindled to a handful in recent decades as the area attracted luxury hotels, trendy restaurants and high-end fashion retailers including Gucci and Hermes.

Under a landmark agreement with Corp. Economic Development, the last seven meatpackers at the Gansevoort Market Co-Op will leave before their lease expires in 2032. They are crowded into low-rise brick buildings on a 66,000-square-foot parcel of land owned by the city in east of Tenth Avenue between the Whitney and the Standard Hotel.

Mayor Eric Adams’ “new vision” for what will be called Gansevoort Square includes “600 units of mixed-income housing,” of which 300 would be affordable, as well as “a massive new pavilion open and the future cultural and artistic center of the city.”

First Deputy Mayor Maria Torres Springer is expected to announce the deal at a Monday morning meeting of the Association for a Better New York.

EDC President Andrew Kimball said the “mutual decision” to let the meat market go “unlocks great potential to expand what is becoming a major cultural destination for New Yorkers and tourists alike.”

Gansevoort Market President John Jobbagy said “technological advances” had made the market’s processing facilities obsolete.

“This opportunity [to leave] it has come at the right time,” added Jobbagy.

But what will happen next was unclear. A source said the meat companies were under no obligation to leave “until a project is secured for the site”.

And although the city prioritizes housing, an insider said the deal gives Whitney “the right of first offer” on the entire site.

Whitney director Scott Rothkopf said the museum was “engaged in promising talks with the city and Friends of the High Line about a unique opportunity to expand on an adjacent city-owned site.”

Friends of the High Line’s executive director, Alan van Capelle, said he has had “early conversations with the City and the Whitney Museum” about additional space “to better serve the elevated park’s seven million annual visitors.”