The Mission Driven Industrial Development Toolkit is part of the Urban Manufacturing Alliance’s (UMA) ongoing work with our Land Use Policy & Real Estate Development Community of Practice. Starting in June 2019 our community began sharing information, researching, and identifying best practices for creating Mission Driven Industrial Developments. The first outcome was the All About the Jobs report authored by UMA, with the generous support of the Local Initiative Support Corporation (LISC), which highlighted eight developments across the country.

In December 2019, UMA and LISC partnered with the Association for Neighborhood & Housing Development (ANHD) to expand this work by convening over 50 affordable housing and economic development practitioners from across the U.S., including the leaders of the eight urban industrial sites featured in All About the Jobs. The convening was held in Pittsburgh, PA at 7800 Susquehanna — a former vacant industrial building, now transformed into a space for 19 manufacturing business tenants as a result of community driven industrial development. UMA and ANHD members came to discuss and learn first-hand about the opportunities and difficulties of preparing, building, and operating developments that push the boundaries of what impact driven development can be. Key takeaways from that convening can be found in our Transforming Communities through Mission Driven Industrial Development report.

This toolkit is the newest resource, the first-of-its-kind, to help more communities learn about and implement mission driven strategies for urban industrial development. UMA has continued our partnership with ANHD for this report to hone in on New York City as a case study to illustrate what is needed to create and preserve mission driven industrial development sites in urban settings. ANHD has been leading conversations on models for mission driven industrial development and preservation since 2014.

We have included insights about the benefits of urban manufacturing businesses, resources for getting started, and recommendations from stakeholders in New York City and across the country, including manufacturers, business service provider, real estate developers, lenders, community based organizations, and local government. We have uncovered no two developments are alike and that each has its own unique industrial landscape. Despite all the variables, we have started to find a pattern to support our theory that a major key to success is organizing a diverse set of stakeholders willing to work together to navigate complex issues by finding and responding to shared interests. We believe the collective body of work completed over this past year has and will help provide clarity about what can make or break a development.