http://nreionline.com/development/wh...street-seaport
What it Takes to Get Something Built in New York: Howard Hughes Corp. and the South Street Seaport
Elaine Misonzhnik
Mar 2, 2015
Quote:
Large-scale commercial development is rarely easy, but the Howard Hughes Corp. is finding out just how challenging bringing projects to fruition can be when it comes to New York City. Back in 2012, the New York Economic Development Corp. handed the company the contract to redevelop Pier 17, at the Historic South Street Seaport. The City’s Landmarks Preservation Committee approved the plan. The neighborhood’s Community Board 1 gave it the green light. By March 2013, it received anonymous approval from the New York City Council. Yet last week Crain’s New York Business reported that Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer and City Councilwoman Margaret Chin were soliciting alterative bids from other developers for the $1.5 billion project.
At issue, it seems, is a 494-foot residential condo tower that Howard Hughes would like to include in the redevelopment, but some city politicians are not sold on.
Gale Brewer, the borough president, told Crain’s the building would be “out of context for a historic district.”
Some community residents have complained to The New York Times that: “The tower would obscure views of the Brooklyn Bridge and clash with the low-scaled, early-19th-century brick buildings that make up the 11-block seaport district, once the center of the city’s maritime industry.”
Initially, executives at Howard Hughes were hoping that support from powerful New York Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver would ensure a smooth development process, the Times reports. In a stroke of bad luck for the company, however, earlier this year Silver was arrested by the FBI and now faces corruption charges. According to The Times:
“Traditionally, the City Council, which must approve the project, follows the lead of the local council member, in this case Margaret Chin, who opposed the tower.”
At the same time as it must contend with New York’s notoriously vociferous community opposition, Howard Hughes Corp. is battling insurers over $8.6 million in damages caused to the Seaport by Superstorm Sandy in the fall of 2012, reports Law360. The company claims that Ace Insurance Cop. and Torus Specialty Insurance Co. have hiked up the deductible for the damages. According to the lawsuit:
“…prior to Superstorm Sandy, South Street Seaport was approximately 96 percent leased and generated substantial revenue, but after the storm caused massive damage to its infrastructure, many tenants canceled their leases. That damage was from when the storm caused the East River to flow over the seawall close to the property, not only causing property damage but health hazards as well, because the East River is ‘black’ water.”
So what is the outlook for the South Street Seaport redevelopment projects? At this point, it remains unclear, notes blog New Construction Manhattan:
“Where, then, does the fate of South Street Seaport lie? Essentially in the hands of Hughes and elected officials. Tensions remain high and neither side show signs of further compromise. Hughes recently paid $30.8 million for 333,329 square feet of air rights above the Seaport, while the Special Landmarks Committee is attempting to landmark the New Market Building by extending the historic district’s parameters, a loophole that would prohibit the tower from being built on the Seaport and render the controversy moot.”
|
I've been saying this...
http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/e...icle-1.2132273
South Street Seaport revival held up for ransom
Editorial
February 28, 2015
Quote:
Hidden in plain sight, a hostage crisis unfolds at City Hall — and only Mayor de Blasio can end it.
In jeopardy is the future of the faded South Street Seaport, a site owned by the city and bursting with untapped potential.
A plan for the revival of the lower Manhattan historic area, begun during the Bloomberg administration, needs the approval of the City Council — where it is being held for ransom.
The Council, let’s recall, counts 51 members. But a lone local representative can take a project captive.
Councilwoman Margaret Chin says she can’t abide the $305 million plan from the Howard Hughes Corp. to reboot the struggling Seaport, because the proposal would place a luxury residential high-rise at the edge of the historic district.
She’s backed by Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer, who preposterously compared the project to “building a tower at Colonial Williamsburg,” never mind the forest of skyscrapers that surround the Seaport.
Because of Chin’s prerogative as the local representative, the project languishes without a vote even though the developer shrank the tower from 50 to 42 stories — not enough to mollify critics who want no stories at all.
It falls to de Blasio to push back against a reign of local sentiment gone amok, and make a forceful case to the Council — with arm-twisting if that’s what it takes — for a job-producing project of citywide consequence.
Funds generated by the Seaport project would build a public middle school for lower Manhattan, streamline and expand a public esplanade, generate affordable housing in half-unused historic buildings and salvage the listing South Street Seaport Museum.
Instead, the Landmarks Preservation Commission has stalled on review, ostensibly for want of details from the city-funded museum on its plans.
New York is one city, not 51. It cannot stop dead for elected obstructionists turning local agendas into everyone’s problem. De Blasio needs to show who’s boss.
|
__________________
NEW YORK is Back!
“Office buildings are our factories – whether for tech, creative or traditional industries we must continue to grow our modern factories to create new jobs,” said United States Senator Chuck Schumer.
|
Prev
Linear Mode
