And now this...
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/06/n...velopment.html
How a $180 Million Parking Lot Could Change N.Y.C.’s Historic Character
Will a skyscraper at the South Street Seaport set a precedent for development in historic districts?
This parking lot has been protected as a historic landmark since 1977. Now a developer has been given permission to build a tower on it.
By Amy Sohn
May 6, 2021
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For more than 40 years, real estate developers have been intoxicated by an asphalt trapezoid at 250 Water Street. It has East River proximity, high visibility from the Brooklyn Bridge and the Brooklyn Heights promenade and — as far as open space in downtown Manhattan goes — it is big: nearly 50,000 square feet. But this particular lot, whose spots ran about $20 an hour on weekdays, is in the South Street Seaport Historic District, which means that anyone seeking to build even a toolshed there must first secure permission from the Landmarks Preservation Commission.
Though that might have deterred some developers, the Howard Hughes Corporation nevertheless paid about $180 million for the lot in 2018. Howard Hughes had made several building proposals to the commission, culminating this week with a plan for a 324-foot-tall mixed-use luxury tower. Though zoning laws prohibit any building higher than 120 feet in the South Street Seaport district, Howard Hughes has cleared the first hurdle toward fulfilling its dream of a skyscraper taller than the Brooklyn Bridge in an important, and visible, part of Lower Manhattan.
After years of grass-roots meetings and protests, community board hearings, more than 1,000 letters (pro and con) and an 8,500-signature petition, it appears that 250 Water — also known as Block 1, Lot 98 — will finally cease to be a parking lot.
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On Tuesday, the Landmarks Preservation Commission voted 6-2 to issue what is called a certificate of appropriateness, a crucial first step in Howard Hughes’s march to city approval. Sarah Carroll, the chair of the commission, said the only loss of historic fabric was “of a parking lot that is an intrusion in the historic district.”
“An approval here would not set a precedent for any other site in any other historic district,” she added.
Commissioner John Gustafsson, one of the two who voted against the certificate, said: “There are literally thousands of appropriate alternatives. We are not being offered one of them.” He added that he realized he was in “the unenviable position” of having to choose between a tower and an “obviously detrimental parking lot.”
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One of the most vocal proponents of the development is at first glance one of the most unlikely: the president and chief executive of the South Street Seaport Museum, Capt. Jonathan Boulware. He is a historic ships expert whose museum honors the birthplace of New York and its rise as a port city. Captain Boulware supports the project in part because Hughes had pledged a gift of as much as $50 million to the museum as part of its plan.
The gift, Captain Boulware said, would give the museum stability for the first time in its 50 years and prevent the museum from folding. He hopes to reopen soon after decades of financial struggle.
Two other surprising allies were Councilwoman Margaret Chin, who represents the area, and Manhattan’s borough president, Gale Brewer, both of whom will serve important roles in getting the project approved by the city. In 2008, Ms. Chin, who was then running for City Council, opposed another developer’s project, saying, “A 40-story tower has no place in the Seaport,” while Ms. Brewer said of a 2014 Hughes plan, “Building a tower at the South Street Seaport is like building a tower at Colonial Williamsburg.”
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Elaine Kennedy, a retired physical therapist who has lived in Southbridge for 46 years, and whose Brooklyn Bridge view would be unaffected by the 250 Water building, said residents had “been actively involved in this fight to keep the district low-scale since back when we were Mitchell-Lama.”
Last November, Ms. Kennedy and other members of the opposition group she helped found, Seaport Coalition, hatched their own plan for 250 Water at the governor and borough president offices’ behest as part of the planning review process. The group called it Resiliency Park. It would include a storm-water detention system to guard against storm surges, as well as rooftop botanical gardens. Unfortunately, its distinguishing feature was a municipal tow pound that would be relocated from Midtown.
The Resiliency Park idea was greeted with gleeful mockery by Howard Hughes allies like Catherine McVay Hughes, a museum board member who was the Community Board 1 chair during 9/11. “A tow pound was never a community amenity,” she said.
“Catherine McVay Hughes clearly doesn’t know what the community needs or what the plan entailed,” said Ms. Malvern, who is also a Seaport Coalition member. “A tow pound is capable of surviving a massive flood.”
But a tow pound is off the table for now. With Landmarks having approved a certificate of appropriateness, Howard Hughes’s plan will enter the city’s review process.
“We are looking at litigation and working with an attorney to that end,” Ms. Malvern said. If they can delay city approval past December, a new City Council member, borough president or mayor might halt the development.
“Families never would have gone to the school if they knew a gross high-rise was going to go up,” Ms. Malvern said. “It was a safe place and idyllic elementary school, where kids would be learning about the Seaport, cobblestone streets and the formation of the city.”
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