Hughes Corp. Reveals Two-Tower Plan for Seaport Historic District

Detail from rendering of the Howard Hughes Corp.'s proposed two 470-foot towers, center, rising above historic Seaport buildings to the east. Credit: Howard Hughes Corp./SOM

The Howard Hughes Corp. on Thursday released its long-anticipated proposal for a high-rise residential development at 250 Water Street in the South Street Seaport Historic District. The plan calls for two 470-foot towers on the site, now a parking lot bordered by Peck Slip, Water, Pearl, and Beekman Streets.

To gain approval for the project, the developer needs to convince the city to scrap low-rise zoning that governs the site as well as regulations that now prevent the transfer of Seaport air rights to the lot. Each of the buildings would be nearly four times the 120-foot maximum height that zoning in the historic district allows.

Hughes Corp. is hoping to sweeten the $1.4 billion deal with a promise to offer about a quarter of the approximately 360 units in the buildings as below-market rentals, the rest to be market-rate condos. The company also says it will give the struggling South Street Seaport Museum $50 million towards “long-term financial stability,” a sum meant to provide both annual funding through an endowment and enough money to reopen the museum’s galleries, closed since Superstorm Sandy. The developer is no longer dangling the prospect of a new museum building on a nearby John Street lot as part of the deal, saying it will pay for design and planning.

Jonathan Boulware, president and CEO of the museum, said the need for the promised funding is more urgent now as a result of the pandemic. “Without that the prospects for the museum are very uncertain,” he said.

“This, I believe, is the most critical moment in the museum’s history,” he said, “and for this institution that is really saying something.”

Community Board 1 has long opposed any development on the site that exceeds the current zoning, having won its fight to downzone the lot—one of 10 blocks in the historic district—in 2003. Before that, the board battled multiple proposals, buildings from 14 to 43 stories, by the site’s former owner, Milstein Properties. The Landmarks Preservation Commission also rejected them. This project is expected to be formally presented to the Commission in mid-December, and to CB1’s Landmarks Committee next month. Tammy Meltzer, chair of the board, said she would wait to comment on the proposal until she has seen it presented to the committee.

Along with Landmarks approval, the proposal needs to go through the Uniform Land Use Review Procedure (ULURP), and finally voted on by the City Council. Councilwoman Margaret Chin, who is key to the approval, declined to respond to questions about the proposal, saying in a statement, “I look forward to reviewing all details of the proposal and participating in the public engagement process.” A spokesman for Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer did not respond to a request for comment.

The project’s design, by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, calls for the two towers to share a “contextually scaled podium base” that is described as matching the materials and massing of nearby historic buildings. The base would include storefronts that the developer, in a statement, said is meant to be “resonant and compatible” with stores in the district.

The Seaport Coalition, a group that includes Save Our Seaport, Southbridge Towers and Children First, issued a statement condemning the project and insisting that “existing zoning protections be respected.” As part of its Seaport Coalition Strategic Plan [1], it calls for supporting the museum with the sale of air rights outside the historic district.

Community Board 1 supports the coalition’s air rights plan. “It would also generate more funds for the Seaport Museum, and for other local improvements and would produce more affordable housing units,” Paul Goldstein, chair of CB1’s Waterfront, Parks and Cultural Committee, told the Trib in a statement. “We should not allow the Covid crisis or the needs of a private corporation to ruin such a special part of Lower Manhattan.” Goldstein served as CB1’s district manager during the board’s long fight to downzone 250 Water Street.

Hughes Corp. spokesman James Yolles said in a statement that Lower Manhattan is already zoned for high density development and there are “limited” opportunities for large scale air rights transfers. “The idea of transferring Seaport air rights to other miscellaneous and unrelated locations in Lower Manhattan is a gimmick unsupported by any planning logic,” he wrote. 

In the meantime, opponents question whether Hughes Corp. actually intends to build the project it is proposing. They cite an October 2019 internal document that appears to show an anticipated $212.8 million sale of the site in 2022. 

“They don’t have the wherewithal or intent to build this out,” Goldstein said.

Yolles disputes this, claiming that the opponents are “taking this standard budgeting document” out of context. “Howard Hughes is fully committed to the neighborhood and the city,” he said in an email, “and we have no plans to sell our site at 250 Water Street —either now or in the future.” 

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