One week after the Howard Hughes Corporation and SOM presented a revised vision for their dual towers at 250 Water Street and the new home for the South Street Seaport Museum in Lower Manhattan, the Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) has sent them back to the drawing board.
The plan was to build dual towers atop a six-story base topping out at 470 feet at 250 Water Street, currently a parking lot at the edge of the Seaport Historic District, bringing 360 new units of housing to the neighborhood, 100 of them earmarked as permanently affordable. The base would hold 5,000 square feet of community space as well as offices and ground-level retail.
Development in the neighborhood is capped at 120 feet, and to build anything taller, Howard Hughes requires both a zoning change and an air rights transfer; as previously covered, the transfer would pour $50 million into the beleaguered South Street Seaport Museum and set it on the path towards long-term sustainability. Relatedly, on the LPC’s docket on Tuesday, January 12, was the copper-clad, SOM-designed annex for the museum.
However, according to The Tribeca Trib, it looks like commissioners by-and-large took the side of the preservationist and community groups that have vocally protested the project’s height. That comes despite the support of some politically big names in Manhattan, including Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer and District 1 Councilwoman Margaret Chin, who both previously testified in support of the project. At the last LPC meeting, which was open to public testimony, 67 of the speakers argued for the project while 56 were against it.
While SOM argued that the site’s location at the edge of the historic district meant it should be evaluated relative to other tall buildings in the area instead of inside of the Seaport Historic District, commissioners disagreed.
“If this lot had not been in the district in the first place,” said commissioner John Gustafsson, “then you could do whatever you want and that’s perfectly fine. But that’s not where we are. It is part of the district. It’s either in or it’s out.”
Commissioner Everardo Jefferson complimented the height of the base (71 feet) and the fenestration, but ultimately called the proposal “overwhelming.” Commissioner Michael Goldblum agreed, saying he wasn’t sure if any tower could be built on the site.
Ultimately, although the commission acknowledged the importance of the museum to the historic district and the benefits it would reap from this deal, they told the team to come back with a shorter proposal for 250 Water Street. Commission chair Sarah Carroll told the group that they aren’t averse to developing the site as it has sat empty for decades, but that the current proposal is simply too tall.
A Howard Hughes spokesperson provided AN with the following statement:
“We appreciated the LPC’s thoughtful feedback and look forward to returning soon to the Commission. An appropriate building on the site of the parking lot at 250 Water Street can save the Seaport Museum —the soul of the Historic District and reason for its creation—and provide Lower Manhattan’s most significant affordable housing in decades. Now more than ever, it’s important to continue our efforts to make this $1.4 billion investment in the Historic Seaport, Lower Manhattan and the city.”
The full LPC meeting, and each commissioner’s testimony, can be viewed here.
