COMMUNITY BOARD 1 – MANHATTAN RESOLUTION

DATE: March 23, 2021

COMMITTEE OF ORIGIN: LANDMARKS & PRESERVATION

COMMITTEE VOTE:

9 In Favor

0 Opposed

0 Abstained

0 Recused

PUBLIC VOTE:

0 In Favor

0 Opposed

0 Abstained

0 Recused

BOARD VOTE:

38 In Favor

8 Opposed

2 Abstained

0 Recused

RE: 250 Water Street, revised application to construct a new building on the 250 Water Street parking lot

WHEREAS: Regarding 250 Water Street, the current, revised proposal calls for the construction within the South Street Historic District of a 27-story, 345-foot tower encompassing more than half a million square feet; and

WHEREAS: The South Street Seaport Historic District was designated in 1977, the first in Lower Manhattan. It is a small 11-block district “consisting primarily of smallscale brick buildings which contrast dramatically with the soaring skyscrapers nearby” according to the LPC designation report. Many of the structures are dated from the 18th century. The average-sized building in this historic district is 4-5 stories in height; and** WHEREAS: LPC rejected many proposed buildings over a roughly 25-year period for 250 Water St and used very similar language in these rejections indicating that “the proposed scale, size, mass and volume of the high-rise building would dominate and overwhelm the neighboring buildings in this low scale district, thus visually confusing the clear boundary of the district”; and** WHEREAS: LPC’s clear and unambiguous precedent for a quarter of a century regarding this site has remained consistent in directive and language; and**

WHEREAS: If the current application is approved in its current form or modified form, then we would ask that LPC to be clear about the reasoning behind reversing decades of its own stated parameters and precedents; and

WHEREAS: The National Trust for Historic Preservation listed the South Street Seaport as one of the 11 Most Endangered Historic Places in 2015 due to the threat of inappropriate and out-of-scale development in this modest and deeply historic New York City neighborhood. The Seaport’s restored 19th-century commercial buildings are a unique environment in Manhattan, significant for its continuous relationship to the waterfront and its status as the focal point of the early maritime industry in New York City; and**

WHEREAS: It has always been the stated LPC directive to communities that there are no “transitional” blocks, only designated landmarked buildings and non-designated buildings and districts. The Howard Hughes Corporation is asking for 250 Water Street to be considered a “transitional” district, an argument that LPC has rejected here and all over the city, in principle and in law. Anything regarding the appropriateness of this application must be judged in the context of the historic district in which it is located, not in regard to the vast city beyond. For example, in 1986 LPC wrote “that the size of the thirty story tower would cause an abrupt change in scale within the district, disrupting the district’s homogeneous, lowscale quality; that the design of the proposed thirty story tower, which is located at the western boundary of the district, would relate more closely in scale and massing to the buildings outside the historic district rather than those within, thus visually confusing the clear boundary of the district. The current proposal is exactly three stories lower; and

WHEREAS: In 1991 LPC did approve on 250 Water Street an eleven-story office building. The developer/owner of the site, Milstein Properties, chose NOT to build this building and continued trying to gain approval for taller buildings rejected by LPC. So it remains a parking lot only because the owner refused to abide by the development limits that do come with being in a historic district; and

WHEREAS: After years of these unsuccessful efforts to gain approval of a high-rise building at 250 Water Street, CB1 led a successful effort with elected in 2003 to rezone the Seaport Historic District to C6-2A with a maximum height of 120 feet. This rezoning had the support of local elected officials, the Downtown Alliance, the South Street Seaport Museum, the Municipal Arts Society, Seaman’s Church Institute and local developers including Frank Sciame who restored 11 buildings on Front Street keeping them well below 120 feet in height; and**

WHEREAS: Other developers in the Seaport Historic District and in historic districts throughout CB1 and the City have constructed buildings that comply with LPC guidelines and are economically profitable; and**

WHEREAS: CB1 has no particular love for a parking lot. It has said consistently said that it welcomes a new building at 250 Water Street that is within LPC and zoning guidelines, longstanding and carefully defined guidelines; and**

WHEREAS: If the Howard Hughes Corporation is allowed to transfer air rights to the site and construct a building over 120 feet, it would negate this hard fought and correct action to preserve the unique character of the South Street Seaport Historic District; and** WHEREAS: The Seaport Historic District development rights zoning transfer mechanism was established specifically so that unused development rights could be transferred to sites outside the historic district in order to preserve the area’s low-scale character. CB1 and the community strongly urge the City and EDC to work with us to preserve this successful formula and expand the number of “receiving sites” outside of the historic district to sell these air rights. In addition, the funds raised by selling these air rights should be used to help the Seaport Museum, to build additional affordable housing in CB1, and for other needed local amenities; and**

WHEREAS: 250 Water Street is currently in use as a parking lot. The applicant suggests that this use does not currently serve a historic district, describing 250 Water Street as an “edge location,” “vacant for decades,” and a “large full block.” The revised presentation prepared for LPC and the Community Board detailing the proposal continues to include photos of the surrounding context with views of Beekman Street, Pearl Street/Southbridge Towers, Water Street, and PS 343 Peck Slip. While the Beekman Street and Southbridge Towers views include large towers, these buildings are located outside of the Seaport Historic District. The applicant also focuses on both applications as one development proposal, indicating that the development rights transfer and towers at 250 Water Street are necessary to preserve the Seaport Museum; and

WHEREAS: We also need to remind LPC that it is supposed to determine the appropriateness of a proposed new building without considering the amenity package that may accompany such a proposal. CB1 has chosen not to comment substantially on those elements of the HHC 250 Water Street proposal for that reason; and

WHEREAS: It goes without saying that the 1977 designation report included 250 Water Street in the historic district, and also noted the “small-scale brick buildings which contrast dramatically with the soaring skyscrapers nearby.” Those nearby skyscrapers were not in the historic district, and for a good, obvious and explicit reason. The proposal to construct a “skyscraper” within the historic district is directly contrary to the designation report, which instead expects development that will complement the “early 19th-century character” of the district; and**

WHEREAS: If ever there were a landmarks-busting proposal, it is this one; and**

WHEREAS: Its relationship to the South Street Seaport Museum’s ever-failing financial straits is irrelevant, and it turns out that there is no legal or otherwise guaranteed stipulation that 250 Water Street would “save” the South Street Seaport Museum, or even the proposed museum addition, presented as a corollary to this application, will ever be built; and**

WHEREAS: Landmarks Preservation Commission Chair Sarah Carroll made the latter point explicitly clear in the recent hearing on Howard Hughes Corporation’s previous proposal, when she said that, while saving the South Street Seaport is a worthy cause, it and similar considerations do not bear upon the appropriateness of this application; and

WHEREAS: This revised proposal’s podium is more articulated, with a more appropriate street wall, and is the full amount of height allowed as-of-right. It would make a good and complete building for this site; and

WHEREAS: The gigantic tower above the podium is illegal; and

WHEREAS: While the structure may be more contextual on three sides, except Pearl Street, and the tower’s bulk may be pushed off the center of the block, it is all irrelevant; and WHEREAS: As an addendum, when something is built on the site someday, something conforming to zoning and Landmarks regulations, extra care must be taken to secure the surrounding fragile, small 18th and 19th century structures; now

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED THAT:

A 27-story, 345-foot high, 550,000-square-foot self-evidently and completely out of scale skyscraper is inappropriate and shattering in the South Street Seaport Historic District and should not be approved by LPC; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED THAT:

Given that LPC under 4 different Chairs rejected so many buildings proposed for this site, smaller than the one before you now, we strongly believe that LPC must respect its own precedent; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED THAT:

There are better ways to help the Seaport Museum without destroying this historic district and the City should fully explore all potential solutions to generate funds for the museum; and**

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED THAT:

We reject the implication in the Howard Hughes presentation that 250 Water Street included in this historic district since its designation, is anything but an integral part of the Historic District, as does the LPC historically. The Administrative Code empowers LPC to delineate a historic district boundary that embodies a "distinct section of the city”; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED THAT:

The Landmarks & Preservation Committee of CB 1 urges the Landmarks Preservation Commission to reject this application. ** = As presented previously

COMMUNITY BOARD 1 – MANHATTAN RESOLUTION

DATE: DECEMBER 22, 2020

COMMITTEE OF ORIGIN: LANDMARKS & PRESERVATION

COMMITTEE VOTE:

7 In Favor

0 Opposed

0 Abstained

0 Rescued

PUBLIC VOTE:

0 In Favor

0 Opposed

0 Abstained

0 Rescued

BOARD VOTE:

0 In Favor

0 Opposed

0 Abstained

0 Rescued

RE: 250 Water Street, LPC-21-03235, application to construct a new building on the 250 Water Street parking lot

WHEREAS: Applications have been presented simultaneously for two different properties, but we are addressing separately, and it is our understanding that the Landmarks Preservation Commission is doing so as well; and

WHEREAS: Regarding 250 Water Street, the proposal calls for the construction within the South Street Historic District of two towers, each standing 470 feet high, and each with 37 stories, for a combined total of 757,400 zoning square feet; and

WHEREAS: LPC rejected nine proposed buildings over a roughly 25-year period for 250 Water St and used very similar language in these rejections indicating that “the proposed scale, size, mass and volume of the high rise building would dominate and overwhelm the neighboring buildings in this low scale district, thus visually confusing the clear boundary of the district”; and

WHEREAS: LPC’s clear and unambiguous precedent for a quarter of a century regarding this site has remained consistent in directive and language; and

WHEREAS: If the current application is approved in its current form or modified form, then we would ask that LPC be transparent and explain the political considerations that must have occurred for it to reverse decades of its own stated parameters; and

WHEREAS: It has always been the stated LPC directive to communities that there are no “transitional” blocks, only designated landmarked buildings and non-designated buildings and districts. The Howard Hughes Corporation is asking for 250 Water Street to be considered a “transitional” district, an argument that LPC has rejected here and all over the city, in principle and in law. Anything regarding the appropriateness of this application must be judged in the context of the historic district in which it is located, not in regard to the vast city beyond. For example, in 1986 LPC wrote “that the size of the thirty story tower would cause an abrupt change in scale within the district, disrupting the district’s homogeneous, low-scale quality; that the design of the proposed thirty story tower, which is located at the western boundary of the district, would relate more closely in scale and massing to the buildings outside the historic district rather than those within, thus visually confusing the clear boundary of the district”; and

WHEREAS: In 1991 LPC did approve on 250 Water St an eleven-story office building. The developer/owner of the site, Milstein Properties, chose NOT to build this building and continued trying to gain approval for taller buildings rejected by LPC. So it remains a parking lot because the owner refused to abide by the development limits that do come with being in a historic district; and

WHEREAS: After years of these unsuccessful efforts to gain approval of a high-rise building at 250 Water Street, CB1 led a successful effort in 2003 to rezone the Seaport Historic District to C6-2A with a maximum height of 120 feet. This rezoning had the support of local elected officials, the Downtown Alliance, the South Street Seaport Museum, the Municipal Arts Society, Seaman’s Church Institute and local developers including Frank Sciame who restored 11 buildings on Front Street keeping them well below 120 feet in height; and

WHEREAS: The proposal before the Community Board and LPC would, in essence, reduce the size of the Seaport Historic District by 10% which is totally unacceptable; and

WHEREAS: The Seaport Historic District development rights zoning transfer mechanism was established specifically so that unused development rights could be transferred to sites outside the historic district in order to preserve the area’s low-scale character. CB1 and the community strongly urge the City and EDC to work with us to preserve this successful formula and expand the number of “receiving sites” outside of the historic district to sell these air rights. In addition, the funds raised by selling these air rights should be used to help the Seaport Museum, to build additional affordable housing in CB1, and for other needed local amenities; and

WHEREAS: 250 Water Street is currently in use as a parking lot. The applicant suggests that this use does not currently serve a historic district, describing 250 Water Street as an “edge location,” “vacant for decades,” and a “large full block.” The presentation prepared for LPC and the Community Board detailing the proposal includes photos of the surrounding context with views of Beekman Street, Pearl Street/Southbridge Towers, Water Street, and PS 343 Peck Slip. While the Beekman Street and Southbridge Towers views include large towers, these buildings are located outside of the Seaport Historic District. The applicant also focuses on both applications as one development proposal, indicating that the development rights transfer and towers at 250 Water Street are necessary to preserve the Seaport Museum; and

WHEREAS: We also need to remind LPC that they are supposed to determine the appropriateness of a proposed new building without considering the amenity package that may accompany such a proposal. CB1 has chosen not to comment substantially on those elements of the HHC 250 Water Street proposal for that reason; and

WHEREAS: If ever there were a landmarks-busting proposal, it is this one; and

WHEREAS: As an addendum, the Water Street so-called “street wall” podium is actually 105 feet high even though local streetwall averages 76 feet, even though the tallest building in the entire district is only 100 feet. And the design is a pastiche of the low historic buildings across the street; now

THEREFORE

BE IT

RESOLVED

THAT: Two 470' tall buildings are self-evidently and completely out of scale and inappropriate in the South Street Seaport Historic District and should not be approved by LPC; and

BE IT

FURTHER

RESOLVED

THAT: Given that LPC under 4 different Chairs rejected 9 buildings proposed for this site, all smaller than the one before you now, we strongly believe that LPC must respect its own precedent; and

BE IT

FURTHER

RESOLVED

THAT: There are better ways to help the Seaport Museum without destroying this historic district and the City should fully explore all potential solutions to generate funds for the museum; and

BE IT

FURTHER

RESOLVED

THAT: We reject the implication in the Howard Hughes presentation that 250 Water Street included in this historic district since its designation, is anything but an integral part of the Historic District, as does the LPC historically. The Administrative Code empowers LPC to delineate a historic district boundary that embodies a "distinct section of the city". Reducing the South Street Seaport Historic district by a de facto 10 percent with these towers is destructive to the fundamental principles of landmarks preservation; now

BE IT

FURTHER

RESOLVED

THAT: CB1 urges the Landmarks Preservation Commission reject this application.