One can only wonder where the “Save Our Seaport” folks are on this?  They’ve been apoplectic about HHC‘s measly 40 story planned residential tower in the Seaport District - you know, the one that will come with desperately needed affordable housing and a new school for the kids in the area? the tower that will fund $300M in area improvements that will take the Seaport from it currently dilapidated state to an area people will want to spend time in?

Fortis is coming in with a 60 story behemoth in the Seaport and the “SOS” folks have been quiet.

Maybe it is because Fortis is HQ’d in Brooklyn and Howard Hughes is from Texas? Is that really what all these infantile objections are all about?  Could it really be that juvenile? Just so we are clear, below is a picture of what these folks are trying to “preserve”:

Yup, a wholly unusable building that is falling under its own weight and has been slated for demolition because it is now a danger.  So when the “SOS” folks talk about “preserving the culture of the Seaport” ….this is what you are talking about. For the record its been a decade since this building was used for anything. In fact the building and the area were so bad not even the Fulton Fish Market itself cared about preserving the area. They bolted for the Bronx in 2005 leaving both the Fish Market and the Tin Building empty. Oh, the Tin Building is also collapsing and will be partially demolished also.

So, one does really have to wonder. When you the planned redevelopment of condemned and collapsing buildings that will fund near 1/2 a billion dollars of desperately needed area improvements run into one road block after another and then another, larger building in the Seaport District fly through the approval process, you really have to wonder what this is really about….

It certainly isn’t about preserving anything in the picture above.

From the Real Deal:

Fortis Property Group’s planned residential tower at 151 Maiden Lane in the South Street Seaport area is now set to rise 60 stories, up from the 51 that was reported last year. The new information comes from Douglas Elliman’s Fredrik Eklund, who posted on his Instagram that he is involved in the project, dubbed One Seaport, Curbed reported.

Permit applications filed with the Department of Buildings last year called for 74 apartments, and it is unclear whether that number has changed, as no new filings have come through yet.

The architect is Goldstein Hill & West. Renderings released last year could possibly be outdated. One Seaport will be adjoined to a 33-story, Peter Poon-designed hotel that has been identified in DOB filings.

The block-long site has no height restrictions. [Curbed] — Tess Hofmann – See more here