Howard Hughes Corp. Wins Court Battle For $850 Mil South Seaport Tower Project

It appears that the Howard Hughes Corporation has won a court battle over their plans to erect a 27-story residential tower in the South South Street Seaport Historic District. A community group opposing the project was handed a decisive court loss on May 21.

After losing a lawsuit that alleged government misconduct and corruption–during the project’s approval process–on appeal, the Coalition was denied a motion to appeal further. The ruling, made by the state’s Court of Appeals, was issued without comment.

The 27-story mixed-use development, which will be built on what is currently a parking lot at 250 Water St., has a price tag of $850 million. Howard Hughes Corp. bought the plot in 2018 in $180 million.

The Landmarks Preservation Commission handed down their Certificate of Appropriateness for the project in May 2021, despite the fact that the project’s scope exceeded the zoning parameters of the South Street Seaport’s special district.

The Seaport Coalition initially filed the lawsuit seeking to halt the project in 2022, in which they alleged that Howard Hughes Corp. won the LPC’s stamp of approval for the tower by engaging in a quid-pro-quo; specifically, they claimed that the LPC was swayed by the developer offering a $40 million infusion into the South Seaport Museum.

In Jan. 2023, State Supreme Court Judge Arthur Engoron issued an injunction halting the tower project, after noting that he found the Coalition’s argument plausible.

“In the final analysis, the citizens of New York City are entitled to feel confident that a controversial, counterintuitive decision to allow a skyscraper to be built in a low-rise historic district, after repeated decisions disallowing such a structure, and without a coherent explanation, was made solely on the merits, and not because of a quid-pro-quo, even one with the laudable purpose of museum funding,” Engoron wrote.

By the summer of 2023, the appellate division of the NY State Supreme Court went the other direction entirely, writing that they didn’t believe Howard Hugh’s Corp. engaged in “capricious or irrational” behavior. The latest dismissal echoes that opinion.

In a statement, the Coalition expressed both resignation and dismay over their legal defeat: “The Court of Appeals denied our Motion for a Leave to Appeal, removing the final hurdle for Howard Hughes to construct a tower that will overwhelm and dominate the low-scale South Street Seaport Historic District.”

”We proved in the lower court that HHC spent untold millions of dollars on lawyers and lobbyists to craft a strategy of political cover to taint or corrupt the LPC process and obtain a predetermined result,” the Coalition continued. “It is hard to fight City Hall...this ‘new normal’ enables developers to engage in backroom dealings with City Hall while the courts look the other way.”

Conversely, Howard Hughes Corp. celebrated the legal victory in a statement of their own.

”For too long, the lot at 250 Water Street has been an underutilized part of the Seaport,” CEO David O’Reilly said. The decision, Howard Hughes Corp. added, “has cleared all existing impediments to construction and unlocked tremendous value for Howard Hughes shareholders.”