Leading off our Turkey Week rundown of prominent stalled projects in New York City is Seaport Residences, a 60-story residential skyscraper at 161 Maiden Lane along the border of Lower Manhattan’s Financial District and the South Street Seaport District. Designed by Hill West Architects and developed by Fortis Property Group, the slender 670-foot-tall tower, originally dubbed One Seaport, was planned to span 200,000 square feet and yield 80 condominium units with interiors by Groves & Co. Ray Builders was the last general contractor to work on the beleaguered project, which stands on a narrow site bound by South Street and Maiden Lane, directly across from the FDR Drive and the East River.
The skyscraper has languished with no progress for the last three years, and there are no indications of work resuming anytime soon. After breaking ground nearly a decade ago, the project famously unraveled in early 2019 over reports that the reinforced concrete superstructure was leaning three inches to the north, leading to a public spat between Fortis and the original contractor, Pizzarotti LLC. Despite its lean, the structure was deemed safe and curtain wall installation resumed later that year under the supervision of a new contractor, Ray Builders, but by our update in September of 2020, significant portions of the glass envelope had been removed for unclear reasons.
Today, the superstructure looms as a forlorn skeleton over the East River waterfront, its future in doubt.
Photo by Michael Young
Seaport Residences. Photo by Michael Young
Seaport Residences. Photo by Michael Young
Seaport Residences. Photo by Michael Young
Seaport Residences. Photo by Michael Young
Seaport Residences. Photo by Michael Young
Seaport Residences. Photo by Michael Young
Seaport Residences. Photo by Michael Young
Seaport Residences. Photo by Michael Young
Seaport Residences. Photo by Michael Young
Seaport Residences. Photo by Michael Young
Fortis Property Group originally acquired the property for $64 million was anticipating a sellout of $272 million on the condominium units. It remains unclear if and when work on Seaport Residences will resume.
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The old buildings in the last image display the same problem of subsidence. I believe that some of the glass was removed for safety reasons. The lean was first discovered when some glass panels did not fit I read. The parties involved were all suing each other.
Tilt, use the flappers.
Funny and clever! Well done, Norm!
The world famous tilting Millennium Tower in San Francisco means that the stupid decision not to install piles down to bedrock has doomed this project. The ground is landfill jello. What did they expect with a very heavy and very small footprint?
I was walking by there last week and was surprised to actually see a work crew on the site. I didn’t stand around there long enough though to see what they were doing. Probably there to wedge some more bricks under the foundation to keep it from falling over.
Non union at their best 😂
Union work can be real shoddy, too, when workers know its hard to fire them.
In this case the construction workers (or their companies) were not at fault.
It was not a question of poor workmanship.
Rather, it appears to be a case of poor planning driven by blind cost-cutting.
The workers did what the engineers, architects, developers and financiers instructed,
Live, lean, and hopefully learn.
The worst of Union work is still better than the Non Union. Also building trades locals are not civil service unions. Member’s can be fired for cause and uncraftsman like work is Fireable offense.
Wrap the whole building in netting, demolish it, drill down to bedrock, then rebuild it again. There’s no shortcut to not drilling to bedrock, especially in a landfilled area.
Exactly. No way around it. Time is money and any delay means lost money. The miracle of Pisa will not repeat itself in NYC or SF. Those leaning structures are not church bell towers. Just pull them down and rebuilt.
No need to do all that — All they have to do is start a kerosene fire on the top floor and then it will magically collapse into its own footprint, right??
It must be so hard going through life not being able to tell the difference between concrete and steel.
I agree with you Aneudi and Dan, they really should take the building down. It could fall and crush the other buildings if it falls to its side. It’s a disaster waiting to happen! If and when they take it down, let’s hope and make sure that they make the new building less in height/smaller too, and create a better concrete foundation and support for the building as well.
At what point do they take it down and admit defeat? Even if they somehow continue who would every buy there ?
Only an ignorant scumbag would blame unions for such an engineering mistake. It takes real ignorance and malevolence to make such a comment.
Take it down and rebuild it. It will eventually collapse if they don’t do anything about it soon. Stop blaming one another and avoid a disaster.