Continuing our Turkey Week list of stalled projects 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 670-foot-tall tower, originally dubbed One Seaport, was planned to span 200,000 square feet and yield 80 condominium units. The property stands on a narrow rectangular lot bound by South Street and Maiden Lane, directly across from FDR Drive and the East River.
Recent photos show the skyscraper unchanged since 2019, when work stalled indefinitely. The topped-out reinforced concrete superstructure stands largely exposed, with the glass curtain wall installed in disjoined sections across the slender eastern elevation and lower levels of the broad southern face. Like the nearby 45 Park Place, the only addition during Seaport Residences’ half decade of inactivity is a graffiti tag near the pinnacle on its northern profile, a glaring emblem of the project’s neglected state.
Photo by Michael Young
Photo by Michael Young
Photo by Michael Young
Photo by Michael Young
The project was beset with problems and delays from as early as 2017, when the Department of Buildings issued ten code violations against the building’s original general contractor Pizzarotti. Then, in September of that year, an employee of the concrete subcontractor fell to his death from the 29th floor. Additional stoppages followed in 2018, including one from a mishap that resulted in concrete being poured onto the street from the 34th story.
In 2019, the project halted once more over a high-profile dispute between Fotis and Pizzarotti, which by then had been dismissed as contractor, involving the disclosure that the superstructure was leaning three inches to the north. After an ensuing legal spat, the structure was deemed safe and work resumed briefly under the leadership of a new general contractor, Ray Builders. However, our construction update in September 2020 revealed that sections of the glass curtain wall had been removed, and no progress has occurred on the exterior since then.
Fortis Property Group originally acquired the property for $64 million and was anticipating a condominium sellout of $272 million. It still remains unclear if work on Seaport Residences will ever resume.
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A lean of 3”…how was that corrected?
Just add some cardboard or folded paper under the sign that is leaning and that should sturdy it up.
Unclear if it’s ever going to finish? Seriously?
Of course it’ll finish. It’ll default, sell at a deep discount, and be finished at more realistic prices or as a rental. Best example of that? The Geary building on Spruce St a few blocks away. Started as a luxury condo, delayed due to the crash of 08, developer renegotiated the labor rates with the unions building it, equipped it with more ordinary interiors, and it’s a very successful rental.
That’s the way markets work.
So NYC faces a daunting housing supply shortage and this building will sit forever half built? Did I read that right?
If you didn’t know the story, this forever ‘stalled’ tower gives the skyline an in-progress dynamic 😀
Unless the 3″ lean can somehow be corrected, and experience with similar problems at the Millennium Tower in San Francisco shows this will be very hard and expensive, the building needs to be torn down. Maybe a future developer of the site could get it for free, or even subsidized to pay for the demolition. Who will pay for that will be the ultimate decision of the courts, but no building this size in this location can be allowed to lean like that.
My 1957 co-op was built on 12 ft. of fill, 3 ft. of “bog,” and an undetermined depth of compacted sand and gravel. The bog has continued to compress leading to subsidence. The building is on wooden pilings and has not moved. However, things directly on the soil have shifted over the years. These include the garage floor, drain pipes, and areas of the lawn.
There is likely no reason to think the Maiden Lane building will stabilize if it is made heavier.
The land beneath is late 18th century ‘landfill.’ In fact, it is landfill from South Street to Water Street, Water Street being the original shoreline.
Pearl St. was the original shoreline, actually, a block further in.
As my sister likes to say when things like this happen, “Someone be smokin'”.
Perhaps developers need to get their heads out of their “butts.”
****** WASN’T THERE A BUILDING … SOMEWHERE IN ITALY, THAT HAD (& STILL HAS) THE SAME ‘DESIGN’ PROBLEM.
IF IT WAS / IS – ‘GOOD’ ENOUGH FOR THE ITALIANS, Y NOT US?
HAPPY TURKEY DAY!
Perhaps so, but you’ll note the glass panels busted out in construction and they were never replaced.
Weren’t a lot of the units already sold? How do people get their money back?
I love reading these comments. Cudos to those drawing parallels with the Pisa tower, San Francisco nightmare and common subsidence over naturally unstable ground. Developers have known projects like this don’t work, but greed and delusion are powerfully motivators. If houses sink, surely skyscrapers will too! There’s a reason Manhattan’s towers are built into granite bedrock or have piling that go into said bedrock. A fool’s project that would have duped ignorant buyers. We should be thankful it stalled and insist on a solution soon.
This is a great opportunity to tear that outsized monstrosity down.
So… Leaning Tower of Pisa is off by about 4 degrees. My quick math makes Maiden Lane off by 0.0214 degrees. I’m not an engineer—what’s allowable? Would a marble roll north on the ‘level’ floor?
You bring an excellent point about the lean being minor. But these are expensive units and after the Millenium Tower fiasco, I don’t think people want to invest in towers built on infill that sit on slabs instead of the traditional pilings which help stabilize the building.
From what I recall, the Millenium tower had leans over 30 inches at one point (which is still relatively small compared with the Pisa tower.), and marble indeed rolled along the floor. Concrete floors and support columns cracked and some windows fell out. Elevators also became problematic.
There is no way of knowing if this building will do the same, but as more weight is added, the ground underneath will compact and if it does so unevenly, the lean will increase. I like the idea of investing 5-20 million dollars into this gamble.
Creating smaller rentals may indeed be the solution. The building is unlikely to fall over at any point and rentals put one investor at risk but also allow a more plausible return on equity. The issue? Money, the price isn’t where it needs to be yet.
Still, we know about subsidence issues and while I think an engineering solution is a worthy idea, I wouldn’t want to be yet another buyer of a property built on unstable soil.
One more thought: did you know the Willis (Sears) Tower in Chicago tilts? Engineers knew it would because the foundation has too much weight on the side of the tower with the taller units. The building was designed with this in mind, it wasn’t an oversight, the variance was designed into the tower. A world of difference.
Good stuff, Peter—thanks! Happy Thanksgiving!
The structure tilted three inches, all I can see is that it should have a solid base. And meet construction regulations: Thanks.
It is called THANKSGIVING, not Turkey Day. Stop your Wokist attack on anything American traditional, and anything that gives thanks for all that we have.
A Happy Thanksgiving to all!
Lousy construction is an American tradition? Well, if you say so.
Clearly you have never heard of the idiom “cold turkey” and the reason why YIMBY combines this week with the Thanksgiving holiday & coverage of stalled projects 🤦🏻♂️
Stop your politically divisive insult and attacks when you don’t even know what the hell you’re tying to be mad at Dan. Save your rage for the dinner table and be that guy to cause trouble for everyone 🦃🙄
To Dan, stop trying to make thus a political issue and argument by dropping random bullsh*t made up words like “WOKIST” and inciting hate. You need a real education and sound like you only get your news info from Tik Tok 🚫
While driving on the helix into the Lincoln Tunnel (NJ side), took a look over while stuck in traffic not knowing about this fiasco. The lean is noticeable. I mean… REALLY noticeable – I’d believe 3’ off over 3” off.
The lean is more like 9” on L32 after which they adjusted the edge of slab so you have a banana shaped profile. It is leaning because it was sinking
Just give it to taggers and make it an art museum.. looks to be leaning in that direction after default