Plans for an ambitious mixed-use development on what’s now a Seaport-area parking lot can finally go ahead, thanks to the state Court of Appeals’ refusal to reconsider a lower appeals court ruling that previously approved it.
The victory for Howard Hughes Holdings, which has been trying to build at 250 Water St. since it bought the land in 2018, also marked another stinging slap in the face to Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron, who presided over Donald Trump’s civil trial earlier this year.
An Engoron ruling that sought to block a different development team’s plan for new towers on the Lower East Side was also overturned last year.
The Hughes plan calls for an $850 million, 27-story complex with 399 market-rate and affordable rental apartments above a five-story base with offices, stores and community space. The site is currently a full-block surface parking lot.
Howard Hughes CEO David O’Reilly said the court’s decision on Monday “paves the way for Seaport Entertainment Group to begin construction.”
The project will receive a tax exemption under an extension of the 421a program for certain developments that was included in the housing deal in the recent state budget.
Although the proposal got the green light from the Landmarks Commission, the City Council and the Planning Commission, neighbors who didn’t want to lose their views sued to block it on various spurious grounds.
Even after the plan sailed through the city’s comprehensive land-use review pipeline, Engoron sought to kill the project in early 2023 because of a supposedly “impermissible” relationship between Hughes and the Landmarks panel.
He was unanimously overruled in the Appellate Division.
Project foes then asked the Court of Appeals to step in — but it declined on Monday, as is usual, but not always the case when an Appellate decision is unanimous.
The newly left-leaning Court of Appeals recently took the rare step of reversing a unanimous Appellate Division ruling — the one that upheld the New York conviction of Harvey Weinstein.