Seaport Redevelopment Plans
Plan would raze South Street Seaport mall
By Michael Clancy, amNewYork City Editor
[email protected]
February 23, 2007
South Street Seaport’s Pier 17 will most likely be razed to make way for a mixed-use retail, residential and open space development, a spokeswoman for the property’s leaseholder said Thursday.
Though the company is exploring a range of options, the three-story shopping mall named for the pier it was built on will likely be demolished, said Cheri Fein, a spokeswoman for General Growth Properties, a Chicago-based real estate company that owns and operates more than 200 malls nationwide. Fein did not elaborate on the specific plans.
Asked how high a new structure might go, Fein, of the public relations firm Rubenstein Associates, said: “The lower you go, the less open space there is — but nothing has been decided.”
“There is also the recognition that it is not just a land-bound place,” she said. “We want to make it 360 [degrees], so that it can be reached by the ferry as well.”
But according to one person familiar with the developer’s initial plan, General Growth is considering a tall iconic building for the site, and would also build a ferry landing and relocate the landmark “Tin Building” of the former Fulton Fish Market. The rest of the pier would be left as open space.
Preliminary concepts for the pier and the former fish market will be discussed publicly for the first time on Monday, when General Growth, which acquired the East River site in 2004, meets with Community Board 1 to get feedback on its nascent plans.