This diagram shows how tall the new owners of the 80 South St. site could legally build now that the city has approved a massive sale of air rights from Howard Hughes Corp. to China Oceanwide Holdings, which could result in a nearly 1,500-foot-tall tower at the Seaport.
BY COLIN MIXSON
Let there be height! Seaport residents thought they escaped the prospect of a light-blocking, supertall tower last year when Howard Hughes Corporation nixed its plans for a 500-foot residential development, but a deal just sealed with a Chinese developer has cleared the way for a skyscraper nearly three times as tall.
Howard Hughes’s $390-million sale of 80 South St. to China Oceanwide Holdings on Mar. 17, along with a massive transfer of nearby air rights, will allow the new owner to build the second-tallest tower in the city, after One World Trade Center, and the thirdtallest building in the entire country.
Disappointed locals threw shade at the new plans.“I often wonder why I put sunglasses on when I leave the house,” said Paul Hovitz, a member of Community Board 1’s Seaport Committee. “We live in the canyons of New York.”
Now that China Oceanwide Holdings has cemented its ownership over 80 South Street, between Fletcher and John Streets, they’re clear to proceed with their tentatively planned 1,436- feet high, 113-story, mixed-use building, according to documents filed with the City Planning Commission.
That would be 356 feet shy of the 1,792-foot-tall One World Trade Center — counting the spire — and just a few feet short of the 1,451-foot-tall Willis Tower in Chicago.
With all its accompanying development rights, the building will have a total of 1,067,350 square feet of floor space, although only 817,784 square feet have been zoned for use, with 441,077 square feet of residential, and 376,707 square feet for either hotel, office, or retail use, documents show.
Currently, the number of residential units remains undetermined, but based on the city’s average of 750-squarefeet per one-bedroom apartment, the skyscraper’s residential section could accommodate 588 units.
The tower is sure to inspire both awe and ire as it rises up to its full height, but locals are concerned that new residents moving into the titanic tower will further strain the neighborhood’s already overtaxed school system.
After three years of looking, the School Construction Authority recently settled on a site at Trinity Place for a new 476-seat elementary school — a number that will likely be dwarfed by the number of kids expected to move into the new mega building, according to Hovitz.
“Just that building will require more school seats than the new school that’s going in on Trinity Place,” he said.
