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The Sun Ra Arkestra playing in Battery Park City's Wagner Park. Aug. 7, 2014.
(Photo: Terese Loeb Kreuzer)

The Howard Hughes Corporation, which has a long-term lease on parts of the South Street Seaport and designs on other parts not under its control, has been tight-lipped about whether it has altered its plans since November 2013. At that time, it announced the desire to build a 50-story, luxury hotel/apartment building on the Seaport waterfront and to make other changes to the historic fabric of the Seaport neighborhood.

However, a required report filed on Aug. 7, 2014 with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for the second quarter of 2014 lets the cat out of the bag. In that report, HHC indicates that nothing has changed in the last nine months despite opposition from much of the local community and from the Seaport Working Group (a committee of elected officials, Seaport residents and businesses, Community Board 1 members and community groups)  to its proposals.

The 2Q filing says, "On November 20, 2013, we announced plans for further redevelopment of the South Street Seaport district which includes approximately 700,000 square feet of additional space, East River Esplanade improvements, a marina, restoration of the historic Tin Building, and the creation of a dynamic food market, replacement of wooden platform piers adjacent to Pier 17 and a newly constructed mixed-use building."

HHC goes on to say in the SEC report that it expects to begin the formal approval process for these plans in the fourth quarter of 2014. Since the HHC proposal involves some landmarked buildings and some public property, it would have to go through ULURP (Uniform Land Use Review Procedure) to become a reality. This entails getting approvals from Community Board 1, City Planning, the Landmarks Preservation Commission, the Manhattan Borough President and City Council. 

HHC's second quarter filing with the SEC is informative in other ways. HHC says that in 2013 it filed a claim with its insurance carriers for property damage, lost income and other expenses incurred because of Superstorm Sandy. "We believe insurance will cover substantially all of these losses," the report says. "We are continuing to work through the claims process with the insurance carriers and have collected $47.5 million in insurance proceeds through August 6, 2014. Insurance recoveries to date have exceeded the book value of the buildings and equipment at the date of the storm."

"It's ironic that HHC was able to get more insurance proceeds than they could use while the South Street Seaport Museum still does not have working infrastructure," said Michael Kramer, a member of the Save Our Seaport group, which has been trying to preserve the historic Seaport.

Without a working electrical system, the South Street Seaport Museum was forced to close its 12 Fulton St. galleries in April 2013, although it still uses the building for educational purposes. An initial rough estimate of the cost to repair the damage caused by Superstorm Sandy was $22 million.

About Pier 17, HHC says, "Construction began during September 2013 and is expected to conclude in 2016. The Renovation Project will increase the leasable area of Pier 17 to approximately 182,000 square feet."

By the terms of its lease with the New York City Economic Development Corp., landlord for much of the Seaport, HHC had to begin construction on Pier 17 by Oct. 1, 2013 or risk forfeiting its rights to the pier. Kramer questioned the September 2013 date in the SEC filing. He said that Simply Seafood, a fish restaurant that had been a tenant in Pier 17 since 1983, had refused to leave and was not finally evicted until Nov. 15, 2013. Pier 17 was emptied of other tenants before that date, but construction couldn't begin until Simply Seafood was gone.

HHC says in the SEC report that, "The redevelopment of Pier 17 and renovation of the historic area is expected to cost approximately $425 million."

Howard Hughes is paying less than $3.50 a square foot for its leaseholds in the South Street Seaport. In the current market, it should be able to lease this space for several hundred dollars a square foot. According to the Alliance for Downtown New York's recently released Real Estate Market report for the second quarter of 2014, retail rents on lower Broadway (for instance) are averaging $277 a square foot. Cushman and Wakefield is reporting retail asking rents of $346 per square foot in the Financial District.

To see Howard Hughes' second quarter SEC filing, click here.

"Inquiry Seeks Twitter User in Brooklyn Bridge Flag Case," New York Times, 8/8/14. The mystery of who put white flags on top of the Brooklyn Bridge remains unsolved but "The Twitter account purportedly representing an 'all-powerful' coalition of radical cyclists has claimed responsibility for knocking out Metro-North Railroad service, swinging the World Series and strong-arming Bruce Springsteen into changing a song title to 'Thunder Lane,'" says The New York Times. "So when the account, @BicycleLobby, wrote on Twitter last month that it had placed white flags atop the Brooklyn Bridge 'to signal our complete surrender' of the bridge's bicycle path to pedestrians, most followers of the self-described 'parody account' allowed themselves a chuckle at the several news organizations that reported the remark as a proper confession before backtracking. On Friday, though, with the authorities still searching for the perpetrators in the flag affair, it seemed that @BicycleLobby had not been cleared. Steve Vaccaro, a lawyer for the account's author, who has remained anonymous, said Twitter had received a subpoena from the Manhattan district attorney's office in a bid to identify his client." For the complete article, click here.

Lost dog, found: For the second time in about a month, we bring you a story about a dog that somehow wandered away from its owner and was retrieved with the help of several caring people

A chihuahua named Reina.

who went out of their way to help.

On Aug. 8, a chihuahua was noticed wandering around among the picnic tables in the Seaport, with no owner in sight. Several people went to The Salty Paw's pop-up shop at John and Front Streets to see if anyone there knew something about the dog. (The Salty Paw is a dog grooming shop and boutique whose main store is at 38 Peck Slip.) No one had seen the dog before.

A staff member at the pop-up shop contacted Janet Carhuayano, manager of The Salty Paw, to ask what to do. "I asked my staff to take the dog to the Seaport Animal Hospital at 80 Beekman St. to see if the dog was microchipped," said Carhuayano. But the dog didn't have a microchip or any tags.

"By this point I had a picture of the dog and turned to Facebook and Twitter to spread the word," Carhuayano said. "Since we didn't know if she had just gotten loose or had possibly been abandoned, I wanted to make sure we found someone to foster her or adopt her. Within an hour I had several people call, email and message us willing to step up to take care of her. Of course we needed to wait a day or so to see if she was claimed. Our head receptionist  stayed with her. Within another hour, security from the Seaport came to our pop-up to see if we had seen the dog. It turns out the chihuahua belonged to a woman who had just opened up her business in the Seaport. Her staff was supposed to keep an eye on the dog, which it failed to do. We directed her to the hospital to claim the dog, whose name is Reina."

The lucky owner was advised to microchip her dog. "The dog was super friendly and definitely had been well cared for, which is what led me to hope she had just gotten lost," Carhuayano said.
- Terese Loeb Kreuzer

"Two high-end developers cashed in on controversial tax break," The Real Deal, 8/7/14. "Of the five luxury housing developers for whom controversial tax break measures were crafted in January 2013, only two have actually applied for and received the credits," says The Real Deal, citing Department of Housing Preservation and Development data. "Silverstein Properties, Thor Equities, Friedman Management, Fisher Brothers and Extell Development Company have come under fire and were hit with subpoenas from the Moreland Commission as part of an investigation into public corruption before the agency was suspended in March. But of the five, only Extell and Friedman Brothers have actually secured the 421-a exemptions thus far, the New York Observer reports." Three properties - Silverstein's 99 Church Street, Thor's 520 Fifth Avenue and Friedman Management's 113 Nassau Street - did not apply. For the complete article, click here.

"City Planning Chair Carl Weisbrod: an understated force," The Real Deal, 8/1/14. "Carl Weisbrod, the recently appointed chair of the New York City Planning Commission, may not have the star power that his predecessor Amanda Burden did," says The Real Deal. "Burden is an heir to the Standard Oil fortune, dates broadcast journalist Charlie Rose and lives blocks away from Mayor Michael Bloomberg on the Upper East Side. But Weisbrod is an old hand at city politics and a veteran on the New York City real estate scene. So when Mayor Bill de Blasio picked him to head the commission charged with overseeing the city's rezonings and trajectory for growth, the real estate industry was relieved." The relief was short-lived, however. As director of the Department of City Planning, Weisbrod "will be overseeing a controversial policy shift that may test his popularity in the real estate world. He's tasked with implementing de Blasio's mandatory inclusionary zoning policy - which requires, rather than incentivizes, developers to build affordable housing at projects that benefit from a rezoning." For the complete article, click here.

"Philippe Petit's Moment of Concern Walking the WTC Tightrope," The Daily Beast, 8/8/14. "It is 40 years since Philippe Petit made a wholly illegal walk 1,350 feet above the ground between the two towers of the World Trade Center, going back and forth eight times," says The Daily Beast. "It was a week before his 25th birthday. He had been dreaming of making this walk since he had read about plans to construct the towers when he was 17. He had made illegal walks before, but this one made him world famous." For the complete article, click here.