Developers have filed permits with City agencies to create another 813 apartments in the Financial District, in the twelve-month period ending July 1, 2018, according to a new analysis by Localize.city, an online database that uses artificial intelligence to provide buyers and renters with critical insights for every New York City address.
This marks FiDi as the neighborhood more densely targeted for development by the real estate industry than any other in Manhattan, and one of the top five in all of New York City. (Long Island City, East New York, the Melrose section of the Bronx, and Bedford-Stuyvesant — where permits have ranged from 1,436 units to 848 — took the top spots outside of Manhattan.)
The FiDi development outlook is qualitatively different from that in all of those communities, however. In each of the outer-borough neighborhoods cited above, the higher totals of new apartments are spread among a relatively larger number of comparatively smaller buildings. In Lower Manhattan, according to Localize.city, these 800-plus units are concentrated, “in a handful of large skyscrapers [that are] in the works.”
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These numbers may be further augmented when more permits are filed for development lots where real estate interests are currently in the planning phase. These sites include 80 South Street, where the Municipal Art Society predicts that owner China Oceanwide Holdings is seeking to develop a residential tower more than 1,400 feet tall — a height that would place its roof deck approximately 100 feet above that of One Word Trade Center. Such a building (topping out at 113 stories) could theoretically house an additional 600 or more apartments, although this total might be diminished by the inclusion of office, retail, or hotel space within the structure.
Another focus of development not included in the Localize.city tally, because no permits have yet been filed, is the parking lot at 250 Water Street, where some community leaders speculate that Howard Hughes Corporation (which is developing several projects in the surrounding South Street Seaport neighborhood) hopes to erect multiple “super-tall” residential towers. Such a development could add hundreds of additional apartments to the totals outlined here.
In a separate analysis, Localize.city reports that 30 percent of the new apartments planned for the Financial District (some 243 units) are located within flood zones that may make them uninhabitable during extreme weather events. This is a considerably higher percentage than the City-wide average, of 12 percent of planned new apartments being located in flood zones.