Abandoned tilting $272m skyscraper still left half-finished eight years on
A skyscraper remains unused and leaning in New York after plans for the project remain on hold.
A skyscraper remains unused and leaning in New York after plans for the project remain on hold.
If you live in the US and have always dreamt of a trip to Italy to see the Leaning Tower of Pisa but the cost of living crisis is making it seem near impossible, then why not take a trip to Manhattan, New York instead?
A skyscraper in the Financial District of the borough - known as 161 Maiden Lane - first started being built in 2015, however, over eight years later and it's still not been completed.
So much for if a jobs worth doing, it's worth doing well.
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The 52-storey residential building was first proposed by Bluerock Properties in 2007.
The site was later bought by Kay Development in 2011 for a hefty $41.17 million (£33 million) with plans for a 40-storey building instead.
That fell through, and Kay Development sold the site in 2013 for $64 million (£51 million) to Fortis Property Group who planned to build a 200,000-square-foot structure, totalling 60 stories, measuring 670-foot-tall, with 80 units for sale inside.
However, plans haven't gone any more smoothly since the site reached it's final pair of hands.
Construction for the project - known as One Seaport Residences for a limited period of time - got underway in July, 2015 with 80 condos expected to go for a total of $272 million (£218 million), according to the Real Deal.
Alas, just two years later, the project's general contractor Pizzarotti began to run into issues.
It received 10 safety citations from the New York City's Department of Buildings (DOB) by January, 2017 and in September, an employee named Juan Chonillo - from the project's concrete subcontractor, SSC High Rise - died after falling from the 29th floor of the building.
The Manhattan District Attorney's Office led an investigation into his death and found multiple building rules had been breached.
Early on in 2018, safety netting wasn't properly installed and so work on the construction was halted for eight days - an order made by the Department of Buildings.
Another halt took place for two days later on in January for as a result of more incorrect installation of netting.
A spilled bucket of concrete hitting the 34th floor led to further delays and on top of that SSC High Rise were fired by Pizzarotti.
SSC High Rise later pleaded guilty to manslaughter over the death of the employee, resultantly fined $10,000 ($8,000).
By 2019, Pizzarotti sued Fortis and Fortis countersued back, blaming one another for the three-inch lean which the building had developed.
Pizzarotti said Fortis hadn't constructed the foundation for the building properly and it couldn't install the glass curtain wall because of the lean; Fortis accused Pizzarotti of not surveying the site properly and not keeping its workers safe.
It turns out the lean was fine, the building still rules as structurally safe, and Pizzarotti's replacement designed an accommodating glass wall.
However, in 2020, the replacement general contracting company accused Fortis of not paying it's workers and stopped working on the site - the next year it resigned from the project completely.
Fortis then ended up in arguments with the bank over its loan before the project was eventually paused for the final time in November 2022 and the building has remained standing - or should we say leaning - there, ever since.
As the Real Deal's Hiten Samtani put it to The B1M: "It’s turned into one of those symbols of what could go wrong in a project."
UNILAD has contacted Pizzarotti and Fortis for comment.
Poppy Bilderbeck