On June 6, Fried Frank achieved a substantial victory for Howard Hughes Corporation before the Appellate Division, First Department in connection with the firm’s ongoing representation of Howard Hughes in redeveloping 250 Water Street from an unsightly surface parking lot to a billion-dollar plus mixed-used commercial and residential building. A group of residents and affiliated organizations convinced the Supreme Court to annul the approval of Howard Hughes from Landmarks Preservation Commission to develop the site on the grounds that Landmarks failed to adequately distinguish its decision to approve the proposed development from its prior denials of different projects at the same site in the 1980s and that Landmark’s approval was based on improper “quid pro quo” with Howard Hughes related to the site’s development. The First Department reversed the annulment, finding that there was no evidence of an improper quid pro quo, that Landmark’s approval was supported by the substantial evidence, and that there were meaningful differences between the current proposal and those from the 1980s such that Landmarks was not bound by those decisions.
Fried Frank has been working with Howard Hughes for almost a decade to continue its revitalization of the Seaport. 250 Water Street will mark Howard Hughes’ final major project in the Seaport, bringing needed residential housing, as well as new retail to the area.
The Fried Frank team representing Howard Hughes is led by partner and co-head of the firm’s Real Estate Litigation Practice Janice Mac Avoy (who argued the appeal), special counsel Justin J. Santolli and associate Nicholas Winkley. The team also included partners David M. Karnovsky, Wesley O’Brien and associate Jeremy Kozin.
