The South Street Seaport’s low-scale buildings have a legacy of combined retail and tourism. A sense of the district’s gritty and boisterous past as New York City’s wholesale fish market also lingers in some of the area’s oldest commercial buildings. These brick and stone structures also have historic ties to the East River, the Brooklyn Bridge, and the piers.

The Seaport district has long been a laboratory in which historic preservation has taken place alongside development. The South Street Seaport Museum was founded in the 1960s; an exacting restoration of Schermerhorn Row took place in the 1970s; Pier 17 was developed in the 1980s by The Rouse Company; and mixed-use preservation and development has been underway along Front Street in recent years. Each project has explored new designs while drawing on the visual richness of the Seaport’s historic and natural environments.

The historic buildings west of the Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) Drive will remain as they stood more than a century ago. East of the FDR, however, Pier 17 will undergo practical changes that are aesthetically suited to the neighborhood. The first step will be demolishing the pier’s boxy shopping mall, built more than 25 years ago, to make way for more open space, pavilions for everyday retail, a boutique hotel, and a hotel/residential building.

One of the most significant pier improvements will preserve and relocate the historic Tin Building. The 1907 structure was once a thriving marketplace where the city’s fish was imported and processed. It originally stood at water’s edge, but when the mall was built on an expanded Pier 17, the Tin Building got sandwiched between it and the FDR overpass.

GGP’s plan will restore the Tin Building both physically and contextually. The building will be rehabilitated and relocated to the eastern edge of Pier 17, connecting it to the water’s edge once again. The Tin Building’s restoration is subject to the approval of the Landmarks Preservation Commission, as is all redevelopment on Pier 17, except for on the northern portion, which is outside the city's historic district.

The building’s landmark exterior and key structural elements will undergo comprehensive preservation by a team of specialists from Jan Hird Pokorny Associates. SHoP Architects will renovate the building’s 55,000-square-foot interior, transforming a building that was all but destroyed by a 1995 fire. The interior space, while adapted for re-use, will preserve and celebrate the feel of the building’s original incarnation as a fish market.

The cobblestone-paved “uplands” west of the FDR will undergo few changes. New retail in the red brick Fulton Market Building and along Front Street will be reprogrammed to meet the needs of the Lower Manhattan community. The second floor of the three-story Fulton Market building will house a 30,000-square-foot community space with programming crafted in part by the local neighborhood.

Retail will continue to occupy sections of the Fulton Market Building’s lower floor. A specialty market also will be set up in the former fish market stalls.

GGP’s plan balances the Seaport’s history with the evolving needs of a growing downtown residential community. With preservation a top priority, the new Seaport will remain one of New York’s most important historic destinations.

The historic Schermerhorn Row apartments will be carefully retrofitted into high-quality living spaces.

The Pier 17 plaza will anchor the network of new and improved open spaces in the surrounding Seaport area.

The new development will be a vital part of the downtown cityscape and a grand destination on the waterfront.