UPDATED, Aug. 25, 4:27 p.m.: The Department of City Planning will review JDS Development’s proposal to build a 1,000-foot tall tower in the Lower East Side, reversing its earlier position.
The agency had initially said it wouldn’t move forward with the project, citing a rival development and lawsuits by Park-It Management’s Gary Spindler and developer Roy Schoenberg. But on Tuesday the agency sent a letter to JDS saying it will review it after all because Spindler and Schoenberg withdrew their application to build on a neighboring site.
The two developers recently sued JDS, accusing it of “hijacking” air rights they were in contract to buy. According to the complaint, Spindler and Schoenberg signed a contract to buy 235 Cherry Street from two nonprofits, Settlement Housing Fund and Two Bridges Neighborhood Council, in 2012 with plans to build a rental development. But the organizations later canceled the contract and sold the property’s air rights to JDS instead.
Michael Stern’s firm plans to build an 80-story rental tower at 80 Rutgers Slip, which will rise next to Extell development’s condo tower One Manhattan Square. [Crain’s] – Konrad Putzier
Correction: an earlier version of this post incorrectly described 80 Rutgers Slip as a condo project.