One Manhattan Square (also known as 225 Cherry Street or 252 South Street) is a luxury residential

skyscraper A skyscraper is a tall continuously habitable building having multiple floors. Most modern sources define skyscrapers as being at least or in height, though there is no universally accepted definition, other than being very tall high-rise bui ...

building developed by Extell Development Company in the Two Bridges neighborhood of

Manhattan Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the County statistics of the United States#Smallest, larg ...

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

. Built from 2014 to 2019, the skyscraper was built on the site of a former Pathmark grocery store, which was demolished in 2014. The building topped out in 2017 and stands out significantly within the context of the neighborhood, at in height, the next highest structure being the

Manhattan Bridge The Manhattan Bridge is a suspension bridge that crosses the East River in New York City, connecting Lower Manhattan at Canal Street with Downtown Brooklyn at the Flatbush Avenue Extension. Designed by Leon Moisseiff, the bridge has a tota ...

at roughly in height. The building topped out in September 2017 and was complete by August 2019. A 13-story affordable housing component is located separately on-site.

Flood plain construction

20170721 Gotham Shield NYC Aerials-195 medium

One Manhattan Square was constructed well within the 100-year

flood plain A floodplain or flood plain or bottomlands is an area of land adjacent to a river. Floodplains stretch from the banks of a river channel to the base of the enclosing valley, and experience flooding during periods of high Discharge (hydrolog ...

on a block that was flooded by

Hurricane Sandy Hurricane Sandy (unofficially referred to as Superstorm Sandy) was an extremely large and devastating tropical cyclone which ravaged the Caribbean and the coastal Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic region of the United States in late ...

. However, Extell did not respond to '' City & State New York'' questions about what, if any,

flood mitigation Flood management or flood control are methods used to reduce or prevent the detrimental effects of flood waters. Flooding can be caused by a mix of both natural processes, such as extreme weather upstream, and human changes to waterbodies and ru ...

steps were taken during its development and construction.

Sales and incentives

Sales began in November 2016, with closings from February 2019. After eight and a half years of sales the building was just 69% sold as of April 2025. As a financial incentive, by May 2023 the building had begun paying 2% of buyers' mortgage rates for three years, an incentive worth as much as $250,000 or more off the face value of sales prices.

Controversies

The neighborhood's residents immediately reacted to the closing of the old Pathmark supermarket, claiming that

gentrification Gentrification is the process whereby the character of a neighborhood changes through the influx of more Wealth, affluent residents (the "gentry") and investment. There is no agreed-upon definition of gentrification. In public discourse, it has ...

would prevent them from being able to buy affordable groceries. Once the Pathmark closed, other markets in the neighborhood became more expensive. Other residents of the area opposed the project because the tower would be out of context with the rest of the vicinity. Its design has also been compared to a cheese grater. Extell Development Company initially proposed a tower of 800 feet and 68 stories at the site in 2014, temporarily reduced to 700 feet and 56 stories, but ended up building it to 847 feet and 80 stories at completion. There were concerns over the transit infrastructure not being able to support such a development. Additionally, several dozen area residents organized into a protest in April 2015 claiming the project made unequal the future residents of the affordable housing portion and those residing in the luxury tower. Some claimed the separate affordable building, restricted to a 13-story structure, acted as a " poor door" for the overall development.

References

External links

* {{commons category-inline, One Manhattan Square 1 Manhattan Square Residential buildings completed in 2019 Residential condominiums in New York City Lower East Side