Collage: Michael Keller

See the New York World slideshow of some of New York City’s priciest public spaces.

The strip of pavement outside 180 Water Street, home to the New York City Human Resources Administration (HRA), may not look like much, but it’s for sale. The building’s owner, Melohn Properties, recently put the tower on the market for $180 million. If the owners get their asking price, this drab stretch of concrete, plus a loading area on the side of the building, will be worth nearly $21 million to them. That’s because the sidewalk is a privately owned public space, like hundreds of others around Manhattan — including Zuccotti Park, home base of Occupy Wall Street.

In exchange for this sliver of sidewalk, public records show, the developers of 180 Water Street received permission to build nearly 47,000 square feet of office space that would not have otherwise been permitted by zoning. Multiply each of those square feet by the current asking price — which we calculate at about $455 per square foot — and the value of privately owned public spaces to property owners comes into sharp focus.

The sidewalk outside 180 Water Street has special significance because it’s the site to which advocates for the poor and people with AIDS flock to protest program cuts and other actions taken by HRA. While some demonstrators report requests from police and building security to refrain from blocking or distributing flyers at the building entrance — part of the required 2,400 publicly accessible space under an overhang — they and other members of the public generally have free access.

The plaza behind the headquarters of the New York City Human Resources Administration is supposed to be accessible to the public 24 hours a day, but cars often park there. Photo: Yolanne Almanzar

An adjoining “public space” on narrow Pearl Street is another story. On Monday, five vehicles sat parked in the supposedly public area; two had HRA employee parking permits in their windows. (HRA was not available to comment by our deadline.) City records show complaints of parking in the space in in 2000 and 2006, and dating as far back as 1982.

“If anyone’s parking there, we don’t control that,” said Barry Goldberg, general counsel for Melohn Properties.

Goldberg was the owner’s attorney on the company’s purchase of 180 Water Street in the 1990s and is now handling its sale. He says the call from The New York World was the first he had heard of the property having obligations to open the sidewalk to the public. “I’m not aware of it at all,” he said, noting that no documentation came up in the title search or other documents in the transactions. “We comply with the law as required.”
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