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Recently inside the Fulton Market at the South Street Seaport, a lone shopper wandered among the dozen or so temporary booths set up on the ground floor. The building directory, which used to be filled with the names of more than 20 food shops and retail stores, carried the banner of only one tenant.
But the vacancies aren't the result of plunging retail sales. Rather, the Rouse Corp., which is the Seaport's landlord, is changing its marketing focus. It has slowly cleared the building of its small, locally based tenants hoping to lure big, national retailers to the facility.
With the Seaport now in its 12th year of business, the waterfront development is having growing pains. Rouse maintains that business at the Seaport has been increasing steadily over the last few years and that the Seaport is profitable. But the company faces a number of sizable challenges, namely the task of rebuilding the Fulton Market up from scratch, and pending lawsuits from several disgruntled tenants that have refused to pay rent and are claiming the facility has been improperly managed.
"They're bringing suburban stores to the Seaport, which is against the lease requirement with the city," says Joe Hill, owner of Captain Hook's, a Seaport store,...