Designed by Hill West Architects, the building overlooks the East River and topped out in September 2018.

As a result, the underlying site is made of various debris, followed by a layer of marshland, pockets of glacial sand deposits, and decomposed rock.

[9][10] The soil-improvement method ostensibly was intended to reduce the construction costs by $6 million, though it also resulted in uneven settlement, which later caused the tower to lean.

[5] As early as 2007, Bluerock Properties had proposed a 52-story building at 161 Maiden Lane, near the shore of the East River, in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City.

[8] Jack Resnick & Sons, which owned the similarly named One Seaport Plaza at 199 Water Street,[16] sued Fortis for trademark infringement that September.

[17][18] The two firms came to an agreement in December 2015, when Fortis agreed to market the building using the numeral version of the name, 1 Seaport, for a limited period.

[16] Swedish real estate broker Fredrik Eklund was among the earliest condominium buyers, acquiring a duplex on the 46th and 47th floors.

[24] Fortis offered to make Eklund a monopoly on marketing the building's condos, provided that he was able to sell one-quarter of the units in eight weeks.

[27] Between January and September 2017, the New York City Department of Buildings (DOB) issued 10 building-code violations to Pizzarotti.

[28][31] Because it is against New York City building code to move a platform with workers on it, SSC pleaded guilty to manslaughter in July 2018.

[5] In any case, work resumed soon after, even though Pizzarotti had received a memo that April, indicating that the building was leaning 3 inches (76 mm) to its north.

[3] Pizzarotti claimed that, due to the developers' use of soil improvement to construct the foundation, the building had settled unevenly, causing it to tilt; a subcontractor first noticed the issue in April 2018.

[10][4] Fortis filed a countersuit that May, blaming Pizzarotti for not properly surveying the construction site and for failing to ensure workers' safety.

[41] The developer hired engineering firms WSP Global and Arup Group, which both concluded that the building's lean did not compromise its structural integrity.

Ray Builders, which replaced Pizzarotti as general contractor, designed a glass curtain wall that accommodated the lean.

[5] Ray Builders stopped working on the project in July 2020, claiming that Fortis had failed to pay its workers.

[46][47] Both the lender and the developer had withdrawn from mediation by March 2022, when a lawyer for Bank Leumi said the "parties were too far apart in discussions to reach any resolution".