Brooklyn Paper on Atlantic Yards sale quotes DePlasco: "“The delays were caused primarily by the multiple lawsuits that were brought against the project" (sure)

The Brooklyn Paper, which once upon a time had skeptical/oppositional Atlantic Yards coverage, today offers Atlantic Yards goes public! Ratner puts a major chunk of the project on the chopping block, but vows to keep control, following up on news that broke last week.

The key paragraph:

“The delays were caused primarily by the multiple lawsuits that were brought against the project,” said company spokesman Joe DePlasco.

My comment:

Sure.

In 2009, Forest City decided to renegotiate settled deals with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to allow a 21-year purchase schedule for the Vanderbilt Yard and Empire State Development Corporation to allow a 25-year buildout. Could the culprit have been Forest City's unrealistic projections?
Said Chuck Ratner, then-CEO of Forest City Enterprises, in 2007, "We’re very good at estimating markets, we’re very good at estimating rents, at estimating lease-ups, and estimating costs. We are terrible, and we’ve been a developer for 50 years, on these big multi-use, public private urban developments, to be able to predict when it will go from idea to reality. All we know is that if we pick the right place and we’re in with the right people, that over time we’re going to create tremendous value."
And Bruce Ratner claimed in 2010, according to the WNYC, regarding the 10-year timetable: “That was really only an analysis as to what the most serious impacts [would be], if all the other planned development in downtown Brooklyn happened right away,” Ratner says. “It was never supposed to be the time we were supposed to build them in.”
WNYC, with a wee bit more skepticism than the (current) Brooklyn Paper, pointed out, "But the 10-year-timeline was also used by the city, state and Ratner’s own consultant to determine that the financial benefits to the public outweighed the roughly $300 million in direct subsidies the project is receiving."
In November 2011, he talked up his firm’s plan to build the world’s tallest pre-fabricated towers, an innovative, risky, and money-saving tactic, one that initially infuriated construction workers who’d aggressively rallied for Atlantic Yards.
The Wall Street Journal, without raising an eyebrow, in 2011 reported Ratner’s rationale for modular construction: “that the existing incentives for developments where half the units are priced for middle- and low-income tenants ‘don't work for a high-rise building that's union built.’”
Of course, that’s exactly what Ratner proposed and the state approved--twice.
Also, you didn't mention the ongoing pressure from the pending Supplementary Environmental Impact Statement.
Guess that's what happens when your sources are: FCR's Ashley Cotton, Chris Havens, Joe DePlasco. DePlasco works for Cotton's firm and Havens is philosophically on the same team.