Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park Report

Jim Stuckey, who shepherded the Atlantic Yards project for Forest City Ratner until his mysterious mid-2007 departure, later went to New York University, where last fall he made another abrupt departure. It turns out that Stuckey and NYU were later sued for sexual harassment--Stuckey and NYU said his departure was for health reasons--and the New York Post reported that allegations of sexual harassment caused the executive's departure from Forest City. Now Stuckey has relocated from Staten Island to Naples, FL, and still operates his firm Verdant Properties . His personal  website , like his Twitter feed , seems crammed with the phrase "James P. Stuckey," perhaps helpful in the process of reputation management: Real estate developer James P. Stuckey believes that responsible building practices do more than provide structures to a city. Stuckey says that well planned communities and business districts enrich those living and working in an area. James P. Stuckey has ...

So who's responsible for Forest City Ratner's aggressive demolitions strategy, aiming to create "facts on the ground" well before the Atlantic Yards legal battles are settled? One key player is undoubtedly Jim Stuckey , a Forest City Ratner Executive VP and President of the Atlantic Yards Development Group. Last year I suggested that Stuckey was worth profiling and, though no one took me up on the suggestion (see 5. Who's Jim Stuckey? ), there's another place to look. (Photo from PBS Newshour .) The Times Square story Stuckey turns up as a character in Lynne Sagalyn's comprehensive 2001 analysis of Times Square redevelopment, Times Square Roulette: Remaking a City Icon . Stuckey then worked for the city, heading the Public Development Corporation (PDC), the forerunner of the New York City Economic Development Corporation. From that perch, curiously enough, he was serving a mayor who didn't want to be perceived as selling out to developers. (Does that a...

The New York Post  scoop  Saturday contending that the mysterious departure of Jim Stuckey from two jobs (and subsequently the city's Public Design Commission) was because of alleged sexual harassment--he and New York University say it was health reasons--deserves more attention. The issue is not merely the salacious allegations, but because of what it says about how power operates in the city. Notably, it reminds us how Forest City Ratner managed to lock down the press when it booted its Atlantic Yards point man in 2007, and reveals that company CEO Bruce Ratner later helped Stuckey get a new job at NYU. And it leaves some lingering questions about that process. The rumors reach print It was a widespread rumor that Stuckey had been forced out of his job at Forest City Ratner in 2007 because of sexual harassment allegations. I heard it from three different people--though I had no idea whether all rumors traced back to one not-so-credible source or multiple credible so...

Jim Stuckey, president of the Atlantic Yards Development Group for Forest City Ratner and the developer's point man for more than three years on the project, has resigned from the company, "effective immediately, citing personal reasons and a desire to pursue new challenges." (Photo from PBS Newshour .) Atlantic Yards, the company stated in a press release (below) issued today via spokesperson Howard Rubenstein, "remains on target." That's of course a relative term, given that parent company Forest City Enterprises has acknowledged a myriad of factors, including ongoing negotiations with governmental authorities, environmental remediation, various lawsuits, increasing construction costs, scarcity of labor and supplies, the difficulty in obtaining tax exempt financing, and increasing rates for financing. Stuckey will be succeeded by MaryAnne Gilmartin , the developer's executive VP and director of commercial & residential development. An observer I s...

It's no surprise that Atlantic Yards is a topic of academic interest, but only those at New York University's Wagner School are getting a chance to learn about it from Jim Stuckey, the former point man on the project for Forest City Ratner. And, as I describe below, there's reason to believe that the students may not be getting the full debate. Stuckey appointment An effusive August press release from the NYU School of Continuing and Professional Studies informs us that James Stuckey - Developer and Former Economic Development Official - Is New Leader of NYU Schack Institute of Real Estate : The New York University School of Continuing and Professional Studies (NYU-SCPS) today announced the appointment of James P. Stuckey as divisional dean of the NYU Schack Institute of Real Estate, the University’s home for graduate and continuing professional education and applied research in real estate, construction management, and related fields. Throughout his 30-plus-year career as ...

The career of Bushwick Assemblyman and Kings County Democratic Party Chair Vito Lopez is gravely wounded , perhaps mortally so , and not by accusations of political chicanery, steering funds to the social service empire he founded, or ensuring that his girlfriend and a political ally, who run that empire, get paid very well . Instead, it's an ethics committee finding of sexual harassment, which, though not a full legal proceeding, involves some investigation. Lopez denies the allegations . The Daily News commented in an editorial: Most grotesquely, as recounted in a letter to Lopez from Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver , “ You put your hand on her leg, she removed your hand and you put your hand on her upper thighs, putting your hand as far up between her legs as you could go.” Silver also writes that a staffer who was forced to join Lopez on a trip to Atlantic City reported “that you attempted to kiss her, that she struggled to fend you off before you stopped and that on...

Finally, a media outlet has published an explanation for why Jim Stuckey, Forest City Ratner's former Atlantic Yards point man, and then head of the NYU Schack Real Estate Institute, departed both jobs in a similarly hasty fashion: allegations of sexual harassment. While a source--I'd bet one connected to Forest City--called Stuckey "very competent" professionally, this might cause some reporters who trusted Stuckey to have some second thoughts about his overall character. Maybe, for example, the New York Times's Nicholas Confessore and his editors recognize that it might not have been wise, in 2005, to unskeptically convey Stuckey's  notorious assertion  that "It's  Orwellian , almost" to question the company's purported transparency regarding Atlantic Yards. And it might remind them that Forest City Ratner was involved in some serious damage control , massaged by p.r. fixer Howard Rubenstein, when Stuckey resigned. The Post's sc...

Remember how, on 10/15/11, the New York Post reported on former Forest City Ratner executive Jim Stuckey's abrupt departure from New York University came in the wake of sexual harassment allegation from a subordinate--and that similar accusations led to his departure from Forest City in 2007. The Post reported: According to company sources, Stuckey took all of his subordinates to a club and then called a number of women employees into a private room, where he had them sit on his lap as though he were Santa Claus. Fearing that mass resignations — of senior executives as well as people who reported to Stuckey — would cause the company a p.r. nightmare at a sensitive time in the Atlantic Yards project, Bruce Ratner pushed Stuckey out and then helped him land the job at NYU. Ratner is a member of the Schack Institute’s advisory board. There's clearly more to the story, and some hints have surfaced in legal papers in the still-percolating case  Bonadio v. NYU , et al., invol...

Capital New York ( paywall only ) points to a brief but potentially important decision yesterday by an appellate court in the lawsuit by Stephanie Bonadio against New York University and its former Dean Jim Stuckey regarding the potential sharing of information regarding Stuckey's conduct while at developer Forest City Ratner. Bonadio sued NYU and Stuckey in 2012 for sexual harassment, with other counts against NYU for retaliation (she claims her job was eliminated after accusations against Stuckey) and against Stuckey for assault and battery. As stated in the decision issued yesterday, the Appellate Division, First Department, reversed a lower court order that denied Bonadio's "motion to compel discovery of information related to claims of sexual misconduct made against defendant Stuckey when he was employed by Forest City Ratner (FCR), except insofar as such information was provided to or otherwise known by defendant New York University." In other words, info...

On the heels of Marc Eliot’s awkward, not-quite-oral history, Song of Brooklyn , comes another from Florida-dwelling sports book author Peter Golenbock, In the Country of Brooklyn: Inspiration to the World , with another distorted view of Atlantic Yards, courtesy of former Forest City Ratner executive Jim Stuckey , whose self-serving statements go unrebutted. For example, Stuckey claims that the developer has spent its own money on land acquistions and infrastructure that the city has paid for; he asserts that the "legislature" approved the project; and he suggests that New York will turn into Detroit unless the city "steps up" and helps projects like Atlantic Yards move forward. And, in a master stroke reminiscent of his work spinning the New York Times, he claims that the critics, not the developer, are creating a deceptive picture. Overstuffed and unbalanced This lengthy (nearly 700 pages) book is both overstuffed (the interviews could be trimmed) and skewed, sho...

FCR's Jim Stuckey talks timeline. See below. We should know never take Atlantic Yards timetable estimates too seriously. That means the reported prediction  by the Greenland Group, the expected new Chinese investors, that it would take eight years to finish a project that has a 25-year outside date should be taken with a major grain of salt. (Crain's went the opposite direction and, summarizing a thinly-sourced Wall Street Journal article, declared Schedule set for Atlantic Yards . ) Could somehow Mayor-in-waiting Bill de Blasio have privately pledged he will "get the housing done" by tossing bushels of additional subsidies toward developer Forest City Ratner and its Chinese government partners? And could the modular factory, which is supposed to take 18 months to turn out a building, go full-stop, 24/7? You never know, but, remember, as then-CEO of Forest City Enterprises (parent of Forest City Ratner) Chuck Ratner famously said in March 2007, "We a...

Public discussion about parking permits led the New York Times back into city archives to explore the Giuliani administration's 1998 bestowal of parking permits to select supporters. Among them were "Democrats for Giuliani," including developer Bruce Ratner and Forest City Ratner executive Jim Stuckey, who had served, respectively, as city Consumer Affairs Commissioner and head of the Public Development Corporation (precursor to the New York City Economic Development Corporation). But do they still have the permits? (Click on graphics to enlarge.) Update April 21, 2009 A commenter takes me to task, saying that none of the documents state that Bruce Ratner or Jim Stuckey received a parking permit. I acknowledge that the documents are ambiguous, and that the first page of the series shows notations regarding each person's request. I took my cue from the New York Times's annotation of the third page (right), which indicated that everyone at the top of...

Would 65 percent of visitors to the planned Brooklyn Arena at the Atlantic Yards development use mass transportation? That's what Forest City Ratner VP Jim Stuckey told an audience on 11/22/05, even though two weeks later public officials expressed skepticism that the Brooklyn Arena could draw even half of its visitors via mass transit. Stuckey, speaking at American Institute of Architects presentation along with Atlantic Yards architect Frank Gehry and landscape designer Laurie Olin, stated (according to a tape I recently listened to), "Most everyone believes and I think the EIS [Environmental Impact Statement] ultimately will say that about 65% of the people who come to the arena... will be using mass transportation already." The EIS is expected in the next weeks or months. (Photo from Forest City Ratner web site .) However, at a 12/5/05 Borough Board hearing on transit issues, transportation consultant "Gridlock Sam" Schwartz suggested that Madison Square G...

At the Community Board 8 hearing on Atlantic Yards Thursday, Shabnam Merchant of Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn read a statement from South Brooklyn Legal Services (SBLS). It warned that rent-regulated tenants left in the proposed project footprint remain vulnerable, given the relocation agreements that Forest City Ratner (FCR) has offered. FCR's Jim Stuckey later said no, that the tenants would not be left out in the cold, yet he was unwilling--at least for the time being--to provide documentary evidence of that. What the agreements say Yes, the agreements sound good. They'd pay the difference between their current rent and that charged for a new apartment, and they'd be guaranteed a space in the Atlantic Yards project at their previous rent. However, the relocation agreements, according to SBLS, “leave [renters] vulnerable.” The agreements would pay the differential in rent for only three years, which means that, given that the project wouldn’t be finished until 2010 at ...