Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park Report

BROOKLYN NETS ANNOUNCE 2020-21 FIRST HALF SCHEDULE , the team announced yesterday, citing the previously announced Dec. 22 official tip-off (which comes after a Dec. 13 exhibition game), 37 games in total, and 19 home games. That's part of a truncated 72-game season--at least unless pandemic complications further truncate it. The team noted, "Barclays Center will be following New York State guidelines to determine when fans can return to games. Current guidelines do not permit fans." "Brooklyn will be featured on national television 19 times in the first half of the season, with six games on TNT, four on ESPN, three on ABC and six on NBA TV," it said. (That's beyond the local TV contract, obviously.) As  noted  by NetsDaily: In the first four years of Sean Marks (and Kenny Atkinson’s) time in Brooklyn, the Nets only played 15 games — combined — on national TV: one each in the first three years, then 12 last season. Funny what the addition of a healthy Kevin

B4 nearly topped out Nov. 20 Photo: Norman Oder Pacific Park’s biggest tower to date tops out , Real Estate Weekly reported yesterday, based on a press release regarding the 511-foot tower at the northeast corner of the arena block--or, alternatively, the southwest corner of Sixth Avenue and Pacific street.  Most is from the press release (bottom). From Real Estate Weekly: Greenland Forest City Partners and The Brodsky Organization have topped off 18 Sixth Avenue in Brooklyn, the largest of the Pacific Park apartment towers on the 22-acre development rising over LIRR’s Atlantic Yards . The tower – known at parcel B4 – features 858 apartments, including 258 affordable units, and is expected to open next year. “The topping off of 18 Sixth Avenue is another major milestone for Pacific Park,” said Scott Solish, Executive Vice President of Development at Greenland Forest City Partners. “Pacific Park is a landmark project for Brooklyn and New York City, and the progress at 18 Sixth Avenue de

The Brooklyn Nets, which will be playing their one pre-season game at Barclays Center on 12/13/20 , will start their season on 12/22/20 against the Golden State Warriors, as noted in the tweet below, and by NetsDaily .  Both that debut home game, as well as the Nets' Christmas Day game in Boston against the Boston Celtics, will be nationally televised, a reflection of the expected strength of a team with superstars Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving back from injuries. The 2020-21 @NBA season begins in Brooklyn. Y'all ready? pic.twitter.com/S7KmUp0Ydz — Brooklyn Nets (@BrooklynNets) December 2, 2020 Pandemic questions The game is not open to fans, and presumably subject to safety protocols. That said, as CBS reported yesterday: The NBA tested 546 players for COVID-19 during the period from Nov. 24-30, and the results were not overly positive. Of those 546, 48 tested positive, the NBA and NBPA announced in a joint statement Wednesday. That is a positivity rate of 8.8 percent, b

In case you're wondering, the Barclays Center, shuttered since March, is still collecting some revenue from suiteholders and sponsors--revenue that will have to be reflected in future events and "make goods" --but it's drastically reduced, unsurprisingly, from when the arena was operating. Photo: Nov. 20 Perhaps that revenue is reflected in the arena's recent resumption of advertising at the oculus. Note that the only pre-season game at Barclays will be Dec. 13 , and the first regular-season game on Dec. 22 , both without fans. Here are the last three quarterly statements of cash receipts, as reported to the trustee for the arena bonds, starting with the first quarter of this calendar year, which is the third quarter of the fiscal year. Q3 FY 2020: $50.8 million Q4 FY 2020: $3.5 million Q1 FY 2021: $4.7 million

The schedule creep continues, and the school gets further delayed. The 812-seat middle-school occupying the first six floors, plus below-ground space, at the B15 tower (664 Pacific St., 37 Sixth Ave.) is now due in March 2024, according to the School Construction Authority's recently updated November 2020 Capital Plan (p. C8), excerpted below. While no explanation is offered, the shift surely relates to the estimated interior construction start of July 2021, rather than January 2021, as most recently estimated. The builders of the tower construct only the core and shell. The new estimate suggests that the I.S. 653--called by backers  MS OneBrooklyn --won't open until the 2024-25 school year, a year later than the previous prediction of September 2023.  The under-construction residential portion of the tower is expected to be finished in 2022, with move-ins starting in late 2021. It will have 312 apartments, 94 of them designated affordable (income levels not yet announced). T

So, President-Elect Joe Biden's nominee to head the Department of Homeland Security, Cuban-American lawyer Alejandro Mayorkas, is under fire for his stewardship of the DHS component United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) during the Obama administration, notably regarding EB-5 investor visas. My take: it's worth looking at the full story, which casts further clouds over EB-5, a program that makes few elected officials look good. I don't think this disqualifies him, but it should prompt questions. Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) tweeted , "Alejandro Mayorkas was found by Barack Obama’s Inspector General to be guilty of selling Green Cards to Chinese nationals on behalf of rich, democratic donors. He is disqualified from leading the Department of Homeland Security." Yesterday, t he Brian Lehrer Show had Democratic insider John Podesta on the air, and the host brought up Cotton's tweet. "It's not true," said Podesta, who pivoted to poi

There was good reason for the "solicitousness and evasiveness" from developers of Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park, as I described the 11/17/20 online Quality of Life meeting, which is supposed to respond to neighbors' concerns and questions about the project. Though it was barely mentioned at the meeting two weeks ago, those developers and state officials had received a spreadsheet of 17 reports from neighbors about loud, intrusive construction--some after-hours--that disturbs people's sleep and compromises their pandemic-constrained lives, including work and school from home. Most respondents live near the eastern end of the site, bordering where developer TF Cornerstone is building two residential towers, known as B12 (615 Dean) and B13 (595 Dean), on Dean Street between Carlton and Vanderbilt avenues, with deep below-ground space for a Chelsea Piers fitness center and fieldhouse. That especially affects neighbors who live within the project itself, notably the "

A 11/27/20  press release from the Brooklyn Nets: The Brooklyn Nets will open the 2020-21 season with a two-game preseason schedule highlighted by one game at Barclays Center.  The preseason schedule tips off on Sunday, Dec. 13, when Brooklyn hosts the Washington Wizards at Barclays Center. The Nets will then travel to Boston to face the Celtics on the road on Friday, Dec. 18.  Barclays Center will be following New York State guidelines to determine when fans can return to games. Current guidelines do not permit fans. The NBA, in a 11/27/20 press release , said: Each NBA team will play a minimum of two and a maximum of four games as part of the league’s 49-game preseason schedule. Every team will play at least one home game and one road game in the preseason. The national television schedule for preseason games will be announced at a later date.  The 2020-21 regular season will tip off on Tuesday, Dec. 22 and feature 72 games for each team. As previously announced, the regular-seas