Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park Report

We have some more news about the latest Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park transaction, the sale of "100% affordable" (but mostly middle-income) 535 Carlton Ave. and 38 Sixth Ave., which I reported on four days ago. A posting yesterday, surely based on a press release, in the real estate platform Connect CRE, was headlined  Avanath Snaps Up Brooklyn Apartment Portfolio for $315M : Irvine, CA-based Avanath Capital Management, LLC has acquired a mixed-use portfolio containing two multifamily properties with ground-floor retail in Brooklyn for $315 million... The portfolio, comprising 601 affordable and market-rate residential and commercial units, qualifies for New York City’s Rent Stabilization program. “This acquisition allows us to provide high-quality housing in an area of the country where market-rate rents are notoriously high and the demand for budget-friendly apartment homes is rising,” said Daryl Carter, founder, chairman and CEO of Avanath. With 82,681 square feet of park

The new web site Hell Gate on 5/16/22 published  Albany Problems: NYC's Perpetual Corporate Tax Break Machine , by Doug Turetsky, formerly of the city's Independent Budget Office (IBO). Starting with the 421-a tax break, he notes that  "tax expenditures, or tax dollars the City forgoes, make up a sizable hunk of the City's budget—about $7 billion this year." And while some "seem intuitive, like forgoing property tax from the city's public housing authority," others are far more questionable. One prime example: Take Barclays Center. The arena hasn't paid property taxes since it opened in 2012. It's a tax expenditure that will cost the city $85 million this year alone, according to the City's Department of Finance Annual Tax Expenditure Report . Barclays' property tax break is part of a financing scheme that helped the arena's developers get around a 1986 federal law aiming to limit the use of tax-exempt bonds to finance stadium con

I wrote in February that, thanks to Democratic Party-controlled redistricting, Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park would have some new Democratic legislators representing it in Congress--assuming no successful legal challenge. Excerpted from  The City Well, that challenges has produced a new set of maps--and that means the project site will have a single new representative, surely a Democrat. Oddly enough, it might be former Mayor and Council Member Bill de Blasio, who enters the race for the new non-incumbent 10th District with the most name recognition, plus, of course, the most negatives. (It would be pretty rich to see Congressman de Blasio at, say, a groundbreaking.) The district stretches from Chelsea, Greenwich Village, and the East Village/Lower East Side through Lower Manhattan to DUMBO, Brooklyn Heights, Park Slope, and Sunset Park. So Rep. Yvette Clarke--a Flatbush resident--is losing Atlantic Yards, as her 9th District boundary moves east of Washington Avenue. Rep. Nydia Velazquez

From a recent Brooklyn Magazine newsletter, as excerpted at right: All roads lead to Brooklyn Crossing Welcome home to light-filled warmth, brought to you by high ceilings, expansive windows, custom climate controls, in-unit washer-dryer and wide-plank custom flooring. This is your place, perfect for those solo or “just us” days, and beautifully ideal for intimate gatherings And the link goes here .  It's an anodyne enough campaign, I guess, and the word "roads" does have a connection to "crossing." But "All subways" would be more precise, if we're being literal. The view from that window sure isn't toward Downtown Brooklyn, though. Availabilities As to availabilities , studios start at $3,385, 1-BRs at $3,995, and 2-BRs at $6,700.  But in some cases that's "Net Effective Rent," or indicates price reductions.  Let's go to StreetEasy, which shows that one studio with a $3,395 Net Effective Rent is listed at $3,638, with one mo

Developer Greenland Forest City Partners (GFCP) has sold leases to two "100% affordable" towers, 535 Carlton Ave. (B14) and 38 Sixth Ave. (B3), to Avanath Capital Management, an Irvine, CA-based investment firm that "acquires, owns, renovates, and operates affordable, workforce, and value-oriented apartment communities across the U.S." No public statements have been issued, and  Sale prices have not been announced; the transactions have not yet entered the city's  ACRIS system .  ( Update May 23 : Avanath did, two days before my original post, announce vaguely on Twitter that it has "added two new affordable housing assets in New York," with its Executive VP for Acquisitions quote-tweeting it to cite "601 units in two, Affordable towers adjacent to the Barclays Center." So I was wrong to originally state that no public statements were issued; there were no official press releases.) Avanath's web site  includes pages for each building,

I wrote in March about how two middle-income units at the "100% affordable" 535 Carlton building were listed on StreetEasy with discounts. Those units are still available : a two-bedroom, two-bath unit, at an announced $3,223 rent, with one month free, generates a Net Effective Rent of $2,954 a studio at an announced $2,137 rent, with 1.5 months free, generates a Net Effective Rent of $1,870 A look on the 535 Carlton web site , however, shows not only those units but eight more apartments at the same building, though listed as 549 Carlton:  one studio, listed at $2,137 five one-bedrooms, listed at $2,457 two two-bedrooms, listed at $2,954 Other than the studio, which does not imply a discount, the other two represent a Net Effective Rent, with one month free.  (There's also a studio listed for the other "100% affordable" building, 38 Sixth, though no rent is listed.) It's not clear to me whether those listings are artifacts of previously rented units, or wh

I call it "Atlantic Yards down the memory hole" when journalists/authors, public officials, or government entities misreport or forget details of (or promises regarding) a project that has faced many gyrations since its announcement in 2003. We shouldn't hold regular people to the same standard, but it's still a learning moment. That third picture is behind my old apartment complex, the Newswalk, which was formerly the printing plant for the NY Daily News. I think it was the only condo/apartment building inside the Atlantic Yards footprint that was spared. — Adam Zimmerman (@Adam_Zimmerman) May 16, 2022 (He later clarified that it was the fourth photo.) So why is this important? As I responded , most of that block, Block 1128, was omitted from the project footprint, rather than included and later spared. But it's not wrong to presume that the Atlantic Yards footprint would have been a rational shape, rather than one with an odd gap in the center: most of the