Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park Report

This graphic, posted in February 2018, is post-dated to stay at the top of the blog. It will be updated as announced configurations change and buildings launch. Note the unbuilt B1 and the proposed--but not yet approved--shift in bulk to the unbuilt Site 5.

The August 2014 tentative configurations proposed by developer Greenland Forest City Partners will change. The project is already well behind that tentative timetable.

How many people are expected?

Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park has a projected 6,430 apartments housing 2.1 persons per unit (as per Chapter 4 of the 2006 Final Environmental Impact Statement), which would mean 13,503 new residents, with 1,890 among them in low-income affordable rentals, and 2,835 in moderate- and middle-income affordable rentals.

That leaves 8,778 people in market-rate rentals and condos, though let's call it 8,358 after subtracting 420 who may live in 200 promised below-market condos. So that's 5,145 in below-market units, though many of them won…

The 2018 iteration of the Commercial Observer's always debatable Power 100 list of the most powerful people in real estate lacks any entrant from Forest City Ratner/Forest City New York. That's understandable, since the company has essentially given up on ground up development (as I wrote for The Bridge) and has lost key executives, with Bruce Ratner said to be retired.

But the project has changed, as the Commercial Observer notes:
The project now goes by the name Pacific Park, Ratner has retired, the Gehry plan was ditched and the main owner is the Chinese-based company Greenland USA. Welcome to the list, Greenland USA head Hu Gang. So Gang is on the list, and so is Forest City's former CEO, MaryAnne Gilmartin, in her new position as co-founder of L&L MAG. The question is whether they deserve their rankings, and I'd say the jury is very much out.

L&L MAG, 26

26. MaryAnne Gilmartin, Robert Lapidus and David Levinson

The article notes that Lapidus and Levinson wer…

For now, the best source of information on the reported [basement?] "hallway" gunshot inside the Barclays Center on 4/21/18--allegedly by a member of rapper Tekashi69's entourage toward a rival rap crew--is the murkily-sourced celebrity gossip site TMZ?

TMZ reports today:
Law enforcement sources tell us 6ix9ine's manager, Tr3yway, is a person of interest in two separate gun-related incidents over the weekend -- one that occurred during the [Adrien] Broner fight [at Barclays], and another that went down just hours earlier on the streets of Brooklyn.No official word

But law enforcement publicly has been closemouthed. Asked last night (at a meeting of the 78th Precinct Community Council) about the reported incident, New York Police Department 78th Precinct Commanding Officer Captain Jason Hagestad said he had no information to share, and that the Detective Bureau was investigating.

That doesn't count as much of a confirmation, since Michael Woods of NYFights.com got…

Mikhail Prokhorov may have gotten a record-setting valuation in the sale of the Nets--partial, so far--to Joseph Tsai, but apparently there was a sweetener in the deal--and that may be putting bondholders at risk, according to the ratings agency Standard & Poor's (S&P). 
The sweetener--instead of the arena operator keeping all food and beverage revenues from Nets games, it would only keep 30%--advantages the team owner, and offers less to the arena operator and thus bondholders expecting secure payments, according to S&P.
On 4/20/18, the ratings agency affirmed the debt rating of the Brooklyn Arena Local Development Corporation (the state entity that issued the debt) of BBB-, just barely within "investment grade" and above junk, but with a negative outlook, indicating that the rating was unstable. 
Crain's New York Business first wrote about this yesterday, with the headline Barclays Center bonds are just about junk. Note that ratings agencies are paid b…

With the regular NBA and NHL seasons over, and no playoffs for either the Brooklyn Nets (28-53) or New York Islanders (35-37-10, though they had seemed playoff-bound earlier in the year), let's take a look at the announced attendance figures. (Remember, official attendance always exceeds gate count.)

The Islanders this past season experienced an 8.4% drop, to a league low of 12,002 (per ESPN), last in the 31-team league, as the team struggled and the owners announced plans to build a new arena at Belmont Park. That's a more than twice the percentage drop in the previous year. In the previous two years, the Islanders were 28th in a 30-team league.

The Nets-- though second-to-last in league attendance, dropping one notch in each of the past two years--are a different story. According to ESPN figures--which I don't find accurate, explained below--the Nets have experienced a slight but steady uptick over the last three years, reaching an average home attendance of 15,556, stil…

Earlier this month, a mixed martial arts fighter caused a fracas deep inside the Barclays Center, seen on video throwing a heavy metal handtruck, breaking the window on a van.

Two nights ago, a member of the crew of rapper Tekashi69 (who has his own police record) allegedly shot a gun off during a boxing card.

TMZ was the first to report, stating:
Law enforcement sources tell us cops believe an unidentified member of Tekashi's entourage fired a shot inside Barclays Saturday night during an altercation with a rival rap crew headed by Brooklyn-based MC Casanova, who Tekashi's been beefing with online.
We're told police understand the situation as follows ... Tekashi and his guys were heading down a hallway in Barclays to hit up a VIP area in the arena, when they bumped into Casanova and co. along the way. The two crews started pushing and shoving ... and someone in Tekashi's group allegedly discharged one round from a firearm. The apparent shooter fled the scene, accordin…

The latest Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park Construction Alert (bottom), covering the two weeks beginning Monday, April 23, was circulated at 2:27 pm Thursday (lead time) by Empire State Development (ESD) after preparation by Greenland Forest City Partners, indicates new--and, potentially, disruptive--work at the Vanderbilt Yard.

At night and on weekends, the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) will use a portion of the yard lighting near the Atlantic Avenue LIRR Access Ramp for security reasons. This is expected to continue through September. No specific hours were indicated.

At the LIRR's East Portal, at the intersection of Atlantic and Vanderbilt avenues, test pit work will be performed during these two weeks to identify National Grid and Con Edison underground gas and electric services nearby. This work will be completed at night because of Department of Transportation permit stipulations. The amount of noise is unclear.

As in the previous update--not sure it is continuing, or just has be…

The Municipal Art Society of New York (MAS) is again sponsoring Jane's Walk in New York City May 4-6, part of "a global festival of free, citizen-led walking tours inspired by urban activist Jane Jacobs."

Numerous tours are available over those three days, with no reservations required--just show up. And on Friday, May 4, at 5:30 pm, I'll be offering my now-annual tour of Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park Brooklyn/Barclays Center:
Explore Brooklyn’s Most Contested Real Estate Project  See what’s been built (arena plus 4 of 15 towers) and what’s coming within Atlantic Yards (in 2014 renamed Pacific Park Brooklyn), and learn the project’s tangled history, shifting timetable, changing ownership, and ongoing question marks. The tour should last about 1.75 hours, depending on how many people show up and how fast we move.

Meeting point, ending point

We meet outside the Barclays Center--many subway lines available--on the arena plaza, under the oculus (opening to the sky), next to…

On 4/16/18, Crain's New York Business reminded us that Sky-high construction costs rose again in 2017, though the 3.29% increase between Q1 2017 and Q1 2018 was actually less than that in the country as a whole, according to a report from thjje consultant Rider Levett Bucknall,

Still, New York City remains world's most expensive place to build, which affects not just market-rate construction but all construction--hence the need for subsidies and also not-so-affordable below-market housing.

The graphic below, from the report, cites hard construction costs--so, omitting things like design and legal--based on dollars per square foot of gross floor area.

Note that, in New York City, building below-ground parking ($125-$200/square foot) can be quite expensive, as is building office space ($375-$575/sf prime, $300-$400/sf secondary). Apartment construction ranges from $200-$375/sf.

No wonder developers of Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park wanted to reduce the amount of parking.