Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park Report

As I wrote yesterday, there's a glut of office space in Brooklyn, though that still doesn't rule out the chances for Site 5, which could deliver significant office space in 3-4 years (in a best-case scenario).

But is Site 5--currently home to P.C. Richard and Modell's across from the arena, but long slated for a significant development, including office space--moving ahead?

As I wrote 11/20/19, more than four years after big plans surfaced for Site 5, construction seemed more likely.
Empire State Development (ESD), the state authority that oversees/shepherds Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park, issued a statement 11/19/19: “Later this week, ESD will file papers to condemn a property in Downtown Brooklyn, allowing an important part of the Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park project to move forward. This condemnation was always envisioned in the original project documents. We will continue to work collaboratively with the developer and the community to deliver an exceptional mixed-use projec…

25 Kent Lands A 65K SF Short-Term Occupant As Its Anchor Search, Bisnow reported 12/5/19:
Rubenstein Partners and Heritage Equities Partners reached a deal with online publication Refinery29 to bring its pop-up 29Rooms to an almost 65K SF space at 25 Kent Ave., the half-a-million square foot ground-up office development on the Brooklyn waterfront.  But that's a deal for a month. Smorgasburg is taking less than half that space for the winter. Meanwhile, as Bisnow notes, "The building has 350K SF of office space, 80K SF of light manufacturing space and 70K SF of retail."

Brooklyn has nearly 7 million square feet of new office space in the next two years, including Dock 72 at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, and the Panorama complex, formerly the Jehovah’s Witnesses' headquarters, down the hill from Brooklyn Heights.

What about Site 5?

So what does that mean for Site 5, the sooner-rather-than-later parcel to be developed for Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park, currently home to Modell&#…

How much did New York City give to Atlantic Yards in direct subsidy?

In a February 2005 Memorandum of Understanding, the city and state each promised $100 million, with the state money for infrastructure and the city money for infrastructure or land purchases. Later we learned that the latter all went to reimburse Forest City Ratner's seemingly generous payouts for property owners.
Only after the project was passed in 2006 did the city announced additional subsidies: apparently $105 million, as claimed by Forest City (see screenshot at right), leading to total of $305 million from city and state.

The city later claimed its total subsidies are $179 million or $171.5 million, not $205 million.

Another number
Here's another estimate: $185 million, courtesy of the 2010 City Participation Agreement that covered potential reimbursement for public property, among other things.
As highlighted below, the document cites $154 million in public subsidies, with a footnote pointing to a stat…

As I wrote on Twitter, this seems to be the first time the Barclays Center deals have extended to two-for-one tickets, rather than other forms of discounts or perks. The tickets include concerts, family shows, and some college basketball tournaments.

(Yes, I did a search to try to find previous examples.)
Could be wrong, but I don't recall previous 2-for-1 deals from Barclays Center on Cyber Monday, see last year https://t.co/GnIuZd7mLChttps://t.co/ZvNNrbP77E — Norman Oder (@AYReport) December 2, 2019

Can influencers and college students save Greenland’s Metropolis?, The Real Deal Los Angeles reported 12/2/19.
The gist: Greenland USA's other major project in the United States, the three-tower (plus 18-story hotel), 3.3-million-square-foot Metropolis development in downtown Los Angeles, is in trouble.
The number of condo buyers has diminished, given the decreasing appetite of overseas Chinese customers, and the difficulty getting money out. Moreover, downtown L.A. is overbuilt with luxury condos, with Metropolis units priced well above other units.
The article contains a brutal quote:
“The Metropolis development never made sense in the first place,” said Richard Green, director at the USC Lusk Center for Real Estate. “There is a mismatch between the product that is downtown and the demand.” So Greenland has switched from condos to rentals in the third building, and tried to appeal to a different buyer pool: not just the "influencers" and college students of the headlin…

Well, it may not be "as important or more important" than the Barclays Center, as arena developer Bruce Ratner claimed in September 2013 upon its first anniversary,

But it is the most enduring and visible product of the "borderline calamity" Atlantic Yards Community Benefits Agreement: the annual Community Tickets program run by the Downtown Brooklyn Neighborhood Alliance (DBNA), which offers tickets to most arena events.

There have been many grateful recipients, who otherwise wouldn't have been able to attend events. "To date, we have distributed over 85,000 tickets to over 600 Brooklyn based community organizations," the DBNA states.

Applications are due by 5 pm Dec. 6.

Free tickets

The program allows various nonprofit and neighborhood groups free access to 2 to 20 Upper Bowl tickets per group; also, four Lower Bowl tickets, and seats in a suite are distributed. Most tickets are chosen via live stream drawings and in-person sweepstakes events, plus im…

According to plans for the B15 tower by Marvel Architects, excerpted at right, the entrance to the middle school will be along Sixth Avenue, about midway between Dean Street and Pacific Street.

Yes, there will be a gym, and some enclosed open space. (B15 will be known as 664 Pacific or 662 Pacific, or 37 Sixth.)

But where will those 812 middle-school students go after school?

Surely some will go to the nearest green space.

The existing Dean Playground--portrayed fractionally in the plans, at bottom--is just to the south, and includes a basketball court and athletic field, both of which can be reserved but otherwise would be open for use.

Pacific Park green space

More importantly, there will be a good amount of green space just to the north.

Consider the slide below, from the Request for Qualifications for Construction Management Services, for the platform. The open space, as I explained, will spread significantly toward Pacific Street, in part because towers B6 and B7 will be flush to…

The big news, as I reported, is that the first of two phases for the platform over the Vanderbilt Yard is expected to take three years. That's between Atlantic Avenue and Pacific Street, and Sixth and Carlton Avenues, the western half of the railyard.

The second phase— again between Atlantic Avenue and Pacific Street, then between Carlton and Vanderbilt avenues—should prove more challenging. The columns will have to be erected in the midst of a seven-track railyard, in contrast with the western block, which has only a passageway track.


Moreover, that eastern block needs a full platform, while the western block does not require full coverage, given that those "bump" parcels will be used for residential cellars, as shown in the screenshot above.
How massing on western block has changed
The documents also show how the topography of the western block apparently has caused two towers to shift closer to Atlantic Avenue than previously contemplated, or portrayed.
The design of t…