Given that the flagship Atlantic Yards tower Miss Brooklyn has apparently been shifted from a mix of condos and office space to all office space (after being originally announced as office space), that could adjust two statistics that might make the project look better.
As I wrote February 27, the project's residential density would go down from 292 apartments/acre to 273 apartments/acre, still a high number but a 6.5% drop.
More importantly, an increase of more than 200,000 square feet of office space might be seen as significantly recouping the projected $456 million loss the Empire State Development Corporation calculated in December 2006 when 270,000 square feet of office space was cut.
Those dramatic numbers never fully made sense, so any future projection should be subject to more public vetting.
As I wrote February 27, the project's residential density would go down from 292 apartments/acre to 273 apartments/acre, still a high number but a 6.5% drop.
More importantly, an increase of more than 200,000 square feet of office space might be seen as significantly recouping the projected $456 million loss the Empire State Development Corporation calculated in December 2006 when 270,000 square feet of office space was cut.
Those dramatic numbers never fully made sense, so any future projection should be subject to more public vetting.
But wouldn’t you have to subtract out the acreage under Miss Brooklyn in order to know the units per residential acre? In which case the units per residential acre may have actually increased.
ReplyDeleteNow the counter to that is that there is an argument for looking at everything all together as a better working mixed-use project. The way to try and support that argument is to suggest that: 1.) a significant portion of the residents of the megadevelopment and perhaps people from the surrounding area will walk to work in Miss Brooklyn rather than riding the subway (a better bet if Miss Brooklyn were located in Manhattan), and 2.) Miss Brooklyn will generate reverse commute subway traffic which would be better than adding to the maxed out subway line capacities supporting the standard commutating patterns.
Of course, it is unfair that we should engage in rational thought about the possible slight mitigations which could be occurring with respect to the project when any rational thought and analysis leads to the unavoidable conclusion that the project is such a complete and utter disaster that it needs to be taken back to the drawing board and rethought and redesigned from square one (and ultimately done by multiple developers who have to bid for right and subsidy).
The other question I have about the restructuring of Miss Brooklyn is this: Doesn’t this mean that Ratner and company is ignoring the deal he made with Assembly leader Sheldon Silver when the megadevelopment went through the PACB and doesn’t this mean that the megadevelopment is not any longer the megadevelopment that the PACB once upon a time approved?