Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park Report

Despite assertions by Forest City Ratner officials that “all of Atlantic Yards... will be built," the State Funding Agreement , which the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) quietly released last month, gives the developer 6+ years to build the arena, 12+ years to build the five towers in Phase 1, and an unspecified amount of time to build the 11 towers in Phase 2.  A look at the previously-unreleased City Funding Agreement signed last September shows the developer has an even gentler deal: modest penalties for delay, plus allowance for a much smaller Phase 1 than that outlined in the General Project Plan passed by the ESDC in December 2006.   (I obtained the City Funding Agreement from the New York City Economic Development Corporation, or NYCEDC, via a Freedom of Information Law request.) The City Funding Agreement involves NYCEDC and ESDC, while the state agreement involves ESDC and the developer. There's considerable overlap between them. (Click on all grap...

On the front page of the 5/14/04 New York Daily News, the headline proclaimed "BONANZA." The headline on page 5 was no less breathless: "FOR THESE CONDO OWNERS, B'KLYN NETS ARENA DEAL IS . . . SLAM DUNK; RESIDENTS GET A COOL MIL TO GET OUT OF RATNER'S WAY." Now that we know that taxpayers will pay for nearly all the private property developer Forest City Ratner purchased in the arena block, including the building pictured, it's worth looking back at the article and, with hindsight, revising selected paragraphs. It would have been a different kind of scoop. Some revisions Real estate tycoon Bruce Ratner is showing Brooklyn homeowners the money. Revised: Real estate tycoon Bruce Ratner is showing Brooklyn homeowners taxpayers’ money. He's turning residents of one building into instant millionaires so they'll go quietly - letting him knock down their homes to make way for his controversial $2.5 billion Nets arena and housing complex. Revised: Taxpa...

Yes, the "news" (as hinted by the New York Observer) from the fairly gentle profile NY1 ran last night of Bruce Ratner is that the Atlantic Yards developer is talking populism, not Gehry-ism: “We need jobs, we need shopping that's appropriate and the right price and quality goods, we need supermarkets that provide food that is of quality and well-priced, we need housing, and you know what? The architecture is important, but it's not that important,” says Ratner. "I want to do great architecture, but I have to say something, which is that, if one is going to boil life down to architecture, then you know what? It's not for me,” he adds. Pending estrangement? Interviewer Budd Mishkin, host of the "One On 1" series, didn't raise the suggestion, but to me it hinted as a potential estrangement from Frank Gehry. (Gehry's not mentioned at all in the piece, though models of his buildings are evident and, of course, such video segments are edited.) A...

The failure of congestion pricing threw a bit of a wrench in the city's plans for Bus Rapid Transit (BRT), suggested as one solution to congestion on Flatbush Avenue, but now apparently several years away. Though Flatbush is an obvious candidate for such service--which would have a dedicated express lane, fewer stops, offsite payment and "honor system" entrance (subject to random check ), staggered stoplights, and back boarding, according to the city's pilot in the Bronx--another obvious candidate, Nostrand Avenue, was selected in 2006 for one-per-borough pilot project. It looks to be about four years away, however. (Here's the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's site on the service, though the map for a proposed Flatbush Avenue route, at right, is no longer available.) The PlaNYC 2030 Progress Report issued last week explains the fate of BRT, now dubbed Special Bus Service (SBS): The first SBS corridor, on Fordham Road in the Bronx, is set to begin s...

When PlaNYC 2030 was announced last April, I pointed out how Atlantic Yards was conspicuously absent as an example of how to build new housing, even though the plan promotes the identification of underutilized areas across the city that are well-served by transit and the exploration of opportunities to create new land by decking over rail yards, rail lines and highways. Given that the project remains high on the mayoral agenda, the omission was curious, I noted--though I'd add today that there is a built-in excuse; as a state project, the city can claim that it has no power over the rezoning. Gaps in the Progress Report The PlaNYC 2030 Progress Report issued last week also understandably leaves Atlantic Yards off the maps of city-initiated rezonings (above) and rezonings with inclusionary zoning (right). But both maps deserve some footnotes. The map at top shows a significant segment of west-central Brooklyn rezoned. The lighter-colored and irregular piece of that segment is the ...

While an April 14 panel consisting of community representatives and planners offered mild praise for and much skepticism toward Mayor Mike Bloomberg’s PlaNYC 2030 sustainability initiative, an April 23 discussion , sponsored by the NY Metro Chapter of the American Planning Association, was far more positive, though participants suggested several areas for improvement. NY Metro Chapter President Ethel Sheffer called it “this terrific initiative” and, indeed, there was generally positive reaction. The city released a PlaNYC progress report the day before. The press release stated 117 of 127 initiatives (93%) are in progress, and about 70 percent of PlaNYC initiatives can be accomplished by the mayoral administration, while the request require cooperation from other levels of government. “From turning our yellow and black cabs to green, beginning to plan the 8 regional parks that were never finished from the Robert Moses era, and planting more than 50,000 trees as part of our MillionTr...