Greenland Group chairman reportedly says Atlantic Yards would take eight years to finish; Forest City remains mum re curious pledge

The Wall Street Journal reports:

The Chinese investors buying into Brooklyn’s giant Atlantic Yards apartment project has an ambitious timeline to complete the $5 billion development.
Zhang Yuliang, chairman of state-owned Greenland Holding Group, told reporters in Shanghai last week that he expected the development would take about eight years to complete. Greenland last month signed a memorandum of understanding with developer Forest City Ratner Cos. to buy and fund 70% of Atlantic Yards’ remaining development, although details are still being negotiated.
“We have development funds, development expertise and experience and an enormous customer base,” and Forest City has the local execution capability, Mr. Zhang said. A Forest City spokesman declined to comment on the timeline, saying the company was excited about the partnership with Greenland.

I have to think either something is lost in the translation, and/or Zhang has become afflicted with the kind of timeline hyperbole previously practiced by Bruce Ratner and Jim Stuckey, perhaps for his own business reasons. 

After all, state contracts give Forest City until 2035 to finish the project.

Or, perhaps, a professed faster schedule is part of the strategy for the pending Supplementary Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS), in which the state must evaluate the potential impacts of an extended buildout, as well as whether development sites should be bid out to other developers.