Skip to main content

Featured Post

Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park infographics: what's built/what's coming/what's missing, who's responsible, + project FAQ/timeline (pinned post)

From the Response to Comments: B1/Site 5 impact will be disclosed, only if available and relevant

I've going through the Response to Comments document produced by Empire State Development to accompany the release last month of the Final Scope for a Supplementary Environmental Impact Statement. (The SEIS is coming in the spring.)

One comment regarded the unbuilt tower (B1, formerly Miss Brooklyn) planned for the site temporarily occupied by the plaza outside the Barclays Center.

And, it turns out, that building, though not expected to be built before the other towers on the arena block, falls in some kind of limbo, as does Site 5, the plot catercorner to B1 now occupied by P.C. Richard and Modell's.

The comment:
Comment 69: If it is built, B1 may be constructed at any point in the project’s construction phase. It is perched above the key transit entrance to the main entrance to the arena. What is the MPT [maintenance and protection of traffic] for the construction, what are its impacts? Please detail the construction of B1 and Site 5 over the course of the project’s development (Krashes, Brooklyn Speaks)
The response:
B1 and Site 5 are elements of Phase I of the Project. Accordingly, as with the other Phase I elements of the Project, the SEIS analysis will take into account the effects of the construction and operation of these buildings as background conditions in assessing the environmental impacts of Phase II of the Project, and will account for the possibility that there may be an overlap between the construction of certain Phase I elements and the Phase II construction. To the extent that information regarding construction of these buildings is available and relevant to the analysis, such information will be taken into account and disclosed in the SEIS.
(Emphases added)

That sounds ambiguous to me.

Those two buildings will be assessed as background conditions, but if they're not built, they can't be. And while information regarding construction of those buildings surely might be relevant, it won't be taken into account and disclosed unless it is "available." So it might not be available.

Comments