The bid for Amazon in Brooklyn offered two Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park sites, plus towers over Atlantic Center mall

Via NYC EDC

Sure, the most notable thing in my article yesterday for The Bridge: Amazon in Brooklyn: Why the Bid Didn’t Quite Measure Up, was that dramatic (and fanciful) illustration of the Amazon sign on top of the former Watchtower building, now called Panorama.

And there are other interesting comparisons between the Brooklyn bid and the Long Island City offering, with better logistics and lower costs.

The Atlantic Yards angle

But, yes, Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park was part of it, with two sites offered as potential office towers. One was the B4 site at the arena's northeast flank, now planned as space for 810 apartments. See DT 10 in the graphic below. It says 830,000 square feet.

The other was Site 5, currently home to P.C. Richard and Modell’s parcel, slated for a larger development, assuming the state permits the shift of bulk of the never-built tower approved for the Barclays Center plaza across the street. See DT 13 in the graphic below, with 1.14 million square feet, likely in two towers.

But the bid also offered the Bank of New York Tower over the Atlantic Terminal mall; see DT 11 in the graphic at left.

The Atlantic Center angle

Most curiously, it also disclosed ambitious plans to build towers over the Atlantic Center mall, which were long planned by original Atlantic Yards developer Forest City Ratner, later known as Forest City New York.

(Forest City is listed as the owner/developer on the chart below, though it sold both the Atlantic Center and Atlantic Terminal malls late last year, after the bid was prepared.)

The chart below is a little confusing. It describes two sites at Atlantic Center, DT 9 with 990,000 sq. ft. and DT 14, with 1.84 million sq. ft.

It's hard to believe the latter doesn't mean two towers. After all, when Forest City was floating plans for what was called the Atlantic Center overbuild, designed by original architect Frank Gehry, there were to be three towers over the mall, as shown in the photo at right of a model. (Annotation: NoLandGrab.)

But did the Atlantic Center overbuild involve 2.83 million square feet? That's huge.

A Memorandum of Understanding signed 2/8/05 regarding this site gave Forest City a little under 1.6 million buildable square feet at Atlantic Center--and more than 300,000 square feet less if there was to be a building at Site 5. Perhaps that has been modified?

Looking at the chart

Note that all four sites--the two in Pacific Park and the two over the Atlantic Center mall--are listed as 590 Atlantic Avenue (the Site 5 address) in the chart below.

The full map of Brooklyn sites offered

The Brooklyn Tech Triangle offered a range of sites, but not many major clusters