How "Atlantic Yards" never quite disappeared from Pacific Park Brooklyn

Meeting agenda tomorrow

After Atlantic Yards in August 2014 was renamed Pacific Park by Greenland Forest City Partners, I filed a Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) request with Empire State Development (ESD), the state authority overseeing/shepherding the project.

I wanted to know, among other things, whether and how ESD was told of the plan to change the name and how the authority considered changing the name of the Atlantic Yards Project, which, after all, was enshrined in the Atlantic Yards Community Development Corporation, established just two months earlier.

The AY CDC page refers to the "Atlantic Yards Project," which now--as shown in the screenshot above right--is being implemented as Pacific Park Brooklyn.

I had earlier been told, "There are no plans to change the project name – and, yes, as you noted, there is historical precedent for building names differing from project names (e.g., Queens West)." That wasn't quite on point, given that this was a name change for the project as a whole.

A Forest City plea

The FOIL response didn't deliver much useful information, but the file included an 8/11/14 email from Ashley Cotton, then a top executive at original developer Forest City Ratner (FCR) in charge of community relations, to Nicole Jordan, then a counterpart at ESD.

In response to an email about the "ESD Atlantic Yards/FCR Pacific Park Quality of Life Meeting," Cotton responded, "Please don't use Atlantic Yards!"

That, it turns out, has been harder to implement than it seems--even some project supporters forget--and some form of the hybrid name persists, as shown in the screenshot up top, regarding the bi-monthly Quality of Life meeting tomorrow. (I often use the hybrid name Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park and many people with long experience still use Atlantic Yards.)

Meanwhile, the personnel implementing the project continue to evolve. Both Cotton and Jordan have new jobs, and are no longer officially associated with Atlantic Yards, or Pacific Park. (Cotton's new firm, L&L MAG, did have a lobbying contract, but that expired.)