Times offers vague update on B5: Greenland is working with Dattner Architects, hopes to begin platform this year

A New York Times Sunday Real Estate section (3/29/20) round-up article posted today and headlined Living Near Train Tracks, with the subheading "Thanks to new window technology, there’s no such thing as the wrong side of the tracks," has a little Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park tidbit:

In Brooklyn, the 22-acre Pacific Park development in Prospect Heights was first announced in 2003, when it was called Atlantic Yards. Four residential projects are up and running next to the rail yards, and two more are under construction.
The major developer, Greenland Forest City Partners, hopes to begin construction of the five-acre platform over the train yard this year and is working with Dattner Architects on a design for 680 Atlantic Avenue, the first project to be built on it.

To be precise, only two of the four residential towers are adjacent to the Vanderbilt Yard: B11 (550 Vanderbilt Avenue) and B14 (535 Carlton Avenue).

B2 (461 Dean Street) is a good distance away--it flanks the Barclays Center, part of which is built below-grade in what was once the railyard--and B3 (38 Sixth Avenue) is catercorner to the railyard.

Click to enlarge

We know Dattner Architects was working on the B5 tower--just east of Sixth Avenue, the first tower over the railyard between Pacific Street and Atlantic Avenue--because it last year was credited with design changes to accommodate site constraints.

But we didn't know the 680 Atlantic Avenue address.

We did know that Greenland Forest City Partners, dominated by Greenland USA, aimed to start construction of the platform this year.

However, that's still pretty vague. The Times didn't press them on any details regarding the start date and the elapsed time for construction of the platform, or whether the tower could start after a segment of the first block's platform was completed, or whether that entire block-long platform had to be completed.

Timing questions

Annotations, plus columns
 citing Total Time and W/o
Foundation, by Norman Oder.
 Click to enlarge.

As I reported last November, a document sent to potential bidders stated that groundbreaking was targeted for "early 2020," with "substantial completion targeted for December 2022." That schedule was obviously not being met as of early 2020, and the impacts from coronavirus provide another reason to expect delays.

It did not state whether tower construction could begin before the entire first phase of the platform was completed, though a document prepared for a lender (see at left) indicated that the platform over the first railyard block, Block 1120, could proceed in two phases, with one devoted solely to the B5 tower.

Five acres

We had not been told the two-block platform would cover five acres, but that's a plausible figure, and certainly less than overall acreage of Blocks 1120 and 1121, the two "railyard blocks," given that Block 1120 has a decent portion of terra firma jutting south from Atlantic Avenue, as shown in the photo at right.

Looking west from Carlton Avenue toward block 1120

It surely means that the second phase/block of the platform--timing unknown--would cover more acreage than the first phase/block.

Program questions

By the way, B5/680 Atlantic would be a substantial building, up to 397 feet tall and with 635,443 square feet.

As of September 2019, the building was to contain 650 units, with 325 (50%) affordable, as I reported this past January. That seemed unrealistic, at least if they want to meet the 2025 deadline.

As shown in the annotated document below, as of last year they were planning to include units from B8--over the second railyard block--in the total, but that seems unrealistic. However, those units could be made up, significantly, by more planned units in B12 and B13.

However, if they don't build all three towers (B5, B6, B7) over the first railyard block in time, they'd have to make one of those towers--B5, most likely--100% affordable, rather than 50% affordable.

Annotations added