Latest six-month look-ahead from developer again offers boilerplate: "Platform construction may commence." But there's no proof it will proceed.

Master developer Greenland Forest City Partners (GFCP) still doesn't sound completely confident that work on the first phase of the platform over the MTA's Vanderbilt Yard, crucial to the construction of three towers, will start in the first half of this year.

That's according to the latest six-month look-ahead (bottom), covering the first half of 2023, that the master developer is supposed to file with Empire State Development (ESD), which oversees/shepherds the project. (I received the document via a Freedom of Information Law request.)

That document, dated 12/6/22, again says--as it did in four previous iterations--that "Platform construction may commence during the reporting period." The workforce would average 50 to 100 workers.

Previous to those documents, in the 5/6/20 memo covering the second half of 2020, GFCP pronounced, unwisely in retrospect, that "Platform construction will commence." It didn't. (This would be the first block of the two-block platform, between Sixth and Carlton avenues, the site of B5, B6, and B7.)

Toward realignment?

As I wrote in my 2022 wrap-up, the year was marked by false starts on the delayed platform and the B5 tower, with ESD unwilling to pursue transparency regarding the developer's plans. This new document, given its opacity, should prompt further questions, not acquiescence.

Hence my speculation, in my 2023 preview, that this year may involve realignment and renegotiation, given the rapidly approaching May 31, 2025 deadline to deliver the project's affordable housing, which seems impossible to meet, given that 876 (or 877) units remain to start. Surely the developer doesn't want to pay the required $2,000/month fines, 

At the southeast block

The new document describes no other work beyond that at the B12/B13 sites (595 Dean), which should open in the first half of the year, with 798 apartments, 240 "affordable" to middle-income households:

Work related to the completion of the interior fit out of the residential apartments will continue and complete during this reporting period. Work in the landscaping and open space areas surrounding these project sites will continue during this reporting period. Work related to the paving of the road bed in Dean Street and the reconstruction of the adjacent sidewalk will occur during this reporting period. It is anticipated that all work related to B12 and B13 will be completed during this reporting period.  

The workforce on the B12/ B13 site is expected to average between 250 to 400 workers.