Does "Atlantic Yards Deal Pave Way for Pacific Park Towers"? Not quite. Financing questions run up against 2025 deadline for affordable housing.

An overenthusiastic newsletter headline from the real-estate industry publication The Real Deal, apparently reliant on the initial version of the article (see the URL and this tweet), claims "Atlantic Yards Deck Deal Paves Way for Pacific Park Towers." 

The article is now more prudently headlined Greenland, MTA reach deal for Atlantic Yards deck, but not 421a.

Indeed, The Real Deal reported yesterday that, based on statements at the 8/2/23 meeting of the Atlantic Yards Community Development Corporation (AY CDC), Greenland USA, which owns nearly all of the Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park project going forward, has resolved differences with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority over building the first phase of the platform over the Vanderbilt Yard, which would support three towers. (A second phase would support three more towers.)

Such differences were previously posited--unreliably--as the main stumbling block to building the platform over the working railyard.

Financing questions

However, without the 421-a tax break, the developer is wary of proceeding. Empire State Development (ESD), the state authority overseeing/shepherding Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park, later said it was considering a subsitute--an issue that, oddly enough, did not come up at the AY CDC meeting.

Meanwhile, the project faces a May 2025 deadline to deliver 876 (or 877) units of affordable housing, with no likelihood of that being met. That deadline, which comes with $2,000 a month fines, also generated much discussion at the AY CDC meeting, unmentioned by The Real Deal.

Whether that deadline will be upheld, and whether Greenland and New York State face other decision factors beyond 421-a, will be the subject of a longer article I have in preparation. Stay tuned.