Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park Report

According to its latest financial report, the Barclays Center is finally making a moderate profit: $15.5 million, at least by my alternative calculation, though the arena operating company still declares significant--if dubious--losses for tax purposes.  For the first time in his ownership, billionaire Joe Tsai did not need to supply capital or draw on a reserve fund to bolster operating finances.  Still, subsequent to the June 30, 2024 end of the fiscal year, "a parent company" supplied $51 million "to fund ongoing capital projects at the Arena and support the Company’s operations," according to the report. It's possible large portion of that went to convert 30 suites (of 87) for club-like spaces called The Row and The Key, accommodating a total of 436 seats. Note that in late June--and perhaps formalized in the new fiscal year--the family of billionaire Julia Koch, widow of the businessman and notorious right-wing funder David Koch, paid $688 million for a 1...

Weekly Digest: An Interim Plan for the Closed Modell's Opposite the Arena ( link ) A youth basketball center? Also, no big news yet regarding the project's future. But stay tuned.

I wrote May 4 ( link ) that the 461 Dean (B2) tower was finally filling its second and last retail space, just next to the secondary entrance to the Barclays Center, with the juice bar Pure Green, which also sells smoothies and bowls. The opening , apparently Sept. 14 (according to a Google review), is more than seven years (!) after the building opened to residential tenants. Just to the west, at the corner of Flatbush Avenue and Dean Street, the first (and larger) retail space was leased to Just Salad by late 2022. The first Yelp review was Jan. 13, 2023. It's unclear why this all took so long, but it could be the landlord's desire to get both high rents and lower-risk "credit tenants." Original developer Forest City Ratner in March 2018 sold 461 Dean to Principal Global Investors. It's also possible that the location, sometimes blocked by lines of arena ticketholders, might have deterred some tenants. But Pure Green may see it as an opportunity.  

Goodbye WeBull, hello GetYourGuide--and maybe also some Brooklyn travel synergy. Just five minutes after Sportico yesterday posted an exclusive based on the press release, the Brooklyn Nets announced that the "Global online travel experience platform" GetYourGuide, based in Berlin, would become the team's Official Jersey Patch Partner. Unmentioned: GetYourGuide also has become a platform to sell Nets tickets, as shown in the image below. Not a record No deal price was announced, but it's surely less than the reported record $30 million a year paid by the trading platform WeBull in 2021, when the Nets had a superstar trio and were slated to be on national television a lot. After all, the Nets are in a tank year, and rebuilding, hoping for a top draft pick. “The most important element in our search for a new jersey patch partner was a brand with shared values, and we have found that in GetYourGuide,” said Catherine Carlson, Executive Vice President of Global Partners...

With the New York Liberty having advanced into the semi-finals of the WNBA playoff, they face last year's champion, the Las Vegas Aces, in a best-of-five series. The first game is tomorrow at 3 pm. (Tickets, with service fees, start at $79.40 for two seats.) The second game is Tuesday, Oct. 1, at 7:30 pm. The fifth game , if necessary, will be Tuesday, Oct. 8, with the time not yet set. Promotions on the plaza Meanwhile, ahead of today's two monster truck shows, the arena yesterday again used Ticketmaster Plaza for a promotion. The one of a kind @nyliberty & @brooklynnets monster truck returns today ahead of tomorrow’s 2 Hot Wheels Monster Truck Live shows! Meet the drivers today and take photos on Barclays Center Ticketmaster Plaza at 1-4PM!🔥🔥🔥 pic.twitter.com/TmtrGPWiNj — Barclays Center (@barclayscenter) September 27, 2024 That was not listed on the calendar circulated to neighbors, though an initial "activation" was listed earlier in the month. Also ...

This is the first of five articles about the Sept. 26 meeting of the advisory Atlantic Yards Community Development Corporation (AY CDC).   The  second  concerned the expected entry of Related Companies and the obligations for affordable housing.  The  third  concerned plans for a giant, two-tower project at Site 5.  The  fourth  concerned the plan to make the arena plaza permanent. The fifth concerned plans for a Quality of Life meeting. No, there was no big news about the project's future, as I unwisely anticipated . A new developer for much of the project has not yet emerged, but that's in progress. I'll write more about shortly. The AY CDC Directors were told about a proposal, from arena operator BSE Global, to temporarily use the former Modell's Sporting Goods store, at Site 5 opposite the arena, for the their youth basketball program, Brooklyn Basketball, which involves summer camps and after-school clinics. The proposal, which also in...

Well, the Board Materials (bottom) for today's meeting of the (purportedly) advisory Atlantic Yards Community Development Corporation (AY CDC) have been posted and, as is typical, they're not very illuminating. Beyond the previously noted Agenda , typical in its opacity ("Updates and Follow-Ups"!), the Board Materials otherwise contain minutes from last month's meeting. Surely, however, the meeting will include discussion of the expected entry of Related Companies into a joint venture to develop six railyard sites.  (Will they discuss Related's apparent record of not paying back EB-5 investors? Will they recognize that if Greenland USA, which is losing those six sites to foreclosure, had structured its EB-5 financing more cleverly, they might have just held onto the money?) More changes: Site 5 Along with that, expect discussion of Exhibit K , a document in which Empire State Development (ESD), the state authority that oversees/shepherds the project, has app...

Related CEO Jeff Blau sues to stop harassment by EB-5 investors , the Real Deal reported yesterday, with the subheading "Blau says his family is being threatened by protesters outside their Upper East Side residence." The lawsuit  describes some indefensible behavior, disavowed by other investors, and, if corroborated, worthy of some sanction. Still, it--and the Real Deal's article--downplay the triggering issue, in which Related gained $500,000 each from more than 2,000 Chinese investors under the EB-5 investor visa program starting in 2014 and apparently has paid little of the money back. (The first article, as noted by Bisnow, was in the subscription-only site PincusCo, with the more precise headline Related’s Jeff Blau accuses frustrated EB-5 investors of aggressive harassment .) That kind of business practice, though apparently legal thanks to a contractual structure that advantages a sophisticated party (Related) against some far less sophisticated people (the Ch...

Could NY State Leverage Naming Rights to Get Tsai (and Koch) to Pay Up? ( link ) Empire State Development could end the Barclays Center sponsorship. (Shh--the bank's a felon.) It might even be a win-win.

As I anticipated (see link ), the Agenda for Thursday's meeting of the Atlantic Yards Community Development Corporation, as shown at right, is notably uninformative, with the item "Updates and Follow-Ups" potentially covering a significant range of key information. That likely includes pending negotiations by the parent Empire State Development (ESD), the state authority that oversees/shepherds the project, with Related Companies, which seeks to develop six railyard sites in foreclosure. When Board Materials are posted here , we might get more of a clue, but often they just include past meeting Minutes. Note that the Agenda for the meeting last month did say "Platform Site Update," likely involving the incoming role of Related (and possible concessions), but that was in Executive Session. What else? Beyond the massive issue of the six development sites over the railyard, other follow-ups might surface. What about Site 5, catercorner to the arena plaza? ESD seem...

Weekly Digest: Related Ramps Up Lobbying; Atlantic Yards Advisory Board Set to Meet ( link ) Will the Atlantic Yards Community Development Corp. learn any more about the future of the project?

How about that: with less than a week's notice, Empire State Development yesterday at 5:10 pm circulated a notice for a meeting Sept. 26 of the purportedly advisory Atlantic Yards Community Development Corporation (AY CDC). It did not, however, post an Agenda yet, and such Agendas are typically anodyne, with items like "Updates and Follow-Ups." That makes submitting public comments on Agenda items before the meeting an exercise in clairvoyance.  Also, the short notice gives the public little time to plan for the meeting. That said, for the first time in years, the meeting will be held in Brooklyn, making it easier for the public to attend, assuming they're free on a weekday afternoon. What's on the Agenda? I'll write more when I learn more. Presumably they will be discussing the pending business deal involving Related Companies entering the project as partners with the U.S. Immigration Fund and Fortress Investment Group, which control--if not hold--the coll...

The Barclays Center has added two New York Liberty games to its September calendar ( link ): Sunday, Sept. 22, at 1 pm, and Tuesday, Sept. 24, at 7:30 pm. Given that the Liberty are the top seed against the 8th-seeded Atlantic Dream, they're a good bet to win two games at home in the best-of-three series, and to stay home for the semi-finals, which, like the finals, are best-of-five. The first semi-finals game will be Sunday, Sept. 29, and the second will be Tuesday, Oct. 1. The Liberty lost in the finals last year to the Las Vegas Aces.

While Yelp ( link ) reports the drive-through McDonald's at Vanderbilt Avenue and Atlantic Avenue as closed, and Google ( link ) no longer says "temporarily closed," the fast-food restaurant has reopened. It was closed for an interior renovation, estimated to cost $60,000, to "relocate/install new front counter registers, kiosks, partitions, menu boards, and related finishes," according to Department of Buildings records. There's a clear emphasis on self-service, as shown in the photo at right, and at bottom.  Long-running lawsuit The investment, though it's likely to be recouped in the short term, is a sign that the federal lawsuit McDonald's filed in 2019 against its landlord, Vanderbilt Atlantic Holdings, isn't close to being settled.  As I wrote last October, the landlord's request for summary judgment--a full decision in their favor without a trial--on its claim that McDonald's failed to follow contractual rules for setting a new re...

A Sept. 16 New York Times article,  In New York Case, Signs of a Familiar China Playbook , described how various members of the Chinese diaspora are under suspicion for political interference in Western democracies, include a former New York gubernatorial aide, Linda Sun. Such efforts are very different than seeking industrial or technological secrets. From the article: What Ms. Sun is accused of doing is part of a different side of Chinese intelligence work — one that is focused on influencing political discourse so that it leans more favorably toward China’s positions on contentious issues like the status of Taiwan, the self-governing island claimed by Beijing, or the repression of China’s ethnic Uyghur minority. Wait a sec: isn't that what Joe Tsai (Taiwanese-Canadian, but his billions come from the Chinese giant Alibaba), who owns the Brooklyn Nets, New York Liberty, and the Barclays Center operating company, does too, more or less, without being accused of taking bribes? Tsai...

I don't get these reports as often as I used to, but I don't think it's because Barclays Center is today consistently calm after events. It's just that fewer people report it. But an arena neighbor sent me a couple of videos shot early this morning, at about 12:45 am, after the Sexyy Red show ( calendar ) had ended at the arena. As the first video shows, the number of garbage cans (few) was not enough for the plastic cups and garbage strewn on the arena plaza, sponsored by Ticketmaster. If the arena doesn't have a late-shift cleanup crew--and it didn't look like it--well, presumably that was cleared by this morning. Around the corner As the video below shows, there was some impromptu vending along Flatbush Avenue. As has been obvious, unlicensed vendors (and scalpers) operate regularly outside the arena for all kinds of events, from concerts to family shows to basketball games. That's not (regularly) enforced, just as numerous traffic violatio...

On July 2, The Real Deal had a scoop: Related in talks to take over Pacific Park megaproject . (My coverage .) The publication didn't have any other details other than that they had "learned" that Related Companies was seeking to build on the six railyard development sites facing foreclosure. No other news outlet followed with more details, but had we checked the state's lobbying database, as shown in the screenshot below, for the May/June period, the report , filed on July 12 , indicated that it had been lobbying two executives at Empire State Development (ESD), Arden Sokolow and Joel Kolkmann, as well as the authority's CEO, Hope Knight. ESD oversees/shepherds Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park, and is likely being asked to renegotiate the May 2025 deadline for affordable housing, as well as the scale of the project--both proposals floated last year by the current (though fading) master developer, Greenland USA. Note: in its March/April lobbying report , Related did n...

Weekly Digest: In Philadelphia Arena Analysis, Misreading Brooklyn ( link ) Also: landlord Avanath, after I wrote about "absurdly priced" rents at "100% affordable" buildings, reverts to what city documents seem to require.

The September 2024 calendar ( link ) circulated by the Barclays Center to neighbors should be updated. According to the arena, an additional concert was added for the month of September, based on a belatedly announced tour . DATE EVENT DOORS OPEN EVENT BEGINS EVENT ENDS MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 16, 2024 LINKIN PARK 6:30PM 7:30PM   11:30PM The original total was 18 ticketed events: twelve concerts, four WNBA New York Liberty games, and two Hot Wheels Monster Trucks Live Glow Parties. Now there are 13 concerts and 19 ticketed events. Additionally, two home playoff games for the New York Liberty, seeded first in the WNBA, should be added for the last week of the month, once an opponent is determined. The tickets, albeit without a date or opponent, are already on sale .