Transparency fail: why, in a June 2024 discussion about Site 5, did Empire State Development officials not disclose changes they'd already backed in 2021?

I recently rewatched the video (below), of the June 25 meeting of the advisory Atlantic Yards Community Development Corporation (AY CDC) with the benefit of hindsight, and was flabbergasted by the gulf between a body set up for oversight and an essentially unaccountable state authority.

In other words, the discussion about the future of Site 5, the parcel catercorner to the arena across Flatbush Avenue long home to the big-box stores P.C. Richard and the now-closed Modell's, should have been short-circuited by an acknowledgement that the future was essentially set. 

However, those who knew, executives at Empire State Development (ESD), the state authority that oversees/shepherds Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park, knew stayed silent.

 

I reported:

In a surprise, AY CDC Chair Daniel Kummer, displaying an unusual amount of personal conviction, steered the conversation to developing Site 5...

After all, it's usually staff of the parent [ESD] who propose project changes.

As of then, we knew that while Site 5, approved in 2006 for a substantial 250-foot, 439,050-square foot building, had since 2015-16 been eyed by developer Greenland Forest City Partners, now Greenland USA, for a giant, two-tower project, at least if the bulk from the unbuilt flagship tower (B1, aka "Miss Brooklyn") were transferred across Flatbush Avenue.

2016 Site 5 developer's proposal

Kummer proposed that the AY CDC Directors ask ESD to have the developer propose a residential project on that site. 

That suggestion prompted a good amount of discussion and debate among the Directors--not ESD executives--about the timing, configuration, and affordability of the potential building(s) at Site 5, as well as the value to the arena operator of making the plaza permanent.

What was missing

Where did his suggestion come from? Kummer declined comment when I asked him about the genesis of the proposal. 

What now seems clear is that he was acting in the dark, as were his AY CDC colleagues, because Empire State Development in October 2021 had already signed an interim lease with Greenland USA regarding Site 5, supporting a larger two-tower project than had been proposed in 2015-16.

Yet the ESD representatives at the meeting kept mum.

The interim lease, crucially Exhibit K, did not become public until I wrote about it August 1 and, later, AY CDC Director Gib Veconi discussed it publicly. We separately filed Freedom of Information Law requests that delivered documents that should've been made public earlier.

Last month, ESD even made the full Interim Lease public.

New plans

Not only did ESD agree to eliminate the flagship tower and and associated Urban Room atrium and to make the plaza permanent, it agreed to allow 1.242 million square feet of bulk at Site 5, and towers rising as high as 450' and 910'.

Beyond that, while adding bulk, they agreed to support a loading dock on narrow Pacific Street, across from row houses, to include a 550-room hotel, and to eliminate the parking requirement--perhaps at odds with running a hotel.

A "dynamic LED sign" would be allowed, potentially helping transform the crossroads into more of a Times Square, building on the layers of signage across Flatbush Avenue at the arena block.

Moreover, the below-grade retail would not count toward the building's overall square footage--another gift.

All this is highly contestable, and deserves further discussion, rather than pre-ratification by ESD, which has committed to support such changes through a public review process, culminating in a vote by the gubernatorially controlled ESD board.

But no one said a peep. No one produced a document like the image below, which I later commissioned from designer Ben Keel.

Unofficial rendering

Pending questions

How exactly, as Veconi later put it, can the AY CDC fulfill its role if ESD won't disclose what it's already done?

Such things all require environmental review under state rules, "but these were all agreed without environmental review," he observed in August, suggesting that, despite that expected future public process, the developers "would probably" consider the promises binding.

He asked ESD if Exhibit K was binding. Could the lease be amended for less density or other commitments?

"That document," responded ESD's Joel Kolkmann, Senior Vice President, Real Estate, "says that ESD would endeavor to move forward with a public approval process for that."

Yes, it could be changed, at the margins, but it's a significant step.

What candor does ESD owe the public?  What candor does ESD owe the body that's supposed to advise it?

The answer, apparently, is not very much.