Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park Report

Well, the presence of a team store at the Barclays Center's Flatbush Avenue flank helped kill Triangle Sports across Flatbush, which had long occupied a small building across the street. (That building is still waiting for its transformation into something more than a billboard.) But the team store, now called Brooklyn Fanatics, focuses on branded merchandise, often quite costly. So that leaves an opening for Nike to open a new store, presumably selling a broader array of sporting goods, at the Atlantic Center mall across Atlantic Avenue from the arena's north flank, as shown in the photo below. According to this recruiter's LinkedIn  post , Nike seven months ago started recruiting a store manager. so maybe they're pretty close. After all, the sign says: "Coming Soon."

On Dec. 31, a day after I published (thanks to BK Reader) news that work on the long-delayed "Pacific Park Project Phase II – Combined Sewer Installation and Water Main Replacement on Dean Street between 6th Avenue and Vanderbilt Avenue" was expected to start in 2025, well, the New York City Department of Design and Construction circulated a notice stating such work would start on or about Jan. 6. The work will begin at the intersection of Dean Street and Sixth Avenue, and move east on Sixth to Vanderbilt Avenue, then turn up Vanderbilt. No timetable was announced, though, as I reported , the work was supposed to start in October 2022 and take 36 months. What's unclear is what impact it will have on traffic and other activity on busy Dean Street. Shouldn't that be raised at the next Atlantic Yards Quality of Life meeting? Residents with concerns and questions can contact Ian Thornell, Community Construction Liaison for the NYC Department of Design and Construction.  T...

Barclays Center block, Dec. 30, 2024 In my 2024 preview ( link ), I suggested that the year would be one of uncertainty--given the foreclosure process for six railyard tower sites, and inevitable renegotiation over project terms--with the possibility of big swings. Well, as I wrote in my preliminary year-end roundup , in my Substack newsletter ( sign up! ), there was no new construction, but it was a big year.  A new joint venture, involving Hudson Yards developer Related Companies, emerged, poised to take over those six valuable sites, which require an expensive deck over the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's Vanderbilt Yard, but nothing moved forward formally. Thus no tower construction nor construction of the railyard platform started. Nor do we know future project terms, though it's obvious that the May 2025 deadline to build 876 more affordable units won't be met. So a renegotiation is inevitable. Indeed, the contours of a new project plan emerged not thanks to a...