Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park Report

Last week Bloomberg published a predictably reverential article, With the New York Liberty, Clara Wu Tsai Aims for the First $1 Billion Women’s Sports Franchise , which repeats the lore about the Tsais' (Clara and husband Joe Tsai, the Alibaba billionaire) savvy willingness to spend big, beyond the WNBA's salary cap, to make it a magnet for stars, and rebuild the fan base. The article also states, "They also bought the Nets’ home arena, the Barclays Center." Not quite. They own the operating company. The fig leaf of public ownership allows for a tax-exempt site and tax-exempt financing. Hotels and restaurants to help Brooklyn? From the article: Through the Liberty and Nets’ parent company, BSE Global , meanwhile, the Tsais are planning a major development initiative in the traffic-clogged area around Barclays. Adding hotels and restaurants, Wu Tsai says, will help draw more fans for the Liberty and Nets while also benefiting Brooklyn more broadly: Only a fraction of ...

Emerging Developer Cirrus Seeks Tax Abatement, New Funding, & (More?) Entitlements for Railyard Sites ( link ) When will details of request for concessions emerge? What public benefits? Lobby report cites Empire State Development, local elected officials, and even Attorney General James.

Well, as the Atlantic Yards mantra ( link ) goes, "it's a very tight fit." The placement of a dog run (in two parts, one for small dogs, another for large ones), with little effort to tamp down noise, close to a residential building (B13, 595 Dean West Tower) with a glass-and-metal facade, has led to conflict that's difficult to resolve. Looking east toward 595 Dean west tower. Photo: May 8. All photos by Norman Oder After some residents complained about disruptive dog barking, the Pacific Park Conservancy, which manages the 2.7 acres of open space on the southeast block of Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park, last November reduced the dog run's open hours to 7 am to 6 pm Oct. 1 through April 30, and 6 am to 8:30 pm May 1 through Sept 30. That left dog owners frustrated with overcrowding and the Conservancy's failure to recognize their needs during after-work hours. And it doesn't necessarily relieve the noise problem.  Photo: March 27 Pushing back A letter to t...

In November 2023, the creditors in charge of two loans--from immigrant investors under the EB-5 investor visa program--to Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park developer Greenland USA, with about $286 million outstanding, began foreclosure proceedings. Since then, the project has been stalled, because the creditors--and it's a complicated transaction (see flowchart below and my article here )--have to form a joint venture to develop the six railyard development sites offered as collateral. That joint venture has to qualify as a "permitted developer," involving a developer or construction manager with ten years of experience on large projects or--a possible loophole--an entity acceptable to Empire State Development (ESD), the state authority that oversees/shepherds the project. Beyond that, any such joint venture--and Hudson Yards developer Related Companies was interested, until it wasn't--must negotiate with ESD and, perhaps, New York City, on the potential contours of and sub...

So, there's a deadline today that nobody seems to take seriously. And the penalties aren't meaningful. As I've written , there's a May 12 deadline to start the platform over the Vanderbilt Yard, necessary to construct six towers. It hasn't started. (It's two blocks, so it would be at least a two-phase process.) So, what does Empire State Development (ESD), the state authority that oversees/shepherds the project, think? I sent a query and got this response: The Development Agreement specifies that the Platform construction commence within 15 years of the “Project Effective Date”, subject to any unavoidable delays. 15 years from the Project Effective Date is on or about May 12, 2025. If the deadline is not met, the remedy available to ESD under the Project documents is to prevent the Developer from severing any parcels from the Development Agreement until platform constructing commences. Indeed, the penalty isn't so meaningful, though it could be construed a...

Weekly Digest: Cuomo Points to Atlantic Yards Boost. Maybe Adams, Too. ( link )  As the affordable housing deadline approaches, will Cirrus-plus-unions deal surface? Also, I argue: public campaign financing should trigger public support for journalism.

I wrote yesterday ( link ) about how a new project for 395 Flatbush Avenue extension just might signal, among other things, support for towers over the Atlantic Center mall someday. If so, then the view in the photo below, taken from Fort Greene Place and Hanson Place, would change, and the 18 Sixth Ave. (B4, aka Brooklyn Crossing) tower top left might not be visible. Photo May 8 by Norman Oder

395 Flatbush, with supertall Brooklyn Tower in the background. Image via Crain's NY Business  The announcement May 7 by Mayor Eric Adams of a 72-story, mostly residential tower at 395 Flatbush Avenue Extension, between Fulton Street and DeKalb Avenue, does not just regard governmental support for the second tallest--and, surely, bulkiest--building in Brooklyn, at 840 feet (with bulkhead) and 1,544,875 square feet. The 395 Flatbush plan, over the DeKalb Avenue subway stop opposite the iconic restaurant Junior's and the Brooklyn Paramount/LIU, also has implications for Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park and environs, I suspect. It would deliver 1,263 apartments, of which 253 (20%) to 379 (30%) would be designated as permanently affordable under the city's Mandatory Inclusionary Housing  program. The developers are Rabina and Park Tower Group. Under 30% affordability, the units would be affordable to households averaging 80% of Area Median Income (AMI), under current gui...

In New York, Public Campaign Finance Has a Blind Spot ( link ) If city and state taxpayers fund candidates’ public relations efforts, shouldn’t we pay for some journalism?

The latest Chinese-language annual audit ( link ) from Shanghai-based Greenland Holdings Group, the parent of troubled Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park developer Greenland USA, offers little clarity on the future of the project. Surprisingly, though, it suggests that Greenland might have some chance to retain the six railyard development sites (B5-B10) facing foreclosure since November 2023. The passage at right states, in machine translation:  2. Among the current long-term loans of American Commercial Holdings (Pacific Park Project in New York), the EB-5 loans to AYB Funding 100, LLC and AYB Funding 200, LLC will expire on June 30, 2023 (a total of US$285 million, worth RMB 2 billion), and the loan collateral is the platform land and B5-B10 development rights. The lender officially launched the asset disposal procedure in January 2024. After continuous negotiations between the Group and the lender, the lender has continuously postponed the auction process, with the latest postponement...

Would "Mayor" Cuomo Boost Potential Cirrus Deal for Atlantic Yards? ( link ) Candidate backs construction union partnership with "mission-driven" (?) Cirrus Real Estate, which has wider union support for "workforce housing" in Pacific Park plan. I connect some dots.

Bi-Weekly Digest: What Walking Around the Project Site Might Show ( link ) First phase of an assessment of project buildings, plus changes on Fifth Avenue and Dean Street. Area Median Income keeps rising.

It's no surprise that religious properties near major development sites have become more valuable as real estate than (non-landmarked) historic resources. Remember, the gothic, stone 1866 Episcopal Church of the Redeemer, across Fourth Avenue catercorner to P.C. Richard, in 2014  reaped  $20 million in teardown value,  enabling  a 12-story condo.  That seems a relative bargain, given that the 515 Dean Street building most recently home to Temple of Restoration --on the mostly low-rise block sandwiched by Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park towers at or across each end--sold last year for $5.6 million, and it won't be a complete teardown. Temple of Restoration bottom right, with Atlantic Yards towers in background (l.-r.): 461 Dean (B2), 38 Sixth (B3), 662 Pacific (B15), and 18 Sixth (B4). Photo: Norman Oder Rather, as Brownstoner reported April 1,  Historic Prospect Heights Church Could Become Condos : Spanish public company  Urban View  ha...

Photo: April 2024 Franchises Creeping Along Fifth Avenue Take Flavor Out of Park Slope, Residents and Merchants Say , the BKReader reported April 5, 2024 with the subheading, "Bye bye, Miss American Pie! The homey, community feel of Fifth Avenue near Barclays Center is disappearing." That's a little hard to take seriously.  Sure, there's been a franchise creep, at least along the immediate blocks, with Chip City, Insomnia Cookies, and Cinnabon/Carvel all arriving recently. Shake Shack and Chick-fil-A opened years ago around the corner on Flatbush Avenue.  The BKReader quotee the North Flatbush Business Improvement District as stating that 40% of businesses along Flatbush Avenue between Atlantic and Eighth Avenues are new since 2020, including several chains. Well, that's understandable on such a heavily-trafficked street. Photo: April 2024 But there are counter-examples.  Omakase, weed, and bars On Fifth, there's also been, for example, an "omakase creep,...