Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park Report

Beyond Height & Density, Key Questions About "Pacific Park" Open Space. ( link ) The Pacific Park Conservancy is an unaccountable phantom. Is the new joint venture even involved? Also, shouldn't the arena operator have to pay for a permanent plaza?

The first of four public workshops on the future of Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park is scheduled for Tuesday, November 18 from 6-8 pm, covering the demanding topics of Density, Affordability, and Open Space, as I've written . Yesterday we learned that the second public workshop--and the last one in-person--will be held on Monday Dec. 8 from 6-8 pm, covering Streetscape and Public Realm, Sustainability and Resiliency, Community Serving Retail and Facilities. That's a tight schedule, especially since the incoming master developer, a joint venture involving Cirrus Real Estate Partners and LCOR, have yet to reveal any plans for the site and Empire State Development (ESD), the state authority that oversees/shepherds the project, has only released limited information. While the first workshop will be held at the former Modell's site, now the Brooklyn Basketball Training Center, at 140 Flatbush Avenue across from the Barclays Center, the location for the second workshop is TBA. (The t...

Relative newcomers to Brooklyn usually don't know that, at least until early 2009, when the independent Brooklyn Paper was sold to Rupert Murdoch, presaging future sales until its current ownership by outer-borough behemoth Schneps Media, the publication punched above its weight. It reported skeptically, and in-depth, regarding Atlantic Yards, and its broadsheet print issues made a big splash, especially in Brownstone Brooklyn neighborhoods, before smartphone-based social media took off. Today, though, it's no surprise to see the Oct. 29 Brooklyn Paper puff piece headlined  Meet Laurie Jacoby, the woman behind Brooklyn’s biggest stage: Barclays Center : When the lights go down and the first notes of a concert echo through Barclays Center, there’s one person whose vision and passion have helped make that moment possible: Laurie Jacoby. As Chief Entertainment Officer for Brooklyn Sports & Entertainment, Jacoby oversees all programming and live events at the Barclays Center ...

Workshop on Height & Density Ignores Plan for Two Towers Across from Arena, Hints at New Configuration Over Railyard ( link ) While Nov. 18 session purports to solicit public input, state authority overseeing project already supports a giant project at Site 5. Blank map for railyard points to revision of six-tower plan.

Yesterday, with just two weeks' notice, Empire State Development (ESD), the state authority that oversees/shepherds the Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park, announced the first of four public workshops purportedly aimed to share the future of the project, given a new development team for the half-completed project. It will be held across the street from the Barclays Center on Tuesday, November 18, from 6-8 pm, at the Brooklyn Basketball Training Center, 140 Flatbush Avenue, in the former Modell's big-box store. Registration is  here . The meeting location, in fact, is part of Site 5 (with the currently occupied P.C. Richard), which is officially slated for a 250-foot, 440,000 square foot building, according to 2006 approvals, but has already gotten ESD support  for a giant, two-tower project, with one tower 910 feet and some 1.242 million square feet of bulk. (The Brooklyn Basketball Training Center is a temporary youth training facility run by BSE Global, parent of the Brooklyn Net...

The Murky Path to Cirrus's Control of the Remaining Project ( link ) Was the key element debt regarding the B1/Site 5 parcels, or advantageous contract language in the second EB-5 loan? What about the EB-5 middleman? The explanations don't fully make sense.

So, what about the three ballot proposals to speed the approvals of housing in the city? An easy call? After all, it's indisputable that the city--though it would be better to focus on the region, given the recalcitrant suburbs--needs more housing, especially affordable housing, and some Council Districts have been far more welcoming than others. It's easy to outsource conclusions to supporters (like the YES on Affordable Housing coalition, Errol Louis in NY Magazine, and the YIMBY group Abundance NY ), opponents (like the City Council , Village Preservation , and TenantsPac ). or to HellGate's more nuanced A Crash Course in the 3 Controversial Housing Ballot Proposals . I tried to look at the actual language, and it was... confounding. So here's Ballot Proposal 2, according to NYC Votes : What you'll see on the ballot Fast track publicly financed affordable housing . Fast track applications delivering affordable housing in the community districts that produce the...

The Barclays Center yesterday circulated its November 2025 event calendar to neighbors, citing 18 ticketed events in as many days. That includes seven Brooklyn Nets games, and 11 concerts. Also on the calendar: a New York Liberty Holiday Merch Shop, on Nov. 21, and six unspecified private events. The Nov. 10 private event appears to be a press conference to promote a January boxing championship bout.  The Nov. 14 private event is a celebration for the Just Brooklyn Prize of the Joe and Clara Tsai Foundation's Social Justice Fund.  The rest? Unclear. They could be small events, or large ones.  November 2024  The November 2024 event calendar  included 17 ticketed events in as many days. That includes six Brooklyn Nets games, nine concerts, and two nights of a college basketball tournament.   The calendar did not include a Nov. 9 concert, R&B Forever Tour , listed on the arena's web site. So there should be ten concerts, not nine, and a to...

It’s not too early to state that the Nets (0-5) are not just a bad team," wrote Substack columnist Steve Lichtenstein Oct. 30. "They are also acutely displeasing to a basketball purist’s eyes." The fan site NetsDaily suggested the Nets "may have one of worst defenses in NBA history." Meanwhile, as NetsDaily editor-in-chief Anthony Puccio observed , "Nets ticket prices seem high for a tanking team. $44 to get in the door; $100+ to sit in the 100s."  Still, the Nets sold out their first two home games, at the new capacity of 17,548 (from 17,732, to account for new entertainment space). Well, surely they want to put a decent team on the floor while aiming for a choice draft spot, but it's a "sports entertainment corporation" (to quote subsidy skeptic Bettina Damiani) first and foremost, so there are different reasons people might attend, including fans of other teams, tourists, and others seeking a basketball experience that, however not...

Forbes' new list of  America's Most Powerful Women in Sports includes two New York Liberty connections, another sign of the team's ascension. Its strategy was to discern categories—owners/investors, business executives, front office leaders, athletes and amplifiers—and then put them in a formula that assessed media mentions, revenue, and more, aiming to list five people per category and no more than two people from the same league in any category.  First among Amplifiers were: #9. Napheesa Collier and Breanna Stewart Cofounders, Unrivaled; Forward, Minnesota Lynx (Collier); Forward, New York Liberty (Stewart) On the court, Napheesa Collier and Breanna Stewart are among the best in the game: Collier was the runner-up in voting for the WNBA’s 2025 Most Valuable Player Award, and Stewart won the award in 2018 and 2023. Through Unrivaled, they’re changing the game altogether. Founded by the former UConn teammates in 2023, Unrivaled is a 3-on-3 league offering WNBA players an o...

Waiting for a New Plan. Lots of Big Questions. ( link ) The project is moving ahead, but we don't know the proposed scale, scope, affordability, and design, nor what public concessions the new development team will seek. A new deadline in the 2040s?

An article in THE CITY today, by contributor (and former Crain's New York Business editor and columnist, if you're wondering about any slant) Greg David,  Can Mamdani Make Union-Built Affordable Housing Add Up? , notes that Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani has avoided weighing in on three controversial ballot proposals because he doesn't want to tangle with construction unions, which oppose them. The issues are nuanced and complicated--I'll point to more of the debate in a separate post--but it is true that union labor pays higher wages, and union advocates would like the City Council to retain power, in part to ensure a union presence. Do higher wages make projects more costly? One argument for union labor is that it's higher quality, thus enabling faster, more effective construction. Here's the argument ventilated in the article, though: Anyone claiming that higher priced union workers makes the projects too costly is “a lying silly goose,” said Kevin...

Last week, BSE Global announced that the New York Liberty had added three new investors to the previous six announced in May, with all nine contributing to a valuation, as The Athletic reported, of $450 million. If the investment was in the "mid-teens" as a percentage, a 15% share would be $67.5 million. Divided nine ways, that's $7.5 million each, though it's likely that Alibaba founder Jack Ma, who was announced in May, is the lead investor, according to NetsDaily. He's the only man. The money will help build the Liberty's new $80 million practice facility in Greenpoint, due in 2027. As reported by NetsDaily, citing a BSE Global announcement, the investors are: Robin Roberts, co-anchor of ABC’s Good Morning America, who often gets to sit courtside with Clara Wu Tsai, who takes the lead with the Liberty while husband Joe Tsai takes the lead with the Brooklyn Nets Olivia Walton, wife of a grandson of the Wal-Mart founder, and chair of Crystal Bridges Museum ...

The Barclays Center's $100 million revamp, complete (as always) with sponsorships, continues, just in time for tonight's Brooklyn Nets home opener, with a new space for high rollers and another for all ticketholders. From a press release yesterday: The latest phase of renovations includes Gallagher Terrace, a premium membership club offering the arena’s only in-seat dining with waiter service, and Modelo® Bridge, an upper concourse fan zone created in partnership with the Official Cerveza of the Brooklyn Nets featuring the most expansive bar at Barclays Center - 67 feet in length - and accessible to all guests. Gallagher  is an insurance ande consulting company. The Mexico-based Modelo® is owned by Anheuser Busch outside the U.S. but here the Modelo brand is owned by Constellation Brands , as noted by Wikipedia. To quote NetsDaily: The five year plan began last year with the opening of three high-end restaurants, the Crown Club, Toki Row and JetBlue at the Key, the latter two...

Are Larger Market-Rate Apartments in Brooklyn Marine Terminal Plan Key to the 40% Affordability Promise? ( link ) Below-market apartments are smaller. So, they might occupy less than 40% of the square footage--at least if the city's placeholder assumption is borne out. Same for the revised Atlantic Yards?

Photos Oct. 21 It wasn't officially announced, but it was inevitable: yesterday, and somewhat belatedly, the operators of the Barclays Center removed the Liberty Portraits installation honoring the members of the 2024 WNBA champions New York Liberty team. That truncated access to the arena's Ticketmaster Plaza, as shown in the photos below. Surely some promotion for the Brooklyn Nets, with their home opener Oct. 24, is in the offing. As I wrote  in July, the installation of the nine-foot display cases, with photos and interviews, was billed as art but also qualified as promotion. (After all, they weren't exactly putting up portraits of random Brooklynites.) Presumably, the goal was to keep the portraits up through the WNBA Finals, were the Liberty to repeat. Instead, they lost in the first round of the playoffs, bowing out Sept. 19 . Where will the Liberty Portraits go? There's been no announcement, but there may be space at the Barclays Center, or in storage. In the l...

Most of us would be pretty happy with a 9% return on our investments. For Joe and Clara Wu Tsai, who own 85% of BSE Global (with the Koch family owning the rest), that figure shows they're lagging rival NBA franchises, as values ever rise. NBA TEAM VALUES 2025: WARRIORS LEAD AT $11.33B, AVERAGE HITS $5.5B , Sportico recently reported , with the Brooklyn Nets and their parent company valued at $6.22 billion, up from $5.7 billion last year.  Screenshot from Sportico Don't cry for the Tsais. In 2023, Sportico valued the Nets and the parent company at $3.98 billion, which was only 13th in the 30-team league. Then came a 43% increase in 2024. What changed last year? The emergence of an eager investor, the Koch family, vaulting the value to fourth in the league. These numbers aren't definitive. Note that CNBC in February valued BSE Global at $5.6 billion, and Forbes' last year set a $4.8 billion value , with its 2025 valuation is expected soon. Major factors This year, Spo...

When I reported Oct. 1 ( link ) on the Barclays Center's October 2025 event calendar, I wrote: Note that nothing extra is announced for the Brooklyn Nets' Oct. 24 home-opener against the Cleveland Cavaliers, but last year, prior to the Nets' home-opener against the Milwaukee Bucks, there was "an event on the Plaza from 11 am-6 pm with amplified sound." Well, on Oct. 17, a week before the 7:30 pm game, the arena circulated a notice to neighbors: "Please note that there will be an event on the Plaza on Friday, October 24 from 1-4 pm with amplified sound." Do they somehow "forget" to plan the amplified sound until recently? Or to notify people at the beginning of the month? Or, more likely, did they hold the announcement to avoid more elapsed time for scrutiny?  It's a small thing, but it's not exactly a best practice. Update Oct. 22 : now they tell us the amplified sound also would be from 6-8 pm.  Is that incompetence, or deliberate obf...

As Project Reboots, a Tight--but Augmented--Schedule for Community Engagement, Starting Next Month ( link ) Advisory group thought two in-person sessions, then an online wrap-up, couldn't address issues like housing, density, transportation, public space and more. Now there will be a fourth workshop.

From City Limits: "New Development Team Promises Atlantic Yards Progress, But Housing Penalties Called ‘Insufficient’" Here's the article link . Here's the Substack link , which offers both the article link and some supplementary info. 

Substack sports columnist Steve Lichtenstein, in his Oct. 12 The Too-Early Preseason Assessments Of Nets' Draft Haul , wrote mainly about the four (of five) first-round draft picks who played in the first exhibition game, but added a bonus note about 6'11" 22-year old Fanbo Zeng, who played in the first NBA exhibition in China in six years: I’m over it now, but the ploy I assume was spurred by ownership to play an obviously undeserving China native during Friday’s exhibition had me seething. Ok, maybe if you’re going to have Zeng on the training camp roster, giving him six minutes during the second and fourth quarters can be justified as a goodwill gesture to the hosts. But did the Nets have to play him in the overtime? The Suns targeted Zeng mercilessly by forcing him to switch onto their ballhandlers, where he got toasted, and then the Nets rarely passed him the ball on offense. That helped lead to a loss. Added Lichtenstein: Joseph Tsai, from all appearances, wa...

Was the Atlantic Yards Conflict Merely Between Competing Short-Term Interests? ( link ) To one critic, the 2011 documentary "Battle for Brooklyn" seems like "ancient history." Still, it depicts the project's enduring taint & leaves lessons about skepticism, as a new phase awaits. 

I have a long article coming (not today) on yesterday's meeting of the Atlantic Yards Community Development Corporation (AY CDC).  Below, an overview.  Why is this time different for #AtlanticYards #PacificParkBK ? No new plan (scope/timing) yet, but new "permitted developers" Cirrus & LCOR cite agreement with labor (union pension funds supply capital), "mission-driven equity," focus on multiple income levels (not condos)... 2/ pic.twitter.com/O2EQGwiJoD — Norman Oder (@AYReport) October 9, 2025 For now, while NYS officials are pleased there's a new "permitted developer" & joint venture team sounds sincere, big questions remain about scale, subsidies, affordability, & even redesign of a project conceived, as was stated at meeting, "before the iPhone." #AtlanticYards 4/ — Norman Oder (@AYReport) October 9, 2025 Up next are a series of community meetings, supposed to shape plan. Will community input shape a project lik...

Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park, we learned yesterday, finally has the expected new development team, with a new deadline to develop an agreement and some limited payments to the state. But deep questions remain about the contours of the remaining project and how an expensive platform would be paid for, much less details regarding that development team or future oversight and guarantees. We do know, however, that the new joint venture has the backing, and pension fund money, from building trades unions, who surely will supply "build it now" testimony at public hearings.  It also has official endorsement-- sans any publicly announced plans about timing, scope, and public concessions regarding the expected eight towers, infrastructure, and affordable units--from Empire State Development (ESD), the gubernatorially controlled state authority that oversees/shepherds the project. Despite ESD denials, surely such plans have been discussed privately, because only assurances of state supp...