Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park Report

Blue markings indicate buildings sold. Yellow indicates buildings kept In a transaction transforming the ownership of two retail and residential strips near the Barclays Center, the Pintchik family--longtime investors, landlords, and neighborhood stewards--has sold 26 buildings for $102.5 million. The sale involves 28 retail spaces--most but not all occupied by relatively new businesses--and 84 apartments.  Of the buildings eight are on the west side of Flatbush Avenue between Dean and Bergen streets and four are on the east side. Eleven are on Bergen Street, west of Flatbush Avenue. Another building is on Dean Street, at Flatbush. Among the retail outlets within the properties are Chip City, Versailles, Gino's Pizza, Sofreh Cafe, Babeland, Ride Brooklyn, and Joe Coffee. (See map excerpt at right, and full map below, which adds two other buildings in the sale, further down Flatbush.) Bigger buildings coming?   While the buyers, investor brothers Michael and Edward Ostad, have ...

At a meeting last Sept. 26, a representative of Empire State Development, the state authority that oversees/shepherds the project, said something curious. "We understand that the MTA [Metropolitan Transportation] has been paid for the outstanding air rights obligation for the platform portion of the project," said Anna Pycior, ESD's Senior VP, Community Relations. Who paid went unspecified. Was it master developer Greenland USA, which was losing rights to build giant towers at the six railyard parcels in a foreclosure? (It borrowed $349 million, in two tranches, from immigrant investors in the EB-5 investor visa program, and has about $286 million delinquent.) Was it Related Companies, the giant developer, known for building Hudson Yards in Manhattan, that's part of a pending joint venture to develop the six railyard sites, which require an expensive platform?  That seemed unlikely, given that they weren't formally part of the project yet. (Nor are they formally ...

The Barclays Center has released its February 2025 calendar of events: it includes 15 ticketed events over 14 days: eight Brooklyn Nets games, three concerts, one Harlem Globetrotters game, and three of four  Monster Jam  live truck stunt shows. Of the latter, two are this Saturday and one on Sunday.  Also listed is a boxing press conference at noon on Feb. 27, presumably for the March 2 WBA Lightweight title fight . Private events It also includes four unspecified private events on two days: February 11 and February 25. On Feb. 11, the events will run from 9:30 am (doors) to 2 pm, and 2:30 pm (doors) to 7 pm, while on Feb. 25, the events will run from 7 am to noon and 5 pm to 9 pm. The February 25 morning event is the Brooklyn Org Spark Breakfast , a "moving celebration of our borough’s nonprofit community and our newest $100,000 winners, taking place for the first time at the Barclays Center." The winners are Brooklyn Book Bodega, Brownsville Community Culinary Center, ...

Why Does the EB-5 Manager Control the Investment? It's the (Dubious) Contract ( link ) "Sophisticated" (?) immigrant investors focused on visas loaned $500,000 each, seemingly agreeing to unfavorable terms. Now their "checkered past" middleman looks to have an Atlantic Yards stake.

Weekly Digest: Modular Catch-Up, and Foreclosure Considerations ( link ) No, 461 Dean didn't save 20% on construction. A modular successor raises doubts. Will foreclosure finally proceed for railyard sites? Has EB-5 middleman stepped back?

I'm still wondering about an issue raised last year at the Atlantic Yards Community Development Corporation regarding the U.S. Immigration Fund (USIF), the "regional center" (or loan packager) that recruited immigrant investors under the EB-5 investor visa program. The USIF is one participant in the joint venture expected to take over development rights for six towers over the Vanderbilt Yard.  A USIF affiliate, thanks to advantageous contract language, manages and controls the investment fund that was not repaid by developer Greenland USA, leading to the oft-postponed foreclosure process , win another auction supposedly scheduled for Jan. 27. Chinese investors, who each invested $500,000 (plus fees) for a purportedly job-creating project, actually put up the money but have little sway. From USIF 2022 video The question: does USIF founder and Chairman Nicholas Mastroianni II, whose criminal record includes an arrest on felony drug charges, prohibit the joint venture from ...

Maybe it's nothing.  After all, the announced foreclosure auction of developer Greenland USA's interest in six towers over the Vanderbilt Yard, once scheduled for Jan. 11, 2024, has been postponed so many times I've stopped tracking it. But I will point out, for the record, that the auction, with six tower sites as collateral, has recently been rescheduled for Jan. 27, 2025, according to a notice in the Wall Street Journal. Technically there are two foreclosures: one on a loan (from AYB Funding 100) which has the sites B5-B8 as collateral, and the other (from AYB Funding 200) which has the sites B9-B10 as collateral. Both funds are creations of the U.S. Immigration Fund (USIF), a "regional center" that recruits immigrant investors under the federal EB-5 program. (About $286 million has remained unpaid, from $349 million borrowed.) The USIF, as manager, controls the funds, though it didn't put the money up, and has reportedly organized a joint venture, involv...

Did 461 Dean, the "World’s Tallest Modular Building,” Save 20% on Construction? No. ( link ) Despite sunny rhetoric claiming phantom gains, the building was misconceived and delayed. Industry observer: "a hard-won lesson in tolerance accumulation."

So, remember FullStack Modular, the company that succeeded took over the ill-fated factory business-- FC+S Modular, then FC Modular--set up to build modules for Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park, which, after problems in building the B2 (461 Dean) project, original project developer Forest City ultimately sold to its former executive Roger Krulak? (Note: the company was originally called Full Stack Modular, but at some point became FullStack Modular.) As I observed  in June 2017, FullStack's announcement of a $6 million investment struck me as substantial but also not huge in terms of being used to "scale production" at the modular factory at the Brooklyn Navy Yard.  Well, they've since found greener pastures, relocating in 2023 to just outside New Haven, Conn., and last year establishing another factory outside Los Angeles, as described below. The projects they describe conform to Krulak's October 2016  prediction  (in FastCo.Design) that they wouldn't aim as tall...

Weekly Digest: A Switcheroo in Philly, Drilling Down on Affordable Housing Numbers ( link ) Are arena negotiations just about leverage? Also, low-income rents (and qualifying incomes) in Brooklyn have risen. The Brooklyn Nets go promotional.

In October 2023, I  reported  on an upcoming ice rink at Brooklyn Bridge Park in DUMBO, a new project from BSE Global, parent of Barclays Center operating company and the Brooklyn Nets. Glide Brooklyn would be operated in partnership with the sports management company IMG. Well, that lasted a season.  It's unclear whether Brooklyn Bridge Park was frustrated or whether the partners didn't think it was worth it, but Brooklyn Bridge Park, working with an operator, is now running the rink itself. "Same rink size and layout – lower cost to skate,"  said  BBP in a tweet.   Details Indeed, Glide Brooklyn last year set adult admission as $15 during off-peak hours and $25 during peak hours  (Friday-Sunday, and holidays), while Roebling Rink--on Emily Warren Roebling Plaza--charges $10.By the way, tickets to skate at Rockefeller Center start at $21 . Glide offered daily discounted tickets--fewer than 800 per week--to New York City residents, while Roebling Rink...

You know the Brooklyn Nets are struggling. They're losing games ( "worst defeat in franchise history" ) and tanking, aiming to get a better chance in the loaded 2025 NBA Draft Lottery, which could reset the franchise with new talent, and make it a lure for free agents.  (As columnist Steve Lichtenstein put it,  Nets Mid-Term Grades Won’t Be Displayed Proudly .) So they're offering various promotions to fill the seats, such as no fees on single-game tickets, or a free ticket with a coat donation. In their three previous home games, the announced attendance was: Jan. 4:  Philadelphia 76ers , 17,926 Jan 6: Indiana Pacers , 16,088 Jan. 8: Detroit Pistons , 16,098 Note that attendance doesn't mean gate count, nor does it mean tickets sold. It means tickets distributed. The Barclays Center official holds 17,732 for basketball, so exceeding that means standing room. The team is averaging 17,480 at home as of now, according to ESPN , but the trend line--at least against l...

Update: My speculation was off. Related had pulled out ( link ). Is the deal with Related Companies, as part of a joint venture with the U.S. Immigration Fund and the Fortress Investment Group, to take over the six tower sites over the MTA's Vanderbilt Yard, already done? Well, that's one interpretation of Related's November/December 2024 lobbying report , which excludes mention of Atlantic Yards. (Another is that the report has a lapse.) As I reported in November, Related amped up engagement in September and October, indicating that it not only lobbied four executives at Empire State Development (ESD), the state authority that oversees/shepherds Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park, it also lobbied New York City Deputy Mayor Maria Torres-Springer.  Is Related asking the city for housing subsidies? As I wrote, it's hard to imagine Related would enter the project without having negotiated, at least partly, the scale of the project, the affordable housing obligation (and deadline...

How Many AtlanticYards Apartments Were Rented to Households Earning Under $50,000? ( link ) Well, far more than suggested in an otherwise useful table from BrooklynSpeaks Still, middle-income units are vastly over-represented.

Barely a month after the Philadelphia City Council approved, 12-5, legislation to allow the NBA's Philadelphia 76ers to build a new downtown arena (dubbed 76Place) in Market East, and more than two years after debates, protests, studies, public hearings, and more occupied a good deal of civic energies, came  Sixers’ shocking arena pivot , as the Philadelphia Inquirer put it this morning. Once gaining leverage over their landlord, Comcast Spectacor, which owns the Wells Fargo Arena and the NHL's Philadelphia Flyers, the 76ers cut a deal with Comcast to build a new arena at that South Philadelphia sports complex. Details are expected today. Screenshot from 76Place "Now that the Sixers arena is dead after they used city officials as pawns in a landlord-tenant dispute and completely monopolized our already insane local politics for 2 years, Comcast can at least build their very real biomedical lab proposal at the Fashion District site now," local Chris Olley tweeted , ref...

Weekly Digest: Chilling Winds, and a Busy Forecast for 2025 ( link ) No, there really wasn't a "proper wind analysis." Yes, this year could be acceleration time for the project.

The publication YIMBY’s annual year-end countdown of the 31 tallest buildings under construction in New York include six around Downtown Brooklyn. If the plans for Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park come to fruition as currently approved (top image below), perhaps only the B7 tower, approved at 460 feet, would make YIMBY's 2024 list. However, if the project proceeds under plans floated in 2021 and 2023 several would make the list; the 910-foot tower (of two) at Site 5 would surely enter the city's Top Ten, given that in 2024 it would've placed sixth. Also, B9, B6, and B7 likely would make the list, again if they are approved as once proposed. Presumably the expected incoming joint venture involving Related Companies will make its own proposals. From YIMBY At #3 is The Brooklyn Tower , a 1,066-foot residential supertall skyscraper at 9 DeKalb Avenue, at Flatbush Avenue: the 93-story structure stands as the tallest structure in the outer boroughs and yields 550 residential units i...