Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park Report

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...

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 deadlines), and more. After all, longtime master developer Greenland USA,...

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...

Photos: Norman Oder OK, we (um, BSE Global) really do belong here. That tricky "You Belong Here/We Belong Here" signage outside Barclays Center was unveiled Oct. 23, 2021 for at least three years, as I  reported . It's not leaving, though the documentation apparently was a bit late, according to an explanation I got from Empire State Development (ESD), the state authority that oversees/shepherds the project. The explanation: ESD, BALDC, the MTA and the NBA have consented to an extension of the "You Belong Here" art exhibition at Barclays Center through October 23, 2026. The parties are currently finalizing the necessary documentation reflecting the consent to the extension. In case you're wondering, beyond the MTA (Metropolitan Transportation Authority) and NBA (National Basketball Association), BALDC refers to the Brooklyn Arena Local Development Corporation, the ESD alter ego that actually owns the site but then leases it to the arena operator for essenti...

A recent search on the name Suma Mandel, a board member--at least as of 2023--of the Pacific Park Conservancy led me to an article she co-authored last June for Vital City,  Governance in the Time of Congestion . The article was stirred by New York Gov. Kathy Hochul's unilateral decision--since modified--to direct the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to pause congestion pricing, but the subheading, "Who do public authorities serve — the public or the politicians who appoint their boards?" is eternally relevant to observers of Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park. As the authors write: Even to the casual observer, when the governor announced the pause, it was obvious that the MTA leaders were mere bystanders, watching a major policy U-turn and realizing it would create a major funding gap in the agency’s capital program...  Some board members made reference to their fiduciary and legal obligations, asserting that they could not be “directed” by the governor. Yet [MTA Chair and...

Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park in 2025: Acceleration Time? (Related Enters, Project Supersized?)  [ here's the Substack link ] Will "community engagement" affect scale, affordability? Will BSE Global pay for the plaza? BSE's Brooklyn "ecosystem" should swell. What's the surprise?

It's another cold, windy day today, so windy there's a gale warning, with winds up to 19 mph and gusts up to 39 mph in Brooklyn. Approaching Dean St. and Sixth Ave. Not much variety So it's likely to be another brutally cold and windy day around certain portions of the Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park project.  After all, as longtime Brooklynites know, the area has its risks: in 2003, the New York Times suggested that then-solitary Williamsburgh Savings Bank Tower, aka One Hanson Place, might be the coldest and windiest place in the city, partly due to its location and partly due to its solo status. It's no longer the sole tall building in the area, but others nearby are channeling wind gusts. On Jan. 4, resident Rodrigo Solé  asked , "Do you know if proper wind analysis was conducted for AY development? The wind tunnel that runs on 6th Ave from Atlantic onto Flatbush Av makes street life unbearable. There’s a lack of mitigation elements such as proper bldng setbacks /...