Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park Report

So, will Empire State Development (ESD), the state authority that oversees/shepherds Atlantic Yards, enforce the $2,000/month fines for each of the 876 affordable housing units not delivered by May 31, 2025? Yes, if you go rely on an exchange (video  here  and below) Feb. 26, at a New York State Legislature joint budget hearing, between Brooklyn Assemblymember Jo Anne Simon and ESD CEO Hope Knight. Maybe not, if you consider that ESD has avoided imposing fines for the unbuilt Urban Room atrium, widely seen as a precursor for its posture toward the affordable housing deadline, or that ESD made a deal with developer Greenland USA to expand the two-tower project at Site 5, catercorner to the arena,  without telling the (purportedly) advisory Atlantic Yards Community Development Corporation, not even after the fact. And probably not, if you consider Knight's magical  suggestion , at a hearing last year, that the deadline might be met by converting existing market-...

"Jobs, Housing & Hoops"? Tallying Key Atlantic Yards Promises and Realities ( link ) Yes, they built an arena for sports and events. (Biggest winners: two billionaires.) Promised social benefit and neighborhood connection have fallen far short.

Weekly Digest: Sketchy Eminent Domain and a Sketchy CBA Helped Get the Arena Built ( link ) A showing of Battle for Brooklyn  provokes reconsiderations. A huge project in Red Hook reflects another wired deal.

The reason the Atlantic Yards documentary  Battle for Brooklyn is screening on Friday ( link ) is because organizers at Resilient Red Hook are trying to alert neighbors and others about the challenge of responding to a large redevelopment plan with an enormous amount of momentum. The Brooklyn Marine Terminal plan involves housing, port infrastructure, park space, and more on a 122-acre waterfront site, starting below Atlantic Avenue just beyond the southern border of Brooklyn Bridge Park, stretching through what's known as the Columbia Street Waterfront District well into Red Hook. Notably, as explained below, it took more than half a year after the BMT project announcement, which was on a very fast track, before it emerged that market-rate housing was needed to cross-subsidize pier reconfiguration, maritime investments, parks, and more. The deadline for a plan has been extended from end-of-2024, which was unrealistic, to March, which is still very fast, even compared to another...

I was invited on WBAI's CityWatch yesterday ( link ) to talk about Atlantic Yards, which also touched the Atlantic Avenue rezoning and the plans for Brooklyn Marine Terminal in Red Hook The conversation, with former Council Member Carlos Menchaca, starts at around 9:12 in the audio below and goes about 21 minutes. One takeaway: don''t trust projections for ambitious plans. All scenarios should be offered in a range: best-case to worst-case. With Atlantic Yards, market-rate housing was supposed to cross-subsidize affordable housing and--I didn't say explicitly--the costly infrastructure, a platform or deck, over the MTA's Vanderbilt Yard. (One block was used for the arena parcel, below grade, without a platform; the other two blocks await platforms.) However, the plethora of new market-rate housing from the Downtown Brooklyn rezoning, which was relatively under the radar, cut into the market for Atlantic Yards housing. The Downtown Brooklyn rezoning didn't requir...

The Atlantic Yards Independent Compliance Monitor Was Never Hired ( link ) The much-hyped Community Benefits Agreement, with promises of jobs, contracting, and housing, was supposed to be accountable. They promised, on video.

From City & State's First Read newsletter ( link ), Feb. 15, a sponsored message from the Brooklyn Nets: Out here, we put the city in authenticity. When Brooklyn builds, we put down roots. Now’s your chance to get in on the ground floor as we build The Brooklyn Way. Lock in your 2025-26 Season Ticket Membership and unlock access to exclusive benefits, rewards, and perks that make every moment mean more. Let’s build the Brooklyn way! What exactly does "authenticity" mean here? The name "Brooklyn"? The use of a hip-hop reference in an ever-flexible slogan? The continuity of a roster that keeps changing? The ability to benefit from a tax-exempt site?  Screenshot from First Read This has been a continuous theme in brand identity since 2012. Remember, you're only rooting for the clothes.  About the Nets Thing is, the Nets, for now, have a lousy, albeit overachieving, team, and are hoping to use draft capital and "cap space" (budget for players) to ...

Screenshot from CNBC So CNBC, following Forbes and Sportico, is now offering its own NBA  team valuations , declaring that the average team is worth $4.66 billion, thanks significantly to a new media rights deal in which the 30 teams share $6.9 billion a year over 11 years. That's $230 million per team. The article is by Mike Ozanian, who formerly did such valuations for Forbes. The  calculation , as always, is a bit of an art, relying on both revenues, including if the team owner controls the economics of the arena (as does BSE Global, with the Barclays Center), and valuations set by prices for sales or investment slices. About the Nets The Brooklyn Nets' valuation of $5.6 billion, sixth in the league, likely excludes the WNBA's New York Liberty (and the unspecified slice of the Paramount Theater), and is slightly less than the full BSE Global transaction when selling a slice to the Koch family, of an  estimated $5.8 billion  (or more). Sportico last December v...

Eminent Domain Reminders from "Battle for Brooklyn": Bogus Blight and Dubious Public Use ( link ) Did condemnation serve a real "public purpose"? If so, shouldn't the public get a cut of arena/team profits?

"The Barclays Center's controversial history is revisited at a free event in Red Hook," Gothamist reports ( link ), citing a screening of the documentary Battle for Brooklyn on Feb. 27. The article includes interviews with the film's protagonist, Daniel Goldstein of Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn, and filmmaker Mike Galinsky. I have a couple of long articles, triggered by rewatching the film, coming in my Substack newsletter . (I won't be at the event, as I'll be out of town.) But first I'd like to address a couple of things in the article. Transformative promises From the article: According to Norman Oder, a tour guide who maintains a devoted watchdog blog about the development, Atlantic Yards has failed “to fulfill [its] transformative promises of jobs and affordable housing.” “All of the promises were empty,” added Galinsky in a phone interview. That's not so, because "empty" is a pretty definitive statement. There are 1,374 units of...

Weekly Digest: So Much Is Atlantic Yards-Adjacent ( link ) The Atlantic Avenue Mixed-Use Plan moves forward, with issues (affordability, open space, oversight) all influenced by Atlantic Yards. Meanwhile, the Nets' Brooklyn "ecosystem" grows.

So, the Barclays Center doesn't like to tell neighbors about private, non-ticketed events at the arena, though such events may bring disruptions ( link ) such as buses idling and double-parking, or crowds on residential streets. Bus blocks hydrant on Atlantic Ave. Photo: Norman Oder On Tuesday, Feb. 11, two private events were scheduled , one in the morning, the other in the afternoon. I was nearby and noticed the afternoon event, a basketball game for students, which, it later became evident, involved middle-scholars from the Success Academies charter school network. Success has 57 free public charter schools in the city, among them 19 middle-schools. This event apparently involved  "[s]eventh and eighth-grade scholars from across our middle schools." The NYPD posted "No Parking" signs on Atlantic Avenue. Buses blocked hydrants and a B45 bus stop. A few were idling. See videos below. The bottom line As things go, it wasn't an inundation--I counted 14 buses...

The burgeoning transformation of blocks east of the Atlantic Yards site, from Vanderbilt Avenue to nearly Nostrand Avenue, first with spot rezonings and now with the pending Atlantic Avenue Mixed-Use Plan ( my coverage ) sent me back to the November 2006 Atlantic Yards Final Environmental Impact Statement, or FEIS. The excerpts below are attached specifically to the Prospect Heights subarea. From  Chapter 3: Land Use, Zoning and Public Policy : Manufacturing and Industrial Uses. Lower-density industrial uses such as warehouses, hardware/building suppliers, and smaller factories are located in the subarea just south of the project site between Carlton and Vanderbilt Avenues. Storage facilities are also located throughout this subarea, most notably Brothers Moving & Storage at 900 Atlantic Avenue near Underhill Avenue, and Peter F. Reilly Storage at 491 Bergen Street near 6th Avenue, adjacent to the 1.3-acre Dean Playground. Other industrial uses include warehouses and a bridal ...

 I have an article today in City Limits about the plan to rezone the area just east of the Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park site,  As Atlantic Avenue Mixed-Use Plan Nears Vote, How Much Can Affordability Be Pushed? The subheading: The AAMUP plan could deliver 4,600 new apartments and other investments in Central Brooklyn. But passage by City Council may involve negotiations to increase the amount—and affordability—of housing at publicly owned sites. So one issue is how much affordable housing can be added where the land base is low. Another is Community Board 8's not unreasonable--but not possible, at this point--request to modify the city's Mandatory Inclusionary Housing (MIH), which requires 20% to 30% affordability, by suggesting an option with a higher percentage and deeper affordability. Council Member Crystal Hudson, the key decisionmaker on the AAMUP, seeks, and likely will get, commitments for more affordable housing at publicly owned sites. But she'd have to work with c...

The Modell's store view from tip of arena plaza Photo Dec. 14, 2022: Norman Oder One question that surfaced when the Brooklyn Nets 'parent company, BSE Global, announced plans to hold Brooklyn Basketball youth camps at the site of the former Modell's store, across from the Barclays Center, was: how much would they cost? The answer, most likely, is a lot, since Brooklyn Basketball's free programs are located at school gyms. Current for-fee programs range from $200 for three days, $595 for five days, six hour days.  No wonder BSE Global has been cagey. As I reported last September, Empire State Development (ESD), the state authority that oversees/shepherds the project, didn't know whether they'd be free or for-fee. (Keep in mind, BSE Global would have to renovate the store.) The handout, as with a presentation in November at a Quality of Life meeting, cited the "signature program" of free basketball clinics to students in Brooklyn. So I asked a questio...

It wouldn't be the first time. As I reported ( link ) in September 2015, both Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams and Brooklyn-based Mayor Bill de Blasio modeled new "Brooklynified" jerseys for the NHL's New York Islanders, about to move to the Barclays Center. BP Reynoso with  KidSuper founder Colm Dillane Well, that didn't work out well, but there's indeed precedent for elected officials boosting a home team jersey.  Remember Gov. Kathy Hochul with a Brooklyn Nets jersey in November 2021, or Sen. Chuck Schumer, Borough President Marty Markowitz, Mayor Mike Bloomberg, and Gov. George Pataki all with Nets jerseys , in January 2004, after the team was purchased? Enter BP Reynoso One surprising, but not shocking, variation is seeing Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso appear last October in a press release and photo boosting a new Brooklyn Nets merchandise collection, rocking a $995 leather varsity jacket , from the Brooklyn-based brand KidSuper. The ...