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Showing posts from February, 2025

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Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park FAQ, timeline, and infographics (pinned post)

Gothamist's coverage of the new "Battle for Brooklyn" screening raises some old questions

"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...

Buses line Atlantic Avenue (thanks to NYPD) for un-announced youth basketball event. Barclays Center would have it much tougher if towers were built there.

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...

Flashback 2006: what the Atlantic Yards Final EIS said about the blocks east of Vanderbilt Avenue, now facing a rezoning

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 ...

As Atlantic Avenue Mixed-Use Plan Nears Vote, How Much Can Affordability Be Pushed? (from City Limits)

 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...

Will Brooklyn Basketball clinics, when they come to Modell's, cost $575 for five days? That's what they cost elsewhere this summer. (Programs at schools are free.)

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...

The Brooklyn Way: new Brooklyn Nets merchandise from designer Kid Super includes boost from Borough President Reynoso, modeling $995 leather jacket

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 ...

So, how does the new $150 NBA City Edition uniform, by KAWS, celebrate "the spirit of Brooklyn"?

A Nov. 14, 2024 press release, Brooklyn Nets Unveil 2024-25 Nike NBA City Edition Uniform, Created With Renowned Artist KAWS , told us: The Brooklyn Nets have unveiled their 2024-25 Nike NBA City Edition Uniform, created with renowned artist and Brooklyn resident, KAWS. The Nets remain the first and only professional sports team the Brooklyn-based artist has collaborated with. Year two of the partnership further expands upon the Nets’ commitment to highlighting local tastemakers and leading creators from Brooklyn to celebrate the unique culture found within the borough and is an example of how the team continues to elevate their retail offerings to reflect the fanbase’s growing interest in fashion and style, including launching a private label, premium merchandise line, bǝrō. KAWS is the third icon from Brooklyn that the team has paid homage to through the NBA City Edition program after previously celebrating the lives and legacies of The Notorious B.I.G. and Jean-Michel Basquiat. What...

Five years later, the Brooklyn Nets' Bar Network seems to have shrunk. It still ignores Black Brooklyn.

I wrote ( link ) in December 2019 that the Brooklyn Nets had gone all-in on Biggie Smalls and his Bed-Stuy neighborhood--or had they? Yes, there was Bed-Stuy front and center on the team's 2018-19 Nike City Edition uniform. But Bed-Stuy and Black Brooklyn were absent from the Brooklyn Nets Bar Network, presented by Modelo. There were about 25 bars in a screenshot I took in Brooklyn, Queens, and Manhattan, plus a few in Queens and Staten Island that were omitted. No locations in New Jersey, the longtime previous home of the Nets. And today Well, today's Bar Network is paltrier: 13 locations in Brooklyn, plus one in Staten Island. None in Manhattan, Queens, or New Jersey.   As the map above suggests, the bars in Brooklyn form pretty much a direct route north from Bay Ridge to Greenpoint, with stops in Sunset Park, Park Slope, and Williamsburg. There's one outlier, in Coney Island. Maybe they'd blame Modelo, but you'd think that the enlightened marketers behind th...

At hearing on Atlantic Avenue Mixed-Use Plan, a few Atlantic Yards echoes: a "public" site, oversight, and a new population needing green space

Yesterday, the City Planning Commission held a hearing on the Atlantic Avenue Mixed-Use Plan (AAMUP) a long-percolating rezoning of blocks directly east of Vanderbilt Avenue, the eastern border of Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park, nearly to Nostrand Avenue. (Also included are a few blocks/parcels outside the rezoning area, where public sites can supply affordable housing.) From Department of City Planning presentation The goal is to allow new residential development, with affordable units, in an area currently shackled by outdated manufacturing zoning. Brooklyn Community Boards 8 and 3, as well as Borough President Antonio Reynoso, have issued support for the proposal, with conditions , including a greater commitment to affordable housing and to ensuring space for manufacturing. I'll write separately about the broader issues, but for now would just focus on a few Atlantic Yards-related issues. Though the project, and the development plans it influenced, is in the shadow of AAMUP, it was...

Tsais' Social Justice Fund's "Revitalize Brooklyn" offers $50K to help nine Brooklyn businesses grow. Coffee, donuts, fashion.

Eater on Jan. 29 reported, as part of a longer roundup, New grant fund gives $50,000 a piece to several Brooklyn food businesses A new grant program backed by the co-owner of basketball teams the Brooklyn Nets and the New York Liberty Liberty, along with Brooklyn arena Barclays Center announced the awardees of its funds this week. Revitalize Brooklyn — from co-owner of the Nets, Clara Wu Tsai’s Social Justice Fund — selected nine businesses based in the borough. These include Williamsburg cafe Buddies Coffee, Bed-Stuy bakery Fan Fan Doughnuts, Williamsburg butcher shop Meat Hook, frozen dumpling business Mimi Cheng’s, Greenpoint bakery and coffee roaster Paloma, and packaged overnight oats company Spoonful. Each business will get $50,000. The other recipients, unmentioned, are in the fashion sector, cited below. Note that the Social Justice Fund of the Joe and Clara Tsai Foundation is referred to as Clara Wu Tsai's project. That takes the focus off her husband, more controversi...

Mayoral candidate Mamdani comes to the Vanderbilt Yard (!) to promote his plan for 200K affordable homes, but doesn't mention Atlantic Yards. Too complicated?

Yesterday, Zohran Mamdani, an Astoria/Long Island City-based New York State Assemblymember ( link ) and a Democratic candidate ( link ) in the 2025 mayoral primary who identifies as a Democratic Socialist, issued a call to "build 200,000 new, permanently affordable union built, rent stabilized homes over the next 10 years, tripling what we're currently set to build."  To do that, he said in the brief video below, "Any 100% affordable project gets fast tracked. No more pointless delays. We're gonna unleash the public sector, but we're still going to need more housing. That means taller buildings near subway stations, upzoning wealthy neighborhoods, and eliminating the requirement to build parking lots." Today I'm announcing a plan to unleash the public sector and build the housing we desperately need. As Mayor, I will triple New York City's production of permanently affordable, union-built, rent-stabilized homes, constructing 200,000 new units ove...

With Related out and no full replacement yet, is "Community Engagement" coming? Won't negotiations, behind closed doors, re-shape the project?

OK, so now that we know ( link ) that Related Companies, expected as of last November to join a joint venture to develop six tower sites above the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's two-block Vanderbilt Yard, is out. We also know that the key player (astoundingly!) in the fate of the project, the U.S. Immigration Fund (USIF), the questionable packager of the EB-5 loan, has recruited a partial replacement, Cirrus Real Estate Partners, but needs to add an actual developer or construction manager with experience in large-scale projects. The question then is when the " Community Engagement ," described last Nov. 14 as pending by Empire State Development (ESD), the state authority that oversees/shepherds Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park, would launch regarding those tower sites. The answer, I suspect, is: not yet. After all, that pending plan was predicated on the expectation that the joint venture, with development expertise, would take control over those development sites (...

TRD: Related pulls out of Atlantic Yards joint venture. Cirrus enters, but can't yet qualify as permitted developer. Affordability and scale unclear.

Yesterday had not one but two twists in the 14-month foreclosure saga around Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park. First, we learned that Related Companies, developer of Hudson Yards, was no longer pursuing a joint venture to develop most of the remaining share of the project: six tower sites (B5-B10) over the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's (MTA) Vanderbilt Yard, which require an expensive platform before vertical construction. Unofficial rendering A partial replacement, Cirrus Real Estate Partners , was later announced yesterday by Nicholas Mastroianni II’s U.S. Immigration Fund, the investment packager that controls the $286 million loan from EB-5 investors that's in foreclosure.  Those tower sites were provided as collateral by Greenland USA, which since 2014 has been the project's lead developer, but at this point retains the rights to build only at Site 5, across from the arena, and the B1 tower once slated to be built over the arena. (Greenland seeks to build a two-to...