Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park Report

As I wrote yesterday, the scheduled meeting March 19 of the (purportedly) advisory Atlantic Yards Community Development Corporation (AY CDC)--an opportunity, perhaps, to learn about the project's future--was postponed, because of a lack of a quorum. Now it's been  rescheduled  for 3 pm next Tuesday, March 25, at Empire State Development, 655 Third Avenue – 4th Floor Conference Room. Due to purported building procedures, members of the public attending in-person should RSVP by 4:30 pm on Monday, March 24. Members of the press should call (800) 260-7313; members of the public should call (212) 803-3795. The public may listen to the meeting via webcast here . Comments and issues Members of the public may submit comments on the Agenda items in writing to AYCDCBdMtg@esd.ny.gov by 3 pm on Monday, March 24. (The Agenda, of course, is vague, so no one can comment on what's actually said at the meeting.) All comments received by the deadline will be distributed to the Direc...

No, there was no meeting yesterday of the Atlantic Yards Community Development Corporation (my preview ) and thus no opportunity to potentially learn more about the project's future. It will be rescheduled , presumably soon, because the Directors are expected, at least, to approve the body's annual budget. In the meantime, the AY CDC posted one public comment , which consisted of Prospect Heights resident Robert Puca distilling several of the pre-meeting questions I'd posed.

The City Planning Commission yesterday advanced the gestating Atlantic Avenue Mixed-Use Plan, which a city press release ( here , and in full below) said: would create 4,600 new homes — including 1,440 permanently income-restricted, affordable homes — and 2,800 permanent jobs to a roughly 21-block stretch of Atlantic Avenue in Central Brooklyn, including neighboring blocks in Crown Heights and Bedford-Stuyvesant. Alongside new housing and jobs, the plan includes significant investments in local infrastructure and amenities, such as new and improved open space and traffic safety improvements.  Buildings could rise 17 stories on Atlantic Avenue, 11 stories on some perpendicular avenues, and eight stories on inner blocks, as I wrote in previous coverage for City Limits. That said, the 13-member Commission's vote wasn't unanimous, with two Commissioners saying that, despite their enthusiasm for aspects of the plan, it didn't go far enough to ensure affordable housing or indust...

The oft-injured, underwhelming, and now-departed Brooklyn Nets guard Ben Simmons is now selling the combined loft apartment in DUMBO he bought back in 2022, aiming for nearly $17 million, about $3 million more than he spent, according to the Wall Street Journal. Surely that's an aspirational price, but you never know. As I  asked  in November 2023, is buying real estate in Brooklyn a wise idea for a basketball player who could be traded at any time? Maybe not, from a strictly economic perspective, given transaction costs and the difficulty in selling a particularly expensive residence, at the Olympia tower. Then again, Simmons signed a 5-year, $177 million contract through the 2024-25 season, with career earnings (not counting endorsements) through 2024-25 over $203 million . So he could take a financial hit.  NetsDaily recounted "brief, shining moments of hope" during Simmons's three years in Brooklyn, but after an injury" never showed such signs of life agai...

Who Really Controls the Six Railyard Sites? Maybe Fortress is in the Driver's Seat. ( link ) The private investment firm (owned mainly by Abu Dhabi fund!) may now control the EB-5 collateral. Can Empire State Development clarify this at meeting tomorrow?

Weekly Digest: A Campaign Mention and (Perhaps) a Key Meeting ( link ) Mayoral candidate Lander does acknowledge Atlantic Yards, but he needs to drill down. An advisory meeting this week could answer questions about the project's future.

Well, the agenda for the March 19 meeting of the advisory Atlantic Yards Community Development Corporation ( AY CDC) was posted here (also at bottom) at some point in the last 24 hours. As is the pattern, the agenda is typically anodyne, involving approval of the minutes from the previous meeting and the approval of the entity's annual budget. The big mystery, of course, is what will be conveyed in the oral "Updates and Follow-Ups." How many of the questions raised in my article yesterday --about ownership, deadlines, and renegotiations--will be addressed? Other questions Also, how can anybody file a legitimate public comment 24 hours before the meeting? It's worth noting that, on p. 7 of the document, the minutes from the most recent meeting of the AY CDC, held last November, show executives at Empire State Development (ESD), the state authority that oversees/shepherds the project, confident that a new joint venture, involving Hudson Yards developer Related Compani...

It's the foreclosure auction that never happened--apparently because it won't happen until there's a new deal in place. Wall Street Journal, Feb. 26, 2025 However, given all the moving parts on a potential deal, it won't be easy. A foreclosure auction of developer Greenland USA's rights to develop six towers (B5-B10, see below) over the Vanderbilt Yard--specifically, "membership interests in" AY Phase II Development Company--was announced Nov. 15, 2023, and then illuminated 12 days later in a bombshell Real Deal article . At that point, the foreclosure auction was announced for Jan. 11, 2024.  It's been postponed again and again. Most recently, as shown in the screenshot at right, it was postponed to March 24, 2025. Delays possible likely As I wrote  Jan. 11, 2024, the notice states the Secured Party "reserves the right to cancel the sale in its entirety, or to adjourn the sale to a future date." That's what's happened, even as a Ma...

A meeting of the Atlantic Yards Community Development Corporation (AY CDC)  will be held  at 3 pm on Wednesday, March 19 at the Manhattan offices of Empire State Development (ESD), the state authority that oversees/shepherds the project. The AY CDC is supposed to advise the parent ESD, but, for example, was not told when the ESD signed a deal in 2021 for a giant project at Site 5. It's possible that some big questions about the project's future may be aired, though the main agenda item may be the typically pro forma approval of the AY CDC's budget. Location issues Beyond the midday schedule, that will make it more difficult for concerned members of the public, as well as some Directors, to attend the meeting, which will be held at 655 Third Avenue – 4th Floor Board Room. (See here and below for info on RSVP and comment policy.) That said, last year ESD agreed to hold more meetings in Brooklyn, and held the most recent meeting at the Shirley Chisholm Office Building in Fo...

It's widely known that a May 31 deadline looms for 876 units of affordable housing, with penalties of $2,000/month for each unbuilt unit. Questions loom over whether Empire State Development (ESD), the state authority that oversees/shepherds the project, will enforce the deadline, and on whom. However, there's a May 12, 2025 deadline  to start the platform  over the Vanderbilt Yard, to protect the working railyard, used to store and service Long Island Rail Road trains, while towers are built above. (I previously wrote about this  April 21, 2024  and  Feb. 21, 2023 .) However, what I once thought "shouldn't be too hard to meet" now won't be met, because the project is stalled and no new development team is ready to take over the six railyard development sites facing a foreclosure auction. Those sites can't be developed without the platform, expected to be built on two parts between Atlantic Avenue and Pacific Street: one block between Sixth and Carlton av...

Mayoral Hopeful Lander: Housing Crisis Means Restarting "Stalled Privately Owned" (!?) Sites Like Atlantic Yards ( link ) Separately, he tells Prospect Heights group that his priority is the promised affordable units. He's the only candidate to mention AY, but still isn't up to speed.

Who's keeping track of the complicated situation facing Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park?  It's barely entered the mayoral race--more on that tomorrow--and few civic groups and elected officials keep up. So the  BrooklynSpeaks  coalition, which relies significantly on Gib Veconi of the Prospect Heights Neighborhood Council (PHNDC) and Michelle de la Uz of the Fifth Avenue Committee, has become a key vector for local response, given the demise of project opponents Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn. BrooklynSpeaks organized a potential lawsuit in 2014, warning that delays in delivering affordable housing meant a fair-housing violation, that led to a settlement , including the new 2025 deadline for the project's 2,250 units of affordable housing, with $2,000/month penalties for each unit not delivered.  Back then, the deadline seemed realistic. But 876 affordable units won't be built by May 2025, suggesting damages of $1.75 million per month, and as Veconi said at a Feb. 26 an...

The Brooklyn "ecosystem"--media, entertainment, culture--pursued by Barclays Center parent BSE Global continues to expand, as the arena is now recruiting tour guides to "deliver an immersive, 60-minute tour that brings to life the history, culture, and behind-the-scenes magic of this iconic venue." Advertisements in Backstage  and  Playbill  recruit underemployed actors with "the ability to captivate audiences of 20-35 people." (Also see the  listing  from venue operating company ASM Global.) As stated in Playbill : This is a public-facing, live performance role requiring strong memorization, audience engagement, and professional presentation skills. Actors will be responsible for delivering a structured, scripted 60-minute tour to a variety of audiences, providing an exciting and informative experience while maintaining factual accuracy. The hiring starts with a submitted self-tape audition, then a Zoom interview, then an in-person mock tour. Backstage a...

 Bi-Weekly Digest: An Inconclusive Answer in Albany About the Project's Fate ( link ) A transfer of rights, or an inquiry? Also: touting up Atlantic Yards' promises and realities. Plus: the EB-5 middleman's political contributions, to Trump and to Hochul.

I wrote yesterday ( link ) about the nearly $1.85 million in federal political political contributions made since 2021 by the CEO, Nicholas Mastroianni II, and the President, Nicholas Mastroianni III, of the U.S. Immigration Fund (USIF), the "regional center"--investor visa middleman--that's key to Atlantic Yards. The USIF manages the two loans--originally $349 million, with $286 million remaining--that developer Greenland failed to pay off, and thus controls the process of getting a new joint venture partner to develop six sites (B5-B10) over the Vanderbilt Yard. They're not  the "lender,"  despite convenient shorthand used by state officials. But as manager, they control the loan, and thus the collateral--those six development sites--and are trying to recruit a "permitted developer," with experience in large-scale projects, for a joint venture.  Related Companies, which built Hudson Yards, was said to be part of a joint venture, but then left. As...