Advisory group is told arena operator BSE Global, in return for getting permanent Barclays Center plaza, should pay for area quality-of-life monitors. No reply.

This is the second of five articles on the March 25, 2025 meeting of the advisory Atlantic Yards Community Development Corporation (AY CDC), held at the office of its parent Empire State Development (ESD). The first concerned the Pacific Park Conservancy. The third concerned the unusually large plan for Site 5. The fourth concerned the AY CDC budget. The fifth concerned the project's future.

Robert Puca, a resident of Pacific Street between Sixth and Carlton avenues, submitted a series of questions (bottom) as public comments. Those comments were distilled from articles I previously published.

At the meeting, he also spoke publicly, wanting to raise one issue, regarding the Barclays Center, that hadn't been mentioned. (See upcoming coverage for more, but most of the questions didn't get fully addressed.)

If developer Greenland USA is able to move the bulk of the unbuilt B1 tower, once slated to loom over the arena, to Site 5, longtime home of the big-box stores P.C. Richard and the now-closed Modell's, the arena operating company, BSE Global, "would gain a huge benefit from making the plaza permanent," observed Puca.

After all, that plaza serves as a safety valve for crowds and a billboard for advertising and promotion. 

 “I wonder if ESD has considered requiring BSE Global to pay for the privilege of having a permanent plaza," he said.

Quality of life

The coalition BrooklynSpeaks, he noted, has suggested that BSE Global should fund a quality of life enforcement unit. (I think they could be asked for even more.)

“I would totally endorse that," Puca said. "As a person who's lived right next to this project for 22 years now, I can tell you that my quality of life has definitely gone down those 22 years. My family's quality of life has gone down.”

He didn’t get any questions or comments from either the AY CDC directors or the ESD staff. No such responses are required, but sometimes they do respond. (One AY CDC Director, Gib Veconi, made that BrooklynSpeaks proposal, so he surely supports it.)

The problem, I'd note, is not just a lack of monitors, but a lack of will to enforce, for example, routine illegal parking and idling.

Later, I asked Puca to elaborate about the quality of life impacts. "On event nights," he said, "there is constant horn honking and gridlock on Pacific Street." That's a two-way street, between Sixth and Carlton avenues, with two garages; drivers must turn on Sixth or Carlton to exit.

"There is total lack of parking enforcement regulations by the 78th Precinct who refuse to issue tickets or tow cars," he said, noting that streets have been closed during certain events like the MTA Music Video Awards (where they had to show identification to get home) and the gathering last December for Satmar Hasidim from Williamsburg.

"I have witnessed public drunkenness, fights and public urination on my block during events," Puca stated, adding, "during the construction of the arena and other buildings, my young son and my wife had to move out temporarily because of the 6 am start and noise and vibrations."

What about the Modell's plan?

Puca's comment did remind AY CDC Chair Daniel Kummer that last November they'd been told the arena company wanted to lease the shuttered Modell's store--at the parcel catercorner to the arena known as Site 5, ultimately slated for a two-tower project--for a youth basketball program.

"Do we have any update," he asked. The answer was no.

(Presumably BSE Global is moving ahead on it, but there's been no clear sign at the site.)