With Atlantic Yards oversight meeting scheduled for March 19, a chance to ask about deadlines, ownership, and renegotiations. Will there be any answers?

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 Fort Greene. The authority does reserve the right to hold meetings in Manhattan, and I suspect that the March meeting, which typically includes the budget, would qualify.

Agenda: budget

No agenda has been released, and it's typically boilerplate. This March meeting surely will include the AY CDC budget, which is funded by the project developer.

But who's that? Last year I reported that the $250,000 budget was funded by developer Greenland USA. Greenland, however, is losing six railyard development sites (B5-B10) in foreclosure.

 

 

Last year, an affiliate of the U.S. Immigration Fund (USIF), the entity that's foreclosing on Greenland's collateral, made the required $11 million annual payment to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority for the air rights over the railyard.

(The USIF itself is not the "lender," since the company, a "regional center" that recruits immigrant investors under the EB-5 investor visa program and forms an investment pool, didn't put the money up, but it controls the lender.)

So, who's paying this year?

Ownership and deadlines

The division of ownership and responsibility should be further clarified by the AY CDC.

What entities, for example, are responsible for the May 31 deadline, set in June 2014 in a settlement with the coalition BrooklynSpeaks, to deliver 876 units of affordable housing, with $2,000/month damages, to be paid into a housing trust fund, for each missing unit?

Which entities are responsible for the May 12 deadline to start the platform?

Neither deadline will be met. Has ESD received any official communication asking for the deadlines to be extended? Will it offer such extensions on its own?

Or will ESD, as CEO Hope Knight last month suggested, albeit without much conviction, hold to the contracts?

Who are the players?

The railyard development rights--or, more specifically, the companies owning those rights--were owned by Greenland but facing foreclosure.

Has that foreclosure, once reported to proceed by last fall, actually gone forward? Either way, who are the owners today?

It's been reported that the private equity fund Fortress Investment Group owns a piece of the $286 million in debt, part of the $349 million originally loaned to Greenland by the EB-5 investors.

How did Fortress get a piece of the project? How much?

Similarly, last year Hudson Yards developer Related Companies was lobbying ESD and reported to be part of an incoming joint venture with the USIF and Fortress. But Related pulled out. Does ESD know why?

At the same time, The Real Deal reported that Cirrus Real Estate had joined the joint venture, though it can't qualify as a "permitted developer," which requires ten years of experience in large urban projects.

Has Cirrus invested any money or they simply promised to invest going forward?

Renegotiation issues

Numerous questions loom over the project's future.

Has ESD been talking with "the lender" about a new joint venture, with a new potential "permitted developer" to take over the six tower sites over the Vanderbilt Yard?

If so, what terms are being sought regarding the penalties and deadlines? Is a new developer seeking the expanded square footage over the railyard sought by Greenland in 2023, which presumably would've made the project financially viable?

If a new developer is asking for such additional square footage, what public benefit is being promised?

Separately, while ESD in 2021 agreed to support Greenland's giant, two-tower project at Site 5, across from the arena, does ESD retain any leverage over that, for example to enforce the housing deadline and penalties?

If Greenland is able to move the bulk of the unbuilt B1 tower, once slated to loom over the arena, to Site 5, then the owner of the arena company, Joe Tsai's BSE Global, would gain a huge benefit from making the plaza permanent.

Has ESD considered requiring BSE Global, its valuation booming last year thanks to an investment by the Koch family (of right-wing fame), to pay for the privilege of a permanent plaza? For example, could BSE Global fund a Quality of Life enforcement unit, as the coalition BrooklynSpeaks has suggested, or pay far more?

Feasibility questions

What's the financial feasibility of any new project?

As reported in August 2023, AY CDC Director Gib Veconi said that, as a precondition to public discussion, the advisory body should see a financial analysis of the project’s future, including funds needed to pay liquidated damages.

The AY CDC asked the parent ESD to deliver such a report. It didn't. The question still looms.

What's the neighborhood feasibility of any new project? Is Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park infinitely expandable? Remember, Greenland sought to convert part of Pacific Street to increase open space, given the proposed increase in project residents.

For example, AY CDC Director Ron Shiffman has warned that the Site 5 project's too big. The proposed Floor Area Ratio (FAR), which measures bulk as a multiple of the underlying lot,. for Site 5 is 25.5, an unprecedented figure. 

That’s more than double the maximum FAR in the Downtown Brooklyn rezoning, which was 12. The Alloy Block, just to the north on Flatbush Avenue and formerly known as 80 Flatbush, gained an FAR of 15.75.

Meeting information

Due to (purported) building procedures, members of the public attending in-person should RSVP by 4:30 p.m. on Tuesday, March 18. 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 by clicking here.

Clairvoyant comments

Members of the public may submit comments on the Agenda items in writing to AYCDCBdMtg@esd.ny.gov by 3 pm on March 18, one day before the actual meeting. All comments received by the deadline will be distributed to the Directors prior to the meeting and will be posted online.

Of course, without any agenda posted, or board materials--which may be posted shortly before the meeting--it's unclear what comments, other than general comments and questions (as aired here) would be on point.