Today's deadline to start the platform over the Vanderbilt Yard, precursor to six towers, won't be met. It doesn't seem meaningful.

So, there's a deadline today that nobody seems to take seriously. And the penalties aren't meaningful.

As I've written, there's a May 12 deadline to start the platform over the Vanderbilt Yard, necessary to construct six towers. It hasn't started. (It's two blocks, so it would be at least a two-phase process.)

So, what does Empire State Development (ESD), the state authority that oversees/shepherds the project, think? I sent a query and got this response:

The Development Agreement specifies that the Platform construction commence within 15 years of the “Project Effective Date”, subject to any unavoidable delays. 15 years from the Project Effective Date is on or about May 12, 2025. If the deadline is not met, the remedy available to ESD under the Project documents is to prevent the Developer from severing any parcels from the Development Agreement until platform constructing commences.

Indeed, the penalty isn't so meaningful, though it could be construed as part of a more complex process to put pressure on the current developer, Greenland USA, if ESD chose to do so. 

(A more meaningful deadline looms, May 31, for the project's unbuilt affordable housing, about which I'll write when more information emerges.)

 

What the document says

 

The clause relevant to the platform, 8.5, in the project's guiding Development Agreement is at right.

Failure to Commence Construction would be an Event of Default, as noted in section 17.1(g) of the Development Agreement.

As noted in section 17.2(a)(iii), the developer would then be precluded from requesting the severance of a development parcel or begin any development work.

As I've written, that would be a meaningful penalty only if the deadline were not met at a time when parcels on terra firma were ready for development.

As of now, the six parcels over the Vanderbilt Yard all require the platform. The only other parcel potentially ready for development is Site 5, catercorner to the arena. But that requires a public process to approve shifting bulk from the unbuilt B1 tower (aka "Miss Brooklyn") across Flatbush Avenue.

Will the platform start before then? Probably. But if not, I wouldn't be surprise at a state effort to accommodate construction of the two-tower project at Site 5.

What didn't happen

ESD didn't quite answer all my questions, including whether it considered the deadline an Event of Default and whether it would, as is its option, issue, issue written notice of that.

So I'm guessing it won't do so. Notably, exactly zero elected officials have made an issue of this, though surely they're interested in the next deadline.

Again, keep watch on the end of the month, after which ESD is supposed to impose $2,000/month penalties for each of the 876 unbuilt units of affordable housing.

That's a meaningful penalty. It's also one that I suspect ESD does not want to impose, and neither Greenland nor its potential successors wants to pay.