Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park Report

We hear a lot now about "abundance" and the belief that the city must do anything to get more housing. It's a real problem--well, it's a regional problem that should be addressed with better state and tri-state leadership--but we shouldn't turn off our skepticism. Resorts World promotion For example, I recently got sponsored emails from two political publications, PoliticsNY.com (the Schneps Media politics vertical) and City & State, both with the subject line "Resorts World is Delivering Workforce Housing for New Yorkers, Starting Now!" The City & State message stated: Resorts World New York City is committed to addressing the housing crisis everyday working New Yorkers face today. To help solve the crisis, Resorts World New York City has formed a joint venture with Cirrus Workforce Housing to  invest in 50,000 units of workforce housing across the five boroughs. This pact represents a major investment from Resorts World New York City, the sing...

Modell's, Dec. 2024. Photo: Norman Oder As first announced last September ( link ), BSE Global--owner of the Brooklyn Nets, New York Liberty, and the Barclays Center operating company--will transform empty ex-Modell's store across from arena for its Brooklyn Basketball youth programs, at least until new towers are built. Modell's closed in the late summer of 2020, after the parent faced bankruptcy. A plan for two large towers at the parcel known as Site 5, which still has the operating P.C. Richard store, has gotten support from Empire State Development (ESD), the state authority that oversees/shepherds Atlantic Yards. The BSE Global rendering is suspiciously traffic-free However, that requires a new public process for approval, given the transfer of bulk from the unbuilt B-1 tower once slated to loom over the arena, and likely is entangled in the larger negotiation over the fate of the six railyard development sites. In other words, it's several years off. So this tr...

Bi-Weekly Digest: BrooklynSpeaks Frustration over Penalties; Quiet MTA Renegotiations ( link ) The lesson from Atlantic Yards, Borough President Reynoso warns city officials pushing the Brooklyn Marine Terminal Plan, is that commitments don't get enforced. 

The Association for Neighborhood & Housing Development (ANHD) has released its  2025 Housing Risk Chart, How is Affordable Housing Threatened in Your Neighborhood .  (The ANHD is a membership organization of New York City neighborhood-based community groups, community development corporations (CDCs), affordable housing developers, supportive housing providers, community organizers, and economic development providers.) I've highlighted the sections involving the four Community Districts in Brooklyn--CDs 2, 3, 6, and 8--in the orbit of the Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park project and in which local residents get a preference in affordable housing lotteries, at least for city-sponsored units (as opposed to those solely relying on a state tax break). CD's 3 and 8 are also the location of the sites in the Atlantic Avenue Mixed-Use Plan. Chart goals The chart, according to the ANHD, highlights and ranks 18 indicators of demographics and housing risk to inform targeted...

Sometime in the last week, the updated 2025 New York City Area Affordable Monthly Rents surfaced on the website  of the city Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD), with an increase of about 4.3% over 2024 figures, correlating with the rise in Area Median Income, or AMI. See more on this below (I wrote about the rise in AMI April 28.) Bottom line: for low-income units at 60% of AMI, which is the average affordable unit required under the 485-x tax break (likely for the next Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park towers) and under Mandatory Inclusionary Housing Option 1 in the recently-passed Atlantic Avenue Mixed-Use Plan (AAMUP), the 2025 maximum rents would be: studio: $1,701, up from $1,640 1-BR: $1,822, up from $1,747 2-BR: $2,187, up from $2,097 3-BR: $2,527, up from $2,422 HPD notes that those are the maximum rents, while specific rent amounts may vary by program. So it's likely those rent ceilings may not correlate to most or all of the units rented this year at 60...

A new development team is emerging to take over the remaining sites in the Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park project, including the six sites over the Vanderbilt Yard.  The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) has a key role, even though the project is overseen/shepherded by the (also) gubernatorially-controlled Empire State Development (ESD). According to Gib Veconi of BrooklynSpeaks, who's been partially briefed on the emerging plan, ESD is evaluating the proposal that has been made by a joint venture led by Cirrus Real Estate, "and has asked that Cirrus receive approval from the MTA by June 30.” I asked the MTA to clarify for me what needs to be approved: --the Cirrus joint venture's general qualifications to work with the MTA? --a plan to build the platform, including performance bonds, over the Vanderbilt Yard while preserving MTA/Long Island Rail Road operations? --a Cirrus takeover of the current payment plan for Vanderbilt Yard development rights? --a revised paym...

So immigrant investors seeking green cards under the EB-5 investor visa program are supposed to have $800,000 available--when Atlantic Yards was raising low-cost EB-5 funding, it was $500,000--to plunk down for five to seven years before (maybe) getting their money back. In reality, according to leading investment packager Nicholas Mastroianni II, founder of the U.S. Immigration Fund (USIF, which raised money for the second and third Atlantic Yards EB-5 rounds, currently facing foreclosure),  investors "cobble together their savings from family or friends, according to the Real Deal's summary. Enter new financing In April, I noted an emerging tactic to make fundraising easier. The program for an investment immigration trade show in India quoted his son, Nicholas Mastroianni III as saying that USIF projects now "provide investors access to the Opportunity Fund Lender EB-5 financing program," which helps investors finance part of their development. From  IREX Residenc...

There's another sign--beyond my previous coverage ( link )--of front-running mayoral candidate Andrew Cuomo's alliance with union labor and Cirrus Real Estate, and thus with an expected emerging new plan for Atlantic Yards. Why did Andrew Cuomo’s campaign hire the carpenters union’s political director? , The Real Deal reported June 2, noting that the hiring of Kevin Elkins means an alliance with perhaps the most forceful construction union in the city. The Carpenters Union, advocating for union jobs, has sometimes taken on "a role once occupied by the Building and Construction Trades Council as public-facing antagonist to the Real Estate Board of New York," according to the publication. Developers, of course, might want to avoid unions, or at least union-set wages as part of a state tax break. Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park has long been promised as union construction, though project-specific labor agreements might adjust wages. The Real Deal noted: But even if Elkins is...

In Brooklyn Marine Terminal Discussion, Atlantic Yards is the Elephant in the Room ( link ) After Borough President Reynoso points to broken promises, city official says other projects met commitments. Not always. Remember: "be honest about phasing."

State Attorney General Letitia James spoke May 20 at the power breakfast at the Association for a Better New York and, surprisingly, mentioned Atlantic Yards. I previously quoted a Crain's tweet on this, but let's go to the video below. "I would love to work with this administration," she said, referencing arch-enemy President Donald Trump. " If he wants to--I understand he's willing to work on Penn Station, I applaud that. I'm here. If he wants to build affordable housing I'm here." "Yeah, if he wants to do some major capital projects, I'm here. Hudson Yards. Atlantic Yards. The rail yards, I'm here. I'm reasonable. But my message is clear: don't harm my city, don't harm my state. Otherwise, you've got to go through me."   As I wrote, why exactly James, who’s been lobbied on Atlantic Yards, would be an interface on projects like that is unclear, unless 1) some Attorney General approval is needed, 2) she’s be...

Three sports team owners, including Clara Wu Tsai of the Brooklyn Nets and New York Liberty, spoke at the Forbes Iconoclast Summit June 5 in Manhattan, with Wu Tsai suggesting that the WNBA offers a "huge investment opportunity" and Marc Lasry, former co-owner of the NBA’s Milwaukee Bucks, saying "it's never a good time to sell" a sports team, given steadily rising valuations. (See coverage in Forbes and NetsDaily .) Nobody, of course, mentioned that the leagues are monopolies, that team ownership offers great tax breaks, and that team owners leverage subsidies, tax breaks, and other benefits from their host cities and states. To Forbes' Randall Lane, Wu Tsai confirmed that, yes, the Liberty just got a minority investment that valued the team at $450 million. (Previously, it was just "reportedly." ) He congratulated her on the path to the professed $1 billion valuation: "So that number is good." "Number's great," said Wu T...

The defending WNBA champion New York Liberty have started the new season 8-0 ( link ) and the team and their mascot, Ellie the Elephant, are getting a lot more buzz. The Brooklyn Public Library, following up its successful promotion of Jay-Z library cards as part of a giant star-produced exhibit , now offers the  New York Liberty Library Card , "a special-edition library card celebrating the New York Liberty, our hometown team and the 2024 WNBA champions!" Via Brooklyn Public Library There will be 100,000 cards, available at all library locations. Also, the Liberty and the library are partnering through Brooklyn Basketball to support BPL's Summer at the Library programming. The Brooklyn Paper lapped up the promotion: Ellie created a special summer reading list of books about basketball, empowerment, community, friendship, and women in sports — with selections from picture book “You Hold Me Up” to young adult graphic novel “Wash Day Diaries” and the new nonfiction book...

I wrote ( link ) yesterday, after a press conference from BrooklynSpeaks expressing outrage at the state's failure to collect liquidated damages, that the coalition may be in a more pragmatic mode. After all, key leader Michelle de la Uz, of the Fifth Avenue Committee,  told  Gothamist she wants to meet with ESD officials to learn about their efforts to approve a new "Permitted Developer" to replace Greenland USA, which since November 2023 has been about to lose its rights to those six railyard towers via foreclosure. That joint venture involves Cirrus Real Estate, a funding entity that has allied with construction unions ; the private equity fund Fortress Investment Group; the developer LCOR; Greenland (still); and an affiliate of the U.S. Immigration Fund, a private "regional center" that recruited investors from China to offer Greenland low-interest loans under the EB-5 investor visa program. Meeting with potential new developer Near the end of the press conf...

Sports Stadiums Are Monuments to the Poverty of Our Ambitions , New York Times columnist Binyamin Appelbaum wrote May 28: People who say that the United States can’t build anything anymore must not be sports fans. Barely a year goes by without the debut of a sparkling new stadium or arena, often in the very cities where it’s most difficult to build almost anything else. A $2.3 billion baseball stadium in the Bronx. A 70,000-seat football stadium in the middle of Los Angeles County. A basketball arena on the San Francisco waterfront. The latest example, announced last month by the mayor of Washington, D.C., is a $3.8 billion plan to build a stadium for the local football team, the Washington Commanders, on 180 acres of public land just two miles from the Capitol. His argument was framed, in part, as a focus on "abundance," the new buzzword regarding Democrats' failure to build housing and public works. It's a flawed argument; Washington, DC, does build a lot of housing...