Agenda for Atlantic Yards meeting: "public engagement process planning." Also, developer Cirrus ramps up lobbying, both city and state.

So Empire State Development (ESD)  has released the Agenda for the July 15 meeting of the purportedly advisory Atlantic Yards Community Development Corporation (AY CDC), and the scope is beyond what I suspected when I initially wrote about it.

While ESD, the state authority that oversees/shepherds the project, may (as I suspect) announce that it has approved a permitted developer for at least the railyard development parcels--a joint venture involving Cirrus Real Estate and others--it also will discuss "Public Engagement Process Planning, as shown in the screenshot at right.

That sounds like the outline to a process, aiming to find a way to ensure legitimacy to a project that now faces widely embedded skepticism. 

AY CDC Director Gib Veconi had previously asked, backed by a board majority, to request a review of the scope before it's finalized.

(Note that the meeting is at 3 pm, not 3:30 pm, as initially stated.)

Also, as explained below, Cirrus has ramped up lobbying with state and city targets.

State guidelines

As I wrote, ESD in May, suspending the $2,000/month penalties for each of 876 unbuilt affordable housing units in Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park, stated, “In an effort to move this process forward, ESD has set up an updated schedule of deliverable target deadlines for the development team while retaining all rights to issue liquidated damages.”

ESD said that involves “approval and transfer of development rights to a new team by August” and “a robust community engagement plan and project framework to be guided by a community engagement process by December.”

As I wrote for City Limits in March, covering a previous AY CDC meeting, ESD had suggested that a new plan for the project—which presumably would involve new deadlines and requests for concessions—couldn’t be negotiated with a new developer before a foreclosure transfer, of six railyard development sites, was completed.

“Not a fully signed-off plan,” explained Arden Sokolow, ESD’s executive vice president of real estate and planning, but a permitted developer—with at least a decade of experience in large-scale projects—plus a “plan for engaging with stakeholders and contours of what their requests would be.”

ESD's Joel Kolkmann, senior VP of real state and planning, said, “We are waiting for a development entity to come forward to be a permitted developer, present a proposal and then do engagement with…those broad contours in mind.” 

Of course, it's highly doubtful that such public input would truly change a plan that must work economically for the developer.

Previous discussion

Last November, when Related Companies was expected to lead a new joint venture, the AY CDC discussed the concept of community engagement. (Related later bowed out.)

At that point, ESD recommended two separate engagement processes: one for the railyard sites B5-B10), and another for the parcel at Site 5, catercorner to the arena (and the unbuilt B1 tower). Those parcels have different terms and timelines, ESD said, and different companies may be responsible.

It's unclear if that framework has changed, but Veconi, a leader of the BrooklynSpeaks coalition, has said that Greenland USA, which is losing the six railyard sites to foreclosure, but retains the Site 5/B1 development rights, is apparently part of the joint venture. 

(Greenland, which doesn't have the capacity to move forward on its own, has been expected to seek a partner.)

What does it mean?

“I’m not concerned about splitting it up at this point, because I don't know what the role of the process is here," observed AY CDC Director Ron Shiffman, at the time. "Is it really to determine the program or to review and sell the product that the developers are proposing?”

“It would be to review the options and hear what people envision for the site,” said ESD's Anna Pycior, Senior VP, Community Relations.

Shiffman asked who’d determine the parameters: the developers, or “what the capacity of the land and the area surrounding it can reasonably hold?”

“The idea is that we hold visioning sessions to get input that can be used by the developers to shape what the platform site developments would look like,” responded Kolkmann.

Of course, if "form follows finance," as Carol Willis wrote, the parameters are established not by a public visioning session but by the developer's spreadsheet. Often developers ask for more than what they need, then seemingly compromise in response to public criticism.

Supersizing the project

Keep in mind, as I reported last August, that master developer (for now) Greenland USA in 2023 proposed to supersize the project by adding 1 million more square feet--free land!--in larger railyard towers. 

It sought an extension of the May 2025 affordable housing deadline, but agreed to build perhaps 600 more affordable units, gaining an extended deadline and offering no clarity on affordability level.

Unofficial rendering of 2023 proposals

It's reasonable to assume that the Cirrus joint venture, recognizing ESD's likely acquiescence to such plans, would similarly pursue such supersizing. 

The joint venture likely also includes Fortress Investment Group, an affiliate of the U.S. Immigration Fund (USIF, the EB-5 intermediary), and, likely, LCOR, a firm that surfaced in late May.

Site 5 boost

Greenland also proposed--well, it was essentially approved in 2021 by ESD--to move the bulk from the unbuilt flagship tower (B1), once slated to loom over the arena, across Flatbush Avenue to Site 5, longtime home of the big-box stores P.C. Richard and the now-closed Modell's.

That would enable two towers, one 910 feet and the other 450 feet, far larger than the 250-foot tower approved in 2006 and both taller and bulkier than the 785-foot and 383-foot towers floated in 2015-16. 

That would not only benefit Greenland, which would avoid the complexity of building the B1 tower over an active arena.

It also it would benefit Joe Tsai's (and the Koch family's) BSE Global, which operates the arena and would see the branded plaza, for now known as Ticketmaster Plaza, made permanent. That's an argument for making BSE Global pay.

May 2023 draft. Click to enlarge

The limits of public input

A significant clue regarding ESD's community engagement plans come from a draft Scope of Work produced in May 2023 in response to Greenland's plans to supersize the project. 

(I acquired the document through a Freedom of Information Law request.)

The contractor's "inclusive" community engagement process would involve perhaps four public sessions, anticipating 50 to 100 attendees per session, that would:

• use maps, texts, and graphics to explain the project history, site context, and programming options for the balance of the project site 
• solicit community feedback and vision on topics including but not limited to: affordable housing preferences, desired community amenities, priorities for open space and public realm, and non-residential space usage 
• translate session feedback into themes to shape project vision into actionable guidelines
• hold a “follow-up” meeting with project partners including the developer, the MTA, and other governmental agencies to present community vision 

(Emphasis added)

So the public would be allowed to express preference about the amount and affordability of below-market housing, as well as hopes for new public space. 

That, however, does not necessarily address the impact of the developer's desired scale and the significant gift of the additional bulk, much less the overall economics of the project.

The public purpose

At the November meeting, Shiffman asked if the public purpose trumped the developer’s goals.

Kolkmann said yes. “I mean, that I view all the [ESD] projects as having public purpose, and we've been talking about the issues around housing, open space.”

Shiffman said, “Perhaps the public process would call for some sort of public entity to develop the site, rather than a private developer.” He noted how the plan has been modified to fit developer requests.

That public entity seems unlikely.

Note that BrooklynSpeaks, the main "public" advocates on the project for now, have released principles for a dialogue on the project's future:

• The public must be compensated for Atlantic Yards’ failure to deliver affordable housing when promised.
• The State’s obligation to enforce the project’s affordable housing deadline can’t be modified without the consent of the community and its elected representatives.
• Modification of Atlantic Yards’ project plan must follow meaningful community engagement and public review that address community and city-wide needs of today.
• Previous shortcomings in project governance structure, oversight and quality of life management must be addressed, and accountability for Atlantic Yards’ public commitments must be ensured.

Note that BrooklynSpeaks has been agnostic on the size of Site 5, as long as it delivers more affordable housing.

Now lobbying

Cirrus--technically Cirrus WFHA Funding, a reference to the affiliate Cirrus Workforce Housing Advisors--has used its own staff to lobby, but last month also hired the major lobbying firm Bolton-St. Johns for "legislative and regulatory representation," at $20,000 per month.

The Bolton-St. Johns filings offer no details about targets and scope, however.

Cirrus's own reports, from March through June, indicate--as I've previously reported--that it has lobbied Attorney General Letitia James, Assemblymember Jo Anne Simon, state Sen. Jabari Brisport, Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, and various ESD executives, regarding state land use, entitlements, and tax abatements.

Those are key to the finances of the future project.

Cirrus's lobbying report to New York City, so far only through April, indicates that its staffers have lobbied three people in the Mayor's office (Senior Advisor Nate Bliss, Seth Bynum, Leila Bozorg), Comptroller Brad Lander, Borough President Antonio Reynoso, and Council Members Shahana Hanif and Crystal Hudson.

Note that while Hudson represents most of the project site, Hanif represents Site 5.

Greenland USA still has lobbyists, but has clearly backed off. The firm Kasirer, representing Greenland Atlantic Yards, lobbied ESD's Arden Sokolow in January/February regarding General Project Plan development, but filed reports for the next two bi-monthly periods with no details.

Kasirer, representing the Greenland entity Pacific Park Development, made similar reports. 

More transparency?

At a previously meeting, Shiffman said he’d like to see a consultant who understands the finances of such projects. Kolkmann said the engagement consultant could hire a subcontractor.

“We could bring that back up when we see the scope,” Veconi said.

No one has yet brought up the 2018 proposal by Jaime Stein, then a member of the AY CDC, that the advisory board hire its own planning, design, and construction consultants—not merely facilitators—to review the emerging Site 5 proposal to inform the board and the public. (As of then, the plan for expanded railyard towers had not emerged.)

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