Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park Report

Francis Northwood's July 25 New York Review of Architecture essay, Some Assembly Required , has the subheading, "Can architecture be remade in venture capital’s image?  The answer: maybe not.  The article begins with 461 Dean, aka B2, which did not, as original developer Forest City Ratner promised, "crack the code" for high-rise modular construction, but rather was delayed and suffered leaks (as I reported for City Limits back in 2015): IF YOU WERE TO SCOUR NEW YORK CITY for the future of architecture, the last place you might look is the rump’s end of the Barclays Center. As first impressions go, 461 Dean, the mixed-income residential tower that rises precipitously at the corner of Flatbush Avenue and Dean Street, checks all the clichés of contemporary large-scale construction. Artless setbacks do little to alleviate the problem of boxiness that blight so many of the new glass high-rises on Flatbush Avenue.... But the discordant façade conceals a feat worthy of yo...

Pure Green will be just east of the tenants' entrance to 461 Dean. Photos: Norman Oder More than seven years after opening, the ill-fated modular tower 461 Dean Street (B2) is getting its second and final retail tenant: Pure Green, a franchise juice bar ("coming soon") , selling cold-pressed juices and smoothies. The location is just east of the building's residential entrance and on the path of those entering the Barclays Center from its Dean Street entrance. So perhaps those waiting on long lines to get into the arena might share a smoothie? At the corner of Flatbush Avenue and Dean Street, the first retail space was leased to Just Salad by late 2022. The first Yelp review was Jan. 13, 2023. It's unclear why this all took so long, but it could be the landlord's desire to get both high rents and lower-risk "credit tenants."  Original developer Forest City Ratner in March 2018 sold 461 Dean to Principal Global Investors. Retail details Just Salad...

A Real Deal article yesterday dubiously headlined How this modular construction startup stacks a high-rise in one day , has in its URL the more accurate "Modular construction startup builds prototype in Brooklyn." Still, the building of eight modules into a modest three-story building in Fort Greene was a promising pilot for the company Assembly OSM , which has several links to the ill-fated B2 modular tower (461 Dean Street) in Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park. (Note: a passage regarding "significant problems" at B2 links to a blog called Construction Junkie,  World’s Tallest Modular Building Opens in New York, But Not Without Challenges , which relies on an investigation I did for  City Limits . Kind of petty not to link to the original.) From the article: Assembly calls its construction method “post-modular” because it is more akin to a car or aircraft assembly line than a traditional modular build-out, where the structure is put together on a single factory floor. Th...

What's right with this picture, which I took two days ago? Well, the 461 Dean tower, aka B2, at some point in recent weeks/months, finally got rid of the long-running trailer-truck "temporary" boiler that was stationed at the curb for many months . As I wrote , I couldn't get any answer from the building's operator or a representative of the Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park master developer (which no longer has anything to do with that building). It was pretty glaring, of course, to have such a system snag/failure in a building that opened only in 2016. (That, of course, Below, a view of the trailer.

So, what's up with that temporary emergency boiler that has been stationed outside 461 Dean Street (aka B2) for many months?  I asked this question at the bi-monthly Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park Quality of Life meeting in July, and couldn't get an answer from Greenland USA's Scott Solish, the representative of master developer Greenland Forest City Partners. Solish said he didn't know and that the owner/operator should be contacted directly. After all, it's not their building, having been built--remember, it's the only modular tower--by original developer Forest City Ratner and then sold in 2018 to the Iowa-based Principal Global Investors. Now 461 Dean has so little to do with "Pacific Park"--after all, it's far from the future open space--that the owners don't bother to mention it . I first queried the contact person on the building website, a leasing agent, then the corporate media office for Principal Global Investors.  I asked when the t...

After six years or so, the major wedge-shaped ground floor space at 461 Dean Street, at the corner of Flatbush Avenue adjacent to the Barclays Center, finally has a tenant: the local fast-casual chain Just Salad.  The chain's signage is up, and its website says "Coming Soon," though the construction permits last through March 2023. That leaves a smaller retail space (867 square feet) east of the building's residential lobby on Dean Street, with 33 feet of frontage, still available, as shown in this  document  from real estate firm CBRE, also at bottom. That's closer to the arena's secondary entrance, Building changes The building, constructed by original Atlantic Yards developer Forest City Ratner as the nation's tallest modular tower, was plagued by delays, launching in December 2012 and finally opening in late 2016.  Though Forest City had announced it would build all the towers via modular construction, it wound up selling 70% of the project going forw...

Unsurprisingly, it takes incentives to get relatively more expensive apartments rented these days, and that includes Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park buildings. I last wrote about this in January . At 535 Carlton Avenue , a "100% affordable" building with half the units geared to upper middle-income households--incomes up to 165% of Area Median Income, and rents set at 160% of AMI--the listed rent for a two-bedroom unit is $3,223, but renters get three months or 2.5 months free, or a $2,417 or $2,552 net effective rent. There are eight one-bedroom units, listed at $2,680, but three months free means a net effective rent of $2,010. There are three studios, listed at $2,137, but three months free brings the net effective rent is $1,603. At the similarly "100% affordable"  38 Sixth Avenue , there are three two-bedroom units, listed at $3,206, with 2.5 months free and a $2,538 net effective rent. There are six one-bedroom units, listed at $2.663, with three months free and a...

Both market-rate and middle-income "affordable" units at Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park are being offered with deep discounts--up to three months free on a one-year lease--as operators of residential towers find it's a renters' market during the pandemic. At 461 Dean At 461 Dean Street, the first of the Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park towers, there are discounts to attract market-rate tenants, but not yet for the building's (50%) affordable units. According to StreetEasy , the five studio apartments are available with three months free, resulting in a net effective rent for the cheapest at $1,785 , well below the official $2,155 rent for studios citywide under the city's Affordable New York program, at 130% of Area Median Income, or AMI.  And it's well below the $1,996 rent set for the most expensive "affordable" studios when the building was leased up in in 2016. That said, surely the owners would hope for lease renewal at the official $2,380/month....

It's not surprising, given the pandemic and recession, that discounts have returned to market-rate rental units at 461 Dean , the residential tower--50% affordable, 50% market-rate--at the southwest flank of the Barclays Center. It's the only tower in Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park built via modular construction. Unit 9B, from StreetEasy Indeed, given short-term discounts that lower the net effective rent on a 12-month lease (while likely re-setting upon lease renewal), studio and one-bedroom apartments are available at well below the middle-income "affordable" rents set in city-financed or -approved properties. Consider unit 9B , a studio which recently had its net effective rent listed at $2,138, while the gross rent is $2,700 per month. That's $32,400/year. Divide that sum by $2,138, and the result is more than 15: so that's three free months. Low security deposit Unit 6N, from StreetEasy Beyond that, the building--owned by Principal Global I...

After five-and-a-half years of legal jousting over the ill-fated Brooklyn tower once said to revolutionize modular construction, Forest City Ratner Companies and Skanska USA Building in April agreed to settle their three lawsuits, state court records show . B2 under construction, 2015. Photo: Norman Oder The  confidential  settlement leaves murky the degrees of fault, and financial responsibility, for tens of millions of dollars in damages and losses over 461 Dean (B2), the first tower in the 15-tower project originally called Atlantic Yards. Launched in 2012 with ambitious, ultimately unfounded, claims about saving time and money, the 363-unit tower flanking the Barclays Center suffered leaks and delays before finally opening in 2016. Skanska, which served as general contractor for the building and also ran the jointly owned modular factory at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, blamed Forest City for inadequate design for the world’s tallest (as of then) modular tower. Fo...

On 12/4/19, Urban Omnibus published Unruly Bits , an intriguing essay on the challenges and complexity behind modular construction, notably the ill-fated 461 Dean (aka B2) at Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park, by Daniel Cardoso Llach , Associate Professor of Architecture at Carnegie Mellon University, where he chairs the Master of Science in Computational Design and co-directs CodeLab. The author notes the promise of the tower: Combining the latest digital design and building technologies, the tower would not only help the developer fulfill his multiple obligations towards the city — including public space, affordable housing, and construction jobs — but also herald a new era of efficiency in American construction .... The remarkably contentious and costly process of building the tower — which finally opened in 2016 (most of the renewal project remains under construction) — offers a lesson on the intertwining of design and urban politics with technology. The rhetoric of efficiency that he...

As first noted 6/20/19 by 6sqft,  Waitlist opens for ‘affordable’ units at Pacific Park’s modular tower, from $2,025/month , "not-so-affordable" (their words) $2,025/month studios and $2,541/month one-bedrooms may become available at 461 Dean Street. They're not-so-affordable because there are other units--not necessarily as new, or well-located--that people can find on the open market. But they happen to be somewhat better deals than they were, as I explain before. (The announcement from the New York City Housing Development Corporation, with information on applications, is excerpted at right and below.) There are 181 income-restricted units in the tower flanking the Barclays Center, but only 15 studios and five one-bedrooms at those specific rent levels. (See original announcement at bottom.) Half the building is market-rate units. Rent stays fairly stable The rent hasn't changed much since the housing lottery was advertised in 2016. The rent for a st...

What a difference a few years makes: in 2016, when Forest City Ratner was the developer and owner of 461 Dean, the modular tower known as B2, the building was promoted as being part of Pacific Park, said to have "beautiful residences designed by leading architects, a brand new 8-acre park, Barclays Center," and more. See screenshot below. That was a stretch since the "park" didn't exist and, when complete, wouldn't be that close to the building, which flanks the arena at Dean Street and Flatbush Avenue. But Forest City was partnering with Greenland USA on the larger project, so it was all tied together. 461 Dean web site; screenshot, 2016 New owner, new promotion Forest City sold the tower in March 2018 to Principal Global Investors, which has no stake in the larger project. The current version of the 461 Dean web site contains no mention of Pacific Park, which, after all, is neither a neighborhood nor a park but rather a very unfinished--and ir...

Sure, it's no big deal, but it's another example of what I call "Atlantic Yards down the memory hole," when fuzzy observations turn into mistaken assumptions. In an essay in last Sunday's New York Times Sunday Review, headlined online as  The City of Lost Love  and in print as "The City That Belonged to Us," novelist and contributing writer  Kaitlyn Greenidge reflected: If you live in New York long enough, and date and make friends here, you have your own secret map of the city and the places that make you nostalgic... Freddy’s hasn’t been on the corner of Dean Street and Sixth Avenue for years but every time I pass the place where it used to sit, I think of the night a few writer friends and I got into a tiff with some poets from N.Y.U., left a bar in the West Village to buy $60 worth of Gray’s Papaya for friends who stayed at the bar, returned to find the place closed; stood for a moment on the corner wondering how we’d get nine people and 25 hot d...

It's definitely taking a while. More than two years after 461 Dean--the first residential building to open in Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park--began welcoming residential tenants, in November 2016 , the two retail spaces on the ground floor, 2,352 square feet along Flatbush Avenue and 867 square feet along Dean Street, remain to be leased. Looking north along Flatbush Avenue outside 461 Dean The larger space is pictured, above. Both locations would seem to be reasonably attractive, given their proximity to transit, but also come with some drawbacks. Crowds going to or exiting the Barclays Center walk past both locations--in fact, those waiting to enter the Dean Street entrance often line up, potentially blocking the retail entrance. But retail along the Flatbush Avenue flank of the arena has proven problematic: beyond the team store, one space is devoted to the Featured on Flatbush pop-up, and other is simply closed. The building, built by Forest City Realty Trust outside...