Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park Report

View south from Vanderbilt Ave.; Beer Street  South at corner, space for lease at right past car Retail space at 550 Vanderbilt once used as a construction field office and community liaison office is finally up for rent--though it may not be easy to find a tenant. That's another sign that former tenant Greenland USA is not expecting to soon work on anything related to the Vanderbilt Yard, including a platform and new construction. To recap: in January, I reported that Greenland Forest City Partners, which built the 550 Vanderbilt condo tower as a 70/30 joint venture, had finally sold the three retail condos--one subdivided--at the base of the building The price: $5.8 million, well below the aspirational $10.5 million value signaled in the offering plan. View west along Pacific St. (Photos: Norman Oder) Two of the condos remain occupied by three tenants, with leases until August 2028 at the earliest. Ending one lease The sole retail unit accessible not directly from Vanderbilt Ave...

Penthouse East (PHE), the last unsold apartment at 550 Vanderbilt, the only condo building in Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park, has finally sold, for $4,550,000 , more than eight years after the building began pre-sales .  The sale was earlier  reported by Marketproof. From  StreetEasy While the StreetEasy suggests the 3-BR, 3.5-BA unit sold for 4.21% below the listed price of $4,750,000, that's not fully accurate, since the price tag was cut multiple times, from the $5,805,000 in the June 2015 Offering Plan.  StreetEasy notes that the unit was listed for $5,000,000 in October 2019, then cut to $4,995,000 in May 2022 and $4,750,000 in February 2023. The selling agent was SERHANT, the successor to Nest Seekers International. Also, the buyer got nearly $126,709 in credits, concessions, and other payments made by the seller, an affiliate of Greenland Forest City Partners, the joint venture that built the building. A footnote in the deed states that the sponsor rece...

Sign at northwest corner of Vanderbilt & Pacific Well, the unwelcomed outcome for restaurateurs near Vanderbile Avenue and Dean Street, as described at last week's Atlantic Yards Community Development Corporation by open streets organizer (and AY CDC director) Gib Veconi, made it to New York magazine's Grub Street, which 4/17/23 published The City Gets Set to Dig Up a Booming Restaurant Row — Literally : But the situation is not looking so hot this year; over the summer, streets will be dug up, water will be shut off, and construction vehicles will make their way onto the avenue. In talking to the neighborhood’s restaurant owners, it sounds as though many of them are bracing for the worst. The reason for the work is the boom of high-rise developments that are part of Pacific Park, the megadevelopment project formerly known as Atlantic Yards. Officials say the influx of new and incoming residents necessitates upgrades to the existing water and sewage infrastructure. Whole s...

As I wrote last May, with all but one of the 278 units (which include a super's apartment)  finally sold , the developers of 17-story 550 Vanderbilt (B11), the only condo building so far in the Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park project, finally put Penthouse East back up for sale. From StreetEasy The price then was $4,995,000, for 7 rooms, including 3 beds and 3.5 baths. That represented a tiny, marketing change from the 2019 listing of $5,000,000, but a 14% cut from the original price of $5,805,000. Last month, as shown in the screenshot at right, the price was lowered to $4,750,000, a 4.9% cut from the previous listing and an 18.2% reduction from the original price. The unit was built by Greenland Forest City Partners, with Greenland USA having a 70% share in the building. Later, after the joint venture built three towers, Greenland bought out all but 5% of original developer Forest City Ratner's interest in the remaining project going forward.  Looking at the numb...

I recently had a look at the 20th Amendment to the 550 Vanderbilt Offering Plan, regarding the only condo building in Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park, at 550 Vanderbilt Avenue. Filed 8/19/2022, the key information from previous filings sustains, though as of 1/19/22, the building got its Final Certificate of Occupancy. Notably, though the previously designated Sponsor Control Period is no longer in effect , the Sponsor still controls the condo board. That's because residential unit owners, who own nearly all of the overall building, control four of seven seats on the board, and as long as the Sponsor still owns at least one unsold apartment, it can designate one of those seats. And the sponsor controls the three seats designated for the building's three retail spaces. A financial dispute One not insignificant--though not enormous--financial dispute has emerged: Purchasers are advised, however, that as of the date hereof, there is a dispute between Sponsor and the Board regarding ap...

With all but one of the 278 units (which include a super's apartment) finally sold , the developers of 550 Vanderbilt (B11), the only condo building so far in the Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park project, are putting Penthouse East back up for sale. The price: $4,995,000, for 7 rooms, including 3 beds and 3.5 baths. The StreetEasy listing indicates that it had been listed 10/2/19 for $5,000,000, then taken off the market less than six months later. So that tiny price change is just for marketing. However, as I wrote last December when citing the sales of the first of the three penthouses, this unit was initially marketed for $5,805,000. So that's a significant cut in the sticker price. The unit was built by Greenland Forest City Partners, with Greenland USA having a 70% share in the building. Later, after the joint venture built three towers, Greenland bought out all but 5% of Forest City's interest in the project going forward. A huge tax break Notice that monthly taxes...

Nearly seven years after the 550 Vanderbilt condo building launched pre-sales for the 277 apartments (plus a super's unit), developer Greenland Forest City Partners is nearly at a sellthrough, thanks to the sale of the most expensive listed apartment plus one of the other two remaining units. The second of three penthouses, Penthouse South , has sold for $6.7 million, a 13.2% discount off the $7,715,000 asking price/ offering price . (The first penthouse to sell, Penthouse West, sold for a 14.7% discount, as I reported .) The sale, with mention of the list price but not the contract, was cited in the 1/7/22 Marketproof column in amNY. It was then updated with the closing price in the 4/7/22 Marketproof column . The buyer of Penthouse South, by the way, is already an owner in the building, and is now selling Unit 1619 for $2,675,000, after buying it in May 2019 for $2,370,288. Another unit sells Subsequently, Unit 1601, a two-bedroom once offered at $2.33 million, has now,  acco...

After writing about the recent sales at the 550 Vanderbilt condo, I took a look again at the building website, and was stunned by the misleading and outright dishonest information provided. Most prominent, as I wrote in  October 2020 , is the citation of Pacific Park--the future green space at the project--as if it already exists, rather than requires a full buildout before completion, and that likely will take until 2035 .  (So, yes, I'm repeating myself, but it needs to be repeated.) The condo building's page describing  Pacific Park  states, "A brand new park in the heart of Brooklyn with unparalleled services and amenities at your doorstep."  The park doesn't exist . Your backyard Down the page, it claims that the park is "YOUR BACKYARD." "Pacific Park is more than a place; it’s a community, in the best sense of the word. With 8- acres of inviting green space, generous lawns for picnics and sunbathing, a dog run, athletic spaces and more, out...

Guess what: the 550 Vanderbilt condo may be nearly sold out , but until all 278 residential units are sold, the sponsor, Greenland Forest City Partners, will retain control of the building's board. That's a provision in the original 6/8/15 Offering Plan, which is re-asserted in the most recent amendment, Amendment 19, submitted to the state Attorney General on 9/9/21, excerpted below. Though the "Sponsor Control Period"--defined as until 90% of units/shares are sold-- is no longer in effect, the Sponsor can retain control as long as it still owns at least one unsold residential unit. That's because, until there's a residential sell through, the Sponsor gets one of the four board seats designated by the Residential Unit Owners--and the Sponsor, as owner of the three Retail Units, gets three more seats. (So, with the retail owners having three of seven seats on the board, it's kind of... skewed. I'm not sure how common this is, but it was disclosed to po...

Well, 550 Vanderbilt --the only condo building in Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park--is getting closer to a sell-through, with a $5.85 million sale of its second most expensive unit, the first of three penthouses to find a buyer.  That leaves two more penthouses, plus another large apartment, to sell out the 278-unit building, which began sales in 2015 and opened two years later. While PHW may seem to have sold for just 2.4% off the $5.995 million listing price, as suggested in the screenshot from StreetEasy, a look at the most recent amendment to the offering plan (below right), shows that the original offering price was $6.86 million. So the sale price represents a 14.7% discount. Other units Note that PHS was once listed at $7.715 million, the offering price, but has been more recently been put up for rent. PHE was once listed at $5 million, a 13.9% discount off the $5.805 million offering price, but has more recently been put up for rent. As shown in the screenshot, the 19th Amend...

As the Commercial Observer reported 4/20/21,  New York City’s Building Emissions Law Awaits Next Mayor’s Muscle , a law passed in 2019 will eventually have some consequences: Under the rule, Mayor de Blasio’s administration has targeted buildings of at least 25,000 square feet with carbon caps beginning in 2024. Building owners will have to pay $268 for each metric ton their site’s carbon footprint exceeds the limit each year. The key to lowering emissions will be how quickly owners can electrify their buildings to provide heat and hot water. That could involve changing steam radiators over time to electric heat pumps that plug into a grid. That seemingly relates mainly to older buildings, as architect and political candidate Lou Céspedes recently wrote , and tweeted, suggesting it could lead to a stall in repairs and then renovation-caused evictions.  At 550 Vanderbilt, a low rating But, as Barbara Rogers responded, the 550 Vanderbilt condo has a notably low energy efficiency...

A couple of amendments filed last year to the Offering Statement of the 550 Vanderbilt condominium offer some clues about the project. The "park" is stalled From notes to Financial Statements for 2019 and 2018: Conservancy/Shared Park Maintenance The Condominium was built to be a part of the Pacific Park neighborhood project, that joins a few neighboring properties. As part of the initial budget, the Condominium was asked to pay approximately $145,000 towards its share of the maintenance of Pacific Park. As of December 31, 2017, that amount was accrued as a liability in anticipation of the completion of the project. No amount has been accrued for 2018 or 2019 as the project has not been completed and the Condominium’s share of expenses has not been assessed. Indeed, "Pacific Park"--if defined as the finished open space that will straddle the demapped Pacific Street between six towers--may not arrive until 2035, if ever.  Otherwise, the fractional open space west of ...

Current percentage, four towers complete Members of Brooklyn Community Board 2 last night got--and seemed to be satisfied with--a rather circumscribed update on Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park, learning about the lay of the project, buildings under construction, and general affordable housing statistics. A few tidbits of information, plus some new graphics, emerged during the brief presentation by Tobi Jaiyesimi; Director, Atlantic Yards Community Development Corporation and Scott Solish, Director of Development, Greenland USA, the site's master developer. Percentages after eight towers complete (does not refer to the four towers being built) Currently 61% of the units built--in three of four extant towers--are designated "affordable"--income-restricted, rent-stabilized, though, as described below, a majority are for middle-income households. Once four under-construction towers, each with 30% affordability, are completed, a total of 43% of the project's units will be ...