Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park Report

The context around Downtown Brooklyn/Atlantic Terminal keeps changing--and that's both a nudge for development at Site 5 of Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park and a warning against the ambitions previously expressed, as explained below. As shown in the photos below, the first of two towers in the project originally called 80 Flatbush and now called The Alloy Block, is rising at the corner of Flatbush Avenue and State Street, with the northern boundary of the overall parcel Schermerhorn Street and the western boundary Third Avenue. As noted by NY YIMBY , the building currently under construction is 44-story, 482-foot-tall 100 Flatbush Avenue .  It will have 441 apartments, with 45 affordable housing--10% of the total, or 25% of the 184 apartments that were added as a substitute for the 100,000 square feet of office space originally planned. I reported on the swap for Bklyner in May 2021. Note: you can't fit 184 apartments into 100,000 square feet unless they're small, given that t...

Alloy Development, new rendering So, on 7/19/21, Crain's New York Business offered Exclusive: Alloy Development lands $240M to start construction on 80 Flatbush , a project that set a controversial precedent for increased density at the edges of previously rezoned Downtown Brooklyn. It's the first of the two new towers (100 Flatbush) in the project previously presented as 80 Flatbush, now renamed Alloy Block, bounded by Flatbush and Third Avenues, and Schermerhorn and State Streets. Here's the new website . (So that's a little like renaming Atlantic Yards... Ratnerville? Well, the new name pushes aside previous search results.) Actually, 100 Flatbush will now be the retail address, while the residential will be 505 State Street. (Quick, what's 560 State Street ?) Note that the new rendering, like the previous one (below), suggests that the first tower, 44 stories and 480 feet, is a bit narrower than as depicted on the project website (bottom). How do such exclusive...

Yesterday Bklyner published my article about a project very near Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park that I wrote about a lot in 2018,  80 Flatbush Project Swaps Office Space for Mostly Market-Rate Housing in First Tower As It Begins Construction . From the lead: The 80 Flatbush project, in Downtown Brooklyn at the edge of Boerum Hill, is set to finally start construction on the first phase of the project, a 44-story, 480-foot tower. Thanks to the post-pandemic realities, it will be different from what was presented to the City Council in September 2018. Questions remain about when the affordable housing component of the project, its main selling piece, will be fully delivered, whether there are any meaningful penalties associated with ensuring timely delivery, and what they may be. Here's one of the rubs: But transparency regarding a delayed start remains lacking. Aiming to learn more about such penalties, this journalist on Oct. 16, 2018, filed a Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) request...

From the press release regarding tonight's BrooklynSpeaks meeting : Sixteen years after the announcement of the Atlantic Yards project, fundamental questions about the completion of its affordable housing—required in less than six years—and other public benefits still remain. Where will the rest of the apartments be built, and when? Who will be able to afford to live in them? At the same time, the City has yet to address the disruption caused by both project construction and the ongoing operation of an arena built in a residential neighborhood. How can street safety and local quality of life be improved during the next phase of development? As reported two weeks ago (by Curbed and the Brooklyn Eagle ), a lawsuit from row-house neighbors aiming to block the two-tower 80 Flatbush development has ended in a settlement, much of it under wraps, that includes what's been dubbed a Community Benefits Agreement, or CBA. As Atlantic Yards-watchers have learned, the notion of a CBA ...

I have an article at The Bridge today on the compromise announced yesterday on the 80 Flatbush project, a modest 12.5% cut in scale. From the article, headlined  A Little off the Top: 80 Flatbush Gets Shorter and Slimmer : In a negotiation that went down to the wire—past the start of a scheduled City Council subcommittee hearing Thursday—months of debate over the scale of the ambitious two-tower 80 Flatbush project concluded with a compromise agreement for modest cuts in its height and bulk. The promised public benefits in the project—two schools and 200 units of affordable housing—will remain in place, according to the deal reached by City Council Member Stephen Levin (33rd District), Alloy Development, and city officials. What about Site 5? Now that that project is resolved, perhaps there's more chance for momentum on a similarly large, two-tower project just down the block, the revision of plans for Site 5, part of Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park, currently home to Modell'...

A resolution on the contentious 80 Flatbush development is expected at or by a City Council subcommittee meeting today, with Council Member Stephen Levin indicating a willingness to accept some more density--a Floor Area Ratio (FAR) of 15, rather than 12 (plus schools), as previously stated. But developer Alloy and its partner, the Educational Construction Fund (ECF), have asked for an FAR of 18, which would nearly triple the allowable density at the site, and be 1.5 times the density allowed in the Downtown Brooklyn rezoning. The justification is the cross-subsidization of affordable housing and schools, though the equation remains murky because the Alloy-ECF deal remains under wraps. As that decision awaits, it's worth looking at the broader framework, and quoting Brooklyn Council Member Brad Lander's comments this past Monday, 9/17/18, before the Council-spurred Charter Revision Commission 2019 . He cited 1989 changes in the Uniform Land Use Review Procedure (UL...

As we're waiting to learn more about a potential compromise regarding the 80 Flatbush project, I wanted to add some backstory plus a few things discussed at last month's hearing but left out of my article for The Bridge. I wrote in a 4/1/18 article that developer Alloy began acquiring property in 2015, so it was well-positioned, perhaps uniquely so, to respond to the Educational Construction Fund’s (ECF) plan for the space. Indeed, after its purchases, Alloy contacted the Department of Education and School Construction Authority regarding the air rights over the Khalil Gibran school, with the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership making the introduction. Meanwhile, ECF had been independently looking at the site for potential redevelopment. "Well-positioned, perhaps uniquely so," was generous--it's hard to believe that anyone else would've wanted to proceed, because another developer would have had to buy out Alloy, or build around their property. After all...

From my article published last night in The Bridge,  Down to the Wire: What’s the Compromise on 80 Flatbush? : As the 80 Flatbush project approaches a vote in the New York City Council, District 33 Council Member Stephen Levin, who represents the site, has made a counter-proposal: The developers should cut the controversial, two-tower development’s bulk by one third. While that sounds like a dramatic downscaling of the project’s ambition, it’s a compromise. The size would still be nearly double what’s allowed under current zoning law. It’s not uncommon for developers pursuing a rezoning to request more than they need, with a scaleback in mind that would allow most parties to claim a win. But 80 Flatbush has been especially contentious, with executives at Alloy Development , backed by many city and business officials, insisting that towers rising 986 feet and 561 feet, accommodating 900 apartments and 200,000 sq. ft. of office space, plus two schools, are appropriate for the site...

It's been a calculated pattern. Before any key governmental meeting on 80 Flatbush, the developers orchestrate an article or op-ed. Today's New York Daily News has an op-ed from Michelle de la Uz, executive director of the Fifth Avenue Committee, the project's affordable housing partner--right before Subcommittee on Zoning and Franchises  meeting tomorrow at 9:30 at City Hall. Remember, the Community Board nearly unanimously opposed the two-tower project; Borough President Eric Adams called for a decrease in height far more than bulk, and the New York City Planning Commission affirmed the project. The City Council, notably Council Member Steve Levin, will have the final say. For housing answers, look up: We need to build bigger to create affordable units, including at 80 Flatbush , writes de la Uz, acknowledging that her position on density has evolved: Of course, we need to be smart about where it goes: in areas near mass transit,  where it’s in context with surr...

The two-tower project 80 Flatbush, in a transitional block between the Central Business District of Downtown Brooklyn and low-rise Boerum Hill, on Monday got unanimous approval, albeit with some concerns expressed, at a City Planning Commission meeting . “This is an absolutely singular site, located in the heart of my beloved Downtown Brooklyn. It is the very definition of transit-rich, on any list of the top five transit-rich sites, Atlantic Terminal is counted among them,” declared Chairwoman--and mayoral appointee to head the Department of City Planning--Marisa Lago, according to Sam Raskin's PoliticoPro report 8/6/18 (paywalled). Thus Lago expressed the administration's consistent support for the project, as well as the dubious claim that the location for the project--aimed to include 900 apartments, 200 of them affordable, plus a replacement high school, a new school, office, retail, and cultural space--is "in the heart of Downtown Brooklyn." The vote cont...

Also see follow-up article on other meeting topics. A few signs of progress, notably completed infrastructure and a coming demolition, were announced at last night’s bi-monthly Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park Quality of Life meeting. But they were dwarfed by the persistent question marks about the project’s timing. What are the plans of Greenland USA, the 95% owner of the Greenland Forest City Partners joint venture going forward, company official Scott Solish was asked. Solish deflected the question, saying the company’s focus as of now is on B4, the huge tower planned for the northeast corner of the arena block and targeted to start in the spring of 2019. It is expected to rise 511 feet and contain some 825,000 square feet, enough for at least 750 apartments. According to tentative plans circulated in 2014, that tower would contain 551 rental units, half of them affordable, plus 213 condos, but that configuration likely will change. “As we push forward on that, we’ll have...

I've been asked how I  calculated  the Floor Area Ratio (FAR) recommended by Borough President Eric Adams for the proposed 80 Flatbush project. Remember: while he called for a 39% reduction in height for the taller tower in the two-tower project--from 986 feet, nearly twice as high as the Williamsburgh Savings Bank (with the clock tower), to some 600 feet--he called for a 12% reduction in bulk. Not that he spelled it out. Here's my math, which Adams's office confirmed, looking at the recommendations on p. 26-27 of his  letter  (right) to the City Planning Commission: The requested C6-9 zoning (18 FAR) be amended to C6-4 (10 FAR). Total: 10.0 FAR For the school, exempt up to 50,000 square feet from definition of zoning floor area. The site (p. 4) is 61,400 square feet, so 50,000 square feet represents 81.4%, or .81 FAR. Total: 10.81 FAR Modify zoning resolution to enable maximum community facility FAR, adding 1.0 FAR. Total: 11.81 FAR. To advance a subway s...

I have an article in The Bridge headlined  How the Borough President Is Essentially Backing 80 Flatbush , with a deck: "While he would chop one tower's height 39%, [Borough President Eric] Adams proposes just a 12% cut in bulk, plus benefits like a new subway entrance." The relevance to Atlantic Yards is that Adams's basic support for the giant two-tower project suggests a precedent for the percolating--though not yet officially proposed--two-tower project suggested for Site 5 of Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park, just two blocks away down Flatbush Avenue.

Given that real estate executive Ofer Cohen now chairs the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership, as I wrote yesterday , I thought I'd again check out his Hey BK podcast , in which he interviews various people in the real estate world. (Here's coverage of the previous MaryAnne Gilmartin episode.) Cohen in April  interviewed his future partner, Regina Myer, President of the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership, and formerly head of the Brooklyn Bridge Park Development Corporation, and previously heading the Department of City Planning's Brooklyn office. At about 8:18, after talking about development in Williamsburg, Cohen observed, "You guys probably had no idea residential development was going to take off. Nobody had the idea that rents are going to go up and support the residential development that eventually happened in such massive scale." "No one in the early 2000s," Myer replied, "understood how strong the residential market would be in any place in ...

So, former Forest City Ratner/Forest City New York MaryAnne Gilmartin, whose new company L&L MAG has a service contract to represent Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park, wants to see Site 5 built. Of course. As reported yesterday by The Real Deal,  Adding some zeroes: Is Pacific Park ready for a 1M sf office tower? : Building a 1 million-square-foot-plus tower with significant office space at site five — occupied by P.C. Richard & Son and a Modell’s — would help amend that, she said during a panel at TerraCRG’s Only Brooklyn conference on Wednesday. Such a building would require public approvals and the transfer of air rights from the arena. Those rights were once pegged for a 62-story skyscraper next to the arena, designed by Frank Gehry and dubbed “Miss Brooklyn.” “To me, at the end of the day, it seems to me a much better urban planning decision to put more density on that site than to muck up our beautiful arena by landing a building in front of it,” she told The Real Dea...

My free Jane's Walk on Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park/Barclays Center is Friday, May 4, at 5:30 pm. See information here . The annual Jane's Walk weekend sent me back to a 3/16/17 panel at the Brooklyn Historical Society on the Legacy of Jane Jacobs, on YouTube below. The summary: In 1960, Jane Jacobs' book "The Death and Life of Great American Cities" sent shockwaves through the architecture and planning worlds. New York Times columnist Ginia Bellafante talks to Matt Tyrnauer, director and producer of the acclaimed documentary "Citizen Jane: Battle for the City," Rober Hammond, Co-Founder and Executive Director of Friends of the High Line, and Dr. Samuel Zipp, Associate Professor of American and Urban Studies at Brown University and Co-Editor of "Vital Little Plans: The Short Works of Jane Jacobs," about Jacobs' extraordinary impact on the urban landscape. Starting off talking about Brownstone Brooklyn--today expensive, beautiful, low-ri...