Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park Report

Outside 535 Carlton, looking toward Dean Street OK, it's small, pleasant enough, and still too early to evaluate. But one thing's clear: the first slice of open space (not an actual park) to open in the Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park project is not going to make a dent in Prospect Heights. Nor will it to deliver what Forest City New York CEO MaryAnne Gilmartin once said , “There will no longer be a dearth of green space in the heart of Brooklyn." Not to mention "sprawling lawns."  Nor, actually, will the open space serve "Brooklyn" once it's built out, by 2025 at best. Outside 535 Carlton (aka B14), only a piece of green space has opened, more or less a courtyard, without connection to the adjacent space to the east (the unbuilt B13), as shown above B14 in the rotated rendering at right, nor connection to the lawn that would span the demapped Pacific Street, not to be completed until construction over the adjacent railyard. Annotated rend...

Also see coverage regarding  461 Dean  and  550 Vanderbilt . Photo from July 2016 So, is 535 Carlton (aka B14) really 184 feet tall, as listed in the Maximum Heights document prepared by Empire State Development, the state authority overseeing/shepherding the project? Not quite. The height is defined--as is typical--as the "maximum height of the last occupiable floor." That's 181 feet, according to this document filed with the Department of Buildings. But then add 37 feet for the bulkhead and mechanicals. That goes to 218 feet, or a little more than 20% more than permitted. See screenshots below, and clock to enlarge. And with the rooftop mechanicals, the 19-story building reaches 221 feet, according to the building permit on the Department of Buildings' web site. That's 20% taller. According to the project's  Design Guidelines , "Rooftop mechanical equipment and elevator and stair bulkheads may exceed the maximum building heights...

Beginning today and possibly tomorrow, according to the Community Notice below from Pacific Park Brooklyn, contractors will temporarily move part of the construction fence on Carlton Avenue between Dean and Pacific Street toward the eastern curb line to permit underground utility work beneath the intersection of Pacific Street and Carlton Avenue. Adjacent is the B14 site, aka 535 Carlton. As shown in the graphic below, it looks like vehicles will stay left as the enter Carlton Avenue north of Dean Street, then move right to get around the work zone at Pacific Street. So the flaggers promised to be present at the work zone will be needed. The fence is expected to be in this temporary position for approximately two (2) weeks and will be returned to its original position until it is completely removed. No timetable has yet been announced for its removal.

Forest City Ratner's Adam Greene is apparently willing say what it takes to create a new reality--the Brett Yormark of real estate. Consider his statement to the Daily News in June: “The buildings were designed to be of the neighborhood,” Greene said. “They're very low density. There's a lot of sensitivity about scale. It has the scale of a (Robert) Moses plan but with the sensitivity of Jane Jacobs. This is designed to grow out of small stoops.” That doesn't make a shred of sense. With 6,430 apartments over 22 acres, that's 292 apartments per acre. The ratio gets higher if you cut out the arena plaza and arena air space: call it 19 acres, which would mean 338 apartments per acre. Small stoops? Jane Jacobs? Note that 535 Carlton (B14), pictured at right across the street from row houses with small stops, is the shortest and least bulky of the project's buildings. The successful modular plan? Now Bisnow, reporting 7/22/16 on Bisnow’s Residence of ...

I recently looked back on my 12/16/14 coverage  of the groundbreaking for the "100% affordable" 535 Carlton tower, and an answer from Mayor Bill de Blasio that might have been an intriguing hint, or maybe not. The lingering question: will any future towers with affordable units be skewed to lower-income units? Or will the current imbalance, which diverges from longstanding promises, persist? The background The background is that 50% of the approximately 300 units in 535 Carlton and the "100% affordable" 38 Sixth Avenue would go to households earning up to 165% of Area Median Income, or AMI, while another 15% would go to middle-income households earning up to 145% of AMI. AMI as of 2016 is $90,600 . Estimates for approximately 600 total units at 535 Carlton and 38 Sixth; AMI as of 2016 is $90,600 . But 65% of the affordable units should not be going to such households; the figure should be 40% (or 20% of the units in a 50% market/50% affordable building...

I  wrote yesterday  about Metro's  skewed coverage  that suggests the new 535 Carlton "affordable" building is for "low- and moderate-income New Yorkers," rather than mostly for middle-income ones, with fully half the units for households earning six figures. (Here's the lottery , open through Sept. 15.) Only 20% of the affordable units, not 50%, were supposed to go to that middle-income cohort. We should better call the housing "income-linked," given that "affordable"=30% of income spent on rent. Half the units are at 165% of Area Median Income, or AMI, which  is $90,600  for a four-person household. AMI is calculated not based on New York City or Brooklyn alone but by including some wealthier suburbs. Now we have some not so discerning follow-up. Patch posted  Photos: Nab a New Studio in Prospect Heights for $548 Per Month . Fort Greene Focus had  Affordable Housing Lottery For 535 Carlton Avenue Starts Tomorrow!  Curbed posted ...

So the free tabloid Metro tells us Lottery for new Barclays-adjacent affordable-housing building set for Friday , with the sub-heading "535 Carlton’s developers emphasized that the upcoming lottery is not just for low-income New Yorkers." Ya think? It's mostly for households earning six figures or more ! I made this chart regarding both 535 Carlton and the parallel 38 Sixth Avenue, so cut the numbers in half for 535 Carlton: The AMI in 2015 was $86,300 and the AMI in 2016 is $90,600 . So the numbers are higher. (Oh, and Carlton Avenue is one long block from the arena.) The article begins: A building scheduled to open later this year in Prospect Heights’ Pacific Park development will offer potential residents a shot at a bargain price in an upcoming affordable housing lottery. Well, affordable housing means "income linked," in which residents pay 30% of their income. A $3000+ two-bedroom unit may be a bargain in the local context, but it's h...

According to the latest two-week Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park Construction Update (bottom), covering the two weeks beginning Monday July 4 (a holiday) and released yesterday by Empire State Development at 3:22 pm (late) after preparation by Greenland Forest City Partners, some major work promised in the previous Construction Update is again expected in this period, and some new work is planned. Part of the giant fence may shrink. Provided appropriate permits are obtained, the MPT (maintenance and protection of traffic) along Vanderbilt Avenue outside the 550 Vanderbilt site may be modified during this period to deconstruct the 16 foot fence, put up an 8 foot fence and establish a protected pedestrian path on the west side of Vanderbilt Avenue. A community notice will be distributed. As predicted in the two previous Construction Updates, demolition at Block 1120--the buildings that bump down into the railyard from Atlantic Avenue--could commence upon receipt of Department of Building...

Last weekend, I walked around the Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park site and took some photos, which show 535 Carlton (B14) and 550 Vanderbilt (B11)--actually, the smallest buildings on the project site--in some context. The buildings in between, and the later ones on the railyard, will be larger . Looking at B14 and B11 Looking south and east from Atlantic Avenue, with 535 Carlton in the foreground, 550 Vanderbilt in the background A closer look at 535 Carlton. Note row houses on west side of street, as Carlton Avenue meets Pacific Street. A more direct look at Carlton Avenue and Pacific Street, from the Carlton Avenue Bridge. A view of 550 Vanderbilt, with the smaller segment closer to lower-rise Dean Street. That's 17 stories plus (see scaffolding) two more floors . Looking south on Vanderbilt Avenue toward 550 Vanderbilt Southbound cards on Vanderbilt must swerve when they hit giant green wall. That's contributed to some crashes . The B2 facade The f...

According to the latest Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park Construction Alert (bottom), issued Friday (appropriate lead time) for the two weeks beginning Monday, February 29, after-hours sewer connection work will occur along Dean Street near Sixth Avenue starting Monday. That's for the B3 (38 Sixth Avenue) site at the southeast corner of the arena block. All work will be done after 6:30 pm, but no end time was specified in the alert, which was distributed by Empire State Development, the state authority overseeing/shepherding the project, after preparation by Greenland Forest City Partners. Nor was there any information about noise or impact on traffic or pedestrians. The process should take about two weeks. Saturday work may continue at B2 (461 Dean Street), B3, and B14 (535 Carlton). There could be weeknight work at B14 until 9 pm. Also, there will be weekend work in the Long Island Rail Road tunnel and rail yard. Hours were not reported. Other new work is reported verbatim bel...

Politico NY yesterday reported  Cuomo threatening de Blasio’s affordable housing plan, sources say : In another apparent dispute between Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio, the governor has threatened to cancel funding for federal tax-exempt bonds that would finance the mayor's affordable housing plan, multiple sources have confirmed. Cuomo's office indicated in the last week it would not give City Hall any funding for the bond program through the end of the calendar year, despite an earlier commitment, sources said. Cuomo spokeswoman Dani Lever said that the governor never threatened to cancel the funding. The state controls a finite amount of "bond cap"--a limit on the total of tax-exempt funding, the burden of which mostly falls on federal taxpayers. At issue, apparently, is the state's discretion to give more than the required $300 million it has already given the city, which anticipated another $200 million to $300 million, even as the statewide b...

At 6:42 pm last night--already after the 6 pm end time for standard construction hours --the Pacific Park Brooklyn Community Liaison Office sent a Community Notice: Late night work (5) nights between Monday, July 27, 2015 and Friday, July 31, 2015 Temporary Late Night Work at B14 - 535 Carlton Avenue Site [at Carlton Avenue and Dean Street] Please be advised that during the week of July 27 - July 31, 2015 contractors will be working until 9:00 pm. Pursuant to their permit, contractors will be doing concrete pours and installing vapor barriers as part of the foundation work. The pours are expected to involve up to 20 concrete trucks, all of which will access the site via the Pacific Street gates. Truck staging will take place within the project site and/or along Pacific Street between Vanderbilt and Carlton Avenues. Note that, while surely they had plans for this late night work, it was not announced in the most recent two-week Construction Update , issued just a week earlie...

From Pacific Park Brooklyn web site Let's acknowledge that Thomas Balsley , the landscape architect behind the latest iteration of planned Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park open space, has an impressive record. (Here's an article on his work .) In Brooklyn, the promised open space will have trees, a sloping lawn, a "main lawn," water features and a dog run, as well as active and passive recreation areas. We'll see "heritage material" like bluestone paving and cobblestone paving, as well as benches, chairs, and kiosks. And those renderings of "Pacific Park Brooklyn," in finished state, look pleasant, albeit without any hint of how the 14,000 or so residents of the new towers might monopolize this rather small amount of space--eight acres--before the public gets a shot. But the presentation of the open space, starting with an "Exclusive" fed to the New York Daily News in which Balsley claimed "we wanted this to look just ...