Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park Report

I have to admit, when I saw this article yesterday in Curbed,  The Brooklyn High-Rise Giving Tenants an Allowance , with an image (photo? rendering) of 18 Sixth Ave. (B4, aka Brooklyn Crossing), I wondered if there was a story I missed. Well, only slightly.  I somehow wasn't sent the press release from the Brodsky Organization touting its  Neighborly Events programming, which, as it turns out, is not limited to that particular address. As Curbed puts it: Across a number of the developer’s roughly 50 rental properties , tenants can get Visa gift cards to partially reimburse a game night or costume party attended by their neighbors — as long as they’re willing to post about their event on the Building Link messaging system; take a minimum of “five quality photos” of, say, Lisa from the 16th floor munching on Doritos; and, of course, provide itemized receipts. So far, per a Brodsky spokesperson, the company’s priciest compensation has been somewhere around $500. The point i...

So, was The Brodsky Organization or TF Cornerstone going to partner on the B5 tower, the first tower over the Vanderbilt Yard? B5, center-left, plus (built) B4. Dattner Architects Would that firm have joined Greenland USA on all railyard sites? Those are "what-if" questions that are probably moot--except that one or the other might emerge as a partner on Site 5, the remaining parcel Greenland controls. From a September 2022 letter to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority from Greenland USA President Gang Hu regarding plans--pre-foreclosure, of course--for B5:  "We have also notified both the MTA Parties and ESD [Empire State Development] of our intent to develop the B5 Building with a partner that has experience at Pacific Park but will not be able to invest in the project unless it is assured that it can complete the B5 Building prior to the 2026 [421-a tax break] deadline." That deadline has been extended, but that's not an issue now, since rights to the ...

Greenland USA's longtime Pacific Park point man, Scott Solish, who began overseeing development and operations of the project in August 2014 and has faced increasingly tough questions about the project's future, has left for The Brodsky Organization , a family-owned real estate firm that bought one Atlantic Yards development site from Greenland to build a tower and partnered with Greenland to build another. "I'm incredibly proud of the progress and accomplishments realized at Pacific Park," Solish said in a statement in response to my inquiry, "and, although I am no longer involved, I look forward to seeing the next phases of the project be realized by my former colleagues and friends."  In Solish's 8.5 years, Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park's uneven progress included seven new towers, a new railyard for the Long Island Railyard, and plans announced--yet unrealized--for a crucial platform over that railyard to support six towers and deliver most of t...

From Real Estate Weekly, 5/23/22, The Brodsky Organization Announces Full Lease Up of Plank Road at Pacific Park , surely a press release regarding 662 Pacific Street (aka B15): The Brodsky Organization today announced that Plank Road , one of the latest residential developments within Pacific Park in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn, is 100 percent leased. Offering well-located rentals, a full suite of amenities and incredible views — coupled with peak market demand — the 27-story, 312-unit luxury rental building has fully leased its market-rate apartments. This is a special milestone as Brodsky completed Plank Road during the pandemic and finished leasing just seven months after receiving its first temporary certificate of occupancy (TCO). So that means 218 units have been leased. Note: we haven't heard about how many, if any, tenants of the 94 middle-income "affordable" units have moved in.  Applications for those income-linked units were due by 1/18/22, three months after ...

So, as we wait for the affordable housing lottery--almost surely for middle-income units--to surface for 662 Pacific St., aka Plank Road, aka B15, I checked to see the rental status for market-rate units--and they're on discount, somewhat. Interestingly enough, StreetEasy lists nine past rentals, all currently unavailable, and seven current listings. I'm not certain whether the unavailable listings have been rented, or taken off the market for a bit.  Some of the past listings were offering one month free rent on a 14-month lease. The current listings are offering one month free rent on a 16-month lease--and in some cases prices have already come down.. That not surprising, given that it takes carrots to get people into a new, amenitized building where only some floors are available for occupancy and construction continues --and continues nearby.  Worth watching is whether a larger number of units--especially when facing competition from the catercorner 18 Sixth Avenue--come ...

Well, all that after-hours construction work apparently paid off. The B15 tower, aka 662 Pacific Street, has been re-launched as "Plank Road,"  with, curiously enough, no mention of the larger Pacific Park (aka Atlantic Yards) project. Leasing starts in July. The news was first reported by Patch , which also published the rendering at right. Perhaps the failure to mention the larger project is because this tower, east of Sixth Avenue between Dean and Pacific Streets, is pretty far from the expected location of the lion's share of the open space, which could take until 2035 to finish. Or because the developer, The Brodsky Organization, has leased the site from master developer Greenland Forest City Partners, has no allegiance to the larger project. But it can emphasize proximity. Mouse over "what's close to you" and get: Half a block to Barclays Center, 1500 feet to the subway, 4 minutes to your favorite coffee shop, 7 blocks to a picnic in the park, and acr...

When I recently walked around the arena block, I again noticed that the required "Work in Progress" sign at the 18 Sixth Ave. tower, aka B4, still says "Anticipated Completion: April 2023." That sign has been up for a while. Delivery at that time, as I wrote in October 2019, would trigger penalties, given the requirement that the developer is required to "Substantially Complete" improvements on the Phase 1 Property--the arena block and Site 5--covering at least 1.5 million square feet within 12 years after the Project Effective Date, which was 5/12/10 . So that's a 5/12/22 deadline. That said, an April 2023 deadline might have been extra cautious, or referring to final completion, since the developer had already told the New York Post's Steve Cuozzo that the $640 million tower would be finished sometime in 2022.  Faster timeline Not long after I first wrote about it, we got an update. In November 2019, Greenland USA's Scott Solish said , ...

The Panic Attack of the Power Brokers , wrote New York Magazine's Andrew Rice 10/13/20, quoting real estate machers as deeply unsettled by both the coronavirus crisis, notably its effect on building and sustaining use of office space, and the city's political rejection of development projects.Writes Rice: If the entire real-estate industry is filled with anxiety, there’s still a hierarchy of distress. The multigenerational family companies, like Spitzer’s, tend to be less heavily leveraged, which should allow them to ride out the pandemic. (Or so they say — they’re extremely private companies, so who knows?) The public real-estate companies are more exposed to market forces.... More imperiled still are the adventurous investors — the ones who are building condo towers catering to foreign billionaires or who borrowed heavily to buy high on speculative trends.  What about AY? What does that mean for Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park? Well, there are family companies, like TF Cornersto...

This is the first of several articles based on the 9/17/19 Quality of Life meeting, hosted by Empire State Development (ESD), the state authority overseeing and shepherding the project. In March, we learned at a meeting of the Atlantic Yards Community Development Corporation that the B15 tower, aka 664 Pacific Street, should be finished by Spring 2022. (See slide below.) A 640-seat middle school, occupying the building's first six floors and very deep below-grade space (see photo further below), was supposed to open by August 2022, School Construction Authority (SCA) records said. Not exactly. Last night, an SCA rep revealed that the school will not open until September 2023--a delay based on the aim to "refresh" designs over the past nine months--and it will hold 800 students, a 25% increase. (It's unclear whether the school space--previously said to be 100,000 square feet, both above and below ground--is increasing.) School entrance mid-block Sixth Ave....

Here's a link to coverage of issues raised at the meeting, including 100,000 square feet of new, below-ground space, a cut in vehicle parking, and a change/cut in bike parking. What's next for Atlantic Yards? Those of us making presentations at a recent public meeting didn't have solid predictions, only the inkling that something was happening. After all, as I said, it's a never-say-never project--and the devil's in the details. Yesterday, a message of Empire State Development (ESD), which oversees/shepherds the project, hinted at some significant changes--and some smaller ones. My best guess, as described below, is a significant boost in square footage to at least one building, thus facilitating more units and thus more affordable housing. ( Update : It might be a change in square footage of usable space, though not the actual building.) (Still, there's no announced plan to meet the May 2025 deadline for affordable housing, though surely strategies ha...