Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park Report

OK, I'm a little late at responding to the 11/3/22 Crain's New York business article As Barclays Center turns 10, a look at a neighborhood reinvented . After all, it was paywalled, so it didn't generate much discussion, so far as I can tell. And it's difficult to assess the arena's very mixed legacy in a relatively short space.  Given that Crain's is a business publication, it's not surprising that the coverage, though not fully rah-rah, would tilt positive. Consider: the summary on Facebook was The Nets may be off to a shaky start this season, but development around the Barclays Center is on solid ground. Around the arena? The depends on what "development around the Barclays Center" means. After all, the most consequential building "around" the arena was never built: the flagship tower, which original architect Frank Gehry dubbed "Miss Brooklyn," was supposed to loom over the arena at Flatbush and Atlantic avenues, but was repl...

My recent post on Tish James's run for Governor sent me back to this 6/27/14 ABC/7 report (via Yahoo) headlined  Deal to expedite affordable housing near NYC arena , which deserves a closer look, not just for some errors and misreadings, but also for criticism from the then Public Advocate and a prescient warning by an Atlantic Yards opponent. This came on the day of a ( misleading ) New York Times scoop on a deal to ensure that the project's 2,250 affordable housing units would be built by May 2025--ten years before the then-current deadline (which had been extended to 2035) but still well past previous predictions. And that was the day that Empire State Development, the state authority overseeing/shepherding Atlantic Yards, approved and announced an agreement with developer Forest City Ratner to start two "100% affordable" towers within the next year, among other things. This averted a threatened lawsuit, on fair housing grounds (that delays would particularly impa...

On one level, it's a silly spat over a sloppy, nasty printed aside, followed by the unwillingness of a journalist to acknowledge error. On another, it's an example of the phenomenon I've called Atlantic Yards Down the Memory Hole . In the midst of a Commercial Observer interview,  Douglas Durst Talks Queens, Midtown and WTC , editor/reporter Guelda Voien wrote regarding the planned Hallets Point project in Astoria: Unfortunately, one holdout is also threatening the project, as The Real Deal reported last month. An entity called Astoria Equities 2000 signed a contract to sell a plot, one of three that makes up the Hallets Point project, in 2007, although the sale was not supposed to close until September 2014, TRD said. Alas, principal Isaac Deutsch is now reneging on his word, almost certainly in hopes of getting more money, a la Daniel Goldstein at the Atlantic Yards. I commented: That line "principal Isaac Deutsch is now reneging on his word, almost certainly i...

NYT Styles, 6/15/14 It was a night, it seems, of selective memories. On June 11, when the Municipal Art Society (MAS) awarded the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Medal, its highest honor, to Forest City Ratner executive chairman Bruce Ratner and CEO MaryAnne Gilmartin, the company's project were seen in a rosy glow. The gala helped the organization raise $1 million at the glitzy event venue 583 Park Avenue,  according to  the chatty real estate business publication Bisnow. The same night, an event at the more rugged Brooklyn Lyceum, sponsored by the "appalled" Historic Districts Council, didn't raise money, but raised questions--about the Atlantic Yards project, about the city's civic culture (and MAS's role), and about better ways to do development. The latter event--which attracted about 80 people--featured a showing of the documentary Battle for Brooklyn , dated but still vital, and a panel discussion in which I participated. The key line from the...

For those who remember how Atlantic Yards supporters would change "Build It Now" at rallies and hearings before the project received its official approval, the dynamic at the public hearing last Wednesday was curious. Supporters, professedly eager to see Atlantic Yards get built, stressed the importance of a free hand for Forest City Ratner and, implicitly, its not-quite-formalized partner in a new joint venture, the Greenland Group. Such a free hand would remove any specter of litigation over Phase 2, the subject of the hearing on the Draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (Draft SEIS). But there's no litigation now, nor any possible litigation concerning the five towers in Phase 1, on the arena block and Site 5 (now home to P.C. Richard and Modell's). Forest City has always been able to build. Several people long associated with opposition toward or criticism of the project, however, urged that Atlantic Yards be built quickly, essentially rec...

Put aside the public theater—some rude satire about Forest City Ratner’s new Chinese partner, a couple of literal dog-and-pony shows, some told-ya-so ’s from both sides—a curious, partial consensus on Atlantic Yards was vocalized by both critics and proponents at a hearing last night. Build Atlantic Yards now , they said, to deliver the benefits, predominantly affordable housing, given the promised 2250 subsidized units among 6430 apartments in 16 towers, only one under construction. But it wasn’t that simple, given vastly different levels of trust in the developer, That's why the atmosphere inside the auditorium at Long Island University sometimes got heated in a hearing that began shortly after 5:30 pm, lasted past 10 pm, and drew perhaps 140 people, a majority of them project critics. Proponents want hands off, critics a new oversight entity. Atlantic Yards supporters, many working off the same talking points , called for an expedited review and approval of the pending doc...