Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park Report

The bombshell announcement of foreclosure auctions for the six Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park development sites over the Vanderbilt Yard, as I wrote yesterday, raises more questions than it answers. And that means that Empire State Development (ESD), the state authority that oversees/shepherds the project, must publicly discuss its role and the guidelines and obligations it requires of whatever company (or companies) might take control from Greenland USA. ESD did not respond to my queries yesterday. It is overdue to schedule a quarterly meeting of the advisory Atlantic Yards Community Development Corporation (AY CDC), which has mostly been toothless but on Aug. 2 asked for a report on the project's financial viability. That would include the developer's obligation to pay $2,000 a month in fines for each affordable housing unit not delivered by a May 2025 deadline. Of the 2,250 required units, 876 (or 877) remain. That report, requested for early October, has not been delivered. ...

One lesson from Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park is that complicated contracts can get ignored, whether willfully or carelessly. We learned that during the kerfuffle over the unbuilt (and largely forgotten) Urban Room, which was supposed to be finished by May but almost certainly won't be built, given the complexity, cost, and interference (with arena activities) of building the flagship "Miss Brooklyn" tower.  Instead, the developer wants to move most of that bulk across the Flatbush Avenue, which would require new project approvals. Empire State Development (ESD), the state authority that oversees/shepherds the project, was distinctly uninterested in enforcing those fines, which could total $10 million by May 2023. ESD does have a "right to refrain" from enforcement, so that situation may stand. And that posture puts in focus a more significant enforcement deadline: May 31, 2025, by which the developer is supposed to complete the project's 2,250 affordable hou...

We'd already been told, but it is worth seeing proof that the developer of Atlantic Yards--before it was renamed Pacific Park--did in fact fulfill a small but not unimportant part of the project requirements. I raised the issue in July, noting that, as I  wrote  in March 2018, the project Development Agreement with Empire State Development, the state authority that oversees/shepherds the project, states that "prior to the Substantial Completion of Phase II," which is  May 12, 2035 , the developer (now Greenland Forest City Partners) "shall collectively invest (or shall cause to be invested)" a total of $3 million in the aggregate, for the improvement of existing parks near and around the project site. Within that total, $1 million must be invested before the "Outside Phase I Substantial Completion Date," which is 5/12/22, 12 years after the Project Effective Date, again subject to Unavoidable Delays. As I wrote, if the $1.25 million-plus earlier pledge...

Today, in a 10 am press conference scheduled near the Barclays Center's SeatGeek Plaza, the BrooklynSpeaks coalition, backed by some elected officials, will call on the administration of Gov. Kathy Hochul to collect fines--potentially totaling $10 million--for failing to build the Urban Room, the glass atrium that's long been supplanted by the "temporary" plaza. To my mind, the effort is both legit and contrived. After all, until recently, no one has publicly made an issue out of the missing Urban Room, which would've linked B1--the unbuilt flagship tower, aka "Miss Brooklyn"--and the arena with a glass atrium. Not until Gib Veconi, the best-informed--or is it only informed?--member of the (purportedly) advisory Atlantic Yards Community Development Corporation, raised the issue of the Urban Room at a  meeting last month , no one had talked about it. (Yes, that May 2022 deadline had slipped my mind, too.)  At least since 2016, developer Greenland Forest ...

I wrote yesterday how, more than six years ago, developer Greenland Forest City Partners' (GFCP) plan to move most of the bulk of the unbuilt "Miss Brooklyn" (aka B1) across Flatbush Avenue to create a giant two-tower project at Site 5 also involved eliminating the Urban Room. That's the long-forgotten promised publicly accessible space that was supposed to serve as an entryway for both B1 and the arena.  Instead, by decoupling B1 and the other three towers (later built) from the arena construction project, they had to build a temporary plaza--one that GFCP and surely the arena operator would like to see as permanent. From 2016 proposal But they forgot to get it done on time. Though long percolating, the process to allow a bigger project at Site 5--longtime home to the big-box stores Modell's (since closed) and P.C. Richard, and already approved for a substantial, 250-foot, 440,000-square-foot building--was delayed for various reasons. A suit from P.C. Richard wa...

This is the third of ten articles on the 6/7/22 meeting of the Atlantic Yards Community Development Corporation. The  first  concerned the affordable housing timetable. The  second  assessed an estimated 2031 completion date. The  fourth  concerned expectations of 421-a benefits. The  fifth  concerned the deadline for the Urban Room. The  sixth  addressed timing for the school.  The  seventh  concerned plans for the platform. The  eighth  discussed community impacts of construction.  The  ninth  concerned plans for B12/B12 affordable housing.  The  tenth  concerned the Open Meetings Law. While the Shanghai-based parent company of Greenland USA--which owns nearly all of master developer Greenland Forest City Partners (GFCP)--is struggling financially and seen its credit rating plummet, representatives of both the U.S. subsidiary and of Empire State Development (ESD), the state author...

The B4 tower (18 Sixth Avenue) flanking the Barclays Center is due April 2023, at least according to the signs (right) on the construction scaffolding. Such signs can be optimistic, since construction typically takes longer than anticipated. Still, even an April 2023 completion might pose trouble for developer Greenland Forest City Partners, since that would be nearly one year later than project documents require before penalties kick in regarding a quota of square footage for the arena block. Whether those fines--which I estimate below at $1.65 million minimum--would be enforced is another question. After all, the guiding project documents have already been changed multiple times. Could they meet the deadline? Alternatively, perhaps the sign's in error. In April, the developer  told  the New York Post's Steve Cuozzo that the $640 million tower would be finished sometime in 2022. The deadline is 5/12/22. Perhaps that could be met with (more) after-hours work, though ...

In an Edmonton Journal article headlined Case for new arena no 'slam dunk': Leading analyst says such plans can work - if conditions are right (posted below, after the original link disappeared), sports economist Andrew Zimbalist, who claims he turns down 70 percent of consulting gigs offered, offers a mixed opinion on a new downtown arena : Success, he says, comes down to a few guiding principles. These include: thoughtful planning and design; a solid financial model that places most (roughly 80 per cent) of the financial burden on the private-sector partner; upfront, iron-clad guarantees from the developer to protect local taxpayers from projected future revenue shortfalls or project cost overruns; and a binding upfront commitment by the team owner and his developer-partners to proceed with ancillary projects, such as hotels or condos. What was missing in Brooklyn Funny, but Zimbalist didn't say that in the "study" he conducted for Forest City Ratner. (H...

So much for charges that the Atlantic Yards Development Agreement--which allows for 25 years, rather than ten, to build the project-- "was intentionally withheld in bad faith." So much for attorney Matthew Brinckerhoff's assertion that "we now know [the ten-year project timetable] is complete, utter fantasy." So much for Brinckerhoff's charge that the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) timed release of information to avoid judicial scrutiny. In a decision that was hardly unexpected, Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Abraham Gerges on September 20 dismissed a lawsuit-- Article 78 Petition to Compel the ESDC to Issue New Determinations and Findings , with three remaining plaintiffs--arguing that the project had changed so much and the public benefits so attenuated that new eminent domain findings should be made. (This was the final case challenging eminent domain. Supreme Court Justice Marcy Friedman is still considering a reargument ...