Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park Report

B4 nearly topped out Nov. 20 Photo: Norman Oder Pacific Park’s biggest tower to date tops out , Real Estate Weekly reported yesterday, based on a press release regarding the 511-foot tower at the northeast corner of the arena block--or, alternatively, the southwest corner of Sixth Avenue and Pacific street.  Most is from the press release (bottom). From Real Estate Weekly: Greenland Forest City Partners and The Brodsky Organization have topped off 18 Sixth Avenue in Brooklyn, the largest of the Pacific Park apartment towers on the 22-acre development rising over LIRR’s Atlantic Yards . The tower – known at parcel B4 – features 858 apartments, including 258 affordable units, and is expected to open next year. “The topping off of 18 Sixth Avenue is another major milestone for Pacific Park,” said Scott Solish, Executive Vice President of Development at Greenland Forest City Partners. “Pacific Park is a landmark project for Brooklyn and New York City, and the progress at 18 Sixth Avenu...

Hey, remember the Twitter description at right? "Pacific Park is Brooklyn's newest neighborhood. Home to Barclays Center, Pacific Park is a diverse neighborhood with a NYC public school and 8 acre park." That was so very 6/9/16 (and possibly earlier).  It also wasn't close to true, because there's no "park" ever, and the privately operated, publicly accessible open space has emerged only fractionally. It almost surely won't be finished  for many years, likely 2035 , which is the project's "outside date" for completion. That new school? Maybe by 2023. Maybe it was the audacious time travel, or the recognition that progress was slower than anticipated, but the Twitter description has changed. A revised description At left is the  current Twitter description , at least  from 9/22/18 (and it may changed earlier): "Neighborhood charm meets modern edge in Pacific Park – an urban oasis in the center o...

A letter (modified slightly when submitted) to the editor of the Wall Street Journal.... The 7/2/17 article, Why You’d Want to Build a Skyscraper Like an iPhone , by tech columnist Christopher Mims, suggests that modular construction might help solve the world’s housing crisis and contains this passage: The tallest modular high-rise ever built was completed in the Prospect Heights section of Brooklyn in November 2016 by Forest City Ratner Cos. A conventional builder that has explored prefab methods, the company created a factory in the Brooklyn Navy Yard. At the project’s busiest, upward of 200 people were constructing and finishing individual “mods”—three for every one-bedroom apartment, says Bob Sanna, executive vice president of construction at Forest City. Though successful, the project illustrates some growing pains of the new methods. Forest City had joined with construction giant Skanska on the modular factory, but that relationship ended, after delays in completing the h...

I published comments critiquing Tackling New York’s Housing Affordability Crisis , by Ashley Cotton of Forest City New York, in Gotham Gazette. And the same publication gave me a platform to respond, in  Pacific Park Developer's Deceptive Affordable Housing Spin . An excerpt: Those of us with long memories recall past deceptive essays by the developer. In May 2008, Bruce Ratner, CEO of Forest City Ratner (since renamed Forest City New York), penned an op-ed for the Daily News, contending, "for the first time, I am offering an updated construction timetable for the project...We anticipate finishing all of Atlantic Yards by 2018." Well, we know how that turned out. The timetable stretched to 2035, and then was said to be 2025, at least for the affordable housing, though officials at Ratner's parent company now hint at well past 2030. "We're still building the iconic Miss Brooklyn tower," Ratner wrote, regarding the Frank Gehry-designed flagship buil...

Let's look at a couple of recent article mentioning 550 Vanderbilt and try to figure out which one was (likely) driven by the developer's public relations effort. A homeless irony First, on 3/22/17, D.W. Gibson produced a thoughtful and sympathetic  report  on homelessness for New York magazine, leading off with a union worker: At 7 a.m., Donice Ford-Benson is working in the rain on the unfinished 17th floor of 550 Vanderbilt. She’s checking a drain system but pauses for a moment because, even in the downpour, she can’t resist taking in the panorama of Downtown Brooklyn. The spot where she stands will soon be a balcony and belong to whoever buys the condo and the views. According to the developer’s website, the building will be “Setting the Standard for Brooklyn Living.” Construction is almost complete, and when it is, Ford-Benson will then be out of work. She’s been a union plumber for 17 years; it’s a familiar cycle of episodic work, one that has driven her f...

OK, let's take a look at the top of the web site (screenshot below) for  38 Sixth Avenue , aka B3, at the southeast corner of the Barclays Center, with the entrance on Sixth Avenue just north of Dean Street: Conveniently situated amidst Brooklyn’s vibrant restaurants, shopping, and transportation  in a flourishing park setting , 38 Sixth sets a new standard. The thoughtfully designed floor plans range from studio apartments to spacious three-bedroom homes, rising 23 stories above the Arena. Each layout is spacious and flowing, affording ample sunlight and city views. (Emphasis added) What "flourishing park setting"? First, it's on the arena block. There isn't any "green space" programmed for that block park. See screenshot. So it can't be "situated" in anything remotely like a "flourishing park setting." October 2016 annotated timetable. 38 Sixth (B3) is at bottom right corner of the arena block. B15 has no public op...

A 1/13/17 letter to the Times: Apparently those cheering and applauding during President-elect Donald Trump’s news conference were Trump supporters invited by the Trump team who presumed that rather than attending a news conference they were at a Trump rally. Who decided this was a good idea? Is this the political equivalent of a laugh track for a sitcom?  STEVE HORWITZ Moraga, Calif. Why did that remind me of some Atlantic Yards events? No, they don't typically feature allies of the speakers heckling the press, but there's a lot of cheering and support. I remember the press conference before the August 2006 hearing on the environmental impact statement, or the December 2012 launch of the B2 (ala 461 Dean) tower, or the December 2014 groundbreaking for the B14 (aka 535 Carlton) tower. I'm not the only one to notice. Achitecture critic Karrie Jacobs called  the September 2012 Barclays Center ribbon-cutting ceremony "pageant of self-congratulatory bonhomie....

Just take a look at the screenshot below from the 461 Dean web site : a "brand-new 8-acre park." Except it doesn't exist. As of early November, the best-case scenario for that "park"--actually, publicly accessible, privately managed open space--was 2025. Since then, after  unspecified project delays  were announced, who knows? And the below-grade railyard, the purported major contributor to blight, remains uncovered ever longer.

The New York Observer's 50 most powerful public relations firms in America lists three that have worked with or still work on Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park. They include DKC  (at 3), SKD Knickerbocker (at 26), and Berlin Rosen , which is at 27 after last year being ranked at 4. From the text: How plugged in is Berlin Rosen? Founder Jonathan Rosen is one of five outside “Agents of the City” on Mayor Bill de Blasio’s payroll. SVP Dan Levitan is chief spokesman for Hizzoner’s 2017 campaign. Eric Schneiderman’s PR guy, Andrew Friedman, joined the firm last year. Oh, and Berlin Rosen got subpoenaed as part of federal inquiries into de Blasio’s fundraising. BR’s still got boldface clients like Santiago Calatrava, the Ford Foundation, Forest City Ratner and UNICEF. But its legal woes, and the mayor’s well-publicized stumbles, have us wondering if the firm’s allegiances are working against it. BerlinRosen is still going gangbusters for Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park. Which, occasiona...

Update: Note one skeptical piece from Realtor.com, plus some market skepticism from Bloomberg Quint. So Forest City Ratner had a media preview yesterday to show some model units and pump up the volume for 461 Dean (aka B2), the modular rental building that's supposed to welcome tenants at the end of this month. (There's been much less coverage of the delays in Pacific Park , or Forest City's losses.) Available market-rate units seem focused on floors 11 and 17 Note: various media outlets reported that studios start at $2,450, one-bedrooms at $3,125, and two-bedrooms at $4,750. No one mentioned the "incentives" that were being offered as of September until   Bloomberg Quint . YIMBY said "a 690-square-foot one-bedroom on the 20th floor, which had a slightly cramped layout but offered breathtaking views" would rent for about $3,700, or about $64.35 per square foot. A 700 sf studio will rent for $3,200, or $54.86/sf. A 450 sf studio will re...

OK, it's a strategy: find a style blogger with oodles of Instagram followers, and hire them to post something deeply aspirational about living in Brooklyn at the adorable 550 Vanderbilt building, while wearing some cute clothes. It worked with Kendall Kremer of Styled Snapshots ( Apartment Hunting in NYC ), as I wrote , and it also worked with Brooke Tamisiea of Somewhere Lately ( City Living ). Such vague titles seem pitched at wealthy suburbanites who just might want to buy an expensive condo in Brooklyn, which, as Brooke points out in the comments, would be fine for kids because "this place has a great location for shopping & food so that makes it easier, and also a park nearby is key!" Right. That "park," due by 2025. No wonder a very small disclosure at the end states "In collaboration with BerlinRosen," which is the development's p.r. firm. talking about city living & apartment hunting on the blog // loved visiting @pac...

Photos by Norman Oder The summer concert season in Coney Island is both bigger and smaller than when Borough President Marty Markowitz was in charge, though that's not quite successor Eric Adams's fault. A new, not-quite-finished, 5000-seat  Ford Amphitheater  opened in late June at the Coney Island boardwalk, built at West 21st Street into the landmarked Child's Restaurant building, which awaits restoration, and covering what was once a community garden. This venue, programmed by Live Nation and with Brooklyn Sports & Entertainment as a partner, has a busy summer season. But the free  Seaside Summer Concert Series , along with the  Martin Luther King Jr. Concert Series  (in Flatbush/Wingate), is somewhat truncated. The cloud over contributions As the 7/1/16 Brooklyn Paper reported,  Beep Adams: Free concert series not so free, because sponsors fear non-profits amid citywide corruption probes : Coney Island’s once-free Seaside Concert Se...

OK, if p.r. shop/consultant BerlinRosen can't always get "earned media" to promote the 550 Vanderbilt condo building and Pacific Park, why not "partner" (with developer Greenland Forest City Partners' money of course) with a vapid style blogger who has lots of Instagram followers? (Note: the original credit line at the way way bottom was thanking Berlin Rosen for "partnering," but now it thanks 550 Vanderbilt.) Hence the rather overgeneralized headline  APARTMENT HUNTING IN NYC , in which Kendall Kremer of Styled Snapshots writes: As Matt and I get older, we constantly think about our future, one day starting a family, and when and if we will make the move outside of New York City. We both grew up in the suburbs and know that eventually that is where we want to settle, but with both of our careers it currently makes sense to be close to the the city. We both dread the thought of a long commute! Our lease is up on our current apartment in ...

It's the Brooklyn Standard  of the digital age, for those who recall the Atlantic Yards developer's 2005 foray into promotional news, captured in the the New York Times 's anomalously tough 9/3/05 coverage:  "O.K., The Whole Paper is Basically an Ad." Welcome to the May 2016 Pacific Park Brooklyn Newsletter : Greenland Forest City Partners, the team behind Pacific Park Brooklyn, is excited to bring you the first edition of a bi-monthly newsletter focused on progress at Pacific Park and other important community news. What's Happening at Pacific Park Construction updates about Brooklyn’s newest neighborhood. The last module was installed at 461 Dean Street , the 363-unit rental building which was primarily constructed right here, in Brooklyn, at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. The housing lottery is underway now. Apply here . The installations of the custom facades are well under way on both 550 Vanderbilt  and 535 Carlton. There are over 1,800 units of housing und...

Remember how Pacific Park is supposed to be a "neighborhood from scratch" ? That's not enough. Now, according to Pacific Park Brooklyn's Twitter account , other attractions in nearby neighborhoods are part of  "Why we love walking around #PacificParkBK ." This is Trump territory, brazen, casual lies. It reminded me of songwriter John Pinamonti's prescient 2007 song, The Burrow , which contains the lines ( link to video ), "It makes me sad/yeah it's such a pity/they're trying to rename Brooklyn/Forest City." (Just substitute "Pacific Park" for "Forest City.") Why we love walking around #PacificParkBK —thanks for the great shots @justinchung ! pic.twitter.com/lWo868tGsG — Pacific Park BK (@pacificparkbk) June 11, 2016 Lovely photos, but respectfully, these hoods already have names. Prospect Heights and Ft Greene are great. @pacificparkbk @justinchung — Cory Ferreira (@CoryWrote) June 11, 2016 #EndlessAppropriat...

So how did this sweet little article in Fort Greene Focus (updated: now part of Bklyner, with a new URL), At 550 Vanderbilt, There’s An Emphasis On Inclusion In The Construction Process , came about? Methinks Forest City Ratner's publicity department reached out to a reporter with less than one month on the job --and the obligation to file multiple stories a day--and offered some copy. And the reporter didn't bother to check the more complicated history. Here's the key passage: 550 Vanderbilt...is being built with significant MWBE [minority- and women-owned business enterprise] participation, including major jobs like metal and drywall construction... In order to qualify as a MWBE in New York City, a company must be at least 51% owned, operated, and controlled by a minority or woman, in business for at least a year, and either be located in the city or have a significant tie to the business community. Greenland set a goal of 35% MWBE participation for the developmen...