Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park Report

Update: a statement from the developer saying it's "fully committed and resourced to complete Pacific Park Brooklyn" and it's "unaffected by unrelated corporations around the world," plus some comments in response. As I wrote yesterday, the brewing crisis around heavily indebted Chinese developer Evergrande suggests a potential cloud over Greenland USA, the U.S. arm of Greenland Holding Group, the Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park master developer (owning nearly all of Greenland Forest City Partners). No, Greenland is not in its own debt crisis, but extended contagion could affect it and other China-based developers with projects in the United States. After all, Bisnow yesterday reported on a ripple effect from Evergrande on another developer: China Oceanwide Holdings Group, with $3.5B worth of unfinished developments in U.S. markets, is unsure about its ability to continue operations as it struggles to raise capital through refinancing or asset sales, Bloombe...

In a 12/1/12 feature, PR Week reports, Game on at Brooklyn's Barclays Center: Leveraging Brooklyn's heritage and a celebrity superstar, the Barclays Center shoots and scores with effective comms.  ("Comms" means "communications.) They sure do, but that's partly because of a disengaged and manipulatable press. As a trade publication, PR Week chose to let the arena's spokesmen tout their successes, with nary a contrary word. Thus one major factual error was published, with other passages worth some skepticism. There are some interesting tidbits: But make no mistake, everything else in the reception area, including large poster-size historical images of Brooklyn and coffee table books celebrating the region's history, reminds you that your feet are firmly planted in downtown Brooklyn... The receptionist is very patient. It's not the first time someone has called to speak to Brooklyn native Jay-Z, the celebrity hip-hop mogul who is a part owner...

Update 9/1/12: a reader points out that a daily average of 797 workers, if over seven days and working full shifts (and neither are certain), would mean an FTE of 1116 workers. So if those numbers are indeed that favorable, Forest City should be more specific. On 6/29/12, I  questioned  a Patch report  that, "Right now on the Atlantic Yards construction site, according to FCRC, they have 1,079 union employees in total...." I tried to find out what that meant in FTE (full-time equivalent) jobs, given that the total number of workers has been overstated  by 25%. Forest City Ratner spokesman Joe DePlasco gave a brief response to my query, but avoided specifics: "That publication asked for the most recent number of workers on site... They change weekly and based on the work that is being done." Since then, I discovered a more accurate number. The official  AtlanticYards.com  website indicates that, for the week of June 24, there was a total o...

“I think all of this stems from [Bruce Ratner's] sense of what it means to be a good corporate citizen..." -- Forest City Ratner spokesman Joe DePlasco, in the Forward , May 2011 "ESDC is fully aware of the Ridge Hill investigation; we have discussed the same directly with Forest City and we have reached out to official authorities. We remain confident in Forest City as a developer and as a good corporate citizen and we are moving forward with the Project." -- Empire State Development Corporation spokeswoman Elizabeth Mitchell, March, 2010 "“Just left emergency rm my wife needs surgery tomorrow no fucking around get sandy on bd tell your brother we need help now I have to close this and take care of my family.” -- Forest City Ratner executive Bruce Bender, September 2005, revealed in Ridge Hill corruption trial, February 2012 "My dilemma is as you know, I don't mind fucking the bridge, I can't fuck it right now, I've got to leverage that b...

Brutally weird. The most extensive recent coverage of Forest City Ratner's astounding attempt to gain $249 million in financing by essentially selling green cards to Chinese millionaires (under the EB-5 visa program) comes via a manufactured flap over political correctness. The New York Post, in Atlantic Yards' foot-in-mouth veep , reports: A top official overseeing Brooklyn’s $4.9 billion Atlantic Yards project is being accused by one of its biggest supporters of making insensitive comments about a green-card program being used to raise funds for the cash-strapped plan. Former ACORN boss Bertha Lewis — who was largely responsible for garnering key grass-roots support for the planned Prospect Heights development that includes an NBA arena – told the Post yesterday that she wants developer Forest City Ratner’s vice-president MaryAnne Gilmarten to apologize for comments reportedly made at a recent Manhattan public event. "As citizen Gilmarten, I’m not sure how I feel about i...

According to an item fed to NetsDaily editor Net Income (according to the Times Magazine "a 65-year-old New York-based television producer anxious to keep his old- and new-media identities separate"), Nets majority owner Mikhail Prokhorov and a group of a dozen people on Saturday "watched quietly from a nearby vantage point" the demolition of 636 Pacific Street, the building housing Atlantic Yards opponent Daniel Goldstein's former condominium. As the photo, from Prokhorov's Onexim Group hints, that "nearby vantage point" is the roof of Forest City Ratner's Atlantic Center mall. According to Mr. Income's triumphant report: After spending about 20 minutes looking at the site and the construction plans, Prokhorov and the group went to lunch at the nearby Peter Luger steakhouse, where they dined on porterhouse, creamed spinach and cheesecake for dessert. There must have been some champagne too. Looking for Luger For those more familiar with ...

The public relations and marketing firm DKC (formerly Dan Klores Associates) is proud of its work on Atlantic Yards, as summarized in a case study . (They're leaving out brochure-maker KnickerbockerSKD , now known as SKDKnickerbocker , now home to former Forest City Ratner spokesman Loren Riegelhaupt . And we can't forget the role, as I explained 11/1/05, of "dark genius" Joe DePlasco , a DKC managing director.) From the DKC site Forest City Ratner objectives DKC was retained by Forest City Ratner Companies, one of the country’s leading developers, to prepare the groundwork for a Frank Gehry-designed development in the Atlantic Yards near downtown Brooklyn. strategy The cornerstone of DKC’s strategy was a community and media awareness program consisting of outreach to local advocates and activists around affordable housing, public space development, sustainable development and other community and design benefits. DKC handled all messaging for the development over the...

Yesterday, in a segment titled Winning Time , WNYC Radio's Leonard Lopate Show hosted documentarian (an p.r. guy) Dan Klores to talk about his film Winning Time: Reggie Miller vs. The New York Knicks , which is playing on ESPN. Klores, founder and chairman of the DKC public relations and marketing company that works on Atlantic Yards, told guest host Mike Pesca he'd sold the company to the employees and waxed optimistically about the future of the New York Knicks, run by General Manager Donnie Walsh. And then, at about 27 minutes in, Pesca brought up the Nets. A good thing for the city? "What about the Nets moving to Brooklyn if and when it happens," asked Pesca. "Will that be a good thing for the city?" "Yeah," responded the Brooklyn-born Klores enthusiastically. "It's a great thing for the city. Y'know, you gotta give those guys credit. I mean, whether you're for it or against it, boy, they stood with it. Who's they ? The d...

Six days after allowing Forest City Ratner flack Joe DePlasco to say, "“Most of Atlantic Yards is being built over the Long Island Rail Road," the New York Times finally publishes a correction : about 40 percent of the project — not “most” of it — is being built over a railyard. Actually, it's not being built yet either. For what it's worth, I filed a request for a correction last Wednesday night, shortly after the article appeared online--it was published Thursday--and again yesterday.

From a whimsical New York Times article to be published Thursday headlined Still No Place in New York for Qaddafi’s Tent : New York, of course, has several arenas big enough to house a large tent. There is the old Yankee Stadium, which sits unused while the Yankees are heading for the playoffs in their new home next door. There is also a site near Downtown Brooklyn that may one day become the home of basketball’s Nets — Atlantic Yards. Joe DePlasco, a spokesman for Forest City Ratner, the site’s developer, said Colonel Qaddafi “could do it but he’d probably be hit by a train.” “ Most of Atlantic Yards is being built over the Long Island Rail Road , which is a functioning railyard. So it would be rather precarious for a tent.” (Emphasis added) Not so. The project footprint is 22 acres. The railyard is 8.5 acres. And Atlantic Yards isn't being built yet. Don't they know that DePlasco is unreliable ?

A couple of elected officials who wouldn't mind a little press coverage are shocked, shocked by changes in Atlantic Yards. An article in the Daily News, headlined Atlantic Yards beginning to look like pie in Brooklyn sky for pols , states: Five and a half years later, a state agency's recent vote to adopt a plan for a new Nets arena and 16 towers - which will take longer, cost more, and look radically different than the original - has left [Assemblyman Hakeem] Jeffries and some other officials disillusioned. "The way in which the project was sold is dramatically different than the one in which the developer appears prepared to deliver," he said. "The promises made by this developer have disappeared like a house of cards." ...Ratner still promises 2,250 units of affordable housing, but critics doubt it will ever happen. City Councilman David Yassky (D-Brooklyn) said he always thought the towers were too big, but supported the arena because he was "excit...

From today's New York Daily News, in an article headlined Atlantic Yards project location sees work halted abruptly : "Over the last two years, we've prepared the site for the next steps. We've gone about as far as we can go at this point with preliminary work, including sewer, track, infrastructure and utility work, along with demolition," [Forest City Ratner spokesman Joe] DePlasco added. Actually, no. Remember what then-FCR executive Jim Stuckey said in a 2007 sworn affidavit (and seconded earlier this year by his successor): FCRC’s construction schedule has been carefully drawn to allow the arena to be ready for the 2009-10 season by commencing work now on vacant properties that are owned by FCRC, the MTA and the City, with work on properties that are owned or occupied by other parties deferred until the pending judicial challenges to the Project have proceeded to a point where ESDC is in a position to actually use its powers of eminent domain to acquire tit...