Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park Report

A week after Long Island University (LIU( is holding its commencement at the Barclays Center, so too is Polytechnic Institute of New York University, based at MetroTech with arena developer Forest City Ratner. Unlike LIU, NYU-Poly, as its known, is not giving an honorary degree to arena developer Bruce Ratner. Nearly 7000 people are expected at event Thursday, May 23, which begins with more than 1000 graduates arriving at 8 am at the entrance on residential Dean Street. The schedule 8:00 A.M. Graduates arrive –All graduates will enter for the processional at the Emblem Health Dean Street Entry (Southeast corner of arena on Dean Street) 8:00 A.M. All guests of graduates with appropriate tickets must enter directly through the GEICO Main Entry. Several guides will be available to assist guests 9:00 A.M. Ceremony begins with the processional 11:15 A.M. Ceremony concludes (approximate time) The merger backstory As noted in the press release below, NYU-Poly, formerly the...

There's another big land use plan/dispute out there: the expansion of New York University, with the main controversy regarding its plans for Greenwich Village, where 2.5 million square feet (of 6 million total in the city) are projected by 2031. The Leonard Lopate Show yesterday featured a mostly critical (with no NYU rep) assessment of the plan. New York Times architecture critic Michael Kimmelman on March 25 gave it a thumbs up-and-down treatment . Here are some critical views from the  Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation  (which thinks NYU should build a satellite campus elsewhere in the city),  Mark Crispin Miller , and  NYU Faculty Against the Sexton Plan , and  coverage in Capital New York . The MAS angle On the Lopate Show, two critics, NYU faculty member Miller and Community Board 2 Chairman Brad Hoylman were joined by Municipal Art Society President Vin Cipolla, whose organization takes a mixed view on the expansion. (MA...

When I first wrote about New York University's astonishing absorption of the Brooklyn-based engineering school Polytechnic University, I thought it merely an intriguing (and severely under-examined) real estate story involving a principal of the MetroTech complex developed by Forest City Ratner and Polytechnic. Now there's a more explicit connection. As the Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported, in an article headlined NYU-Poly Expands at MetroTech Center: Will Allow School to ‘Own the Square’ and Enhance 24/7 Downtown Community : METROTECH — Going for a more dynamic, vibrant feel to its campus in Downtown Brooklyn, NYU-Poly, more formally known as the Polytechnic Institute of New York University, has signed a lease with Forest City Ratner for academic space in two Ratner-owned buildings at MetroTech. First reported in the Wall Street Journal Tuesday morning, the lease for 120,000 square feet of space on the ninth and 10th floors of 2 MetroTech and the sixth floor of 15 MetroTech wa...

From Conor Friedersdorf in The Atlantic's online companion to its Ideas issue, asking Can Anyone Replace the Local Beat Reporter? : I'd like to repeat a story I sometimes tell about the importance of local journalism. It begins in 2003, when I worked as the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin's beat reporter for Rancho Cucamonga (population 150,000), an affluent commuter suburb about an hour east of downtown Los Angeles. I broke all sorts of news that the LA Times reporter with whom I competed missed, largely due to my willingness to complete some rather tedious tasks: I attended every city council and planning commission meeting; pored over every campaign finance report, trying my best to trace donations back through limited liability corporations; read through all city ordinances and contracts until I understood them; and filed all sorts of public record requests for documents like cell phone records, expense reports filed by city officials, and e-mails sent from municipal ...

When's a merger not a merger? When it's an affiliation. That dodge is the key to the successful absorption begun by New York University of the Brooklyn-based engineering school Polytechnic University, now known as Polytechnic Institute of NYU , which occupies a MetroTech campus co-developed with Forest City Ratner. The deal, which brings Poly the not insignificant but hard-to-quantify benefits of association with the larger university, costs NYU (at first) just a $50 million loan for an engineering school with valuable downtown Brooklyn real estate and whose net worth is $250-$450 million. That dodge allowed an Albany judge to dismiss a lawsuit filed by dissident Poly alumni trying to annul the deal. But it doesn't really hold up. Why? Because documents tell a different story. While NYU and Poly now may deem the deal an affiliation , which is how it was presented to the state Board of Regents, it is for all intents and purposes a merger, which is how it was com...

There's some new money for Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz, but the most dramatic thing about the latest Internal Revenue Service filing from the Forest City Ratner Companies Foundation--which last April I called shadowy because of its lack of transparency--is that the total dispensed during tax year 2007, $1.89 million, exceeds the aggregate given out during the three previous years. That's a bit misleading, however, given that the single largest gift by far, $1 million, was given to the World Trade Center Memorial, a fundraising effort led by Mayor Mike Bloomberg. The mayor has been a staunch supporter of Atlantic Yards, quietly adding $105 million to the city's initial $100 million cash pledge. The New York Times reported 4/9/08 that Forest City Ratner's foundation has given $5 million to the $350 million raised for the memorial; the filing I examined covers the fiscal year through 1/31/08. Given that no previous FCR foundation gifts have been reported...

Some two months after the State Board of Regents in late June approved New York University's no-money-down absorption of Brooklyn's Polytechnic University , a group of seven dissident alumni have filed suit ( PDF ) in Albany to rescind the decision, arguing the Regents allowed the affiliation in violation of a 2005 Polytechnic board decision to remain independent. NYU’s consolidation effort--the school is now known as Polytechnic Institute of NYU --not only adds engineering to the university’s portfolio but provides a beachhead in Brooklyn , providing perhaps one-quarter of the real estate NYU needs to expand. The lawsuit, filed against both the Poly board and the Board of Regents, charges that the university's board failed to obtain an appraisal to establish the value of its real estate, air rights and other assets, a breach of its fiduciary duty. State report lingers Indeed, a report issued May 20 by State Sen. Kenneth LaValle, the chairman of the State Senate Committe...

Yes, the State Board of Regents, as expected, approved New York University's no-money-down absorption of Brooklyn's Polytechnic University. Yes, the dailies missed the story. Polytech brass are enthused , calling it a "partnership," a term also used by the NYU provost . Polytech alumni say a group of alumni, former and current trustees and faculty members, independent of the Alumni Association, filed a Petition to stay the vote and remove the Polytechnic Board of Trustees under Education Law 226(4).

Today the Higher Education Committee of the New York State Board of Regents will discuss a proposal "to amend the charter of Polytechnic University, as requested, to effect an affiliation with New York University," and a vote on the proposal will be held Tuesday. As I've explained , the proposed "consolidation" or "merger" is more like an absorption by the larger NYU of the MetroTech-based Poly. While there are clear potential benefits for both institutions, there are also reasons to be wary, reasons that, unaccountably, neither the major media nor the Board of Regents seem to have noticed. (The Brooklyn Paper did follow up and the Daily Eagle published a commentary from an outraged alumnus. Here's an alumni site .) Report and response A report issued May 20 by State Sen. Kenneth LaValle, the chairman of the State Senate Committee on Higher Education, raised some serious questions about the deal, stating that in three instances the board did...

Two-and-a-half months after the board of Polytechnic University (Poly) in Brooklyn voted to approve a controversial consolidation into much larger New York University (NYU), the chairman of the State Senate Committee on Higher Education has raised some serious questions about the deal, though it's unclear whether those questions--outnumbered by allegations dismissed--are enough for the state Department of Education or the Board of Regents to withhold their approval. State Senator Kenneth LaValle , a Republican who represents eastern Long Island, did not issue a statement accompanying the release of the report ( PDF and embedded below), titled Proposed Affiliation: Polytechnic University and New York University , which appeared yesterday afternoon on his web site. Nor does the report offer final recommendations. That may indicate he considers the results inconclusive: while the report rejects most charges made by Poly alumni that the consolidation into NYU is a sweetheart deal, it...

They’ve called it a merger, an affiliation, a joining of two institutions. But the planned--and nearly consummated--deal between Polytechnic University , a small engineering school at Brooklyn’s MetroTech that draws mainly on local students, and New York University (NYU), the ever-growing, Greenwich Village-based university with international reach, looks like a consolidation. Given that NYU would ultimately absorb Poly with no money down, but, among other benefits, offer a loan based on Poly’s real estate--a provision barely discussed publicly--it also has elements of a leveraged buyout . Then again, its proponents expect synergies would produce a whole larger than the sum of its parts. Poly,  with about 3300 students, would be eventually consolidated into the 40,000-student NYU, as its board members are replaced over ten years . Both university's boards have given their approval, but before the State Board of Regents gives its approval in May or June, a State Senator m...