Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park Report

There's a very interesting quote from developer (and former New York City official) in Industry needs to be less greedy if it wants to dig city out of housing crisis , published 7/31/19 by Real Estate Weekly: “We have to be less greedy and we have to acknowledge that we can’t always win and other people lose, which is the way it was perceived for many years,” said Seth Pinsky, the former head of the city’s Economic Development Corporation now in charge of RXR’s metropolitan emerging markets division. “We also have to advocate for things that, in the short term may not even be good for us but are good for the city, and the region, and the state because, in the long run, our success depends on the success of these places, and if you want to build goodwill over time, you have to look like you care about more than just your own industry.” He and others spoke at an industry panel, where others noted that those earning six-figure incomes are now eligible for "affordable housing...

After writing this piece, I've further tweaked this blog's name to Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park Report. On 8/10/14, after the project's new name was announced, I changed Atlantic Yards Report to Atlantic Yards (& Pacific Park) Report. But the newly-tweaked name is more precise: they're not separate projects but different frames. Atlantic Yards? Pacific Park? It's hard to get them straight--and to keep a straight face. In early August, Greenland Forest City Partners, the new joint venture overseeing the project,  rebranded  Atlantic Yards, named nearly eleven years earlier, as Pacific Park , purportedly to highlight "the borough’s newest open space" and to focus not on Atlantic Avenue, but on Pacific Street. It seemed odd to highlight a smaller, partly demapped street as well as unbuilt open space. It seemed like they'd taken lessons from master political advisor Karl Rove, who famously claimed that "we create our own reality." Th...

A New York Observer article, headlined online as Let’s Make a Deal! How Mike’s Mild-Mannered Closer Seth Pinsky Got the City Building Again: Dan Doctoroff's protégée picks up the mantle for PlaNYC. , in print, as noted below, suggests that New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYC EDC) President Seth Pinsky also deserves credit for Atlantic Yards. Here's the lead-off to the article: Imagine, if you will, the landscape of New York City 15 years hence. A drive to Citi Field in Willets Point takes you past a pleasant if overpriced cluster of residential buildings, rather than seedy chop-shops. Roosevelt Island is home to a sprawling $2 billion applied-sciences campus spinning out an army of developers to populate ping-pong-table-clad start-up clusters from Dumbo to Union Square. On Manhattan’s far West Side, the rezoned stretch of Hudson Yards offers millions of square feet for office space, housing and retail and 14 acres of open public space. You can already see tra...

Two Brooklyn City Council Members yesterday grilled Seth Pinsky, president of the New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYC EDC) about Atlantic Yards, but Pinsky both defended Forest City Ratner’s potential plan to build modular housing for the project, and argued that it, along with delays in tax revenues from a longer buildout, would not necessarily affect the city’s cost-benefit analysis of the project. The latter statement, which Pinsky repeated in several ways, left Council Member Brad Lander dismayed and dumbfounded, calling Pinsky’s answers to Council Member Letitia James “deeply inadequate” and warning that the city has “misplaced confidence” in Forest City Ratner (FCR). I'd also suggest that it requires an independent cost-benefit analysis, by the Independent Budget Office, rather than a self-serving one by the city. The tense exchanges punctuated an other cordial hearing of the Council’s Economic Development Committee , meeting yesterday morning at 250 Br...

Atlantic Yards is falling down the memory hole. In two City Council committee hearings, held in March 18 and May 25, New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYC EDC) President Seth Pinsky made some questionable statements regarding Atlantic Yards, but was not called to account. He mischaracterized the timing and size of the city's investment He claimed there were new incentives to get the project done on time, but those incentives don't conform to the timetable his agency used to calculate city revenues He made new claims about the total of city spending on Atlantic Yards, but hasn't provided full details He cited, but didn't at the time provide, a new cost-benefit analysis that seems dubious under scrutiny , given that it presumes a both a full buildout and one accomplished in ten years He didn't point out that the city's new analysis represents a 20% decline in city revenue (though, likely, it's merely a more honest calculation than its predecessor...

At an interview and panel discussion sponsored by BISNOW on Wednesday February 24, Atlantic Yards was mentioned as an example several times by Seth Pinsky, president of the New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYC EDC), and MaryAnne Gilmartin, the Forest City Ratner executive in charge of Atlantic Yards. While Pinsky said "we hope to break ground in just a matter of weeks" on Atlantic Yards, perhaps the most interesting statements concerned the unsaid: while he asserted that the city's projects emerge from community consultation and that the best way to proceed was via RFPs (Requests for Proposals), Atlantic Yards proceeded differently. Gilmartin expressed frustration at the lack of coordination among government agencies working on Atlantic Yards, without acknowledging that, while that certainly may slow things down, it also can give the developer the upper hand. She also asserted that, in contrast to the example of Stuyvesant Town, Forest City has avoided the...

On yesterday's Brian Lehrer Show , Seth Pinsky, president of the New York City Economic Development Corporation, discussed Mayor Bloomberg's economic agenda and, not surprisingly, defended the city's posture on Atlantic Yards. But his presentation was full of contradictions. Notably, Pinsky defended Community Benefits Agreements (CBA) only if they operate in an accountable fashion very different from the process behind the Atlantic Yards CBA. He claimed, without foundation, that the "vast majority" of land in the Atlantic Yards site was a vacant railyard. He expressed no doubt that 4500 affordable housing units would be built, though there's no assurance subsidies would be available. And he claimed, in an exaggeration, that he lived just "a few blocks" from the site. Defending the deals Early in the show, Pinsky defended most of the city's development deals, asserting that "they had to garner approval not just from City Council but various l...