Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park Report

On Oct. 31, I wrote about how the coalition  BrooklynSpeaks , in its briefing to local elected officials regarding the future of Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park, urged that they ensure deeply affordable housing and have the Barclays Center operator fund quality-of-life monitors. Here's the link . Let's take a second look at the latter recommendation, which I thought worthy but asking too little. It's clear, from the events of Sunday, when quality-of-life violations were blatantly encouraged, that it couldn't be viable without a vastly changed political firmament. Pacific Street and Carlton Avenue, access  managed not by the NYPD but by the Shomrim safety patrol My coverage:  Unannounced Barclays Center event for Hasidic group draws elected officials. NYPD lets volunteers (!) cordon off streets. Scofflaw vehicles block sidewalks, paths.   In other words, the powers that be--city and state leaders--wanted the event to run at the convenience of attendees and arena operators...

As I wrote in my recent FAQ about the kerfuffle over the missing Urban Room--the unbuilt atrium that was to be part of the unbuilt flagship tower--the defense of the status quo, and the avoidance of talk about fines, came from two sources. Those are the project's master developer, Greenland Forest City Partners, and the state authority overseeing/shepherding Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park, Empire State Development.  July 26, 2022 Missing was the arena company, controlled by Joe Tsai. They're sitting pretty.  They benefit from the unbuilt structure and the presence of a plaza, which they're currently revamping, after ten years, as shown in the photo at right. They're surely not expecting it to go away. The plaza allows for advertising, and is sponsored by SeatGeek. The original developer, Forest City Ratner, controlled all the sites on the project, as well as the team and arena company.  Was there a deal? When Forest City sold the arena company, in phases, to Russian oliga...

Urban Room at Flatbush & Atlantic, from  2006 Final Environmental Impact Statement So what was the BrooklynSpeaks -called press conference on July 14 regarding the missing--and largely forgotten--promised Urban Room atrium really about?  What does it mean?  To summarize: the public pressure seems aimed at a larger issue of accountability: the expected failure to deliver 877 876 more units of affordable housing by a May 2025 deadline, which comes with $2,000/month fines for each missing unit.  Upon reflection, the press conference also struck me as a move for negotiating position regarding future changes in the project, allowing the BrooklynSpeaks coalition to consolidate support from some key elected officials. I'd warn, though, that future changes--notably the size and scope of proposed huge two-tower project--should not be a binary dialogue between a group representing the "community" and, on the other side, the developers, their backers, and the state. It's ...

It was promised by New York State in 2009--before the arena block design changed--as “a significant public amenity." It was described yesterday by a local organizer--in somewhat of a stretch--as a "very important part" of the Atlantic Yards project.  And its absence has, in large part, been ignored, as a "temporary" plaza outside the Barclays Center has become a crucial part of arena operations, a gateway to the transit hub, and a periodic place for public gatherings and protests. But with Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park nearing an inflection point, the unbuilt Urban Room--the glass atrium once planned to serve as a gateway to the arena and the unbuilt flagship tower (B1, aka "Miss Brooklyn")--looms as a potential benchmark and bargaining chip regarding the project's future, notably affordable housing. "We’ve watched for years as the deadline for completing the project’s affordable housing has gotten closer, but no plan for achieving the goal ha...

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...