Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park Report

So, it looks like the MetroTech BID will expand  to encompass the cultural district around the Brooklyn Academy of Music, as well as Forest City Ratner's Atlantic Terminal and Atlantic Center malls. Apparently the 5/5/15  Economic Development & Employment Committee of Community Board 2 was uneventful, and the committee voted without dissent to approve the effort. Presumably the full board will act similarly at its meeting May 13. According to draft minutes I was provided, there was a presentation from Andrew Kalish of the not-for-profit, corporate-dominated  Downtown Brooklyn Partnership (DBP), along with David Lombino of Two Trees, the real estate company which is building an apartment on the BAM South Site within the sub-district expected to be added to the BID. The goals of the BID extension, as Lombino put it, are simple, including added sanitation, advocacy on behalf of the area, and programming in the new public spaces. Two residents of the One Hanson P...

The current boundaries, before expansion, end at Fulton St. Would you believe that Forest City Ratner's Atlantic Center mall might be considered part of MetroTech? Well, once the planned expansion of the MetroTech Business Improvement District (BID) is enacted, it will be. Instead of starting a new Business Improvement District (BID) from scratch to encompass the Barclays Center/Atlantic Yards, Forest City Ratner's malls, and cultural institutions nearby--as was proposed but  ran aground  in mid-2013--a different solution has emerged. The MetroTech BID, run by the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership  (DBP), which is heavily influenced and led by Forest City, is expanding--in a rather jagged form to the southeast--to "create a maintenance entity covering areas of the newly-established Brooklyn Cultural District." That includes the Atlantic Center and Atlantic Terminal malls, the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM), BRIC, Theatre for a New Audience, and other cultura...

So All-Star Saturday night last night at the Barclays Center, with the Slam Dunk Context and Three-Point Contest, among other events, was a fun time for TV viewers and visitors, among them numerous celebrities . For the neighborhood around the arena, the event, as with the All-Star event Friday night, was more of a challenge, with more incursions than initially disclosed or even finally disclosed--an impact "creep" that is not unusual for such large events. Belated disclosure For one thing, only on Wednesday--a day after an Atlantic Yards Quality of Life meeting  where preparations were discussed--was it disclosed that metered parking along Flatbush Avenue between 7th Avenue and Atlantic Avenue would be instead devoted to staging buses. Note that this was in the second, not first, set of instructions to neighbors. See the two-page document at bottom, in contrast with the one-pager previously sent. I was not forwarded that document at the time. And while the change w...

My story in the Commercial Observer, The BID That Wasn’t: Barclays-Area Effort Dissolves, For Now : To some, it seemed like a good idea, an effort to take responsibility for the effects of Brooklyn’s biggest audience magnet. To others, it looked like overreach. Now, plans for a business improvement district (BID) for a zone around the Barclays Center, the Atlantic Center and Atlantic Terminal malls, and Brooklyn Academy of Music cultural district have been aborted without public discussion. The reason? Organizers couldn’t figure how to spread the burden fairly on property owners, according to a letter sent yesterday to the BID steering committee and later passed on to this reporter. For more, see the article...

The Downtown Brooklyn Partnership 's maps keep evolving, and now the Atlantic Yards project and Barclays Center are more clearly part of Downtown Brooklyn, at least conceptually. That makes it easier to conceive of the arena and associated towers as being part of a Business Improvement District (BID) run by the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership, which is significantly influenced if not controlled by project developer Forest City Ratner. Also, it suggests that the scale of the Atlantic Yards project--the product of a state override of city zoning--should be consistent with and legitimized by the city's rezoning of Downtown Brooklyn. Let's recap. At right (click to enlarge) was a longtime map that could not quite fit in the arena, but contained an arrow pointing to the project. Then, after the proposal for a new Barclays Center-area BID surfaced in January , a new map indicating current development projects (see below left; click to enlarge) found space for the Atlanti...

I reported that there were two meetings scheduled for May 2 for the proposed Business Improvement District, but the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership says the meetings have been postponed. No new date has been announced yet.

So, meeting announcements being circulated suggest that the working title for the  planned Barclays Center-area business improvement district (BID) is the Atlantic Terminal BID. Huh? What about Atlantic-Flatbush? Or Barclays-BAM? Few call the area Atlantic Terminal or use that term for the transit hub. Many even truncate the name of the Atlantic Terminal mall, over the LIRR tracks and some subway tracks, to the "Atlantic mall." I doubt most of those taking advantage of the BID's services would declare they're going to "Atlantic Terminal." Heck, those involved in Atlantic Yards were enlightened that the project was on part of a long-established but little discussed Atlantic Terminal Urban Renewal Area, or ATURA . If Atlantic Terminal is the name, it would be blandly distracting. The nexus of the BID is at Atlantic and Flatbush avenues, home to the Barclays Center, developed and controlled by the biggest BID contributor, Forest City. Shouldn't ...

Guess what? After criticism that a planned  new Business Improvement District  (BID) to serve the area around the Barclays Center, nearby malls, and the cultural district anchored by Brooklyn Academy of Music should not include undeveloped property in the Atlantic Yards Phase 2 site, the boundaries of the proposed BID have been shrunk. The revised map at right (click to enlarge) now excludes the Atlantic Yards site east of Sixth Avenue beyond the arena block and the adjacent block west of Flatbush Avenue. (That block includes Site 5, home to Modell's and P.C. Richard, ultimately to be replaced by a 25-story tower that's part of Atlantic Yards. It also includes the Brooklyn Bear's Community Garden, not part of AY.) The map now excludes 470 Vanderbilt, a large office building north of Atlantic Avenue that will have ground-floor retail and, ultimately, housing in an adjacent lot (perhaps with retail at its base). See below left for the earlier proposed boundaries, whi...

[ Update April 30 : These meetings have been postponed.] A message from the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership, via CB 6, announces two public meetings on May 2 regarding the formation of a new Business Improvement District to serve the area around the Barclays Center, nearby malls, and Brooklyn Academy of Music. We invite you to attend a meeting regarding the formation of a Business Improvement District. The meeting's purpose is to provide a basic introduction of BIDs and proposed services and boundaries. This meeting will be a key opportunity to receive valuable feedback from stakeholders. We invite you to attend one of two public meetings hosted by the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership with the support of the Brooklyn Community Boards 2, 6 and 8, Office of the Brooklyn Borough President, NYC Council 33rd District, NYC Council 35th District and the NYC Department of Small Business Services.  1st Public Meeting Date: Thursday, May 2 Time: 9 to 11am Location: Brooklyn Borough Hall...

They're still cleaning rust dripping from the Barclays Center facade, as indicated in the photo at right taken earlier this week, looking east along Atlantic Avenue not far from Pacific Street. But that's not the big Barclays Center news. As ESPN reported : New York Yankees second baseman Robinson Cano , who is in the final season of a $57 million contract, has left agent Scott Boras to sign with a company founded by Jay-Z. Roc Nation, an entertainment company founded by Shawn Carter, also known as Jay-Z, announced Tuesday that it is getting into the sports representation business through a partnership with Creative Artists Agency (CAA). This arm of CAA will be known as Roc Nation Sports, which simultaneously announced that its first sports client is Cano. So he's actually signing with Roc Nation and CAA. Adds ESPN: Sources say Jay-Z himself is planning to be a certified agent, first in baseball and eventually in basketball and football. In order to represent clien...

Writing in Prospect Heights Patch, 2/12/13, Gib Veconi (of Brooklyn Speaks and Atlantic Yards Watch) wrote  Too Much Room for “Improvement,” a warning about plans for a new BID (Business Improvement District) that would oddly encompass the Atlantic Yards site. (My 1/7/13 coverage here . Note that Veconi says the boundaries may now include all of Dean Street between Sixth and Carlton avenues, notably the Newswalk building.) His central warning is that undeveloped areas of the Atlantic Yards site should not be included. An excerpt: One suspects that few Community Board members and elected officials would agree that development at the Atlantic Yards site has suffered from too much public review. Instead, they have seen the project’s sponsors skirt required environmental review and disclosure processes to meet a deadline for tax-exempt bond financing; create institutions like its Community Benefit Agreement that convey a sense of accountability where none in fact exists; and...

Forget the old website DBPartnership.org for the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership. It's all DowntownBrooklyn.com , baby. It's part of a re-branding to encompass the growth and gentrification of Downtown Brooklyn. Nothing wrong with that, right? Well, keep in mind that not everyone agrees with the organization's policies, like Families United for Racial and Economic Equality ( FUREE ) and those policies, as detailed in the recent documentary My Brooklyn   (returning in March ), are driven significantly by major landowners. And, I'd contend, there's clearly an effort to encompass a somewhat awkward extension to include the Atlantic Yards project--plus pieces of  Fort Greene and Clinton Hill--in a proposed BID (business improvement district) . After all, given that the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership is disproportionately influenced--controlled, some would say--by Brooklyn's most powerful developer, Forest City Ratner, anything the DBP does must be evaluated ...

Asks the community coalition BrooklynSpeaks, Will a reorganized ESDC bring accountability to Atlantic Yards? On the last day of 2012, the New York Post reported that Governor Cuomo plans to reorganize the Empire State Development Corporation. An official from the Cuomo administration was quoted describing the agency as “disjointed, dysfunctional — and nobody really is sure on the inside who is responsible for what.’’ Many who have followed ESDC’s role in the Atlantic Yards project certainly share that assessment. Instead of providing the type of oversight that would ensure the delivery of jobs and affordable housing promised to justify the massive public aid, zoning overrides, and access to eminent domain the project has received, ESDC has allowed itself to be used as a shield by Forest City Ratner behind which the developer avoids both scrutiny of its actions and accountability for its commitments. Reports that inadequate bolts were used to secure Barclays Center’s rusted metal shel...

Current DBP Downtown Brooklyn map ; Atlantic Yards site begins at bottom right Maybe it'll be called the Barclays-BAM-Area Business Improvement District (BID). Or the Flatlantic to Vanderbilt BID. Whatever its name, the new BID proposed yesterday by the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership (DBP), the nonprofit organization that already manages three BIDs, would represent a radical expansion of the Downtown Brooklyn's boundaries, to Vanderbilt Avenue in Prospect Heights, well beyond even the DBP's current map. The BID, which would tax commercial property owners to fund additional services like sanitation and security, seems in part geared to help the largest landowner, Forest City Ratner, cope with the impact of properties like the Barclays Center arena and the Atlantic Terminal/Atlantic Center malls. Forest City could wind up spending more than it currently does but at the same time see the costs spread more broadly, all under the umbrella of a non-public agency. That ...