Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park Report

Forest City Ratner's press release about getting a final $30 million (not that much) in financing for its residential project at 80 DeKalb Avenue is getting a lot of coverage ( here and here ), with one story line, according to the Brooklyn Paper , that "critics pointed out that the state subsidy means that the public will be spending $1.5 million for each affordable unit." No actual critics were quoted in the article, though a couple appear in the comments section. While the state Housing Finance Agency's 80/20 financing plan is surely vulnerable to criticism, the 80 DeKalb project, as I wrote in April, may be a relative bargain for taxpayers. $1.5 million per unit is low The FCR project, along with three others, was selected among 14 projects for the state agency's bonds, because "we view [the 80 DeKalb project] as an efficient use of a scarce resource," said Priscilla Almodovar, President and Chief Executive Officer of HFA. "[T]he developer ag...

A couple of AYR readers yesterday were taken aback by the claim , on the Barclays Center web site, that 60,000 vehicles pass (or will pass) daily through the intersection of Flatbush and Atlantic avenues, thus providing a prime location for the Jones Soda Stoop & Adjacent Terrace. Do 60,000 vehicles really pass through that intersection now--or would they do so later? The short answer is that evidence is inconclusive, since the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC), in the Final Environmental Impact Statement, didn't aim at cumulative vehicle counts but rather at whether traffic during peak hours could be mitigated. (Answer: traffic at a.m. peak hours would have significant impacts at 11 intersections even after mitigation efforts.) However, Community Consulting Services , which provided the graphic at right , has steadily contended that the ESDC's report lowballed the cumulative impact of development on traffic and transit. (The ESDC responded .) FCR's conundru...

Architect Frank Gehry, developer Forest City Ratner, and the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) have long called it the "Urban Room," publicly-accessible open space. (See more here and here .) It looks like we should start calling it the ADT Plaza . While ADT Plaza is not described explicitly as the "Urban Room" on the Barclays Center web site , it would include several elements tagged to the Urban Room. First, consider how the ESDC describes a large, at least 10,000-sf publicly accessible atrium that would serve as a dramatic gateway to the arena and provide a place for people to congregate... [I]t would serve as an entrance to the office space and hotel in Building 1, the restaurant and cafe, the arena (its ticket booths would be located here), and a new access point to the subway via an underground connection....The Urban Room would serve as its own destination when programmed with small concerts, cultural events, art shows, and readings that would be ...

This is the seventh of a multi-part interview (conducted May 28) with Neil deMause, the Brooklyn-based co-author of the book Field of Schemes: How the Great Stadium Swindle Turns Public Money Into Private Profit , and writer of the companion web site . He testified at a 3/29/07 Congressional hearing that questioned taxpayer financing of stadiums, convention centers, and hotels. Q. Economist Mark Rosentraub, in your book, says something like, if you’re not prepared for major changes in your sports facility by its second decade, you’re being pollyanish. Let’s say Frank Gehry’s designing the best arena of its time. How long would it last before it needs to be reworked? A. Well, [Seattle's] Key Arena was rebuilt in '94; now the Sonics are trying to move to Oklahoma City, that’s 14 years. [They have since gotten the OK to move .] It depends on what you mean by reworked--torn down and rebuilt, or have some new things added? I think there will always be new technology that teams want...

Would you want to run a marathon around the Atlantic Yards footprint? An informational graphic (click to enlarge) in the New York Times Sports section Saturday suggested some curious details about the Atlantic Yards footprint and nearby parts of central Brooklyn: the area is experiencing high levels of carbon monoxide (CO) emissions, close to the levels that prompted Beijing officials to take drastic pre-marathon measures. The main point of the graphic is to compare the air quality along the Olympic marathon route in Beijing before alternate-day driving restrictions were imposed with the air quality after such limitations were imposed. The newspaper also included a graphic of the New York City Marathon route , which showed a "spike" in the area near Lafayette and Bedford avenues, where the route turns north, but also some significant increases around the intersection of Fourth, Flatbush, and Atlantic avenues, the western segment of the AY footprint. The newspaper blames ...

I've posted (via my previous article) the 35-page Contract Scope for an Environmental Impact Statement that I cited on Friday as promising more analysis of blight than was ultimately produced by consultant AKRF. The document was part of a package of documents the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC)) described, in response to my Freedom of Information Law request, "the contract between AKRF and ESDC for services pertaining to the Atlantic Yards project." The ESDC voted on 9/29/05 to authorize the contract. It was signed by representatives of AKRF on 1/12/06 and ESDC 1/24/06. The Contract Scope is undated, but its second page states that "a final draft EAF [Environmental Assessment Form] was submitted to ESDC on September 16," which suggests that the document was in front of the ESDC when the agency's board voted that month. It sure would've been interesting to have had it earlier.

An odd exchange in the letters section of this week's Courier-Life chain leaves as a casualty some basic factual information about the latest Atlantic Yards eminent domain challenge . The letter In Stephen Witt’s article “Yards foes strike back again" paragraph 4 reads: "The petition asked the Appellate Division of New York State Supreme Court to overturn a lower court ruling backing the Empire State Development Corporation's findings and determination to seize property in the footprint of the project." This is incorrect. The petition is for an entirely new legal challenge, it is not seeking to overturn any court decision at all. There was no lower court ruling backing the Empire State Development Corporation's findings. The suit, rather, is seeking to overturn the Empire State Development Corporations decision to use eminent domain to seize homes and businesses in the footprint of Forest City Ratner's Atlantic Yards plan. Also, paragraph 2 reads: ...

OK, Frank Gehry considers himself a "do-gooder, liberal," and let's take him at his word, though his powers of discernment--describing his patron Bruce Ratner in such an uncomplicated way--might be challenged. In the documentary Sketches of Frank Gehry , the protagonist told his friend, the director Sydney Pollack, how much the latter had influenced him: You won’t remember this, but years ago, when we first met, you talked to me about filmmaking. I was struggling with the world I was confronted with, which was a commercial world, they weren’t interested in what I was doing. And I talked to you about it one night, and you said you faced the same commercial world and that you made peace with it by finding this small percentage of space in that commercial world where you could make a difference. Finding the space Gehry's tone gained a degree of wonderment, as he continued: Man, that was amazing to me, Sydney, I’ve never forgotten that, and if you hear in my talks after...

Remember the 5/3/07 oral argument in the lawsuit over the Atlantic Yards environmental review? In response to the petitioners' contention, based on newspaper articles and citations of recent and new development, that the area in and around the AY footprint was undergoing redevelopment, the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) called that claim speculative. “OK, let’s compare our analysis to the market analysis they did,” petitioners' attorney Jeffrey Baker said sardonically. “Sorry, I can’t. They never did.” The ESDC called recent condo conversions "isolated redevelopment" and Supreme Court Justice Joan Madden, in her ruling this past January, agreed, calling it "insufficient to outweigh the ample evidence of blight conditions documented in the Blight Study." Market study to be included? Now that the case is under appeal, it's interesting to note that, according to the Contract Scope (PDF, 25MB ) for the environmental review to be performed f...

I wrote in July 2007 about the questionable but apparently legal practice of a developer like Forest City Ratner hiring consultants like AKRF , then paying for AKRF's work on the same project on behalf of the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC). Since then, I've learned some details: --AKRF had been working for Forest City Ratner since June 2003 --the ESDC's conflict-of-interest policy doesn't address issues of consecutive representation --AKRF was hired without any competitive bidding or public notice because the ESDC was convinced speed and continuity were important. All this suggests that AKRF, widely acknowledged as the largest and most experienced environmental consulting firm in New York, the consultant of choice for sponsors of major projects, can benefit from some cozy circumstances: in the case of Atlantic Yards, its preliminary work for the developer, rather than raise questions about the ethics about later doing similar work for ESDC on behalf of the...

The gulf between what’s legal and what’s truthful is on display in the appellate briefs in the legal case challenging the Atlantic Yards environmental review. The Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) and developer Forest City Ratner (FCR) have responded at length to a host of issues raised by the appellants, Develop Don’t Destroy and 25 other civic groups, who saw their case dismissed at the trial court level in January. For now, however, I’d like to focus on whether or not it was legitimate for the ESDC to assume, when it approved the project in December 2006, that the arena would open in October 2009, that Phase 1 would be finished by 2010, and the entire project would be finished by 2016. The answer, according to lawyers for the ESDC and FCR, is yes, given that there was a timetable that said it was possible to physically construct the project within that time. Whether that timetable was realistic is another story. ESDC: vague generalities ESDC's brief states: Appellan...

Though Forest City Ratner officials continue to claim that "We plan to break ground this fall and are working to open [the arena] in calendar year 2010," the numbers just don't work. According to Chapter 17 (Construction Impacts) of the Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS), the arena would take "less than three years" to build or, by my calculations, 32 months. Even if they started today, the construction schedule would go well into 2011. Bruce Ratner, speaking to investors in June, somewhat more accurately estimated that the arena would take two-and-a-half years (30 months) to build, though that seems optimistic. If the developer were to break ground in February, assuming lawsuits are cleared by then, a 32-month (two years, eight months) timetable would still allow for completion for the basketball season beginning in October 2011. But it sure wouldn't allow for a 2010 arena opening. What the FEIS says The document states: It is expected that the ...

It seems unlikely that anything other than a symbolic groundbreaking for the Barclays Center arena could be held this fall, as promised , given that the arena block will not have been cleared nor will the state and developer control all the properties within it, as lawsuits are pending. Moreover, bonds for the arena can't be sold until those lawsuits are cleared, and that most likely wouldn't be until 2009, in a best-case scenario. Still, officials from Barclays Capital, Forest City Ratner, and the (as of now) New Jersey Nets are forging ahead with a "Barclays/Nets Community Alliance," aiming to "leverage the Nets with FCRC and BARCLAYS to create a positive perception of landmark partnerships"--in other words, giving away $1 million with the twin goals of helping the disadvantaged communities and, not coincidentally, reaping some public relations rewards. The announcement also raises questions about timing, length of commitment, and the morphing of a previo...

In two buildings located in the Atlantic Yards footprint, one owned and one rented by developer Forest City Ratner (FCR), the Department of Buildings (DoB) has assessed $2500 fines for active violations considered hazardous. In neither case, at least according to the DoB's web site, has the developer contested the violations, paid the fines, or corrected the violations. (Queries to both the DoB and the FCR have not been returned. Maybe someone else will follow up.) Click on graphics to enlarge. A violation on Pacific Street A violation issued April 29 at 754 Pacific Street cited a failure to maintain the building, including missing guard rails on interior stairs, and risers and tread missing from stairs. A hearing was scheduled June 25 and the developer apparently didn't show up, since the "hearing status" is "default." In March 2007, a state judge backed charges by property owner Henry Weinstein that his tenant, developer Shaya Boymelgreen, improperly ass...