Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park Report

There would be battery recyling (B) and an EBT station (E) GrowNYC and the Barclays Center are planning to operate a farmers market on the arena plaza, with vendors located on the north side of Flatbush Avenue, between Atlantic and Pacific Street and vendor vehicle parked in the adjacent lay-by lane, according to a notice from Community Board 2. The two parties have been invited (but not confirmed) to CB 2's Transportation Committee, which meets tomorrow, Tuesday, June 18, at 6 pm. The location is the First Floor Board Room, St. Francis College, 180 Remsen Street (between Clinton and Court streets), in Brooklyn Heights. This would mark another effort in the somewhat belated but now steady effort to activate the arena plaza, which has recently hosted a food truck rally and health fair . It's not clear which days--and for how long--the farmers market is planned.

Jay-Z generally gets treated fawningly by the media (see Zadie Smith's "Civic-Minded Hip-Hop Mogul," from the New York Times's T Magazine last September), so its notable to see a strong contrary view in The Unwinding , New Yorker writer (and Brooklynite) George Packer's new non-fiction narrative, subtitled "An Inner History of the New America." In  This Is How a Nation Unwinds , TIME columnist Joe Klein notes the series of secondary characters, those who've become successful in this stratified society: "Where do we find moral authority in a society that, as Packer writes, celebrates an unapologetic former crack dealer like Jay Z?" Indeed, Packer's portrait, drawn all from secondhand sources, is harsh. Some excerpts: The hustle was a paranoid fever, one eye always open, "excited with crime and the lavish luxuries that just excited my mind" ...He was always about the money. Second best wasn't worth the ultimate price...

Yesterday, on the Barclays Center plaza, the Brooklyn Hospital Center Community Health Fair included numerous opportunities to get health information and--of course--an opportunity to buy Nets gear. Just like the recent food truck rally.

A little more than a year ago, some Brooklyn residents, as well as large landowners along Flatbush Avenue near the Barclays Center, resisted a nascent effort by the short-shorts  "risque restaurant" Hooters  to establish itself near the arena. Community Board 2 boundaries Now a more homegrown and racy effort is surfacing, with the operators aiming for a bikini bar with pole dancing near the arena, though along Atlantic Avenue rather than Flatbush. Atlantic is more of a commercial/manufacturing district, while Flatbush is the spine of a residential area. DNAinfo reported yesterday, based on a preliminary plan that surfaced at a meeting of Community Board 2,  Retired NYPD Detective Hopes to Open Bikini Bar in Fort Greene Area . That detective is Michael Bell , who owns  Ground Zero Security and Investigations .  "I am proposing a new upscale bikini bar with absolutely no nudity for the Downtown Brooklyn area," Bell's partner Renae Caeser said, acco...

Just after the Brooklyn Nets hired former star guard Jason Kidd as their new coach, they started pitching his presence to sell season tickets, starting at $40/seat, as a Father's Day gift.

See update with an analysis of the presentation and backing documents. Fewer people are driving to the Barclays Center than anticipated, according to a study released yesterday by arena developer Forest City Ratner, and a beaming Sam Schwartz, the developer's transit consultant, described the percentage as an unprecedented result. Forest City's Jane Marshall (c); ESD's Arana Hankin (r.); consultant Sam Schwartz; photo and set by Tracy Collins While the Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) set a goal of 28.3% for weekday auto share for Nets games, the actual statistic was 25.7%. For weekend games, the FEIS goal was 32%, and the actual figure 31.9%. Schwartz (at 38:10 of the video below) attributed the success to a number of factors, including the arena's location at a transit hub; direct access to the subway; enhanced service (extra subway trains, though extra buses not needed); marketing of transit; ongoing coordination by government agencies; reducti...

Partly it's a bet that great leadership from a player can translate into great leadership--and winning--as a coach. Partly it's a bold p.r. move, winning over fans and many press representatives, some of whom began their questions at a press conference yesterday with congratulations to Jason Kidd. It's also an effort to ensure higher ratings on cable TV. And a way to tweak the long-established New York Knicks. Those are among the story lines that surfaced after the Nets announced former star point guard--and most recently Knick--Jason Kidd as their new coach. And maybe, as one writer suggests , hiring a same-old coach rather than a newbie like Kidd would have also been a gamble. A three-day timeline As Stefan Bondy wrote in the New York Daily News: If you believe the narrative from the Nets and Kidd, the point guard decided over the weekend he wanted to coach the Nets, pitched a perfect meeting with King on Monday, and became the chosen candidate on Wednesday nig...

See follow-up based on public presentation and neighbors' critiques. Before the meeting tonight ( pending questions ) on the Barclays Center Transportation Demand Management (TDM) plan, I asked if the report or any of the backing data would be made public beforehand. I didn't even get an answer. But the reason is clear. Empire State Development, the state agency overseeing/enabling Atlantic Yards, is  happy to let Forest City Ratner leak/place the study with cooperative media outlets. So, the news is that fewer people drive to the arena, but--contrary to a New York Times exclusive--that's not simply because Forest City Ratner reduced on-site parking and promoted public transportation. The study also indicates that more people walk and take taxis/car services. (Unmentioned, apparently, is the persistent problem of idling and illegally parking black cars/limos.) And there's no explanation regarding a lingering issue: if few people use the on-site parking gara...

Does the meeting tonight  on the Barclays Center Transportation Demand Management (TDM) plan concern the impact of visitors and cars on the community and what tactics can be used and commitments made to ensure impacts are ameliorated? Or is it simply about whether arena operators have managed to reduce the share of drivers to the arena to 28.3% on weekday evenings and 32% on Saturday afternoons? The answer, of course, is the latter, which is why the New York Times was handed some very convenient news about less driving. So while reduced community impacts are implied by meeting that goal, that still leaves concerns and questions.  On Atlantic Yards Watch, Dean Street resident Peter Krashes has posted a list of questions , among them: Traffic What is the level of Traffic Enforcement Agents (TEAs) FCRC and Barclays Center have committed to finance in the future? What is the length and term of the contract? Is there a plan for a follow up TDM study after Islande...

Some seven years ago, state Sen. Martin Golden, a fervent Atlantic Yards booster, enthused , “It is the chance of a lifetime to have stars such as Jason Kidd, Vince Carter, Richard Jefferson and all the others have their home court based in Brooklyn. I am proud to have championed these efforts for the future of Kings County." Well, all three got traded as team owner Bruce Ratner tried to save money. Future Hall of Famer Kidd, probably the greatest New Jersey Net ever, spent his last season with the New York Knicks. Point guard Kidd just retired and soon sought the open Nets coaching job. With no chance for the Nets to hire veteran celebrity coaches like Phil Jackson and Doc rivers, Kidd was hired yesterday on a three-year deal. The news filled the back cover of the Daily News--sponsor of the Barclays Center plaza--and made the back of the Post. Press conference today Kidd's Barclays Center press conference will be live-streamed at 2 pm today on  BrooklynNets.co...

Nets/Barclays Center CEO Brett Yormark has a good story to tell, and he won't let inconvenient facts get in the way. So it's instructive to watch his best-in-class p.r. skills, as he tells an interviewer that raising the cheap seats for Nets games from $15 to $25 --a price he didn't mention--counts as a "modest" increase, and that "we're all about the fan." At about 6:15 in the video below, with RT (formerly Russia Today, an English-language channel with a Russian perspective ), Yormark's interlocutor throws a softball: "It does seem like you're making more of an effort that I'm used to seeing... to try and cater for the average fan, and perhaps the lower-income fan... You're putting some reasonably priced tickets out there." "We made a commitment," Yormark responded easily. "Michael [sic] Prokhorov and his team, obviously wanting to do right by Brooklyn. So when we moved to Brooklyn, we put aside 2000 ...

Forest City Ratner may be feeling pressure to get the first Atlantic Yards tower done on schedule, given that the developer is starting work on the B2 tower this week on some days at 5:30 am rather than the official city start time of 7 am. (Normal construction hours are 7 am to 6 pm weekdays.) The new timetable was revealed quietly in the bi-weekly Construction Alert (bottom) issued yesterday by Empire State Development, the state agency overseeing/enabling Atlantic Yards, after preparation by Forest City: • Construction Activities are scheduled to start as early 5:30 am Monday through Friday. Work will include, first concrete pump set up, a quiet activity, followed later by pouring of concrete, while the installation of reinforcement steel for walls and associated formwork takes place, along with, general clean up. This earlier work day schedule would apply only on days that concrete pours are to occur. If this occurs only on days of concrete pours, this should be every two to t...

In his Patch blog, Gib Veconi of Brooklyn Speaks writes an insightful essay headlined  Exporting Atlantic Yards: Other cities in other countries are looking to learn from Atlantic Yards. Here's what it can teach them. He begins: I’ve heard people comment that the depth and tenacity of community opposition to the Atlantic Yards project has ensured that a similar scheme will never happen again in Brooklyn. But even without advocates, it would be difficult to imagine the same circumstances coming together here anyway. Atlantic Yards, after all, required a developer with the resources and political connections to add to its portfolio at the busiest intersection in Brooklyn by brazenly subverting State urban renewal law, while at the same time staging a multi-level communications campaign to create the impression by doing so it was actually providing benefits to the public. The success of the strategy was dependent not just on the limited bandwidth of local elected officials to...

Brooklyn Brewery co-founder Steve Hindy has an op-ed in Crain's New York business suggesting  Brooklyn would hit new heights with Domino Sugar development: Plans by SHoP architects and Field Operations would create a new vision. He writes: The City Planning Commission is now weighing Jed Walentas' proposal for a bold redo of the plan to develop the Domino Sugar factory site in Williamsburg with an exciting series of buildings that would create a new vision of a 21st-century Brooklyn. Walentas' vision changes the Domino plan from a residential development to a mixed-use development, making space for the many tech and culinary startups that are clamoring for more commercial and industrial space in the city. That means jobs as well as affordable housing. By going higher, it opens up much more space for the people of Williamsburg, one of the most park-starved neighborhoods in the city  The Walentas plan, embraced by many critics, offers some interesting and potentiall...