Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park Report

The latest Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park Construction Update (bottom), covering the two weeks beginning Monday, May 15, was circulated at 2:16 pm yesterday (lead time) by Empire State Development (ESD) after preparation (presumably) by Greenland Forest City Partners (GFCP), which is dominated by Greenland USA. Again there's little change, compared with the  previous update , though the document again confirms that there are no construction activities planned for the crucial first block of the platform over the Vanderbilt Yard, which would support three towers. Remember: such work had been teased as  starting last May , but a in March they finally confirmed it wasn't happening.  That suggests that Greenland USA, having  lost  its Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park point man (with no replacement) and with no chance of meeting the May 2025 affordable housing deadline, with at least 876 units due, is renegotiating and reconsidering the project. They don't want to pay t...

So the Brooklyn Nets--whose playoff placement was due to the team's performance with superstars Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving, before the latter demanded trades--got swept in the first round of the NBA playoffs. Irving's Dallas Mavericks--a team to which he may not return--didn't make the playoffs at all. Durant's Phoenix Suns last night lost their second-round series 4-2 to the Denver Nuggets. So, for now, it's a sorry situation all around. But the Nets do have some draft picks to build on. Kevin Durant + Kyrie Irving demanded out of Brooklyn and went on to win a total of 6 more playoff games combined — Doug Norrie (@DougNorrie) May 12, 2023 I don't believe you can declare a winner in any trade within months unless of course one of the teams wins a ring because of it. The ring is the thing. And that's particularly true of trades including a lot of picks, most years down the line. Still... — NetsDaily (@NetsDaily) May 12, 2023

Way back in December 2010, in my "Anatomy of a Shady" deal series on the first--of three--efforts to raise cheap capital for Atlantic Yards, I wrote about the expected uses for the expected $249 million in EB-5 financing from would-be immigrants from China gaining visas in exchange for a purportedly job-creating investment. While original developer Forest City Ratner claimed "much" of the money would help build a new rail yard, some might help pay off land loans. As I wrote, evidence suggested that the primary goal would be paying off land loans, thus arresting a cycle known in the real estate industry as  "extend and pretend"  (or sometimes  "pretend and extend" ), in which borrowers are simply given more time under the hope that the situation will improve. Well, it did improve, thanks to that $228 million (not $249 million), and investors in the Brooklyn ts Brooklyn Arena and Transportation Infrastructure Project were, as I wrote in January 2...

According to the 595 Dean website from TF Cornerstone, the two-tower complex benefits from "A park at your doorstep."  Similarly, the developer's Rent-Stabilized Pacific Park Apartments page and the city's HousingConnect lottery page , both promoting "affordable" middle-income units, play up the open space, a total of three acres in multiple sections.  (That three acres builds on previous fractional open space outside the already-built 550 Vanderbilt and 535 Carlton.) The rest of the promised 8 acres of open space--five more acres--depends on the construction of an expensive platform over the Vanderbilt Yard, which was announced to start last year but never actually launched. For now, though 595 Dean opened last month to market-rate tenants, and last week I noticed handsome columns (example at left) along Dean Street--at the three entrances to the open space--announcing "Pacific Park," the open space remains very much unfinished, as shown in my p...

Avanath Capital, the California-based privately-owned firm that bought the "100% affordable" 535 Carlton and 38 Sixth--oddly dubbing them ( for a while) "Barclays I" and "Barclays II," erroneously ( for a while ) identifying the location as "Pacific Heights," and dubiously claiming that some units were "market-rate" --is in expansion mode nationally. That includes Brooklyn, as Avanath recently bought 7 DeKalb, a building that's part of the City Point complex in Downtown Brooklyn. That's thanks to new investments by pension funds and others interested in remunerative ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) investing, which encompasses "affordable housing." That's no small irony, given that the income-targeted, below-market housing in Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park is, in the main, not very affordable . Avanath, according to PERE News, a publication specializing in the private real-estate market , "is one of t...

This morning, an Facebook ad for something called Bond With Brooklyn pointed me to the 595 Dean middle-income affordable housing lottery. That seemed a bit odd, so I clicked around a bit. The Facebook page , as shown in the screenshot at right, oddly identifies itself as a "Society & culture website" located at 595 Dean, which seems to point to developer TF Cornerstone's two-tower project. From the website The website Bond With Brooklyn , of more recent vintage, offers seven blog posts , two concerning 595 Dean, the others more generally promoting the Brooklyn lifestyle. Regarding About Us, the website  states : Bond with Brooklyn was founded on the principle of community engagement for community betterment. We strive to connect our neighbors with local events and festivals, organizations, and opportunities for local meetups in Williamsburg, Downtown Brooklyn, Prospect Heights and beyond. A 2/9/23 post on the blog,  Free Skate Event at LeFrak Center at Lakeside in P...

Well, the signage inside (and outside) the Atlantic Av-Barclays Ctr subway exit/entrance to the arena plaza is controlled by the arena company, as we've learned, part of monetizing the available canvas  outside and around the arena. That inside signage, as shown below, has most recently advertised the Brooklyn Nets, though it's previously been given over to other advertising ( generic medication! ) and even a political message (mis?)attributed to Angela Davis. Seen from the below vantage point--shot when the sky was just starting to darken--the neon message of "We belong here" seems also to endorse the belong-ness of the Nets. Seen from the opposite direction, as I've argued , the neon art installation--"You belong here"--seems also to endorse ticket purchases at the Barclays Center.

What's right with this picture, which I took two days ago? Well, the 461 Dean tower, aka B2, at some point in recent weeks/months, finally got rid of the long-running trailer-truck "temporary" boiler that was stationed at the curb for many months . As I wrote , I couldn't get any answer from the building's operator or a representative of the Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park master developer (which no longer has anything to do with that building). It was pretty glaring, of course, to have such a system snag/failure in a building that opened only in 2016. (That, of course, Below, a view of the trailer.

When I was walking around the other day, I saw a notice outside the "100% affordable" 535 Carlton announcing that there'd be an Open House tomorrow, from 10 am to 3 pm. It's a little curious, since there are no listings on StreetEasy or the building's web site . But presumably they either have, or are expecting, openings. I strongly suspect that those available apartments would be in the half of the building--149 units--that qualify as middle-income, accepting residents with incomes up to 165% of Area Median Income. Rent levels unclear What's unclear is what the rents would be. Keep in mind that for middle-income units, the initial rent levels as of 2017, as shown in the bottom document, were lowered slightly in 2021, as shown in the document directly above it, presumably to be competitive during a time when COVID had pushed some out of the city. Specifically, studios went from $2,137 to $2,121; one-bedrooms from $2,680 to $2,663; two-bedrooms from $3,223 to ...

The Barclays Center yesterday circulated its May 2023 event calendar, with just six ticketed events: two WNBA New York Liberty games, three concerts, and one comedy show. A Mother's Day Good Music Festival has been canceled. This doesn't help with the arena's financial struggles; as in previous months of May, they had to leave some dates open to accommodate a long playoff run for the Brooklyn Nets, but that was not to be.  (Also, maybe they're waiting for the re-alliance with Ticketmaster, after dropping SeatGeek , to help deliver more concerts and other shows.) It's worth noting that the arena has returned to listing, at least in the calendar shared with the community, non-public events like graduation ceremonies.  Last year, it did not, but I pieced the list together . It's worth sharing, so neighbors know when there might be crowds, especially early in the morning. As of now, the arena has two double-commencement days: May 18 for NYU Tandon and Long Island Un...

The Barclays Center is clearly doing better in one metric, according to quarterly cash receipts revealed to bondholders last week: it sold a lot more tickets, as shown in the screenshot at right. The $42.5 million in ticket sales in the first quarter of calendar year 2023--and the third quarter of FY 2023--represent far more than the previous quarter's $19.6 million or even the most robust quarter of FY 2019, $38.2 million . Presumably that relates to higher prices for Brooklyn Nets tickets and, likely, season ticket renewals , some of which were processed after the Nets soared in NBA standings in December, before crashing in February, with superstars Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant engineering trades. Suites/sponsor funds down However, the $4.8 million in suite and sponsor installments seems low, compared with the previous quarter's $10.3 million  and the predecessor quarter's $7.1 million . As I  wrote  in August 2021, suite and sponsor installments had not recovered as ...

The latest Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park Construction Update (bottom), covering the two weeks beginning Monday, May 1, was circulated at 10:59 am today (late!) by Empire State Development (ESD) after preparation (presumably) by Greenland Forest City Partners (GFCP), which is dominated by Greenland USA. Again there's little change, compared with the previous update , though the document again confirms that there are no construction activities planned for the crucial first block of the platform over the Vanderbilt Yard, which would support three towers. Remember: such work had been teased as  starting last May , but a month ago they finally confirmed it wasn't happening.  That suggests that Greenland USA, having  lost  its Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park point man (with no replacement) and with no chance of meeting the May 2025 affordable housing deadline, with at least 876 units due, is renegotiating and reconsidering the project. They don't want to pay the $2,000/mont...

Given the very unresolved nature of Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park--um, the subject of my Jane's Walk on Friday--it's worth looking back at an October 2010 quote from a representative of Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC, now simply Empire State Development), the state authority that oversees/shepherds the project. "To that end, ESDC is committed to assisting our private partners secure the financing they need to ensure the project’s completion," we were told .  In practice, that meant joining a dog-and-pony show in China, helping then-develper Forest City Ratner raise cheap financing from unwary immigrant investors, via the dubious EB-5 program, which was supposed to provide visas for those investing $500,000 into a purportedly job-creating project. So an ESDC executive mouthed misleading platitudes about Atlantic Yards and bestowed boilerplate certificates on Chinese immigration broker. Similar challenge today? Today, ESD has a not dissimilar challenge, beca...

What's wrong with this picture, from the web page of the Atlantic Yards Community Development Corporation (AY CDC)? Well, the so-called Quality of Life meetings, in which representatives of Empire State Development (ESD), the parent of the (purportedly) advisory AY CDC, and the developer answered some questions, were long held bi-monthly, until the delays shown after last September. ESD blamed " scheduling conflicts and staff availability, " according to the meeting notes from the 2/7/23 meeting. Or, perhaps, representatives of master developer Greenland Forest City Partners (GFCP), dominated by Greenland USA, had--and still have--little interest in answering questions about a project that seems to have stalled. A plan to start the crucial platform over the first of two railyard blocks--key to three of the six towers over the railyard--was announced last June but never came to fruition. Greenland USA's Atlantic Yards point man, Scott Solish, left in February, with--...

The failure of Gov. Kathy Hochul's ambitious housing plan has big-picture implications--today's New York Times front-page article was headlined New York Officials Failed to Address the Housing Crisis. Now What? --but for Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park watchers, one provision is probably the most important. The governor had proposed to extend for four years the deadline to complete projects using the 421-a tax break--which had to start by June 15, 2022 and be finished in 2026--but that, as well as other elements of her proposed Housing Compact--didn't pass. Nor was 421-a renewed. B5, center-left, plus (built) B4. Dattner Architects So June 15, 2026, the deadline for construction under the recently expired 421-a tax break, looks ever more challenging--though theoretically possible--for the first tower slated for the Vanderbilt Yard, B5, or 700 Atlantic Avenue. The site supposedly had sufficient footings to qualify as having started under 421-a's loose requirements. After al...

Update: here's the HousingConnect link for the lottery. As I wrote April 8, the developers of the two-tower 595 Dean (B12/B13) complex circulated sponsored messages alerting people that the housing lottery --for 240 middle-income units--would open at some point in May, rather than March or April as previously suggested by a representative of developer TF Cornerstone, or "soon," as indicated in the posting last November. That means that those in the income-targeted "affordable" units--30% of the total--will move in well after the market-rate tenants, who've already started moving in. "If your annual household income is between $78,515 and $187,330 you could qualify," the developer's web site states. Note that such incomes are likely well below those moving into comparable market-rate units, but well above those who struggle the most to find housing. As one apartment-seeker wrote last year on a forum for those discussing affordable units at 5...

A front-page article in today's New York Times, headlined "Office Market In Dire Straits In Manhattan (and online as  A Bleak Outlook for Manhattan’s Office Space May Signal a Bigger Problem ) has to be sobering to Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park developer Greenland Forest City Partners, dominated by Greenland USA. The twin hammers of remote work and rising interest rates make office buildings, especially older ones, less attractive to tenants in Manhattan. That could lead to a city budget crisis and--more parochially--make it far less likely that new office space, at least in the near term, will be needed. After all, Vornado has put its big plan for office towers around Penn Station on hold. And in Brooklyn For Greenland, the question is what to do with Site 5, the parcel catercorner to the arena that for years housed the big-box stores Modell's (now closed) and P.C. Richard. Greenland Forest City in 2015-16 started  floating plans  to move the unbuilt bulk of the B1 tower (...