Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park Report

After Jury Finds Live Nation a Monopoly, a New Taint for Barclays Center's "Ticketmaster Plaza" ( link )  Testimony from arena's chief booker, though, complicated the story of Barclays' switch from SeatGeek.

As Barclays Center Begins More Renovations, the Box Office Moves to the (Public?) Plaza ( link ) Also coming by fall: "reimagined" atrium and new perks for high-rollers.

Mamdani Seems Wary of Subsidizing Platform for Second Phase of Hudson Yards ( link ) The Atlantic Yards platform, by contrast, depends on state funds. Still, shouldn't former Deputy Mayor Glen's framework apply regarding public benefits and public upside?

Update April 29: Adweek reports in a claimed "SCOOP" : Now, Type.Set Brooklyn appears to have shuttered, having not published content on any of its channels since January. A spokesperson for the parent company, BSE Global, said that the company is focusing on Brooklyn Magazine, which it acquired in November 2024 . The closure reflects the difficulty of standing up new media brands even when backed with the finances of an Alibaba cofounder. --- Less than a year after the launch of Type.Set.Brooklyn, a "digital first global media brand" focused on pop culture, music, style, and sports, it looks like Brooklyn Sports & Entertainment has pulled the plug. Though there's been no announcement of a closing or a pause, Type.Set.Brooklyn's most recent posting on Threads was January 27 , following regular updates. The brand's X/Twitter feed has vanished, despite a link from the homepage . The latest Instagram post was February 9 , after a series of regular upd...

Why Cirrus’s Request for 1.6M Square Feet of Free Bulk Has a Parallel to... Deed Theft ( link ) Unsolicited offers for houses must now share estimates of market value. What about the value of the Atlantic Yards developer’s requested bonus?

Would a Giant New Building Approved Up Flatbush Avenue Be a Precedent for Atlantic Yards? ( link ) The density argument may be transposed to the Site 5 parcel, though they're not quite parallel.

As Atlantic Yards plans percolate, Empire State Development (ESD), the state authority that oversee/shepherds the project, has now signed its third consultant and second law firm. As previously reported, ESD  approved  a $2 million-plus contract with consultant AKRF to prepare the planned Second Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (SSEIS) needed to consider proposed project modifications. ESD in February  approved  extension of a contract, up to $500,000. with the law firm Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner, to advise on land use and environmental issues, including the SSEIS. A new contract And on March 26 ESD  approved  a new two-year contract , up to $750,000, with the law firm Carter Ledyard & Milburn for help in drafting the emerging deal with developers Cirrus Workforce Housing and LCOR. "Legal services relating to negotiating and drafting modified and/or new Project documents will be needed as ESD and the new development team move forward with Ph...

Freddy's Bar, Down the Memory Hole ( link ) An article in BK MAG , owned by arena operator Brooklyn Sports & Entertainment, can't tell readers that the bar was ejected to build the Barclays Center. Lots more to remember.

I just published a series of articles about the Social Justice Fund of the Joe and Clara Tsai Foundation, the philanthropic arm of the main owners of the Brooklyn Nets, New York Liberty, and the Barclays Center operating company. It was launched in 2020 after the police killing of George Floyd and the #BlackLivesMatter protests at the arena. Press coverage has mainly been driven by their public relations efforts. Has the Social Justice Fund done some valuable things? Surely. Have they spent $5 million a year? Hard to say. Have they fulfilled their goals, for example, to create scalable programs? Maybe not. Is the spending dwarfed by the annual tax break the Tsais get and recent gains in the value of their holdings? Dramatically. Should they be more transparent? Yes. Are they revising their history as they go? Yes. Does the spending boost their businesses? Sometimes. Philanthropy often operates without scrutiny or accountability, so there’s a role for journalism, especially when philan...

April Roundup: Electeds Press Hochul on Affordability and Oversight ( link ) We await a final report on community engagement, and details on the $350M subsidy request. Also, partial answers from ESD, a former neighbor's lament, a Flatbush Ave. alert, and six weeks of links.

Art or Advertising? Behind the Tricky "You/We Belong Here" Signage Outside the Barclays Center ( link ) The "anthem" of the Tsais' social justice work, or the "linguistic pleasantries of marketing"? The "Liberty Portraits" now claimed by Social Justice Fund. "Brooklyn Art Encounters," too? Part of a series.

Brooklyn Sports & Entertainment, which owns the Brooklyn Nets, New York Liberty, and the Barclays Center operating company, on April 2 announced "Brooklyn Art Encounters, a comprehensive, multi-year art program that will bring major new commissions by leading contemporary artists to the arena's public spaces, interior architecture, digital environments, and surrounding communities." The first projects, as described in the press release , mix public and less public examples. (The bulleted summaries below quote from the press release.)  Serving the arena and the brand? However broadly its name points. Brooklyn Art Encounters may most serve Barclays Center patrons.  If so, that helps build the business of Brooklyn Sports & Entertainment and the reputation of main owners Joe Tsai and Clara Wu Tsai, that latter of whom leads the program, assisted by what the press release calls "an esteemed team of advisors." This new venture builds on previous artworks mount...

The Barclays Center yesterday released its April 2026 event calendar, with eleven ticketed events: four Brooklyn Nets games, one New York Liberty pre-season game, five concerts, and one comedy event. That's similar to April 2025, with eleven ticketed events. Note that the arena must leave dates open for many months to allow for a potential NBA play-off series, but the Nets, who are "tanking" to get a high draft pick, were eliminated from contention in the first half of March. So some more April events might be scheduled. The Nets' final home game, on Thursday April 9 against the Indiana Pacers, will feature amplified sound--and likely other "celebratory" effects--on the arena plaza from 6 pm to 7:25 pm. Also, while there's nothing announced regarding the New York Liberty game on Saturday, April 25 against the Indiana Fever, the return of Fever star Caitlin Clark should generate crowds. The arena also lists an unspecified private event at the arena on Wed...

Appraisal Suggests Railyard Parcels Could Be Worth $1B to Developers. Site 5 Compounds Value. ( link ) Were public subsidies, and more bulk, assumed before project relaunched? Are they merited? Document for investors projected Atlantic Yards completion by 2036. Nah.

More from Public Meetings: Site 5 Tower to Focus on Flatbush; Hotel Still Under Consideration ( link ) Lingering questions about streetscape and retail. Harsh criticism of community engagement. Could Atlantic Yards CDC fund its own financial consultant?

A New, Though Murky, Focus on the $350 Million that Developers Seek for the Railyard Platform ( link ) Is this the only subsidy request? No. Was a privately-funded platform ever possible? That's murky, too.

GQ on March 24 published Exclusive: The Jay-Z Interview  and two of the exchanges with interviewer Frazier Tharpe are relevant to Atlantic Yards and the Nets. Q. You also have a discipline of almost shrugging off any kind of perception of a loss. “The Nets could go 0 for 82 and I’d look at you like, This shit gravy.” A. Yeah, because it’s all wins. If I had point-zero-zero-zero-one of the Nets, I won. It’s like: I had ownership in a basketball team. In Brooklyn. That actually relied on me heavily to get to Brooklyn, right? So yeah, I didn’t win the championship with the Nets. I still won. That is true, as we've known for a while, thanks especially to an unskeptical New York Times article Aug. 16, 2012, With Arena, Rapper Rewrites Celebrity Investors’ Playbook . My critique . And yes, Jay-Z still won. As I once wrote, in Jay-Z’s hip-hop of distraction , "you can't hustle a hustler." Yes, I wrote that before I knew the Jay-Z line , "Can’t out-hustle a hustler, you ...

State Promises 500 (25%) Initial Low-Income Units, But Critics Say It Wouldn't Make Up for Shortfall ( link ) Shift from developers' earlier plan, but still no catch-up. A $3,071 low-income one-bedroom? Developer says buildings might open in early 2030s. Project completion by 2040?

Former City Planning Chair Garodnick: Public Money in a Project Should Trigger "Absolute Transparency" ( link )  With Atlantic Yards, it's a black box. Subsidies? Tax breaks? Extra valuable bulk?

The coalition BrooklynSpeaks this morning circulated an email to its mailing list, titled What we learned from ESD’s community engagement report . While the message doesn't credit my earlier coverage, Draft Community Engagement Report Backs (!?) Developers' Aim to Downplay Low-Income Housing , there is significant overlap. BrooklynSpeaks, though, offers valuable focus. "The median annual income of most participants and respondents was more than $150K." BrooklynSpeaks notes, as I'd pointed out, that the income skew likely affects the respondents' purported support for more expensive below-market "affordable housing," though, according to a respected housing organization, "moderate and middle income levels make up only about 7% of the more than one million rent-burdened households in New York City." BrooklynSpeaks asks : shouldn't Atlantic Yards address where the need is greatest? "The open spaces cited by participants as examples ...