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October 31, 2007
BROOKLYN MATTERS SCREENING
MONDAY
NOVEMBER 5, 7 pm
THE OLD STONE HOUSE
5th Avenue
btw 3rd and 4th Streets
map
http://www.brooklynmatters.com
Listen to an interview with Ron Shiffman on the Brian Lehrer Show.
Posted by lumi at 10:32 AM
Scholarship vs. a study for Ratner: the contradictions of Professor Zimbalist
Atlantic Yards Report
Sports economist Andrew Zimbalist explains what a "promotional study" is, and then issues one himself for Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards plan.
Zimbalist and Noll wrote that "promotional studies" often introduce faulty assumptions, such as that "a stadium does not impose additional, security, infrastructural, or environmental costs on the city."
...
But consider Estimated Fiscal Impact of the Atlantic Yards Project on the New York City and New York State Treasuries, the updated June 2005 report Zimbalist did (with no peer review) as a paid consultant for Forest City Ratner.
...
Consider this passage:FCRC has made an initial estimate of the city’s operating expenses at Atlantic Yards. Based on conversations with former budget officials, FCRC concludes that the increment in fire and police budgets would be negligible.
That's just one case of what Zimbalist might deem an "unrealistic assumption," that is, if he weren't poking himself in the eye.
Check out the full article for a couple more.
Posted by lumi at 9:18 AM
Audit AY? Probably not this comptroller
Atlantic Yards Report
While the Independent Budget Office has done its own reasonably detailed (though still incomplete) cost-benefit study of Atlantic Yards, the question remains: would Thompson ever audit Atlantic Yards expenditures to advise the public "of the City's financial condition"?
It's too early for an audit, most likely, but Thompson isn't exactly in a position to scrutinize Atlantic Yards carefully. He has already signed on as a project supporter.
His cheerleading letter, citing jobs and revenues without acknowledging costs, appears as part of a document filed in the challenge to the Atlantic Yards environmental review. Did campaign contributions to Thompson from friends and relatives of Bruce Ratner play a part?
Read the complete article to learn more about how Thompson dedicates the resources of his office to uncover a couple of million here and there of wasted city money, but will probably never go near one of the City's biggest boondoggles ever.
Posted by lumi at 8:53 AM
AY, bringing you a better BoCoCa
The Brooklyn Daily Eagle brings us news that London's Daily Telegraph has declared that Manhattan is so passé and Brooklyn is, like, the new Manhattan. Key to generating that Manhattan-y feeling is Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards mega high-rise and arena project, which is fine if you want to live in "BoCoCa Rat-on."
“Manhattan is overhyped, overpriced and just plain over. BoCoCa is the new place to be — and to buy,” declares U.K. newspaper The Daily Telegraph in an article about Brooklyn’s increasing appeal to foreign buyers.
...
Boerum Hill, Cobble Hill and Carroll Gardens (also known as BoCoCa) are the neighborhoods most popular with European buyers, charmed by “the low-altitude architecture — you have a lot of sky here and by the sense of community,” said a Prudential Douglas Elliman vice president, Terry Naini. “You have the butcher’s shop down the street, for example, and it feels more familiar than going to a huge mall, which mostly these days is what Manhattan has turned into.”
...
Many people here would say Brooklyn’s now-coveted lifestyle is also being threatened by overdevelopment, unaffordable rents and mortgages, and the “chainification” that has already gobbled up so many Manhattan storefronts, culminating in a seemingly unfavorable transformation known as “Manhattanization.” Opponents of the Atlantic Yards basketball arena and 16 high-rise development point to that project as the ultimate symbol of this transformation.But the Telegraph said the project, and the planned Brooklyn Bridge Park, are bolstering BoCoCa’s housing market.
Posted by lumi at 8:30 AM
Arena makeover is looking sharp dressed in Izod
The Newark Star-Ledger
By Matthew Futterman
Bruce Ratner's Nets marketing guru, Brett Yormark, tries to convince fans that their favorite lame-duck NBA franchise loves having the Meadowlands Arena, rechristened "Izod Center," all to themselves (snarky parenthetical commentary, ours).
Sure, the Devils have moved into a gleaming, $375 million home in downtown Newark, but the Nets are making themselves as comfortable as they have ever been in what is now a home of their own at the Meadowlands.
Though the state owns the newly renamed Izod Center, the Nets are now the primary tenant and the premiere team in the building until their planned move to Brooklyn in two or three years [or maybe four years or never]. Take notice of the red-painted pillars with the 85-foot banners of Jason Kidd, Vince Carter and Richard Jefferson tonight on the way into the season opener against the Chicago Bulls.
"The Devils leaving gives us a tremendous opportunity to leverage different areas of the building in ways we never were able to do before," Nets chief executive Brett Yormark said as he stood in a hallway outside the Devils' former offices at the Izod Center Monday.
...
"You didn't used to feel good about coming in here," Yormark said. "Now I think you will."
Posted by lumi at 8:20 AM
ZOINKS!!! IT'S ALIEN OVERDEVELOPER ZOMBIES!
Ri'm rorry Raggy! Just when you thought you had your hands full fighting a massive land grab, now Brooklyn has to contend with alien overdeveloper zombies.
Hopefully, this will only take a day or so and we can all get back to trying to find something nice to say about Atlantic Yards.
From Brit in Brooklyn:
The Society for Clinton Hill's Annual Halloween Walk begins at 5pm at the community garden at the corner of DeKalb and Hall. Alien visitations are expected at 313 Clinton Avenue, above, where the famous Halloween show will be playing every half-hour. The event is free.
Posted by lumi at 8:12 AM
Fenway's Example
The NY Sun Editorial
One point that we haven't yet seen made is that the Red Sox made their way to their second World Series victory in four years while playing in a ballpark that is 95 years old. The owners of the team considered building a new field, but even the sports-crazed taxpayers of the People's Republic of Massachusetts balked at the subsidies. So the owners decided to invest their actual own money in improving the old ballpark in the fen. They managed to make more space in the park for revenue-producing activities by moving some back-office employees to commercial office space nearby.
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The owner of the Knicks, Madison Square Garden, enjoy a property tax exemption for its arena, while Atlantic Yards and its developer, who will bring the Nets to play basketball in Brooklyn, will receive at least $300 million in city and state subsidies.
NoLandGrab: The $300-million figure (rounded down from $305 million) represents the direct cash contribution — additional subsidies for affordable housing, extraordinary infrastructure, triple-tax-free bonds, etc. could end up in the billions. Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn has the number for known direct and indirect subsidies pegged around $1.9 billion (PDF), but there are still the known unknowns that have not yet been accounted for.
Posted by lumi at 8:07 AM
TODAY: CONSTITUTIONAL CONSTRAINTS ON EMINENT DOMAIN AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT: THE CASE OF THE BROOKLYN ATLANTIC YARDS PROJECT
From Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn's website (www.dddb.net):
CONVERSATIONS ON THE CONSTITUTION:
"CONSTITUTIONAL CONSTRAINTS ON EMINENT DOMAIN AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT: THE CASE OF THE BROOKLYN ATLANTIC YARDS PROJECT"Jacob Burns Moot Court Room: Professor Stewart Sterk (Cardozo), Professor Richard Epstein (Chicago/NYU), and Matthew Brinckerhoff, a partner at the New York law firm of Emery Celli Brinckerhoff & Abady, and counsel for plaintiffs in federal court litigation challenging aspects of the Atlantic Yards...
Open to the public.
Floersheimer Center for Constitutional Democracy
Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law
55 Fifth Avenue, Suite 542
New York, NY 10003
Posted by lumi at 7:51 AM
Round-up of Duffield St. hearing coverage
Duffield St. Underground rounded up all of the press coverage they could find on Monday's eminent domain hearing (redux) for the taking of the Duffield Street homes.
In case you missed the action during the past couple of months, NYC had to rescind the condemnations because of a procedural error. Monday's hearing was the City's latest attempt to forcibly take these historic homes the right way.
Check out the online coverage here. In addition, there was also some TV coverage (UPN9 and BCAT).
Posted by lumi at 7:43 AM
B63 is Brooklyn's Pokiest!
From "City Room," via NYTimes.com (emphasis added):
In addition to ranking the M23 the slowest bus route in the city, the annual survey identified these routes as the slowest by borough: the B63 in Brooklyn (4.9 m.p.h.), the Bx19 in the Bronx (5.0 m.p.h.), the Q56 in Queens (6.1 m.p.h.) and the S61 on Staten Island (11.7 m.p.h.)
The B63 was promoted to the borough's #1 slowest bus, up one spot in the standings from 2006, when the route was ranked second slowest bus in Brooklyn.
Folks will recall that the B63 was the bus that Atlantic Yards developer Forest City Ratner had directed the NYC MTA to reroute, until Norman Oder of Atlantic Yards Report figured out that Ratner was the one calling all the shots (see, "Never mind, says NYCT: B63 reroute, Fifth Avenue closing won't happen as announced").
Ratner's transportation geniuses have suggested in the Atlantic Yards Environmental Impact Statement that the solution to slower buses passing by Atlantic Yards would be to add MORE buses.
Posted by lumi at 6:53 AM
Atlantic Yards Poster Child Alert
Bruce Ratner has spent millions of dollars on his publicity campaign for Atlantic Yards. It proved enough to secure political support for the controversial megaproject, but, despite the money spent and the buy-in of most of the city's editorial boards, somehow "Atlantic Yards" is still poised to join Boston's "Big Dig" in the white elephant hall of fame.
From dailyorange.com, the indy student press of Syracuse:
Like the doomed monorail, Syracuse's long-touted Destiny USA project and inevitably the Connective Corridor are white elephants - excessive mega-projects designed to save the city but are doing more harm than good. Think of Boston's Big Dig or Brooklyn's Atlantic Yards.
Posted by lumi at 6:39 AM
October 30, 2007
It came from the Blogosphere...
Pardon me for asking, A Must Read: Atlantic Yards And Bill De Blasio
The question we've been encountering on the street is, what do you think about de Blasio? Since the City Councilmember and candidate for Borough President has kept a pretty low profile during his two terms, people seem to want more info.
Norman Oder, author of the Atlantic Yards Report posted a very well written analysis of Bill De Blasio and his stand on Ratner's mega-project, affordable housing and over-development. A must read, especially since De Blasio just declared his candidacy for Borough President.
Daily Politics, Odds and Ends
The Lambda Independent Democrats voted unanimous in favor of a resolution opposing Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards project despite the fact that he is in talks to create a LGBT comunity center in Brooklyn.
NoLandGrab: "Despite?" We think Daily Politics meant "because" Ratner is trying to toss them a bone, unless they mean to imply that Brooklyn's LGBT community is ungrateful.
Daily Gotham, Lambda Independent Democrats: Just say "No" to Ratner and Noach Dear
At its meeting held October 22, 2007, Lambda Independent Democrats, Brooklyn's LGBT Political voice adopted a resolution opposing the Atlantic Yards Project of the Forest City Ratner Development Company.
The club also contined to express it's disappointment in the Brooklyn Democratic party's support for Noach Dear.
...
And for those who want to know about what Lambda has to say about Noach Dear, they were so incensed at the acceptance by Brooklyn's "Democratic" machine of this homophobic, unqualified hack as a judge that they issued a clear, public warning to all Democrats who endorsed him that Lambda will hold them accountable for their endorsement.
NoLandGrab: The one politician who holds the short end of the stick on both issues is Borough President Marty Markowitz, which does not bode well for his plan to run for Mayor.
Ohio Daily Blog, Congressman LaTourette Gets Blogger Fired From "Wide Open"
The Cleveland Plain Dealer bows to pressure from a Congressional Representative and fires one of the paper's team of political bloggers. This blogger had, "written extensively about LaTourette's 2006 re-election contest and... explicitly supported his challenger, law professor Lew Katz (D-Pepper Pike)." He "also wrote about... the suspicious connection between large amounts of campaign cash LaTourette received from the Ratner family of Cleveland, of the Forest City real estate empire, and their receiving an enormous contract to develop 44 acres of the Southeast Federal Center in Washington DC."
Save The Earth - All About Environment, Green Construction
Those who live and work near construction sites get the double whammy — noise and air pollution — and only their windows can save them:
Stein, who works on safety issues for his union, says his office at 90 Church Street is "surrounded by" pollution from construction. It is a problem that goes far beyond lower Manhattan.
From the proposed Atlantic Yards project in downtown Brooklyn to the water filtration plant in the northern Bronx, critics almost always complain not just about the project itself, but about the inconvenience, pollution, noise and dangerous accidents they will face during its construction.
Posted by lumi at 10:18 PM
Zombie developer outbreak continues to plague Brooklyn
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For info about how to survive a zombie outbreak, click here or here.
Click here for additional photos.
Posted by lumi at 12:04 PM
The due diligence of BP candidate Bill de Blasio, or the (AY) end justifies the means
Atlantic Yards Report
In advance of yesterday's announcement that City Councilman Bill de Blasio was officially running for Brooklyn Borough President, he held two rap sessions with local bloggers.
Norman Oder attended the second session to learn more about de Blasio's opinions about the "essential truth" (the Councilmember's words) of Atlantic Yards. What Oder discovered was that de Blasio not only nearly contradicted his own position on Atlantic Yards, but, when it came to other neighborhoods and projects, the Councilmember articulated many of the same arguments that critics have leveled against Atlantic Yards. Further, de Blasio was fairly ignorant of the facts regarding the "essential value" (the Councilmember's words) of many of the project's attributes.
Needless to say, the article is "essential reading" (our words).
Indeed, when it comes to Atlantic Yards, de Blasio remains ill-informed, relying on the progressive allies he trusts to vouch for the project as a whole, but failing to keep up with crucial changes in the project or to take a close look at some controversial aspects.
He’s willing to offer peripheral criticism but not to challenge the project’s fundamentals, given his belief in the “essential truth” of the project.
Probably a closer look at many public officials would turn up similar contradictions. And the press—well, most of the mainstream press—has done too little to point out the flaws in the Atlantic Yards Community Benefits Agreement, the decline in promised jobs and tax revenue, and the real contours of the affordable housing deal.
Posted by lumi at 7:16 AM
‘Dismissive’ journalism
For years, Alan Rosner, the co-author of the "2005 White Paper: Terrorism, Security and the Proposed Brooklyn Atlantic Yards High Rise and Arena Development Project," has been trying to get public officials to assess the security and terrorism risk of Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards project.
We've recently seen the consequences of ignoring these issues in Newark, but when the matter was raised again in Brooklyn, one of our weekly papers characterized the issue as "Grasping at Straws."
This past week, the Courier-Life published Rosner's letter to the editor, which takes the paper to task and spells out the questions that reporters should be asking:
It is disheartening that your recent front page article on community concerns, regarding the proximity of the Atlantic Yards (AY) basketball arena to Flatbush and Atlantic avenues, begins with these three words, “Grasping At Straws.”
In fact, this sort of dismissal of the community’s concerns has been the response of AY’s proponents for close to three years.
Even when the Ground Zero site plan was revised to shift the Freedom Tower away from West Street out of concern that a truck bomb could bring down the entire building, AY supporters quickly labeled raising similar security concerns in Brooklyn as desperate.
Nevertheless, Community Boards 2, 6 and 8, several local elected officials and dozens of community organizations all submitted such concerns regarding the implications of living in a post 9/11 world to the lead agency for Atlantic Yards, the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC).
Unfortunately, even after the Madrid and London terrorist bombings, the ESDC ignored community requests to take a hard look at the public safety issues surrounding the development of a glass arena, a glass skyscraper and a glass entrance into the Atlantic Avenue Station that was the target of a thwarted suicide bombing attempt in 1997.
In fact the ESDC went so far as to declare such concerns as – their word –“unreasonable!”
Now, with the revelation that Newark did not address terrorism and so is being forced to close off streets every single time there is a hockey game, the same disregard for the substance of Brooklynites’ concerns is being exhibited. Thus the developer’s spokesperson is quoted as saying that concerns about terrorism are political, irresponsible and offensive.
Meanwhile, the spokesperson for the ESDC, Errol Cockfield, adds that the project has been “thoroughly reviewed by the anti-terrorism experts at the New York Police Department.”
Any confidence we might have in that statement disappears as soon as we learn that, as a former spokesperson for Newark’s project has been quoted as saying, Newark’s “homeland security director and police were involved in security planning regarding the arena.”
Your newspaper would do us all a real service if its reporters simply asked if the secret plans of the developer, the NYPD and the NYFD to keep us safe will entail any street closings – as it has in Newark – lane closings, barricades, vehicle inspections, or any other sort of disruption of traffic flow at the already near grid-locked intersections of Atlantic and Flatbush avenues.
They might also ask if the MTA was involved in coordinating their security and evacuation planning with the NYPD or NYFD since I have never heard the MTA mentioned regarding security planning.
It is insulting to your readership to unquestioningly accept the self-serving and condescending claim that all these security experts can’t tell us anything out of fear of letting the bad guys know what we are doing.
As City Councilmember Letitia James has already noted, any disruption of traffic based on anti-terrorism measures will be immediately apparent the day AY’s Barclay’s Center Arena opens. The only thing that’s being kept secret is the disruptive impact that protecting all that glass will have on our local communities.
Not surprisingly, Councilperson James’s reasonable position is supported by the Supreme Court’s refusal to accept the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s claim that they did not have to consider terrorism when issuing a license for a nuclear waste facility out of concern that doing so would reveal too much.
And finally, in a related security matter, regarding your article about Rep. Anthony Weiner getting money grants from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to help safeguard Brooklyn hospitals and yeshivas, perhaps, in light of the Newark fiasco, a reporter could ask Rep. Weiner if he could estimate how much of DHS funding might have to go towards protecting AY and the Barclay’s Center Arena.
And, further, if he thinks that such funding needs to be added to the calculation of project subsidies in any cost benefit analysis of this already heavily subsidized project.
These are just some of the many questions and issues that deserve answers. Newark is a wake up call. Newark’s Mayor Cory Booker’s belated, ad hoc response to an obvious failure by his predecessor to anticipate the possibility of terrorism reminds us how little has changed since day one of Governor Spitzer’s taking office.
Alan Rosner,
Co-author of the 2005 White Paper: Terrorism, Security and the Proposed Brooklyn Atlantic Yards High Rise and Arena Development Project
Posted by lumi at 6:54 AM
Forest City in the News
Forest City's office building in the Stapleton project received LEED Gold certification.
Denver Post, Colorado business
From the CO business news roundup:
Forest City Stapleton Inc. announced that the U.S. Green Building Council has awarded LEED Gold Certification for the core and shell design of 3055 Roslyn St., Stapleton's new office building in the East 29th Avenue Town Center.
Rick Fedrizzi, president and CEO of the council said: "The certification of this office building in Stapleton's East 29th Avenue Town Center sends a message that Forest City cares about the health of the building's users and employees.
NoLandGrab: Meanwhile in Brooklyn, Forest City is making waves because the specter of Atlantic Yards' high-rises forced the scuttling of plans for solar panels on an affordable housing project under construction just across the street. It's not easy being green when Forest City Ratner has a monopoly on the rest of the neighborhood.
Posted by lumi at 6:30 AM
October 29, 2007
DEMO-GRAPHICS: Ratnerville Demolition Update Illustrated
Here are some of the latest pics from Bruce Ratner demolition sites in the footprint of the controversial 22-acre Atlantic Yards development project, accompanied by relevant descriptions from the official Atlantic Yards Construction Update (demolition block and lot map here):
"Demolition will be underway at 814 Pacific Street (block 1129, lot 45), 818 Pacific Street (block 1129, lot 46)." Nuñez Restaurant, at 816 Pacific Street, is being demolished. This site has been captured by other photogs during the past year or so: The decline of the civilization of Nacirema is ironically highlighted by the dumpster. |
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"Demolition is underway at 465 Dean Street (block 1127/lot 54) and will continue throughout this 2-week period." Debris from the former site of the Brooklyn AIDS Task Force (captured earlier this year by Tracy Collins), which is still standing. |
Posted by lumi at 9:38 AM
Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn Twofer
2009: A Delusional PR Mantra
Yeah, yeah... the arena will be ready in time for the 2009-2010 NBA season if you believe in the tooth fairy.
It's a physical impossibility, beginning with the fact that the real estate company does not even own the land they need to build the arena (or the rest of the project, for that matter.)
One wonders why Forest City Enterprises is honest with its analysts and tells them the arena won't open until 2010, while continuing to tell the public it will be 2009.
What's inexplicable is that most reporters have been a little slow on the uptake:
When will the press stop buying this impossibility and just start pointing to facts like the ones Norman Oder has pointed to numerous times on his Atlantic Yards Report—that Forest City Enterprises own schedule called for the entire arena block to be demolished and "cleared" by July...July 2007. (No need to go by Oder, just check out the developer's own construction schedule as presented to the Empire State Development Corporation.)
Pretending on 2009, While Money Questions Remain Unanswered
And speaking about this arena opening soon on private property near you, even though the project is still tied up on the courts and behind schedule, has anyone with the last name of Ratner explained how much this is all going to cost, especially to the taxpayer?
...does anybody know the current estimated cost to construct the facility and pay back the bond debt? Or how much the Payments in Lieu of Taxes (PILOTs) for the triple-tax-free arena bonds and for the rest of the project will be, and who those PILOTs will be paid to? And does anybody know the total amount of "affordable" housing subsidies, bonds, and tax credits for the project?
Posted by lumi at 8:59 AM
Are city housing projects really for sale? Nah, but it's time to "unlock value"
Atlantic Yards Report
In the wake of a Daily News article that spawned rumors that the City was thinking of selling off public housing assests, Norman Oder reports on the panel discussion about the future of public housing at a New School forum, moderated by Oder's most ardent reader, Errol Louis.
The discussion at the forum, A ROOF OVER OUR HEADS: How Will New York Save Its Public Housing?, which involved a variety of experts and opinions, was a lot more nuanced.
It began with moderator Errol Louis of the Daily News suggesting that, “if things worked perfectly, this would be a public hearing organized by government.” (Louis is out front among the city's press in covering public housing--here's a 7/29/07 column headlined A crisis hits home--in contrast with his frothing Atlantic Yards coverage.)
The structural gap in funding the city’s public housing is about $200 million, a little under ten percent of the operating budget, and has accumulated since the late 1990s, according to Douglas Apple, General Manager, New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA). The budget has suffered because of lowered federal funding levels and the strains to provide for units that are not part of the federal system. He acknowledged that “conditions are not as good as they were a decade ago.” (The agency just cut 73 management jobs, the Daily News reported.)
Posted by lumi at 8:02 AM
TODAY: City Holds Second Hearing on Eminent Domain Demolition of Historic Homes in Downtown Brooklyn
Housing Agency re-does botched hearing after legal challenges force agency to withdraw initial eminent domain findings
What: Press Conference and Public Hearing
When: Monday, October 29, 2007
9:30 am: Press conference with elected officials and community members
10:00 am: Public hearing
Where: City Tech Auditorium – Jay Street at Tillary in Downtown Brooklyn
Congresswoman Yvette Clark, Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries, State Senator Velmanette Montgomery, and City Council Members Charles Barron & Letitia James will join over 50 community members, preservationists and Black historians at a press conference and City hearing regarding the City’s use of eminent domain to take seven residences on Duffield Street, widely believed to be the sites of Underground Railroad tunnels. The City is also seeking to take other homes and businesses, including three rent stabilized apartment buildings on Albee Square that house over 40 low-income families.
As a result of legal challenges by Downtown Brooklyn advocates, the NYC Department of Housing Preservation and Development withdrew its eminent domain findings for Downtown Brooklyn earlier this month. The City’s withdrawal was an acknowledgment that it had no basis in the record for its use of eminent domain. This abuse of the powers of eminent domain would have proceeded if the City hadn’t been sued. They are now trying to move ahead by adding a blight study that has never before been made public, though it was apparently produced more than three years ago. That means that the City Council approved the use of eminent domain in Downtown Brooklyn without ever seeing the document that justified it. This is just more evidence that in New York City the justifications for using eminent domain don’t matter; it is all a pretext.
HPD announced the new hearing in a small ad in the NY Post on October 17, 2007, yet they scheduled this new hearing without notifying the owners of the condemned properties. Isn’t it their responsibility to make sure that this is an appropriate use of ED, and not to use this process to rubber-stamp a decision that HPD has already made?
“The rezoning of Downtown Brooklyn was intended to bring economic growth to a blighted neighborhood. Instead it has brought a massive wave of luxury residential properties. It threatens to destroy successful high-tech companies, brand new cultural institutions, low income housing, and the Abolitionist homes on Duffield. Given the failure of the rezoning to achieve the stated goals, it is time to take a fresh look at how to promote the area for the good of everyone, not only the friends of politicians.” said Raul Rothblatt, a community activist.
Posted by amy at 7:45 AM
EMINENT DOMAINIA
DOWNTOWN BROOKLYN
From MetroNY, print version only:
Public hearing on eminent domain The city is expected o hold a second public hearing today on the possible use of eminent domain to seize historic homes in Downtown Brooklyn. The homes on Duffield Street are believed to be on th sites of Underground Railroad tunnels.
UPSTATE
AP, via Newsday.com:
A federal judge on Friday dismissed a lawsuit by New York Regional Interconnect challenging a state law intended to protect home owners from the use of eminent domain by private transmission companies, New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo's office said.
From the Daily Star:
The narrowly drawn bill, signed into law last year by then-Gov. George Pataki, was seen by many as directed against New York Regional Interconnect Inc., a firm that is trying to build a massive $1.6 billion electric transmission line from Marcy to New Windsor.
HEADLINES:
Newsday.com, Judge dismisses NYRI lawsuit challenging eminent domain law
The Oneonta Daily Star, Judge tosses NYRI suit
The Syracuse Post-Standard, Federal judge tosses NYRI suit
Times Herald-Record, NYRI's claim against law is dismissed
CatskillsNews.com, NYRI loses court case in effort to build power line
NoLandGrab: Even though former Governor Pataki supported the use of eminent domain for his pal Bruce Ratner, he acquiesced to Upstate conservatives on the NYRI land grab. Power transmission lines might seem like a more traditional use of eminent domain (i.e. for critical infrastructure projects) than a private development project, but this was a case where the devil was in the details and the land grab proved hard to defend in the court of public opinion.
URBAN RENEWAL AMERICA
From the Cato Institute, "Bulldozing the American Dream":
'Urban renewal' schemes that rely on eminent domain disproportionately harm the poor.
When it comes to urban renewal plans, who benefits and who doesn't is quite predictable. The question is, why is this practice allowed to persist?
Posted by lumi at 7:15 AM
Forest City in the News
PITTSBURGH
In a backroom vote, Forest City and rival bidder Isle of Capri lost out to Majestic Star Casino, despite a report concluding that Majestic Star owner Don Barden had a "history of operating with a very high-risk financial profile."
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, Casino hopefuls were all financial risks, documents show
All of the Pittsburgh casino applicants were "high risk" financially, state Gaming Control Board internal documents show.
...
Combined, Forest City and its proposed casino operator, Las Vegas-based Harrah's Entertainment Inc., are worth more than $22 billion and have a history of urban developments, Forest City said in a statement.Forest City owns Station Square, where it wanted to put the casino, and it planned the largest investment among the three applicants, the statement said.
"We remain perplexed as to how the Gaming Control Board staff did their analysis and drew their conclusions," the statement said.
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, Pittsburgh casino license process cloaked in secrecy
Meeting secretly in December before awarding casino licenses, state gambling regulators took up Pittsburgh first and agreed on Don Barden with almost no discussion.
...
At the start, a majority of the board members leaned toward either Forest City or Isle of Capri, giving Barden's company little chance.But as they started looking at the applicants' traffic reports, board members realized PITG Gaming had a legitimate chance, Rivers said. The casino would sit on 17 acres west of the Carnegie Science Center.
"People are looking at each other like, 'Do you believe this?'" Rivers said. "It was amazing, and all of a sudden, people are going, 'I never thought Barden had this much going on for him.' That was the comment."
Members worried about traffic access to Station Square, where Forest City wanted to locate.
FLORIDA
Forest City continues the malling of America:
St. Petersburg Times, New store just in time for shopping season
Steel has gone up at the Shops at Wiregrass, a $105-million project backed by Forest City Enterprises and the Goodman Co.
Jim Richardson, Forest City's vice president, said Wednesday that he expects groundbreaking to take place soon, as the mall works to close tenancy contracts with its slate of tenants. But Forest City won't confirm a date before the deals are signed.
ILLINOIS
After Pfizer closed the former G.D. Searle & Co. facility in Skokie, IL, several former employees started their own businesses. Some of them are back at the old site in Skokie, being renovated by Forest City Enterprises as a state-of-the-art biotech facility.
Chicago Tribune, Searle closing spawns biotech start-up firms
The work isn't much different from what Schlosser and his colleagues once did for Searle and its successors. Indeed, Midwest BioResearch operates in Searle's former property, now the Illinois Science + Technology Park in Skokie.
That property, purchased two years ago by Forest City Enterprises, now houses eight companies with a total of 700 employees, said Michael Rosen, a Forest City vice president.
The newest of the former Searle buildings is operating and three others are being renovated, Rosen said. The site has about 670,000 square feet of space suitable for biotech firms and will eventually have 2 million square feet, he said. One constraint on Chicago's growth as a biotech center was a shortage of wet lab facilities that start-up companies could lease. The operating building contains space for wet labs as do the three being renovated, Rosen said.Another company started by former Searle employees is Networked Robotics Corp., an Evanston firm with 10 employees that automates monitoring for refrigerators and freezers used by hospitals, biotech start-ups, food processors and others in need of constant monitoring to assure their cooling systems don't fail.
Posted by lumi at 6:55 AM
October 28, 2007
City neighborhoods losing character to condos, chain stores
NY Daily News
MAGGIE WRIGLEY
Real estate is king in the new New York. Too many immigrants can't afford to come in. Too many longtime residents are driven out. We are losing our sky to a hideous skyline and our streets to a generic wash of prefab apartments, banks and storefronts.As Manhattan is squeezed, so suffer the outer boroughs. The Italians and Poles of Williamsburg and Greenpoint, Brooklyn, are dislocated by hipsters whose creative lives are emphatically commercial. Every possible place is built on, or up. The Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn promises the same on a massive scale.
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NoLandGrab: Another case of future nostalgia - missing what we have before it's even gone. In the case of Atlantic Yards, which has not yet materialized, the process of loss can be stopped before it starts.
Posted by amy at 11:33 AM
Lawsuits delaying Brooklyn arena
Newsday
KEN BERGER
The Nets remain confident that they will open the 2009-10 season in a new Brooklyn arena, placing them squarely in the city limits and in more direct competition with the Knicks.But not a single brick has been laid for the Barclays Center, the arena at the heart of the proposed $4-billion Atlantic Yards project, as the team awaits the outcome of litigation opposing it.
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NoLandGrab: Again, 2009? As Borat would say, NOT.
Posted by amy at 11:27 AM
The Times's Public Editor publishes (sort of) an AY letter
Atlantic Yards Report
Two weeks ago, New York Times Public Editor Clark Hoyt wrote a tough column about Deborah Solomon's heavily massaged "Questions For" Q&A column in the New York Times Magazine, headlining his critique "Questions and Answers, in No Particular Order.”My letter was among 20 letters published online yesterday:
You paint a dismaying portrait of the care with which the Times Magazine’s “Questions For” column is produced.Add to the criticisms the failure of the questioner Deborah Solomon or the Magazine’s editors to disclose, in a June 26, 2005, interview with Bruce Ratner, the Atlantic Yards developer and New Jersey Nets principal owner, that Mr. Ratner’s company was a development partner of The New York Times Company in building its new headquarters.
...
Byron Calame, the public editor at the time, chastised The Times in his Web journal for the failure to disclose such ties, but no letter or disclosure was ever printed.
Posted by amy at 10:50 AM
Richard Ford: I love NBA hoops, hate going to NBA games
Atlantic Yards Report
In today's New York Times Sports Magazine, Play, novelist Richard Ford has an essay titled The Noise Is Killing Me, subtitled "Sports-as-game has become sports-as-babble, and I refuse to play."He writes:
I don’t want to be sappy about all this and wish for a time that’ll never come back and that maybe never existed, anyway. But the truth is I love N.B.A. basketball, but I hate going to an N.B.A. game — because of all the dancing girls and the acrobats and the P.A. guy’s tumescent, Michael Buffer-ish voice wounding my ears while some citizen in a pink mascot suit does flying dunks off a trampoline every time the timeout whistle blows. (Don’t we all hate mascots?)Last year, I described some of the nonstop babble and tumult at a Nets game--which is probably pretty typical for the league.
Posted by amy at 10:46 AM
After 9-game road trip, Devils open new arena
AP via USA Today
David Porter
Former Newark Mayor Sharpe James first proposed a downtown arena in 1997. The Devils had threatened to move to Nashville two years before that, then set their sights on a new arena in Hoboken, about five miles from Newark.Subsequent plans had the New Jersey Nets playing in Newark, either alone or with the Devils, but those plans dissolved when the team was bought in 2004 by New York developer Bruce Ratner, who plans to move the team to Brooklyn within the next three years.
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NoLandGrab: This arena story is about delays, delays, delays. 2009 for Atlantic Yards? Not even if they won the lawsuits tomorrow.
Posted by amy at 10:41 AM
October 27, 2007
Errol Louis suggests AY poll results represent democracy
Atlantic Yards Report
In his 10/16/07 Our Time Press "Commerce & Community" column, Errol Louis asks, "Who Speaks for Brooklyn?" and takes us on a peculiar ride, in which he seemingly concludes that poll results represent democracy. (This column's not online, and may never be.)He begins:
It would be a disaster if a person who had just moved into a neighborhood could exercise a kind of veto power of development in that area for all time, even if a majority of his neighbors want something different. That is one of the little-discussed aspects of the lawsuits brought to stop the $4 billion Atlantic Yards project.Actually, we don't know what the neighbors really want, since they haven't been asked about alternatives. What if the city had followed the guidelines it later issued in PlaNYC 2030:
Building communities requires a carefully tailored approach to local conditions and needs that can only be developed with local input. We will begin the process of working with communities, the agencies that operate these facilities, and other stakeholders to sort through these complicated issues.
Posted by amy at 10:04 AM
Green roofs blocked by the historic and the new
The Wonkster
Several blocks away, elected officials just broke ground on an 80-unit residential development, but shadows from the planned buildings at the Atlantic Yards site would render the planned solar paneled roof unusable.Meanwhile, Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz praised Governor Eliot Spitzer for proposing new for global warming regulations and “for recognizing that with a little courage, being ‘green’ is much easier than people think.” But it can be harder with the conventions of the past and shadows from the new.
Posted by amy at 9:56 AM
Stern's Arena Updates a Mixed Bag
HOOPSWORLD
Jason Fleming
NBA Commissioner David Stern presents a mixed bag, but not about the Nets arena. That arena he is 100% positive is a go, as he offhandedly dismisses pending lawsuits:
In New York, where owner Bruce Ratner is getting a development built that will involve moving the Nets from New Jersey to Brooklyn, everything seems just about resolved in favor of getting the stadium finished."We got a report on Brooklyn where foundation work necessary to clear the site is in full swing and we're waiting to the end of certain lawsuits that have been decided in their favor but are subject to appeal, and as the appeal time runs out, that's likely to accelerate."
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NoLandGrab: Of course, this article also refers to the arena as a "stadium" and says they are almost resolved in getting it "finished." Since getting the ARENA "started" is still in question, "finished" feels an awful lot like "Mission Accomplished."
Posted by amy at 9:47 AM
October 26, 2007
LID nay to AY
We've been wondering why Lambda Independent Democrats (LID) chose this late date to take a position against Bruce Ratner's controversial Atlantic Yards plan, nearly ten months after the project received approval from the NY State Public Authorities Control Board.
Initially, we speculated that the move had something to do with project cheerleader Borough President Marty Markowitz's support of notorious anti-gay former city councilmember Noach Dear.
This week, another clue surfaces in two articles in the weekly papers The Brooklyn Paper and Gay City News.
From our perch here in Ratnerville, it appears that Marty and Bruce might have been trying to co-opt the gay community by offering them space in a Ratner-owned building. Uncomfortable with such cozy quarters, the executive board members of LID, many of whom are ardent critics of the Ratner megaproject, sought to make their position clear on the project in general.
The Brooklyn Paper, Gays won’t shack up with Bruce
Many political groups and activists have opposed Atlantic Yards, but there is a deeper context to Lambda’s seemingly day-late/dollar short resolution. Earlier this year, Borough President Markowitz promised gay and lesbian activists that he would work towards developing a community center, much like the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center in Greenwich Village, in a Ratner-owned building in Downtown.
At Monday’s meeting, many members of the Lambda club honed in on the irony.
“I feel like our favorite borough president [Markowitz] is holding a carrot in front of our faces saying, ‘Ooh, gay people, you can have a community center if you support Atlantic Yards,’” said Lisa Badner, a member of the Lambda executive committee.
Gay City News, Gays Tackle Atlantic Yards
A leading gay political group voted to oppose the Atlantic Yards, a $4 billion development project that would build a basketball arena and 16 towers in downtown Brooklyn.
"The process here has been so abhorrent," said Ken Diamondstone, a member of the executive committee of the Lambda Independent Democrats (LID), Brooklyn's gay political club. "We need to go on record here and I support it."
Not everyone thought that taking a position was a good idea, though no one spoke in favor of the project:
"I want to know why Lambda should touch this issue at all," said Alan Fleishman, an LID member and longtime gay politico who serves as a Democratic district leader and opposes the project. "Outside of the death penalty and abortion, Lambda hasn't dealt with issues outside of gay rights."
Others said the project was inevitable and a vote opposing it now would only alienate public officials who support it.
LID invited Marty Markowitz, Brooklyn's borough president and a project booster, to speak in favor of the development, but he declined. No one spoke in favor of Atlantic Yards.
Though the article doesn't quote a the Ratner spokesperson directly, it seems that the developer is eager to promote the idea that the project isn't going require very much public money at all:
A Ratner spokesperson said the development would get $300 million in subsidies. Other estimates have put that figure at nearly $2 billion.
It appears that Ratner and Marty miscalculated the effect that their overture would have on the group:
James Whitty, an LID member and Atlantic Yards opponent, said the club is responding, in part, to a proposal by Markowitz to include a gay community center in the development.
"They feel that the enticement to the gay community to offer us a lesbian and gay community center in Brooklyn was made to divide people," Whitty said. "It hit home where we were like we don't want to be involved in this."
Ratner's clean-up crew issued this statement:
In a statement, Forest City Ratner wrote that it has "a tremendous amount of respect for New York's gay and lesbian communities and it is unfortunate that this organization did not get their facts correct prior to their vote. Atlantic Yards was approved by the state last year after three years of lengthy and rigorous discussions with the local community, local leaders, and city and state officials... The Frank Gehry-designed Atlantic Yards will revitalize the current site, creating over 2,250 units of affordable housing for low- and moderate-income New Yorkers... Atlantic Yards is not only supported by a majority of Brooklyn's State Assembly, State Senate, and City Council delegations, but also, according to the last major poll, the development is supported by over 60 percent of all Brooklynites and New Yorkers."
Posted by lumi at 10:32 AM
CB2: BrooklynSpeaks proposal should beef up role of community boards
Atlantic Yards Report
The recommendations by BrooklynSpeaks for reforming the governance of Atlantic Yards deserve some modification to beef up the role of community boards, according to Shirley McRae, Chairperson of Community Board 2.
Last week, McRae wrote to BrooklynSpeaks' Gib Veconi:
The Executive Committee believes that the community boards should have the same relationships to the proposed “Project Oversight Entity” and “Stakeholder Council” as the local elected officials, as diagrammed in Figure 2 of the draft.
For further explanation and Veconi's response, check out the full article. [Click image to enlarge.]
NoLandGrab: If NY State continues to ignore the requests and recommendations of stakeholders in the community, aren't we just rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic?
Posted by lumi at 10:11 AM
"Atlantic Yards Community" Doublespeak
This week, a reader directed us to a curious marketing contrivance from the Empire State Development Corporation's bi-weekly Atlantic Yards Construction Update that goes even further than the language used on the developer's own web site.
We've pointed out in the past that since Atlantic Yards does not exist yet, the people and buildings that would be a part of "the Atlantic Yards Community" are merely theoretical.
What does it mean when government doublespeak goes further than conventional marketing hype?
Links:
ESDC's AY Constuction Update
AtlanticYards.com Construction Updates
Posted by lumi at 9:15 AM
Big step forward for Downtown
The Brooklyn Paper
Editorial
Downtown Brooklyn is taking a step forward to counterbalance the totally predictable urban-planning faux pas foisted on the neighborhood by Bruce Ratner's 16-acre Metrotech high-rise office campus.
The long — and as yet unfulfilled — hope for a lively Downtown Brooklyn took a huge step forward this week when the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership called on the city to put stores in the ground floor of the dour Municipal Building at the busy corner of Court and Joralemon streets.
By calling the corner “dead space” in our Page 1 article this week, Partnership President Joe Chan has done more than show support for an underutilized corner of an under-retailed part of Brooklyn. He also sent a message — a long-overdue one — to real-estate developers who have ignored what is the most-basic rule of development in a highly populated, well-trafficked area: make sure there is ground-floor retail.
It was the violation of this common-sense rule that led to the “dead space” at Bruce Ratner’s Metrotech complex between Jay Street and Flatbush Avenue Extension.
It’s not that Ratner didn’t build storefronts into his office towers there. He did. But he’s refused to rent much of the space for retail use — and has even replaced retail tenants to make room for more office space.
As a result, the Metrotech campus — which to this day is cited as a model by our Ratner-loving elected officials — is a walled-in fortress that mocks what a Downtown should be. After business hours, when Ratner’s office workers go home, Metrotech becomes barren. And even during the day, when those workers get a break and could go shopping or grab lunch, the sterile campus actually encourages them to stay put in their buildings or leave the campus entirely.
NoLandGrab: Like Metrotech, Atlantic Yards is rife with planning problems that are entirely foreseeable. To acquiesce to Bruce Ratner again and leave these problems to the next generation of planners to fix, as is being done in Downtown Brooklyn, is either wholly negligent or plain crazy.
Posted by lumi at 9:01 AM
Zimbalist: "not clear" that Newark arena will make it
Atlantic Yards Report
With one new arena open, another approved, two others on the drawing board, and the old fuddy-duddy Meadowlands still hanging around, can the region potentially support all of these entertainment options?
Sports economic expert Andrew Zimbalist sez, probably not, but then again, he has said a lot of things, especially when hired by NJ Nets owner Bruce Ratner.
Opinions differ, according to those quoted in a 10/1/07 NJBIZ article headlined The Battle of the Arenas. One skeptic is Smith College sports economist Andrew Zimbalist, who pointed out that each facility must compete for corporate sponsorships and sales of premium seats.
The article states:
“All of those things will be difficult,” says Zimbalist. “It’s not 100 percent clear that the Meadowlands will stay in business, and it’s not clear to me that the Newark Arena will make it.”
Certainly Newark's new Prudential Center, with only one major sports team rather than two as a main tenant, and in a city carrying a rep for crime, will face challenges, especially if the Meadowlands remains as competition for concerts. If the latter arena closes, well, New Jersey needs a major venue. Still, the Pru is spiffy, near transit, and went through an apparently successful opening yesterday.
NJBIZ should've pointed out that Zimbalist is hardly a neutral observer when it comes to Newark's arena.
Posted by lumi at 8:45 AM
Prudential Center timeline
A timeline of events leading up to last night's opening of the Prudential Center arena in Newark includes the near-spoiler, NJ Nets team owner Bruce Ratner, who prefers to use his NBA franchise to spearhead his highly controversial Atlantic Yards project, which, as the largest single-source private development project in the history of NYC, is clearly so much more than just an arena.
Here are some highlights:
Oct. 1997: Newark Mayor Sharpe James makes a pitch to NJSEA officials to get the New Jersey Nets to move to Newark, proposing two downtown sites.
...
April 2000: The Nets and Devils agree with developer Jerome Gottesman of Edison Properties to build a downtown arena on a site a few blocks from Newark Penn Station.June 2001: State and team officials announce that within three years, both teams will play in the new arena and Continental Airlines Arena will be torn down.
...
Jan. 2004: Brooklyn developer Bruce Ratner buys the Nets for a reported $300 million and says he plans to move the team to Brooklyn.Feb. 2004: In a letter to Mayor Sharpe James, Devils president Lou Lamoriello says the team will relocate to Newark for the 2007-2008 season.
NoLandGrab Note: Despite the agreement between the City of Newark and the NJ Devils, Ratner's own economic analysis of a new Nets arena in Brooklyn was based on the assumption that a new Newark arena, a potential competitor for nationally touring shows and regional events, would never happen. Oh well... guess who typically pays for shortfalls in Ratner-owned projects. [Hint]
...
Oct. 2005: An official groundbreaking ceremony is held.
...
May 2006: In an interview with The Associated Press, Newark Mayor-elect Cory Booker says, "If the project will hemorrhage money for decades, we're gonna stop it." Later, he throws his support behind the arena after the Devils agree to contribute more than $500,000 annually to aid minority business development and recreation and public parks programs.Jan. 2007: Prudential announces it will pay $105.3 million over 20 years to call the new arena the Prudential Center.
...
Oct. 25: The arena opens with a concert by rock band Bon Jovi.
Posted by lumi at 7:53 AM
Green building goes dark; Yards shadows KO plan for solar power
The Brooklyn Paper
By Dana Rubenstein
A cadre of local elected officials broke ground on what will be Brooklyn’s largest eco-friendly residential development to date — but the solar panels that were to be the building’s crowning feature had to be scrapped because they would never get light once the Atlantic Yards project is completed across the street.
“We were going to have solar panels, but the shadows from Atlantic Yards would make solar power basically irrelevant,” said Michelle de la Uz, the executive director of the Fifth Avenue Committee, the non-profit group that broke ground on the Fort Greene affordable housing on Monday.
“[Atlantic Yards] pretty much eclipses significant portions of the building in all four seasons,” added de la Uz.
NoLandGrab: Looking beyond the Fifth Avenue Committee project, Bruce Ratner's controversial Atlantic Yards megaproject threatens the viability of solar energy development for a significant part of the already existing neighborhood of Ft. Greene.
Posted by lumi at 7:43 AM
At the Brooklyn Bear's Garden, a Jacobs reminder
Atlantic Yards Report
 |
At the not-so-quiet (and likely much more unquiet, whether or not the Atlantic Yards project moves ahead) Pacific Street and Flabush Avenue intersection, a poster for the Jane Jacobs and the Future of New York exhibit.
While the Brooklyn Bear's Garden would remain, the rest of Site 5 would change dramatically under the AY plan; the big box Modell's and P.C. Richard stores would be replaced by a 250-foot building, originally announced at 400 feet.
Posted by lumi at 7:25 AM
Hipsters’ parents get rooms of their own
The Brooklyn Paper
By Mike McLaughlin
An article about the first hotel in N. Brooklyn in decades and the borough's hotel biz in general mentions Atlantic Yards:
“There was a wait-and-see attitude with Williamsburg, but now there’s a great need for a hotel, because of how hot it is,” said Robert Gaeta, general manager of Le Jolie and its more upscale sister hotel, the still-hasn’t-opened-yet Hotel Le Bleu on Fourth Avenue in Park Slope. ...
“I think if you look at the numbers, there is room for more,” said Gene Kaufman, the architect behind the Sheraton and A-loft hotels that are proposed for Duffield Street.Those numbers are based on the concerted effort to lure more business travelers and tourists away from Manhattan and into Brooklyn’s new meeting and event spaces.
“Atlantic Yards will lend itself to a need for more hotels,” said Gaeta.
Posted by lumi at 7:12 AM
Hearst puts S.F. Properties, including Chronicle HQ, on block
San Francisco Business Times
By J.K. Dineen
Forest City in the news on the Left Coast:
The Hearst Corp. is quietly seeking a developer for 3.9 acres of prime property in the fast-changing Mid-Market neighborhood, 20 separate parcels that include the current home of Hearst's San Francisco Chronicle at Fifth and Mission streets.
In recent weeks, Hearst issued a request for proposals to several prominent local developers. Hearst has asked the developers to assess the value of the land and to suggest what to build there given zoning, historic designations and market conditions.
...
Hearst declined to identify the developers asked to submit proposals. Real estate sources said potential developers include Wilson Meany Sullivan, TMG Partners, and Forest City, which developed the nearby Westfield center with the Westfield Group. Officials from none of the three companies returned calls seeking comment.
NoLandGrab: If Forest City parlayed this into a development deal, it wouldn't be the first time the development company partnered with a media conglomerate — the developer constructed and owns the new NY Times headquarters in partnership with the NY Times Corporation.
Posted by lumi at 7:10 AM
October 25, 2007
Message to Mayor Moo Moo
Brit in Brooklyn brings you this message to "MAYOR MOO MOO" from a very, very "DISGRUNTLED COW:"
For more on just how blue this local disgruntled cow has been feeling lately, check out the rest of BIB's post for the magnum opus.
Posted by lumi at 10:18 AM
Newark arena police costs--a benchmark for AY?
Atlantic Yards Report
Last week, we explained that Ratner has no incentive to redesign the Atlantic Yards project to conform to an era of increased security measures, when a plan could be implemented after the fact at the taxpayers' expense.
This week, Norman Oder explores the issue, finding clues in the Newark arena overtime costs and the Independent Budget Office projections:
In a 10/21/07 article headlined Determined to show Newark at its safest, the Star-Ledger reported that, in policing the area around the new Prudential Center opening today, the city will deploy "more than 80 cops -- roughly five times the normal number" and expects to spend about $3 million this year on police overtime.
Now Downtown Newark has a much bigger crime problem than Downtown Brooklyn and Prospect Heights, and Newark might well dial back on police presence after a while. Still, the number suggests a rough benchmark regarding costs to police the planned Atlantic Yards arena.
The New York City Independent Budget Office (IBO), in its September 2005 Fiscal Brief estimated annual overtime costs of $1.7 million for 45 Nets games.
Additional events at the arena would raise the cost, but the IBO didn't estimate that, given that "security needs and therefore the policing costs would vary widely depending on the types of events."
Naturally, Bruce Ratner's initial economic analysis, compiled by Andrew Zimbalist, "concludes that the increment in fire and police budgets would be negligible."
NoLandGrab: If there is no reason to increase fire department services in the area, then who will be around to put out Forest City Ratner's pants, which appear to be on fire?
Posted by lumi at 10:07 AM
Analyst lowers rating on Forest City, cites "difficult financing market"
Atlantic Yards Report
Everytime someone representing the Atlantic Yards development company, Forest City Ratner, squawks about the project, it gets Norman Oder thinking; this time, it's about market conditions that are beyond the development company's control:
Let's put that Wall Street Journal interview yesterday with Joanne Minieri, new president of Forest City Ratner, the New York division of Forest City Enterprises (FCE), in a little more context--one in which an investment analyst, long bullish on the company, has put up a yellow "caution" sign. That also hints at potential delays in the Atlantic Yards project.
Minieri told the Journal: The availability of capital to do these terrific developments and stimulate the economy concerns me... Liquidity and the availability of funds is always something I try not to lose too much sleep over, but it can keep me up at night. Value creation is impacted tremendously when you have to pay more for financing proceeds.
(Two-year stock chart from Yahoo Finance.)
On 9/14/07, RBC Capital Markets analyst Rich Moore, who follows Forest City Enterprises, issued a ratings revision, nudging FCE down from "outperform"--meaning better than its peers in the real estate sector--to the middle ranking of "sector perform." In doing so, RBC rather dramatically cut its Forest City price estimate fom $80 to $54. (The current price is about $56.)
Posted by lumi at 9:55 AM
Frequently Asked Questions about the BrooklynSpeaks Governance Proposal
Brooklyn Speaks explains the who, what, when, where, why, to whom, on which and whatever about the coalition's governance proposal.
Fifteen frequently asked questions (actually, #6 is technically two questions, but the first is rhetorical) :
- Is this proposal an attempt to stop or slow down the Atlantic Yards project?
- Would implementing this proposal transfer control of the project to the community?
- If the entities that are controlling the project aren’t changing, why does this proposal matter?
- Is there any precedent for this?
- Haven’t Brooklyn Bridge Development Corporation and the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation been criticized for the way they have conducted their responsibilities?
- Isn’t Atlantic Yards a privately-led development? Why should it be necessary for it to have a government-run oversight entity?
- Would the project oversight entity be an ESDC subsidiary?
- Why does the community need a structure to provide input to the decision-makers? Can’t the community visit with ESDC at any time to give their input?
- The ESDC plans to hire an Atlantic Yards “ombudsman”. Will this address some of the perceived deficiences in the governance of the project?
- Haven’t all the decisions about the project been made?
- Would the Stakeholder Council be made up of those who previously supported or opposed the project?
- Why does it matter whether the City participates in Atlantic Yards through a governance structure or “behind the scenes”?
- What if the plaintiffs in the lawsuits against the Atlantic Yards project are successful?
- Who supports the governance proposal put forward by the BrooklynSpeaks sponsors?
- How could the governance proposal be implemented?
The frequent answers can be found on the FAQ page of BrooklynSpeaks.net
Norman Oder offers some excerpts and additional comments on Atlantic Yards Report.
Posted by lumi at 9:34 AM
STILL DEVELOPING
The Village Voice
Letters to the Editor
Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn's Dan Goldstein declares "Dewey Defeats Truman:"
Thank you for honoring Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn with your kudos in the "Best of New York" [October 17-23] category "Best Noble Failure." Our organization, and all the other organizations and individuals who have struggled against the biggest real-estate boondoggle in Brooklyn's history, certainly have a good sense of humor, and we enjoyed your "award."
At the same time, we always like to keep the public informed rather than misled. So here goes: There are two pending court cases we have organized and are funding. We are optimistic about [their outcomes]. Both of these cases will not be over for a long time.
If either the 26 community-group plaintiffs on the state case win, or if the plaintiffs fighting to keep their properties from being seized by the government for Bruce Ratner win, the Atlantic Yards project cannot go forward. Failure? "Dewey Defeats Truman!"
Daniel Goldstein
Spokesman, Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn
Posted by lumi at 9:20 AM
Frank Gehry
bullshitornotbullshit
The world's preeminent starchitecht and his designs for Atlantic Yards have officially been deemed cow pies:
Frank Gehry is bullshit. His buildings (with the exception of one) do not have any connection between their form and function, which I see as the highest calling in architecture. One should be invited in, made curious to know what is inside, given a clue as to what activity goes on inside. The most beautiful buildings in NY provoke thoughts of big business and commerce, and their height a statement of the importance of the city that they reside.
...
Lastly, he is designing the Atlantic Yards in Brooklyn, which no matter what the architecture is destroying the unique, small scale, villagy feel of the borough I love. And Gehry's disastrous designs only heighten the effect. Bullshit!
Posted by lumi at 8:51 AM
Another AY stop-work order issued, resolved, but questions remain
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder attempts to follow up on a stop-work order at the Ward Bakery site (click to enlarge graphic) and notes the lack of an ombudsman.
A stop-work order was issued Tuesday at the Ward Bakery site on Pacific Street, according to the Department of Buildings (DOB) web site.
The order was resolved, but the incident deserves notice: apparently a truck backed into a sidewalk shed, knocking down three support posts for a 60-foot-high pipe scaffold sitting on top of the shed.
I sent an email yesterday to the DOB, but haven't gotten any more details yet on the incident and the resolution. An Atlantic Yards ombudsperson, which the Empire State Development has been trying to hire for five months, might help with things like this.
NoLandGrab: Are you thinking what we're thinking? At this point, Norman Oder is the closest thing to an ombudsman we've encountered around the Atlantic Yards issue. As the "Mad Overkiller" might say, "brutally weird."
Posted by lumi at 8:37 AM
Real Estate Round-Up: October 24, 2007
Brooklyn Daily Eagle rounds up coverage on the affordable-housing project in the shadow of Bruce Ratner's controversial Atlantic Yards project, and follows up on the 421-a reform bill:
Atlantic Terrace, Brooklyn’s largest green affordable housing development (as reported by Linda Collins on the Eagle’s Brooklyn Space page Sept. 27) will have to go without solar panels on the roof because they would be worthless once cast in the shadows of the Atlantic Yards arena and high-rise development across the street. Yesterday, Michelle de la Uz, executive director of the non-profit Fifth Avenue Committee, which is developing Atlantic Terrace, told the New York Post that solar panels would have led to significant savings for residents, but now they’ll have to pay for a combination of traditional and renewable energy.
In the Eagle’s Sept. 27 article, architect Magnus Magnusson of Magnusson Architecture & Planning, said the solar roof would have been possible if Ratner’s towers had been reduced in height to 20 or 25 stories. “It’s just not an option for a building that will be in substantial shade all year round.”
On 421-a:
The state passed the 421-a legislation yesterday, which expands the areas where developers are required to include affordable housing in their projects to receive property tax abatements. But the legislation includes a controversial provision for Atlantic Yards that allows developer Forest City Ratner Companies to provide fewer units for low-income families.
While the modified version of the bill still gives Ratner tax abatements for the towers without affordable units, the abatement is for a shorter period of time, and are contingent upon the project meeting affordability requirements during each phase of construction. The affordability requirement for Atlantic Yards is the same as other heavily subsidized projects — 20 percent of the units would have to be affordable to those earning, on average, 90 percent of the Area Median Income (AMI), versus the earlier version of the bill that required Atlantic Yards to make 20 percent of the units affordable to those earning, on average, 70 percent.
Read the rest to learn about the comparison with other developers.
Posted by lumi at 8:25 AM
Best of NY: DIVE
FREDDY'S BAR & BACKROOM
amNY
Dive
Freddy's Bar & Backroom 485 Dean St., Prospect Heights, Brooklyn; 718-622-7035This popular dive has a fun, kitschy-creepy decor (imagine Ed Wood opened up a bar) and cheap drinks. Plus, the bartenders are good at buybacks. The main draw of this friendly, neighborhood bar, however, is the back room, which on any given night might feature live music, an alcoholic stitch-and-bitch, a game night, a spelling bee or a blue grass/country showdown. Basically, you never know -- unless, of course, you check out their monthly events calendar online (www.freddysbackroom.com).
NoLandGrab: There's no mention that Freddy's Bar and Backroom is fighting for its existence because, if Bruce Ratner had his way, and according to the official construction schedule, one of the best bars in NYC would already have been demolished to make way for the Atlantic Yards arena and high-rise complex.
Photos on flickr give viewers a glimpse of what's going on at Freddy's these days.
Freddy's has already been recognized by Esquire Magazine* as one of the Best Bars in America.*
For nearly four years, Freddy's has been the unofficial clubhouse for the fight against Ratner's Atlantic Yards megaproject. The bar no longer carries Brooklyn Lager, after the brewery-owner-whose-name-shall-not-be-spoken came out in favor of Ratner's plan to replace Freddy's, a loyal customer, with an arena.
The Backroom at Freddy's is a hub of local arts and culture, playing host to live music, art shows, spelling bees and the world-famous cringe reading night.
In a move that's very creepy, even for an overdeveloper, Ratner keeps tabs on the Freddy's block through the surveillance cameras installed over the bar's awning.
Posted by lumi at 7:17 AM
10 years in the making, Newark banking on arena to restore image
AP, via Newsday
By David Porter
An article about the opening of the Newark arena covers some history, including this tidbit about Ratner:
The New Jersey Nets, the Devils' co-tenant at Continental Airlines Arena, planned to move to Newark, first by themselves and later as a package with the Devils. That scenario fell apart when the Nets were bought in 2004 by developer Bruce Ratner, who plans to move the NBA team to Brooklyn.
NoLandGrab: If you read this article, keep in mind that Andrew Zimbalist's economic analysis of a Brooklyn arena, commissioned and released by Bruce Ratner, relied upon Newark NOT building a competing facility. That point, and many of the conclusions of the study released in May 2004, are now moot.
Posted by lumi at 7:06 AM
Business in the Burbs: Forest City Ratner names new president, chairman
The Journal News
Forest City Ratner Cos., the Brooklyn-based the developer of the Ridge Hill project in Yonkers, has named Joanne M. Minieri president and chief operating officer. She was previously the executive vice president and chief operating officer. Bruce C. Ratner, who previously served as president and chief executive officer, will become chairman as well as CEO.
"Since she joined us in 1995, Joanne has become indispensable, taking responsibility for successfully developing our long- and short-term business plans across a growing portfolio of projects," Bruce Ratner said in a statement. "In addition, she oversees many key areas, such as policy development, financial reporting and investment management."
Minieri has directed some of the company's largest retail, hotel and residential developments, including the recently completed New York Times Building near Times Square and the AtlanticYards development in Brooklyn.
Forest City Ratner, a subsidiary of Cleveland-based Forest City Enterprises, owns and operates 32 properties in the New York metropolitan area.
Posted by lumi at 7:00 AM
October 24, 2007
ATLANTIC YARDS RATNERVILLE CONSTRUCTION UPDATE
The "Atlantic Yards Construction Update" hasn't been posted on the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) web site this week, and the ESDC continues to refuse our repeated requests to be added to the distribution list, due, apparently, to some aversion to aiding and abetting the "enemy," even though NoLandGrab is part of the "community" and likely the most-visited distribution point for info on the project. This installment of the "Construction Update" comes to us via a member of the Dean St. Block Association; however, the end of the message was truncated.
UPDATE: The "Atlantic Yards Construction Update" was posted by midday on the ESDC web site.
If anyone has the full text, please send it to us. We think that the missing part is a notice that demolition will commence at the historic Ward Bakery building when all permits are in place.
Atlantic Yards demolition block and lot map here.
ATLANTIC YARDS CONSTRUCTION UPDATE
Weeks beginning October 22, 2007 and October 29, 2007In an effort to keep the
Atlantic YardsRatnerville Community aware of upcoming construction activities, ESD and Forest City Ratner are providing the following outline of anticipated upcoming construction activities.Please note: the scope and nature of activities are subject to change based upon field conditions.
Long Island Rail Road/Vanderbilt Yard Work
- Mid-block Support of Excavation piles: excavating, lagging; perform anchor test for mid-block lagging.
- Continue drilling Support of Excavation piles at Southeast Gas Station (block 1121, lot 47).
- Test pile for Temporary Train Trestle foundation piles is complete; no further testing is required.
- Continue preparing site for mobilization to East Portal to drill foundation piles by creating earth ramps for drilling.
- Continue preparing site to drill foundation piles for cable bridge (adjacent to 6th Avenue Bridge).
- Excavating to elevation +34’ and banking soil in preparation to drill Temporary Train Trestle foundation piles in block 1121.
- Continue soil excavation and removal in block 1121 west to east.
- Continue construction and debris removal.
Abatement and Demolition Work
All work described below will comply with the additional oversight and protocols by the Department of Buildings (DOB) that were established on April 30th.
- Demolition is underway at 465 Dean Street (block 1127/lot 54) and will continue throughout this 2-week period.
- Demolition will be underway at 814 Pacific Street (block 1129, lot 45), 818 Pacific Street (block 1129, lot 46) and 542 Vanderbilt Avenue (block 1129, lot 50) within this two-week period. Abatement will be completed at 538 Vanderbilt Avenue (block 1129, lot 46) after a parapet is removed under the review of the DOB BEST Squad.
- Demolition will be underway at 546 Vanderbilt Avenue (block 1129, lot 54) for the next twoˇthree months.
Roof abatement and clean-up at 800 Pacific Street (block 1129, lot 25) has been completed. Demolition will commence when all plans and permits are in place.
Posted by lumi at 8:02 AM
Forest City's Minieri Gets Tested in New York
Brooklynite Executive Steers Big Atlantic-Yards Project Amid Tough Credit Market
Wall St. Journal
By ALEX FRANGOS
[Minieri] will report to Bruce Ratner, chief executive of Forest City Ratner Cos., Forest City's New York branch. Ms. Minieri, 47 years old, a Brooklyn native, talks about her career, credit markets, and the ambitious -- and controversial -- set of projects she's now in position to lead into fruition.
WSJ: What effect do the current credit markets and housing softness have on projects such as Atlantic Yards in Brooklyn [a development that will include 16 skyscrapers with 6,400 housing units, offices and shopping as well as a new arena for the New Jersey Nets basketball team]?
Ms. Minieri: We will probably encounter a couple of different market cycles as we move through that development. We think it's a tremendous opportunity to help the economy to revitalize the neighborhood -- all the things we like to do in our development projects. We are on the site now, doing some work. We are waiting for the conclusion on some of the litigation. We are proceeding according to plan.
WSJ: How does it feel to work on a major Brooklyn project such as Atlantic Yards?
Ms. Minieri: I can't tell you how it really feels to be a Brooklynite and to be part of a company that's done incredibly historic things ... It gives me the goose bumps.
NoLandGrab: We're not even going to comment on Minieri's skin affliction and we'll leave the reading of the tea leaves to others who have already posted.
Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn, It's a Fragile Situation...
DDDB noted Minieri's "barely concealed panic about the credit markets" and "her inability to speak honestly about the company being behind its own planned schedule."
Atlantic Yards Report, FCR executive claims: "We are proceeding according to plan"
Norman Oder reads the tea leaves:
WSJ: Given your financial background, does the stress in the credit markets keep you up at night?
Ms. Minieri: The availability of capital to do these terrific developments and stimulate the economy concerns me.... Value creation is impacted tremendously when you have to pay more for financing proceeds. [Re Atlantic Yards] We will probably encounter a couple of different market cycles as we move through that development.
Translation: the project could be delayed well beyond the stated ten-year time line and, as with the Frank Gehry-designed Beekman Tower project that went from condos to rentals, things can change.
...
People have asked me if I thought Minieri's promotion signaled anything untoward. Given that the job change was not announced by p.r. guru Howard Rubenstein, as with Jim Stuckey's mysterious departure, and that Minieri was made available for a Wall Street Journal interview, we can assume that parent company Forest City Enterprises and subsidiary Forest City Ratner are quite happy with it.
Posted by lumi at 7:38 AM
Real Estate Round-Up: October 23, 2007
Brooklyn Daily Eagle
Sarah Ryley reviews the Nets' name game and the announcement of Forest City Ratner's Minieri's promotion.
Posted by lumi at 7:34 AM
Critic on Newark arena: "mostly what it is is marketing"
Atlantic Yards Report
During the past couple of weeks, comparisons have been made between the PruCenter arena in Newark, set to open this week, and the Barclays Center at Atlantic Yards, opening in 2009 if you believe in the tooth fairy.
Today Norman Oder examines a review of the new Newark arena, and explores the comparison between the two projects in an age in which architecture and marketing are about to merge.
In his review of the spiffy new Prudential Center in the 10/22/07 Newark Star-Ledger, headlined An arena for TV fans, Dan Bischoff suggests that it might be a very enjoyable place to see an event, but he doesn't lose sight of the bottom line:
He cites the 4,800-square-foot LED monitor in front of the arena's main window, and "733 plasma flat-screen TVs scattered about the place," helping patrons keep track of action and also order food and drink from touch screens. (Rendering from official site.)
Could the planned Atlantic Yards arena (aka Barclays Center) be any less about marketing, given the Nets' branding juggernaut and the plans for Times Square-like signage? We're not in (Brooklyn) Dodgerland any more.
"This is more of a residential district. This would not be Times Square," architect Frank Gehry told the Daily News in May. "The question was how do you create activity at game time and have it disappear."
Remember, he said last April:
It's obvious that buildings are becoming billboards, all around the world....[re AY] And it can be used for community issues, as well as advertising. It has a social function, if it's played right, it can be used for art...
Posted by lumi at 7:31 AM
Dirt Moves on Atlantic Affordable Green Project
GlobeSt.com
By Natalie Dolce
This article mentions that "Atlantic Terrace" is across the street from Bruce Ratner's controversial "Atlantic Yards" project, but does not mention that shadows from Ratner's highrise project scuttled plans to use solar roof panels.
Locally based Fifth Avenue Committee, the City Department of Housing Preservation & Development, Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz, council member Letitia James and housing advocates were all in attendance Monday for the groundbreaking of Atlantic Terrace. Atlantic Terrace will house 80 cooperative units, 50% of which will be sold to low- and moderate-income families and 25% of which will be sold to middle-income families.
...
According to Fifth Avenue Committee, Atlantic Terrace, which sits across the street from Atlantic Yards, will be Brooklyn’s largest affordable, green residential building.
Posted by lumi at 7:12 AM
An FCR fig leaf at 80 DeKalb
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder's brief post has the same links we posted yesterday on 80 DeKalb, Ratner's new 36-story tower, where informational signs at the site do not contain the R word.
So why bother creating another meaningless circular reference to clog up the blogosphere? Clearly, the headline got us hallucinating.
Posted by lumi at 6:33 AM
New downtown park will open up views of historic buildings
Main Street Garden puts downtown buildings in a new light
Dallas Morning News
By Eric Aasen
A Forest City project adaptively reuses an historic building bordering a real park in Dallas:
Among the renovated, reused and vacant buildings downtown is a freshly turned dirt field at Main and St. Paul streets. The city cleared the lot to make way for a grassy, tree-lined city park to be called Main Street Garden.
...
Mercantile Bank. Built in the 1940s, this skyscraper was once the tallest building in Texas. It has been vacant since the early 1990s, but Forest City Enterprises is converting it into apartments and retail space. A smaller Forest City building under construction between the Merc and the park will have apartments and ground-level stores.
NoLandGrab: In Brooklyn, calls for Forest City to adaptively reuse buildings in the footprint of Atlantic Yards has fallen on deaf ears. The privately owned publicly assessible open space that winds between the towers in the superblock plan is not really a park, despite what Bruce Ratner wants people to believe.
Posted by lumi at 6:21 AM
October 23, 2007
SHADOWS ECLIPSE ECO APTS.
NY Post
By Rich Calder
A real affordable-housing project breaks ground, but without rooftop solar panels, thanks to potential impacts from Bruce Ratner's controversial Atlantic Yards high-rise megaproject:
Construction has begun on the biggest eco-friendly affordable-housing development in Brooklyn history - but it will have to be built without rooftop solar panels.
Atlantic Terrace, an 80-unit co-op aimed at middle- and low-income families, was supposed to have the energy-absorbing panels on its roof, but that plan had to be scrapped because of shadows expected to be cast over it by the controversial Atlantic Yards project.
"There is no question that the project across the street [Atlantic Yards] affected our project," said Michelle de la Uz, executive director of the nonprofit Fifth Avenue Committee, which is develop- ing the complex at South Oxford Street and Atlantic Avenue in Fort Greene.
"We would have loved to have had the solar roof, but it just didn't make any sense because of the shadows."
NoLandGrab: The Post locates the project "blocks" from the Atlantic Yards footprint, when in fact it is across the street.
She was joined yesterday by city and project officials during a groundbreaking for the green housing, called Atlantic Terrace, blocks from the 22-acre development site for Bruce Ratner's state-approved Atlantic Yards project, which calls for an arena and 16 towers designed by Frank Gehry.
...
A Ratner spokesman declined to comment.
Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn makes the point that this is only the latest environmental impact of Bruce Ratner's controversial Atlantic Yards project (and we're still in the pre-construction phase), and compares the mixture of affordable housing between the two projects.
MetroNY ran a short blurb about the groundbreaking, though there's no mention of Atlantic Yards impacts.
Posted by lumi at 8:40 AM
What's going on here?
What's going on here??? [Hint: it's 36 stories, 405 ft., and is brought to you by the letters F, C, R, A, T, N, E... did we already say R?]
Since the sign isn't that helpful, here's a list of those who have a clue:
Atlantic Yards Report knows (but don't ask Joe Chan),
Easy Being Green reports that pedestrians are taking to the streets,
Brownstoner notices that there's no mention of the R-word,
and Brooklyn Daily Eagle explains that it "would conform to the height guidelines of 415 feet as set in the 2004 rezoning of Downtown Brooklyn."
Posted by lumi at 8:19 AM
Newark arena transportation plan suggests flaws in ESDC's AY "peak hour" analysis
Atlantic Yards Report
Two days before the Prudential Center, home ice for the NJ Devils hockey team, is set to open, Norman Oder examines the transportation plan for the Newark arena, compares it to the transportation analysis for Atlantic Yards and the Barclays Center arena, and concludes that the Newark analysis "casts further doubt on the Atlantic Yards environmental review." [Click image to enlarge.]
You'd expect the operators of a new sports arena and local officials to encourage those attending events to get to the area a bit early, not just to avoid traffic and transit snags but also to spend some money at the arena and neighborhood facilities.
That's certainly the case in Newark, where the draft transportation plan (4.4 MB) for the Prudential Center, prepared by Sam Schwartz PLLC, the transportation engineering and planning firm founded by "Gridlock Sam," recommends that drivers "aim to arrive in Newark 90 minutes early, allowing for traffic, parking, and time to enjoy downtown." The arena opens October 25. (Emphasis on "90 minutes early" added in graphic.)
The advice in Newark casts further doubt on the Atlantic Yards environmental review conducted by the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC), which chose the peak hour of 7-8 pm to analyze traffic conditions, even though games would most likely begin at 7:30 pm.
Visitors to the planned Barclays Center arena in Brooklyn might well get the same "arrive early" advice Schwartz's firm is offering in Newark. It's reasonable to expect Atlantic Yards developer Forest City Ratner to try to draw patrons to retail, restaurants, and bars in project buildings, and also to its nearby Atlantic Center and Atlantic Terminal malls.
Posted by lumi at 7:42 AM
October 22, 2007
Forest City Ratner names new president
Joannne Minieri, who joined Forest City Ratner in 1995, was promoted to president, and will maintain her role as chief operating officer.
Crain's NY Business
By Kira Bindrim
Forest City Enterprises on Monday promoted its chief operating officer to president of Brooklyn-based Forest City Ratner Cos., which is in the midst of developing the contentious Atlantic Yards project.
Joanne Minieri, who joined Forest City Ratner in 1995, oversaw projects that include the MetroTech center office campus and the New York Times building near Times Square.
She’s already been heavily involved in the $4 billion Atlantic Yards development, which includes an arena, a 511-foot tower and 15 other buildings over an active rail yard in Prospect Heights.
NoLandGrab: Crazy, you'd think that reporters would have figured out by now that the railyards account for just 40% of the project. But that's the amuse bouche to the pr gruel that comes next.
“As a Brooklyn native, I am especially proud to work for an organization that is committed to bringing real, substantial economic revitalization to the city and borough,” said Ms. Minieri.
Bruce Ratner had been serving as president in addition to his role as chief executive. He will remain CEO and assume the title of chairman.
In June Mr. Ratner tapped Maryanne Gilmartin, head of commercial and residential development for Forest City, to lead the project.
NoLandGrab: Gilmartin replaced Jim Stuckey, who left all of the sudden to spend more time with his family.
Forest City’s portfolio includes 11 office buildings and 19 retail centers, along with 626 residential units.
MORE ON MINIERI:
Commercial Property News, Minieri Named President of Forest City Ratner
Commercial Property News
Minieri also worked with Ratner in the negotiations to acquire the NBA Nets franchise in 2004. She remains active in managing the company’s investment in the team, including the plan to bring the Nets to their new home, the Frank Gehry-designed Barclays Center at Atlantic Yards.
Crain's chose to run a quote intended to create the appearance that FCR's goals are aligned with the City's. CPN's quote euphemistically explains that it's about maximizing returns for investors:
“Currently, Bruce and I are working hand-in-hand to bring value creation to our investors and make our terrific pipeline of projects … a reality for all New Yorkers,” said Minieri. “It is a very exciting and busy time at Forest City.”
Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Forest City Ratner Names New President and COO
More on Minieri:
She also will help manage the Nets’ planned move to Brooklyn. She grew up in Canarsie, the daughter of an architect, and went to local schools, then Hofstra University."
“Joanne has been integral to our success,” said Bruce Ratner, who this year was appointed to the board of Forest City Enterprises, Forest City Ratner’s nationally-active parent company. “Since she joined us in 1995, Joanne has become indispensable, taking responsibility for successfully developing our long- and short-term