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February 29, 2008
Atlantic Yards opponents gain procedural edge in court, with arguments delayed until September
Atlantic Yards Report
The potential timetable for building the Atlantic Yards arena just got pushed back a bit more, with the 2011-12 season now a more likely best-case scenario.
Without explanation, a state appellate court has rejected the request by the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) and developer Forest City Ratner (FCR) that the appellate arguments in the case challenging the Atlantic Yards environmental review be heard before this summer. (The decision, dated Feb. 26, was received today by the parties.)
Instead, the five-judge panel of the Appellate Division, First Department, ordered the petitioners, whose case was denied by Judge Joan Madden in a ruling January 11, to file their legal papers by July 7, in anticipation of the court hearing oral arguments in the September Term.
The defendants, as expected, did see the court deny the petitioners' motion for a preliminary injunction to block the demolition of the Carlton Avenue Bridge.
But the court's timetable for the appeal represented an implicit denial of fervent arguments made by the ESDC and FCR.
NoLandGrab: Tarnation! How long are they going to make us wait for our "public benefits?"
Posted by eric at 4:18 PM
Bridge-n-tunnel SUV driver for Ratner!
Just a couple of weeks ago, photographers gathered together to exercise their First Amendment right to take photos and video in public spaces, such as the footprint of Atlantic Yards. [Until the City transfers streets and sidewalks over to developer Bruce Ratner, they are still public.]
At this gathering, photographer Tracy Collins explained that, unlike many of the other photographers assembled that day, he had had the good fortune of not getting hassled while shooting in and around the footprint of Atlantic Yards. This week, Collins's luck changed when he was confronted by some private-citizen SUV-driving bridge-n-tunnel bee-otch (sp?) who tried to keep him from photographing the recently closed Carlton Avenue Bridge.
From Collins's "freaking blog:"
i manage to take about a dozen shots when i hear a shrill woman's voice yelling:
"You can't photograph that! It's private property!!"
i turn to see a woman poking her head out of the driver's side window of an SUV (with New Jersey plates) that's stopped on Carlton Avenue at the light at the intersection with Pacific Street.
irate woman's ride, originally uploaded by threecee.
the following "conversation" ensues:
me: i'm not on private property, and i can photograph here.
irate woman: no, you can't!! it's private property!
me: you're wrong. i'm not on private property. this is a public road, and i can photograph from here.
i continue to shoot until the light changes and she pulls over on to Pacific Street and gets out of her SUV. i move away from the gate and cross to the other side of Pacific Street, wanting to stay well out of her reach and avoid any possible physical encounter. she's clearly very upset and i have no idea what she might do. i assume that she's some sort of official (Forest City Ratner, Gateway Demolition, the ESDC, the MTA or some other entity related to Atlantic Yards) otherwise, i can't imagine why she would be this agitated.
Things get even weirder when "bridge-n-tunnel" displays her concern that these photos might show up on "some blog" (uh, try like SEVERAL BLOGS) and then takes it out on the security guard.
Crazy! Brit in Brooklyn, who happens to be in Britain (not Brooklyn), managed to get wind of it and posted a link on his blog.
This morning Collins posted this pic in the Atlantic Yards Photo Pool, showing that the bridge, though slated for demolition any day now, is still intact.
NoLandGrab: Though we can't say for certain that "bridge-n-tunnel" worked for Ratner or is closely associated with the project, her comment about "some blog" and the way she later berated the security guard would lead one to think that she might be. Seriously, would a regular wacko get out of her car to stop a photographer?
Do Ratner supporters seem more jittery than usual these days, or is it Harass-a-Photographer Month?
Posted by lumi at 5:38 AM
TOMORROW: Workshop: Rezoning the Atlantic Yards Footprint
From StreetsBlog:
The Council of Brooklyn Neighborhoods is sponsoring a workshop by the Hunter College Center for Community Planning and Development to further the community based planning process for the area around the Vanderbilt rail yards. The area is currently proposed to house the Atlantic Yards development but with the global credit crisis there is a very strong possibility that project will never happen. Community members and elected officials will participate.
When
March 1, 2008 10:00 am - 2:00 pm
Where
St. Cyril’s Belarusian Cathedral
401 Atlantic Av. (at Bond St.)
BrooklynRSVP
Hunter College CCPD 212-650-3328 or ccpd @ hunter . cuny . edu
Posted by lumi at 5:15 AM
Atlantic Yards Report shorts
Norman Oder posted four short articles on Atlantic Yards Report this morning:
Driving Miss Brooklyn, a troubled Brooklyn condo market?
Apparently Forest City Ratner's decision to shift flagship Atlantic Yards tower Miss Brooklyn from condos to office space was based on discernible trends in the industry. (Then again, things can change, given that Miss Brooklyn was supposed to be office space when announced in December 2003.)
In yesterday's New York Sun, real estate columnist Michael Stoler suggested that many in the real estate community see a growing divide between the luxury market in Manhattan and some of the more speculative projects in fringe areas.
AY affordable housing a myth? Better to call it delayed
It seems that each time the press reports the story about the scarcity of funds for affordable housing and the impact on Atlantic Yards, the stakes get raised:
Like a game of "telephone," in which a message gets mangled as it gets passed from one party to another, the Atlantic Yards affordable housing story grows ever murkier.
The New York Observer's summary yesterday:
Federal funding crunch means Forest City Ratner won't be able to build 3,000 affordable-housing units at Atlantic Yards, fulfilling the prophesies of its opponents. [Brooklyn Paper]
But the Brooklyn Paper article reported only that a federal cash crunch threatens the promised 2250 units of affordable housing, adding some more voices to a story I reported a week ago.
That doesn't mean the promised affordable housing is dead. After all, a Democratic administration in Washington just might allow a state like New York much more capacity to authorize tax-exempt bonds.
The change in the Senate and the stakes for housing
When the balance of power shifts in the State Senate, rent laws in New York may get a second look:
The special election Tuesday to elect a State Senator in the 48th Senatorial district reduced the Republicans margin to 32-30, with several vulnerable Republicans expected to face tough competition in November. Portrayed in the press as a victory for Gov. Eliot Spitzer--and it is--the ramifications for New York City may be felt most sharply in the area of housing.
"The election today may change how we look at the rent laws," Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer said at a housing panel at the New-York Historic Society on Tuesday, when the results of the election had not yet surfaced.
Since 1971, the legislature, not the City Council, has held the most power over rent regulation, thanks to the Urstadt Law. A Democratic legislature, with a Democratic governor, will be far more receptive to maintaining and strengthening rent protections, and restoring "home rule."
The city's pension funds finally take on "predatory equity"
This article covers an existing affordable-housing concern, rather than Atlantic Yards affordable housing:
When in November, I reported on a conference where participants discussed the practice of "predatory equity"--investment funds making speculative investments in rental housing, intending to raise rents significantly--I was astonished that only the grassroots policy publication City Limits had previously covered the story.
After all, housing advocates had discovered that city pension funds had a stake in such investment funds. Politicians like City Council Member Letitia James weren't making a huge case about it, either, apparently waiting to get New York City Comptroller William C. Thompson and the city pension funds on board.
Yesterday, the above parties, as well as other elected officials and housing advocates held a press conference in which they announced a new residential real estate investment principles.
Posted by lumi at 4:50 AM
Editorial: Get Moynihan Station back on track
NY Newsday believes that during the economic downturn, there's one project that deserves saving and it's not Bruce Ratner's highly controversial Atlantic Yards:
Because of the down-trending economy and disagreement among principals, many of the city's ambitions seem to be crumbling: the Javits Convention Center expansion, Atlantic Yards, Hudson Yards. If there is one that deserves saving, it's Moynihan Station. State and city officials need to put their shoulders into this project and push.
Posted by lumi at 4:22 AM
February 28, 2008
Pros fear new towers at World Trade Center site have security gaps
NY Daily News
by Greg B. Smith and Douglas Feiden
This eye-opening article from last Sunday's Daily News must've slipped by us like the Atlantic Yards security plan slipped by the NYPD.
Law enforcement officials have major concerns about security weaknesses in the planned World Trade Center complex, a Daily News investigation has found.
The potential problems expressed to the Port Authority and others involved in the most high-profile development project in New York City history include:
A row of three mostly glass towers positioned too closely to city streets, increasing their vulnerability to attack.
Difficulties in inspecting some 2,000 delivery trucks and sightseeing buses that will enter or leave the site daily.
A vehicle security center that hasn't been fully designed and relies on vehicle inspection technology that hasn't even been developed yet.
Asked about weaknesses uncovered by The News in the plans for rebuilding Ground Zero, Deputy Police Commissioner Paul Browne said, "The NYPD has been in talks with the Port Authority, but we don't disclose any information about possible security vulnerabilities for obvious reasons."
NoLandGrab: What is it about Atlantic Yards that makes what appears to be basically the exact same design different from the World Trade Center? Has WTC developer Larry Silverstein been tardy with his donations to Shelly Silver and the Assembly Democratic Campaign Committee?
Posted by eric at 10:56 PM
Goodbye Mr. Brooklyn
Apparently Bruce Ratner's deal with CityTech to erect the largest tower in Brooklyn, to be designed by Times Tower architect Renzo Piano, is dead. Dubbed "Mr. Brooklyn," as a snarky reference to the inanely named Atlantic Yards signature tower, "Miss Brooklyn," the CityTech project appears to have succumbed to market conditions.
Here are the headlines:
The Brooklyn Paper, Ratner Kills Mr. Brooklyn
Developer Bruce Ratner has pulled out of a deal with City Tech that could have net him hundreds of millions of dollars and allowed him to build the city’s tallest residential tower, the so-called Mr. Brooklyn, The Brooklyn Paper has learned.
“It was a mutual decision,” said a key executive at the City University of New York, which would have paid Ratner $300 million to build a new dorm and lab for City Tech and given him a prime plot at the corner of Tillary and Jay streets where he reportedly hoped to build the 100-story, Renzo Piano-designed building.
“Both sides agreed that the costs had escalated and the numbers showed that we should not go down that road,” added the executive, who did not wish to be identified.
NY Daily News, Ratner tower whittled down
The Jay St. building was also dealt a second blow: World-renowned architect Renzo Piano has bowed out of the ambitious project, a source told the Daily News.
...
The tech tower had been expected to be 700 to 1,000 feet tall and to house classrooms, labs and offices on lower floors and condos on upper floors.It will now be solely a CUNY facility, possibly as modest as 10 stories, a source said.
It was unclear whether retail would be included in the new plans or who would now design the building.
Construction costs - including labor, materials and insurance - had also been an issue, skyrocketing by more than $50 million over original estimates, according to CUNY memos obtained by The News.
Under the original plan, the building would not have been completed until 2011. Under new plans, however, it could open as early as 2010, according to the memos.
"In summary, proceeding on this project without FCRC's involvement would allow CUNY to build the project more efficiently and, therefore, less expensively," according to the memo, written by CUNY Vice President Iris Weinshall.
UPDATE, 02/29/08: The online version of this article ran with the above headline, while the story ran today with the following, "Bruce Ratner's City Tech Tower shrinks." Both headlines imply that Bruce Ratner is still involved with the project, though the article states otherwise — more proof that headline writers don't really have to read the article to do their job.
Crain's NY Business, Ratner shrinks (again)
A second Bruce Ratner development is hitting the skids
Atlantic Yards mega-developer Bruce Ratner dropped out of plans to construct a Renzo Piano-designed City Tech tower in downtown Brooklyn, the Real Deal reported Thursday. The residential tower was to be 1,000 feet tall, and would have housed dorms and a laboratory for CUNY, which said the decision to axe the project was mutual. Forest City Ratner might be up against financial realities of the ongoing credit crunch, or perhaps the site’s location, now pegged for a more demure 10-story building, wasn’t ready for Brooklyn’s tallest skyscraper. Some silver lining: the building, which will still include dorms and a lab, might now be complete by 2010, a full year early.
Brooklyn Daily Eagle, City Tech Tower is Not to Be
According to the joint statement, “It has been determined that the timing, increased costs and other complexities associated with developing such a mixed-use project could not be reconciled with the college’s immediate need to move forward with a first class academic space to serve its growing student enrollment.”
Ending the partnership was amicable, the statement said.
Brownstoner, Soaring City Tech Tower Cut Down to Size
Whatever the logic is behind the decision, it seems like a pretty big blow to the ongoing plans to change the face of Downtown Brooklyn.
The Gowanus Lounge, Piano Finito: Big Ratner Tower is Dead
Posted by lumi at 8:07 PM
Atlantic Yards: Information Sharing Recordkeeping
From Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn:
In the February 26 NY Observer Forest City Ratner spokesman Loren Reigelhaupt said:
“When it comes to sharing information with the public and governmental bodies, there’s no such thing as too much, as far as we are concerned."
From the March 1 Brooklyn Paper article Fed cash crunch threatens ‘affordable’ A’Yards homes:
Forest City Ratner did not respond to a request for comment about how it would line up financing for its affordable housing units given that other developers are having such difficulty getting these coveted loans.
NoLandGrab: Shucks, we shoulda kept count of every time Forest City Ratner declined to comment!
Posted by lumi at 7:54 PM
Real Estate Round-Up February 28, 2008
Brooklyn Daily Eagle
By Jacqui Ryan
Developer of the $4 billion Atlantic Yards project Forest City Ratner Companies paid $400,000 to former Senator Al D’Amato’s lobbying firm in 2006 and 2007 to lobby federal legislators on the subject of eminent domain and other issues, reported the New York Observer.
Posted by lumi at 7:47 PM
Flatbush and Atlantic: Hellacious, Deadly, and Likely to Get Worse
StreetsBlog
Yesterday Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn posted this photo of Flatbush and Atlantic Avenues, as seen at 8:45 a.m.
"With Atlantic Yards's 17,000 new residents, and an 18,000 seat arena in use approximately 220 days per year, this gridlock would be the good ol' days," DDDB said.
Without major changes it won't get better for pedestrians or cyclists either. On Tuesday a woman was killed one block away, at Atlantic and Fort Greene Place.
...
The police account of Ms. Cattouse's death is on the Brooklynian forum, where one commenter describes the area as "hellacious." A look at Transportation Alternatives' CrashStat bears that out.
Posted by lumi at 7:32 PM
Miss Brooklyn is from … Manhattan
The Brooklyn Paper
By Mike McLaughlin
Yes, it's sad, but true, "Miss Brooklyn" is from Manhattan, but so is Bruce Ratner.
Posted by lumi at 6:58 PM
A word from the President
Re: City Tech's New Academic Facility
As all of you are aware, in 2005 Forest City Ratner Companies (FCRC) was selected by The City University of New York as its partner to develop a mixed-use project on the site of the current Klitgord Building. The project included a 340,000 square foot Academic Building for the College as well as a residential tower to be built by FCRC and designed by the world-renowned architect Renzo Piano in conjunction with Perkins Eastman Architects.
Unfortunately, it has been determined that the timing, increased costs and other complexities associated with developing such a mixed-use project cannot be reconciled with the College's immediate need to move forward with enhanced academic space to serve our growing student enrollment. Consequently, CUNY and FCRC have mutually agreed to amicably end the partnership.
Please know that the University and the College are moving quickly to expedite the development of a first class academic facility for the College in cooperation with the New York State Dormitory Authority and without a private developer. The full commitment of the University to this project, and the required funding, remain assured and efforts are being extended to bring our much needed academic facility on-line as soon as possible. Further information will be provided as it becomes available.
Thank you.
[CityTech] President Russ Hotzler
Posted by lumi at 6:02 PM
The UNITY plan expands, and will be up for discussion
Atlantic Yards Report
The UNITY plan for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's Vanderbilt Yard was unveiled in September, the project web site was re-launched in mid-January, and there's a public meeting Saturday, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., to update people and seek further input on UNITY.
The discussion will broaden to more of the Atlantic Yards footprint rather than just the 8.5-acre Vanderbilt Yard.
...What's clear is that two very different visions have emerged. While the UNITY plan would add significant residential density (1500 units over eight acres would be 187.5 units/acre, compared to 6430 units over 22 acres, or 292 units/acre), it would concentrate the tallest buildings at the east end of the site, near Vanderbilt Avenue.
It would place a park at the congested intersection of Atlantic and Flatbush avenues, while Forest City Ratner's plan would have an Urban Room, which will serve as a subway entrance and an entrance to the arena and arena block buildings, while housing an atrium, retail, and Nets ticket windows.
NoLandGrab: Click here for more info regarding Saturday's workshop.
Posted by eric at 9:35 AM
So, why didn't Forest City Ratner announce the cut planned for Miss Brooklyn?
Atlantic Yards Report
It seems that the flagship Atlantic Yards tower Miss Brooklyn has been cut in bulk, from 908,144 square feet to either 528,000 square feet or, perhaps, with the addition of a hotel of 164,652 square feet, to 692,652 square feet. (It was originally announced at 1.1 million square feet.)
A reduction in some bulk was inevitable, given that the building, once projected to be 620 feet tall, was cut, as the project was approved, to be a sliver below the 512-foot Williamsburgh Savings Bank building.
So why did Forest City Ratner tell investors but not the public?
We're left guessing why developer Bruce Ratner left a major public relations opportunity on the back burner. Was he saving it for a rainy day?
Norman Oder mulls over the possibilities.
Posted by lumi at 5:36 AM
The Brooklyn Paper examines Atlantic Yards affordable housing house of cards
Fed cash crunch threatens ‘affordable’ A’Yards homes
By Dana Rubinstein
Thousands of affordable housing units — including some of the 2,250 rentals that Bruce Ratner promised to included in his Atlantic Yards mega-development — will not be built due to a huge shortfall in federal subsidies available for low-cost housing creation, The Brooklyn Paper has learned.
It would take between $6 and $7 billion in federal grants to build all the proposed affordable units in all of the pending projects in the state — roughly five times more money than is available, according to Mike Slattery, the senior vice president at the Real Estate Board of New York.
Indeed, in 2007, the feds only granted $1.6 billion in such bonds — and those numbers won’t change significantly in 2008.
“There’s a lot more demand for affordable housing projects these days and there’s not enough money available,” said Joe Chan, the president of the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership, the quasi-governmental group that oversees the redevelopment of the long-languishing area bounded by Tillary, Fulton and Jay streets and Flatbush Avenue Extension.
“We’re at risk of seeing less affordable housing than” originally planned, he continued.
Bonds bombshell killing projects
"The Explainer" rehashes the issue in Q&A form, but gets one thing wrong:
Didn’t Ratner promise 2,250 affordable units at Atlantic Yards?
Yes.What will happen to the units if the bonds aren’t there?
Some of them won’t get built.Can Bruce Ratner really back away from that promise? Yes, if he writes a $500,000 check — a small amount for his $3.6 billion company — to the housing group, ACORN, which signed Ratner’s Community Benefits Agreement in 2005.
In the "discussion" section Norman Oder points readers to one of his Atlantic Yards Report articles which explains that the $500,000 penalty would be for unfulfilled jobs promises, not for breaking affordable-housing targets.
In the weekly editorial, The Brooklyn Paper states:
It is becoming increasingly clear that developer Bruce Ratner will not be able to build much of the below-market-rate housing that he’s promised to include in Atlantic Yards.
...
The affordable housing units at Atlantic Yards remain the project’s principal carrot in the face of widespread community opposition and egregious misuse of public subsidies to a multi-billion-dollar company.But there’s a problem with Ratner’s promised units: If he can’t get the tax subsidies from the state, he can walk away from the deal simply by cutting a check for $500,000 — which represents a tiny .014 percent of the company’s $3.6-billion total value — to one of the signatories of his “Community Benefits Agreement.”
Then again, he could also call his enablers in state government and complain of the shortfall in subsidies. Perhaps they will do what they’ve always done — repeatedly at Metrotech and at Atlantic Terminal Mall — and lavish more taxpayer money on another of Ratner’s white elephants.
Posted by lumi at 5:22 AM
Gridlocked: What, us worry?
From Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn:
This photo was taken at 8:45 am at Flatbush and Atlantic Avenues.
With Atlantic Yards's 17,000 new residents, and an 18,000 seat arena in use approximately 220 days per year, this gridlock would be the good ol' days.
Posted by lumi at 5:18 AM
Atlantic Yards Report short post festival
Democracy Now? Ratner Plays Hardball When It Counts
I threaded together some reporting and commentary I've done for the blog into a piece for this week's Brooklyn Downtown Star, headlined Democracy Now? Ratner Plays Hardball When It Counts.
It covers the Atlantic Yards gag order, Michael Ratner's political contributions, Forest City Ratner's contribution to the Democratic Assembly Campaign Committee's Housekeeping account, and the New York Times's editorial standoffishness.
Would the AY arena get a billion-dollar subsidy?
Though he can't confirm the info, Norman Oder thinks a comment on Atlantic Yards Report, posted by a lawyer/planner, deserves a close look.
FCR official: no such thing as too much sharing of information
In defense of Forest City Ratner's lobbying activities, spokesperson Loren Riegelhaupt explained, “When it comes to sharing information with the public and governmental bodies, there’s no such thing as too much, as far as we are concerned."
If that's the case, Norman the Mad Überkiller Oder would like to know:
OK, then, how big would Miss Brooklyn be? And why no comment on the slush fund story?
NoLandGrab: Maybe Riegelhaupt was being facetious?
Posted by lumi at 5:01 AM
End of Workzone
It's the end of the workzone as we know it, photographed by Tracy Collins, via Atlantic Yards Photo Pool.
Posted by lumi at 5:00 AM
MANHATTAN TRANSFERS: It’s His Eminent Domain: Bruce Ratner Scores Upper East Side Townhouse for $6.9 M.
The NY Observer
By Max Abelson
A few more details on the brownstone that Bruce bought:
Mr. Ratner, loathed by Brooklyn brownstone owners who don’t want his Atlantic Yards basketball arena (he co-owns the Nets) or gaggle of skyscrapers, spent $6,965,000 for the Upper East Side brownstone, records show. News of the sale was first reported on The Observer’s Web site on Monday.
While Mr. Ratner fought for eminent domain to get some of the land for Atlantic Yards, the Neustadt Collection spent decades trying to get their neighbors in the building to leave. As Milton Hassol, the president of the Neustadt Collection explained, the brownstone was split into co-op apartments, some that weren’t owned by the doctor. “The process has taken 23 years,” he said. “As other people wanted to sell we bought them out. … And then when we got 67 percent interest, we could sell”—according to co-op rules.
Stuart Saft, a real estate lawyer, confirmed to The Observer that the other owners in the building would have had to sell if they were outvoted by the building’s main owner.
“They had to by law,” Mr. Hassol said, “but people can hold you up and make it difficult—but they cooperated.”
According to records, the Neustadt Collection got over $5 million from Mr. Ratner; he paid an owner named Diane Harris $571,130, and another, Charles Nemetz, $1,309,420. The deal was finished less than three weeks after the U.S. Court of Appeals supported Mr. Ratner’s right to use eminent domain. “Today’s decision is more than another victory for Atlantic Yards,” he said then. “It is a victory for public good.”
Posted by lumi at 4:51 AM
Forest City in the News
Tampa Bay Online, Shops At Wiregrass Will Open This Fall
You probably were thinking, the world needs another Forest City Mall...
The developers of the Shops at Wiregrass say they're about 60 percent finished with the massive retail complex now going up at the corner of State Road 56 and Bruce B. Downs Boulevard.
Opening Day is scheduled for Oct. 30, said Jim Richardson, vice president of Cleveland-based mall builder Forest City Enterprises.
Gazette.net, Pollution, traffic emerge as top Konterra worries
After sitting through a Forest City presentation for the Konterra Town Center "2,200-acre, upscale, mixed-use development," West Laurel, Maryland, residents expressed some of the very same issues on the mind of Brooklynites: pollution of waterways by storm runoff, increased traffic and the lack of a regional public-transportation plan, and the strain of several thousand new residents on local infrastructure.
Posted by lumi at 4:35 AM
February 27, 2008
Boulevard of Broken Cars
Review of: Chop Shop
New York Sun
by Nicolas Rapold
Is it just that it's Academy Awards season, or could it be that eminent domain is rearing its ugly specter more frequently on the silver screen? Is it time we start a regular movie-review feature here at NoLandGrab?
Five years from now, if Mayor Bloomberg has his way, the area may well be a hotel and convention complex, but in the new film "Chop Shop," which beings a two-week engagement today at Film Forum, the auto-repair alleys and drab lots that make up Willets Point are the world for 12-year-old Alejandro. Rahmin Bahrani's follow-up to 2005's "Man Push Cart" could be the object of preservation efforts as a historical document, but his neorealist record wobbles as filmed drama, with direction and scripting that's at once shaky and insistent.
Posted by eric at 2:06 PM
Democracy Now? Ratner Plays Hardball When It Counts
Brooklyn Downtown Star
by Norman Oder
Atlantic Yards Report's über blogger, Norman Oder, contributes this update on the brothers Ratner and their political gift-giving to the Brooklyn Downtown Star.
Bruce isn’t even the best-known liberal in his family. His older brother Michael, a distinguished lawyer, leads the Center for Constitutional Rights in its admirable effort to hold our government accountable for its off-the-radar detention center in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. He co-wrote the book "Guantánamo: What the World Should Know."
John R. MacArthur, publisher of Harper’s, calls him “America’s most important civil libertarian.”
For Bruce and Michael, however, business in Brooklyn comes first. That’s why Bruce’s company has required gag orders of those selling property for the Atlantic Yards project, thus clamping down on criticism and even requiring sellers to say that Forest City Ratner treated them honorably.
That’s why, even though Bruce and Forest City Ratner (FCR) stopped giving political contributions years ago - apparently to dispel suspicion that the donations helped win projects - Michael and his wife Karen Ranucci, the development director of left-wing radio show “Democracy Now,” stepped in to fill the breach. Though residents of Greenwich Village, they reliably wrote checks to Brooklyn candidates from the county Democratic machine. Some contributions, according to state records, even had the return address of Forest City Ratner headquarters in Brooklyn. Michael, who apparently has an office there, owns a piece of the Nets, the sports team his brother wants to bring to Brooklyn. The extended Ratner family controls FCR’s parent company, Cleveland-based Forest City Enterprises.
Posted by eric at 1:53 PM
AY scaleback? Well, at least Miss Brooklyn, apparently
Atlantic Yards Report
Yesterday's article from Norman Oder on the revelations contained in a transcript of a Forest City Ratner investor meeting sent waves across the internet and local media.
The big news was a possible scaleback of Bruce Ratner's controversial Atlantic Yards plan.
But as Oder points out, the evidence for that scaleback is "murky," and the details are not forthcoming.
Posted by lumi at 6:47 AM
Blame It on Eminent Domain! Ratner Pays D'Amato
The NY Observer
By Eliot Brown
If you want to know how Atlantic Yards's Bruce Ratner became one of the most powerful developers in New York, check out Eliot Brown's exposé on Forest City Ratner's lobbying activities:
Forest City Ratner paid former U.S. Senator Al D’Amato’s lobbying firm $400,000 in 2006 and 2007 to lobby federal legislators regarding eminent domain and other issues important to the developer of the $4 billion Atlantic Yards project in downtown Brooklyn.
Forest City paid Mr. D’Amato, who left the Senate in 1998 after his defeat by Charles Schumer, about $200,000 in 2007 through the lobbying firm he founded, Park Strategies, according to federal lobbying records. Mr. D’Amato, who made headlines for getting paid $500,000 to make a phone call in 1999 to clear the way for a $230 million deal, listed “states use of eminent domain” as the subject of his efforts on behalf of Forest City, among other issues.
Park Strategies was also paid about $200,000 in 2006, then listing as its targets specific pieces of legislation that would have restricted the use of eminent domain, a key ingredient in the successful development of Atlantic Yards. Most of the potentially restrictive eminent domain legislation came as part of a backlash to the Kelo v. City of New London Supreme Court decision in 2005 upholding a government’s right to seize private property for private development.
The payments to Mr. D’Amato’s firm continued for a year following the state’s approval of Atlantic Yards. Forest City, in fact, continues to spend relatively heavily on lobbying, both in Washington and in New York, records show.
But wait, there's more.
Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn commented:
Bruce Ratner craves the freedom that eminent domain allows him so badly that he paid Al D'Amoto $400,000 to try his darndest to liberate muncipalities and states from any potential restrictions the federal government might have tried to place on their ability to seize private property for whatever use they deem appropriate. That's a pretty special interest.
NoLandGrab: BTW, rumors have it that the NY Times was thinking about working on the same story, but they're still busy covering last week's snow storm, or something like that.
Posted by lumi at 6:37 AM
Yassky come lately on AY costs, which still need a thorough accounting
Atlantic Yards Report
When it comes to Atlantic Yards, David Yassky has been talking tougher lately, especially since he is term-limited out of his City Council seat and is running for Comptroller.
Frequently described as wishy-washy, what has been his stand on Atlantic Yards and what does he want now?
Yassky did not raise the issue of AY subsidies in his comments during the Atlantic Yards approval process. In his 8/23/06 letter to the Empire State Development Corporation, he expressed "grave concerns" and requested "substantial changes," but those regarded the size of the buildings and plans for traffic and transit.
...
When Yassky ran for Congress that summer, he tried to steer $3 million in job-training funds to AY Community Benefits Agreement signatory BUILD. He took a distinctly moderate position, refraining from bringing up issues like corporate welfare, while rival Chris Owens needled him for not asking tough questions.
...
Among the tactics he recommends in an article in this week's Gotham Gazette is ending corporate tax loopholes:Of course, the single biggest example of corporate welfare is the proposed Atlantic Yards development. The Bloomberg administration has agreed to give the project's developer at least $100 million in direct subsidies, plus another $400 million to $500 million in tax breaks. In the current financial climate, this handout is impossible to justify.
...Would the total in tax breaks be $500 million, as Yassky says, and the total in government benefit be $3 billion, as Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn suggests (right)?
Well, it depends how you do the math.
...
There's still a significant need for a government-sponsored, fully-vetted effort to analyze Atlantic Yards costs and benefits. Maybe Yassky, or even fellow Comptroller candidate Jim Brennan--who's pushed to get Atlantic Yards financial information but hasn't made AY a rhetorical centerpiece of his candidacy--can put the issue on the agenda.
Posted by lumi at 6:32 AM
LeBron James to the Brooklyn Nets? A marketing bonanza, both ways
Atlantic Yards Report
In an article Monday headlined Jay-Z, James relationship should worry Cavs, Adrian Wojnarowski, the NBA columnist for Yahoo! Sports, suggests that the hip-hop star, a part owner of the New Jersey Nets, may be manuevering to lure the superstar LeBron James from the Cleveland Cavaliers once he can opt out of his contract in the summer of 2010.
That would be the right before the fall when the Nets, as announced, intend to move to Brooklyn, thought construction schedules suggest an arena opening in early 2011 is a best-case scenario.
Wojnarowski noted that James wants to become "sport’s first billionaire athlete," hence the appeal of a larger platform. Says noted sports marketer Sonny Vaccaro, "Jay-Z is the one person that I can put in a parallel universe with LeBron from where they started and where they are now."
Is Jay-Z, part of the NJ Nets ownership group, flouting league rules for tampering? Does anyone care (especially because he's a mogul and moguls don't need rules)? And, what would the marketing value be if James sported a Nets jersey?
Posted by lumi at 6:19 AM
The Eagle Pimps Out (Makes Better) City Projects
Brooklyn Daily Eagle reporter Sarah Ryley comes up with a new-n-improved Atlantic Yards project:
Bored by the debate between advocates of superblocks and Jane Jacobian traditionalists, who prefer the old-school street grids, the delay in the Atlantic Yards project would be used as an opportunity to marry the two concepts. Pacific Street between Carlton and Vanderbilt avenues would still be demapped, but the seven high-rises would be adjusted back to the traditional street grid lined with storefronts on both sides, the glittering glass towers creating a monumental archway leading into a park. Cobblestone streets off-limits to cars, dotted by fountain-side seating, would bisect the massive block, creating an effect similar to what Union Square would look like if its bordering streets were turned to promenades. Restaurants would be nestled into the curves of the buildings to accommodate outdoor seating, and retailers would be a mix of national and local boutiques. Landscaping for the park would be a mixture of hardtop to accommodate Saturday farmer’s markets and basketball games, and grassy lawns. A giant glass cube would float 20 feet high in the center, accessible by elevator, containing Mac’s newest flagship store.
Developer Forest City Ratner would make a fortune off retail rents (judging by the success of other promenade shopping districts), urbanists would finally have the car-free streets they’ve only dreamed of, and Brooklyn would have the coolest Mac store in the world.
Posted by lumi at 6:12 AM
Forest City in the News
Fresno Bee, Forest City funding a priority
The Fresno City Council voted Tuesday to make Forest City's South Stadium project a funding priority and authorized the city's Redevelopment Agency to begin buying property within the project area.
The council also directed city staff to work with Forest City to close a multimillion-dollar funding gap in the $237 million project by scouring state programs for grants and loans.
"The state is a large organization," said Council Member Larry Westerlund. "If you turn it upside down and shake it, it's amazing what falls out."
NoLandGrab: "Buying property in the area" also includes the use of (the threat of) eminent domain. Also, we love how city staff has been directed to work closely with Forest City Enterprises (FCE) to find more state funding, which makes sense because FCE has a reputation for being a master of subsidies.
FoxBusiness.com, Forest City Enterprises Announces Project Financings
Another web site carried Monday's press release announcing project financing for seven projects, "totaling nearly $380 million."
Crain's Cleveland Business, Forest City Enterprises completes seven refinancings
At a time when keeping access to debt is a growing worry for realty developers, Forest City Enterprises Inc. (NYSE: FCEA, FCEB)) of Cleveland announced it has completed seven financings totaling $380 million for projects in its development pipeline or properties in its portfolio.
Crain's reporter Stan Bullard explains:
When a real estate developer refinances a property, it extends, renews or increases the size of loans secured by the property. Such deals also allow developers to reap some of the benefit of the increase in a commercial property’s value while continuing to operate it.
Tampa Bay Business Journal, Pasco mall to begin second phase
More news on one of the projects that Forest City just managed to finance:
The developer of the Shops at Wiregrass obtained a $132 million loan to begin the second phase of construction at the Wesley Chapel retail center.
Forest City Enterprises (NYSE: FCEA and FCEB) financed the loan with RBS Citizens NA as the lead lender and Wachovia Bank and National City Bank, according to a company statement released Feb. 25.
CoStarGroup, Forest City Receives LEED Certification on Promenade Bolingbrook
Forest City Enterprises (NYSE: FCEA) received LEED certification on The Promenade Bolingbrook, a 736,000-square-foot lifestyle center in Bolingbrook, IL that opened April 26, 2007. The center is anchored by Bass Pro Shops and Macy's and also includes 42,000 square feet of office space.
Commenting on the certification process, Valerie Westley, a forest city development representative, said after explaining the company didn't seek LEED certification until after the center's design was complete and construction had begun, "We were able to get certification, but there is such an advantage to incorporating sustainability from the very beginning of a project. That’s definitely the approach we plan to take from now on.”
Forest City now has two LEED certified retail projects in its portfolio -- the first was the 1.2-million-square-foot Shops at Northfield Stapleton in the Denver area.
NoLandGrab: The new NY Times building was supposed to be a third, but after announcing the intention to apply for LEED certification during the planning phase, the development company never followed through.
Cleveland Leader, Cimperman Is Doing Corporate Work
A primer on how the Ratners buy politicians, Cleveland-style, and what they get for their bucks.
Posted by lumi at 5:47 AM
Jay-Z and the AY Crew to be Sued
Photo, Brit in Brooklyn
News of the lawsuits against Barclays Bank, Bruce Ratner and Jay-Z to collect reparations for slavery is still reverberating on the Internet, largely because of the mega-celebrity of Shawn Carter (aka Jay-Z).
MTV.com, For The Record
Hip Hop Elements, The Scoop
MediaTakeout.com, JAY Z SUED FOR $5B - FOR DOING BUSINESS WITH SLAVERY-PROFITING COMPANIES!!
ABC Action News, Jay-Z named in lawsuit
SOHH NYC, The Blogs
AntiMusic, Jay-Z Sued for Slavery
Guardian.co.uk, Jay-Z accused of profiting from slavery
Metro.co.uk, Jay-Z in $5bn slave trade lawsuit
Posted by lumi at 5:19 AM
February 26, 2008
Atlantic Yards quietly scaled back?
Crain's NY Business
By Kira Bindrim and Erik Engquist
Crain's called Forest City Ratner for comment on Norman Oder's article posted today on Atlantic Yards Report.
On Tuesday, watchdog blog Atlantic Yards Report posted portions of a previously undisclosed transcript of an Forest City meeting with investors in early October at the New York Times Building. During the meeting, Forest City executives said the Brooklyn project would span “21 acres in downtown Brooklyn, with 6.5 million square feet of residential and commercial development.” That’s smaller than the 8-million-square-foot, 22-acre project publicly outlined by the company.
But a company spokesman says the 6.5 million figure does not include the Barclays Center, a basketball arena for the Nets, which will be owned separately by Nets Sports and Entertainment, which is 21.5% owned by Forest City. Nor does it include Site 5, current home of P.C. Richard and Modell’s, which will be developed separately. Including the arena and Site 5, the square footage adds up to what was previously projected, he said.
During the meeting, Forest City also referred to the Frank Gehry-designed Miss Brooklyn tower as having 528,000 square foot of zoning rights. Earlier, it had been pegged at over 900,000 square feet. Forest City has nixed plans to include condominiums, instead offering additional office space, which is now seen as more profitable. A company spokesman says the smaller square footage reflects the concession announced last fall to reduce Miss Brooklyn’s height to 511 feet, one fewer than the borough’s tallest building, One Hanson Place.
...
During the October meeting, Forest City executive vice president MaryAnne Gilmartin said the firm had signed and completed funding agreements with both the city and the state, allowing Forest City to “be reimbursed for investments made in infrastructure and land to date on the project.” Yet company sources suggested to Crain’s last month that said no such funding agreements had been completed because litigation against the development was still pending.A source familiar with the agreements says they were indeed signed by Forest City Ratner last fall but are still waiting for approval by the city and state comptrollers.
In the comments section, Norman Oder reiterates an important point from his own article:
The evidence suggests there's been a reduction of a couple of hundred thousand square feet, but until full dimensions of the project are released, we can't be certain.
Posted by lumi at 6:56 PM
L.A.'s upscale downtown delayed
As the economy takes a toll on plans, observers focus their concern on two mega-projects: Grand Avenue and Park Fifth.
LA Times
By Cara Mia DiMassa
Frank Gehry's other urban mega-project, in Los Angeles, is being delayed:
More than a third of the approximately 110 residential projects proposed for downtown... have been delayed or put on hold amid the rocky real estate market.
Yet downtown boosters and urban planners are focusing most of their angst on two mega-projects: the Frank Gehry-designed Grand Avenue complex on Bunker Hill and Park Fifth, which would be the tallest residential complex west of Chicago.
Both projects have pushed back their start dates in recent months as developers sought capital and construction loans in an increasingly difficult market and negotiated the various government approvals needed to begin construction.
Posted by lumi at 6:49 PM
DDDB PRESS RELEASE: Ratner’s Atlantic Yards Affordable Housing Would Get Four Times the Subsidy of the City’s Average Per Unit
New York, NY—The Brooklyn Daily Eagle’s Sarah Ryley is reporting today that the cost of subsidizing Forest City Ratner’s Atlantic Yards “affordable” housing with tax-free bonds would require more than four times the funding per unit as the city’s average for all of 2007.
The Eagle article says: Spokesmen for Ratner and project sponsor Empire State Development Corporation declined to comment on why Atlantic Yards’ affordable units require roughly four times the funding as the city’s 2007 average.
The article continues, quoting Ron Shiffman, who did have comment:
Ron Shiffman, professor at the Graduate Center for Planning and the Environment at the Pratt Institute and a former planning commissioner, did say that it would be “political suicide” for HDC to approve such costly apartments while rejecting others who could build more bang for the buck. “It becomes a real untenable argument for [HDC] to give [Ratner] priority over any other project,” said Shiffman, who opposes Atlantic Yards.
“Forest City Ratner is getting an unaccountable, sweetheart deal from our government, at the expense of taxpayers, to build a cost-ineffective project,” said Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn spokesman Daniel Goldstein. “Our elected officials and Mr. Ratner need to explain why his ‘affordable’ housing units require quadruple the subsidy of an average ‘affordable’ unit. We believe there is no explanation for an indefensible sweetheart deal.”
The Eagle article goes into accounting detail to describe the quadrupled subsidy per unit:
[NYC's Housing Development Corporation spokesperson Neill] Coleman said last year HDC issued $659 million in bonds to finance the construction or preservation of 4,786 apartments for low, middle and moderate-income city residents, an average of $137,000 per unit.
According to Ratner’s financial projections, in 2008 the company plans to request $177 million in bonds for 359 below market-rate apartments in two towers, and the following year $344 million in bonds for 680 below market-rate apartments in three towers, an average of $501,000 per unit. Overall, $1.4 billion in bonds for 2,250 units averages $622,000 per unit. (Emphasis added)
Posted by lumi at 5:51 PM
ATLANTIC YARDS RATNERVILLE CONSTRUCTION UPDATE (ILLUSTRATED)
ATLANTIC YARDS CONSTRUCTION UPDATE
Weeks beginning February 25, 2008 – March 3, 2008
Long Island Rail Road/Vanderbilt Yard Work
- Excavation, lagging, install walers and struts at Support of Excavation (SOE) piles at Southeast Gas Station (block 1121, lot 47).
- Continue construction and debris removal from block 1121.
- Continue hauling soil from block 1121.
- Drill piles at East Portal.
- Trench and install conduit in block 1120.
- Prep and begin demo of southern portion of Carlton Avenue Bridge.
Install protection for traffic and pedestrians on Pacific Street near 6th Avenue in preparation for the installation of a footing for the south foundation of the cable bridge.
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 800 Pacific Street (block 1129, lot 25) and will continue throughout this two week period.
- Demolition is underway at 626 Pacific Street (block 1127, lot 22) and will continue throughout this two week period.
- Abatement is complete at 642-646 Pacific Street (block 1127, lot 30). Demolition will begin within this two week period.
- Abatement will begin at 640 Pacific Street (block 1127, lot 29) and will continue throughout this two week period.
- Abatement is complete at 645 Dean Street (block 1129, lot 62).
- Fencing, back fill and clean up is complete at 546 Vanderbilt Avenue (block 1129, lot 54). Parging of adjacent walls will be underway throughout this two week period.
Utility Work
All utility work scheduled to take place in Flatbush Avenue will only take place at night (between 10PM and 6AM) as mandated by DOT.
- The first of three phases of upgraded water and sewer installations is underway and is expected to continue through the end of the year. Work will continue on Dean Street between Flatbush and Sixth Avenues and on Sixth between Pacific and Dean Streets. Night time work began on Flatbush Avenue at Dean Street and will continue north along Flatbush in the next two weeks. Work will also begin on a new sewer chamber on Dean Street near Flatbush during the day.
- Transit ducts on Flatbush Avenue between Atlantic Avenue and Dean Street will be relocated. This work is expected to continue over the next three months.
Transportation Update
The B65 bus stop on Dean Street at the east side of Flatbush Avenue has been temporarily relocated further east on Dean Street between Carlton and 6th Avenues to accommodate utility work described above.
On January 23, 2008, the Carlton Avenue Bridge, located between Atlantic Avenue and Pacific Street, was closed. Northbound traffic is being rerouted either west along Pacific Street to Sixth Avenue, which has been restriped as a two way street, or east along Pacific Street to Vanderbilt Avenue.
Posted by lumi at 5:47 AM
Forest City to investors: more AY office space, slowed railyard, less upfront cash than city & state
Surf on over to Atlantic Yards Report for another Norman Oder must-read.
Norman Oder ponied up the 54 bucks to learn what Forest City Ratner told investors about Atlantic Yards last October. Oder found a few informational discrepancies (read, either the developer is misleading investors or lied to us) and aired some additional info that hasn't been released to the public.
Among the highlights, thanks to the transcript (for sale):
- The developer has apparently signed funding agreements with the city and state, despite reports that it has not done so
- It would take 4½-5 years to build a new railyard, not 3½ years, as promised in the Atlantic Yards environmental review
- The size of the project may have been reduced
- The flagship Miss Brooklyn tower has apparently been trimmed, and would have more office space
- The number of planned arena suites has been reduced from 170 to 130
- Additional arena sponsorships were supposed to be announced in January, but that didn’t come to pass
- The developer has invested $250 million in the $4 billion project, its largest single investment, but that's only 25% more than its developer fee, and less than the direct public investment of $305 million
- The residential project at 80 DeKalb is a test run for Atlantic Yards.
NLG Lesson of the Day: Ratner makes stuff up so we don't have to.
Posted by lumi at 5:32 AM
Bruce Ratner Buys Brownstone, But (Surprise!) It's Not In Brooklyn
The Real Estate Observer
By Max Abelson
What does the Brucester care about Brownstone Brooklyn, when he can remain cloistered in Brownstone Manhattan?
According to city records, Mr. Ratner just bought himself a nice little 20-foot-wide, 6,408-square-foot, five-floor brownstone, exactly the kind that Brooklynites like so much. But it's on the Upper East Side.
The snark would end there, except for the fact that in typical Ratner fashion, Bruce was able to force the sale of two of the units in the building so that he could have the entire thing all to himself.
The building was split into co-op apartments, some that weren't owned by Neustadt, which meant the museum couldn’t sell the townhouse until it owned two-thirds of the house. Once that happened, according to Mr. Hassol, the other two owners in the building (listed as Charles Nemetz and Diane Harris) were forced to sell as well. “They had to by law, but people can hold you up and make it difficult--but they cooperated.”
NoLandGrab: You probably have to be a little person to appreciate the irony, but you can't make this stuff up, which is why we're all still here.
We think he could’ve gotten a better deal right here in Brooklyn—maybe even in Carroll Gardens, where we hear values are increasing quite a bit.
Definitely, Bruce could have done better in Brooklyn... but then he'd have to deal with encroaching overdevelopment.
Posted by lumi at 5:15 AM
Ratner Will Be Treated Like Other Developers, Says City
Atlantic Yards Hasn’t Applied For Bonds, Units Would Cost Four Times As Much
Brooklyn Daily Eagle
By Sarah Ryley
Atlantic Yards developer Forest City Ratner Companies has not applied for affordable housing bonds, and when the company does, it will not be prioritized over other developers, said a city official. As earlier reported in the Eagle, the state has more than $6 billion for affordable housing projects in its 2008 pipeline, with $960 million for projects located within the city, but only $1.6 billion in bonds to dole out.
According to Ratner’s financial projections, the company will be requesting $1.4 billion in housing bonds over a five-year period for 2,250 apartments.
IMPORTANT comparison of the cost of subsidizing Atlantic Yards affordable housing with affordable housing elsewhere in the city (emphasis added):
[NYC's Housing Development Corporation spokesperson Neill] Coleman said last year HDC issued $659 million in bonds to finance the construction or preservation of 4,786 apartments for low, middle and moderate-income city residents, an average of $137,000 per unit.
According to Ratner’s financial projections, in 2008 the company plans to request $177 million in bonds for 359 below market-rate apartments in two towers, and the following year $344 million in bonds for 680 below market-rate apartments in three towers, an average of $501,000 per unit. Overall, $1.4 billion in bonds for 2,250 units averages $622,000 per unit.
...
Ron Shiffman, professor at the Graduate Center for Planning and the Environment at the Pratt Institute and a former planning commissioner, said it would be “political suicide” for HDC to approve such costly apartments while rejecting others who could build more bang for the buck. “It becomes a real untenable argument for [HDC] to give [Ratner] priority over any other project,” said Shiffman, who opposes Atlantic Yards.
NoLandGrab: Contrary to the headline, Bruce Ratner has NEVER been treated like other developers.
It will be interesting to see how Ratner and his political supporters manage to justify paying more for less and, despite protestations to the contrary, jumping over the backlog of other projects that have already requested financing.
Posted by lumi at 4:59 AM
Forest City in the News
BusinessWire, Forest City Enterprises Announces Project Financings
These days, when Forest City completes the financing on a project, they issue a release. It's hard to know whether the release is supposed to buck up their employees (who can't be having fun working in commercial real estate during a credit drought), assure skittish investors, or be a signal to the company's detractors that they still have their mojo.
Forest City Enterprises, Inc. (NYSE:FCEA)(NYSE:FCEB) today announced seven recently completed financing transactions, totaling nearly $380 million, in the Company’s national portfolio of operating properties and in its development pipeline.
“These successful transactions reflect our continuing ability to access the capital needed to finance our extensive real estate portfolio, make selective strategic acquisitions and fund our robust development pipeline,” said Charles A. Ratner, Forest City president and CEO. “They also reflect the strong relationships we have with a wide variety of lenders and other sources of funding.”
Q: Don't seven projects whose financing transactions total around $380 million seem like peanuts compared to Atlantic Yards?
TradingMarkets.com, S.R. 56 Road Work May Start Next Month
Tampa Tribune - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- FCE.A | news | PowerRating | PR Charts -- Construction on State Road 56 east of Bruce B. Downs Boulevard could begin March 12, the project coordinator said Thursday.
GoodForest LLC, the company developing the Shops at Wiregrass mall, plans to hold a groundbreaking ceremony for the new road on that day, said Jim Richardson, vice president of Cleveland-based Forest City Enterprises.
NoLandGrab: Who would you pick to run "BadForest LLC?"
New Mexico Business Weekly, Schott to break ground in early March
The German manufacturer is set to break ground on a new plant as part of Forest City's Mesa del Sol plan.
Posted by lumi at 4:38 AM
February 25, 2008
$5 B. Claim Filed Against Jay-Z, Bruce Ratner
The Real Estate Observer
By Eliot Brown
This post on The NY Observer's real estate blog begins with a correction:
Editor's Note: This story originally reported that the Clive Campbell who filed the claim was the real name of D.J. Kool Herc, a founder of hip hop. In fact, it is a different Clive Campbell. Mr. Campbell is a Brooklyn-based activist. The story has been corrected.
Brooklyn activist Clive Campbell is seeking $5 billion from rapper Jay-Z, developer Bruce Ratner and Barclays bank, filing a “claim of lien” in property records that seeks the money for slavery reparations.
Mr. Ratner, Jay-Z, and Barclay’s are all linked through the $4 billion Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn, for which Mr. Ratner plans to build a Frank Gehry-designed basketball arena for the Nets and more than 6,000 apartments. Jay-Z, a partial owner of the Nets, has been a major supporter of the project, appearing at press conferences to tout its merits. Barclays owns the naming rights to the arena, and has been accused of having links with the slave trade—an accusation the bank denies.
Though the suit may not go very far, it makes a strong case to the public that Bruce Ratner's sale of the naming rights of his planned Brooklyn arena to Barclays bank is a serious slap in the face to the African-American community. Naturally, Ratner's spokesperson declined to comment.
The news of the lawsuit is all over the online hip-hop media, including versions with the erroneously reported mistaken identity.
SixShot.com, Activist Group Filing $5 Billion Lawsuit Against Jay-Z & Barclays Bank For Slavery Reparations
SOHH.com, Jay-Z Hit W/ $5 Billion Lawsuit, Activist Seeking Slavery Reparations
HipHopdx.com, Jay-Z Sued For $5 Billion For Slave Reparations?
AllHipHop.com, UPDATE: Activist Clive Campbell Sues Jay-Z & Barclays For $5 Billion
HHE, Jay Z Named In $5 Billion Reparations Lawsuit
Gothamist, Nets Stadium Has 99 Problems, But Kool Herc Ain't One
Bronx legend Clive Campbell, who as DJ Kool Herc is widely credited as one of hip-hop’s founding fathers, is not suing Jay-Z, developer Bruce Ratner and Barclays bank, as previously reported by the Observer online. The $5 billion lawsuit is being brought by a much less famous Brooklyn activist also named Clive Campbell, and the mix-up is probably a big publicity boon for his lawsuit, as it echoed far and wide across the internets before the Observer corrected it.
Posted by lumi at 7:49 PM
AGGRESSIVE ENTERTAINMENT STOP RAGE
Photo by Tracy Collins.
There's a new billboard advertising the NJ Nets on the corner of Waverly and Atlantic.
If this whimsical photo doesn't sum up many of the local feelings about Bruce Ratner's aggressive Atlantic Yards plan...
Surf on over to the Atlantic Yards Photo Pool for a look at a shot of the entire billboard.
We especially love the tag line, "Nets basketball, more than a game" (try, "more like a real estate deal").
Posted by lumi at 7:22 PM
Where’s the Dough for AY Affordable Housing?
Brownstoner asks some tough questions about subsidies for the affordable housing component of Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards plan.
...does the project’s “scale” mean the city is giving a free pass for construction on the affordable housing parts of Atlantic Yards to take much longer than other aspects of the development? And what if there’s even less funding available for affordable housing in the future? Finally, is it fair for Forest City Ratner’s mega-development to eat into the creation of affordable units in other parts of the city and state?
NoLandGrab: These questions have been on the mind of affordable housing advocates for some time.
Posted by lumi at 7:10 PM
New area threatened by eminent domain in Chicago
CastleWatch Daily
Here's another reminder that the government doesn't use eminent domain on upper-income white neighborhoods:
On Tuesday, the Chicago Community Development Commission approved the Ogden-Pulaski tax increment financing district. The TIF comes with a $100 million budget and the power to use eminent domain for economic development. There are currently 41 properties that would be qualify to be condemned by the city.
The TIF streches across 876 acres of the Lawndale neighborhood on the city’s west side. It’s a tight-knit community in a poor, predominantly elderly African-American community.
Posted by lumi at 7:02 PM
Changing the Way the City Does Business
Gotham Gazette
by David Yassky
Public-policy web site Gotham Gazette offers candidates for City Comptroller the opportunity to tell voters how they would help the city weather an economic downturn.
One idea put forth by David Yassky involves pulling the plug on several hundred million dollars' worth of unjustifiable handouts for Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards project.
Of course, the single biggest example of corporate welfare is the proposed Atlantic Yards development. The Bloomberg administration has agreed to give the project's developer at least $100 million in direct subsidies, plus another $400 million to $500 million in tax breaks. In the current financial climate, this handout is impossible to justify.
NoLandGrab: Critics point out that Yassky's stance on Atlantic Yards has gotten tougher now that he's running for Comptroller, but in fairness to the Brooklyn Council Member, he has teamed up with colleague (and staunch AY opponent) Tish James to try to push legislation intended to end the tax breaks.
A quick glance at Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrion's platform reveals no such criticism of similar giveaways for a new Yankee Stadium. No surprise there.
Posted by eric at 6:55 PM
MEETING: STOP ATLANTIC YARDS PROJECT, PROMOTE FAIR DEVELOPMENT.
From The Indypendent's events listing:
THU MAR 13
7pm • Free
MEETING: “STOP ATLANTIC YARDS PROJECT, PROMOTE FAIR DEVELOPMENT.”Updates and planning. Sponsored by Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn. Hanson Pl United Methodist Church, Main Sanctuary, 144 St Felix St, Fort Greene, Bklyn • dddb.net
dddbnews@gmail.com
Posted by lumi at 6:53 PM
Jay-Z’s relationship with James should worry Cavs
Yahoo! Sports
by Adrian Wojnarowski
Two years ago, the Cavaliers heard Jay-Z’s public position on LeBron’s future and could only imagine what might be said in private. When asked about the possibility of him someday joining the franchise, the Nets’ part-owner paid no mind to league tampering rules and gushed, “How amazing would that be? I tell people all the time, he’s my friend first. If Cleveland is building a championship team around him then my advice is to stay there. If it’s the Nets who are building a championship team that could be around him then my advice is to come to the Nets.”
The league office noticed the comments, but never leveled a fine for tampering. What can Cleveland do? Complain? No chance the Cavs will try to tell James who his friends can be, especially when they pre-date his days in the NBA.
NoLandGrab: Jay-Z appears to have as much respect for the NBA's rules against tampering as Bruce Ratner has for private property.
Posted by eric at 6:30 PM
"Bulldozed": on the Kelo eminent domain case and beyond
Atlantic Yards Report
Despite the title, Carla T. Main’s recent book Bulldozed: “Kelo,” Eminent Domain, and the American Lust for Land tells the story of eminent domain by focusing on a particularly heavy-handed (but little-known) case in Freeport, TX (population approx. 13,000), a Gulf Coast city some 50 miles south of Houston. Freeport officials wanted to take waterfront property from the salt-of-the-earth Gore family operating a longtime shrimp business to create a low-risk deal for a wealthy developer to build a private marina. The Gores fought back, fiercely, with more resources than the typical eminent domain plaintiff, and the story includes numerous twists and turns.
NoLandGrab: We posted The Wall Street Journal's review of Bulldozed last December.
Posted by eric at 9:43 AM
Ratner to Jump the Pipeline?
Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn compares two quotes from Marc Jahr, president of the city's Housing Development Corporation.
One in response to the affordable-housing-funding crisis:
"It's a pity to have good affordable housing projects in a city that desperately needs affordable housing for virtually all income levels, to have them sitting at the starting line with their engines idling."
The second in which Jahr claims that Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards affordable-housing subsidies are NOT in jeopardy despite the backlog of projects that have already applied:
"Given the scale of the project . . . we're not concerned that the money won't be there."
So, either there's a crisis and Bruce Ratner is going to have to wait his turn, or lawmakers in Albany (i.e. the very ones who benefited from a $58,000 soft-money contribution from Ratner) are trying to work out a special deal for their favorite developer (they've done it before).
Develop Don't Destroy posits:
Should we be preparing to watch Mr. Jahr, the city and state put Bruce Ratner's yet to be requested housing bonds at the mouth of the pipe? Is that what's being considered?
NoLandGrab: Given that lawmakers have already fiddled with the "allocation criteria" of the available subsidies, the possibility of another "Ratner Clause" is getting stronger.
Posted by lumi at 5:26 AM
It came from the Blogosphere...
Who Walk in Brooklyn, The Law, Language & So-Called Atlantic Yards
The myth of Norman "the Mad Overkiller" Oder grows as one reader compares him to a Malamud protagonist:
With nothing but a gutsy mind & spirit, [Yacov Bok] opposes the entire apparatus of police, prosecutors, judges and jailers. He is the classic Victim Who Judges, who is easily superior to his tormentors, who psyches them out, exposing their chicanery, their petty motives, who ends with contempt for them rather than fear. He reads Spinoza and does a retrospective analysis of Jewish persecution, and finally comes up with the wonderful idea that “Suffering teaches us only that suffering has absolutely no value.” To me, Bok is an archetype of Norman Oder, at least in respect to his uncompromising judging of his persecutors, to his illuminating insights into the stinking social apparatus which is slowly destroying us, fiber by fiber and cell by cell.
NoLandGrab: We're pretty sure that Oder doesn't view developer Bruce Ratner, NY City and State to be "his persecutors." From our POV he is merely trying to figure out and report the truth.
Du soleil à la grisaille..., And sometimes you close your eyes, and see the place where you use to live...
Elodie est retourné à Brooklyn, mais pour rend visite, et devine quoi... she is doing her thesis on Atlantique Yards"
Et shame on me, comme d'hab, j'ai pas écrit d'article avant ce soir, tellement débordée à avancer mon mémoire... hum hum. Je pense que l'intitulé initial de mon mémoire "Atlantic Yards, projet contesté au coeur du cosmopolite borough de Brooklyn, analyse des conflits de territoire" va devenir "1000 et une choses futiles et inutiles à faire quand on est censer bosser"...
MetroNuevaYork, Manifestantes en protesta contra acoso contra fotógrafos
Noticias de "Atlantic Yards Camera Club" en Español:
Según informaba el pasado día 11 el blog No Land Grab, pese al tiempo inclemente que se registró en Nueva York el pasado domingo 10 de febrero, se presentaron unas dos docenas de fotógrafos pertenecientes al Atlantic Yards Camera Club a la manifestación convocada para protestar contra el acoso sufrido por la fotógrafa Katherin McInnis, quien fotografiaba las cocheras de Atlantic Avenue por parte de un agente del MTA.
Calculated Risk, CNBC: Insurer Downgrade "Imminent"
One reason that money has dried up for large government-sponsored megaprojects:
CNBC reports: Is Time Running Out for Bond Insurers?
The decision by the big ratings agencies, Moody's, Standard & Poor's and Fitch is imminent, and at least one of the raters could make an announcement sometime today.
...
[A] downgrade of MBIA and Ambac could pose big problems for the banks that hold bonds they insure. Analyst Meredith Whitney said on CNBC yesterday that the downgrades could cause writedowns of another $75 billion at the big banks.
The latest news is that Ambac might get bailed out.
And from the ReBlogosphere, here are links that picked up news of an impending affordable-housing subsidy crunch, as first discussed on Atlantic Yards Report and Brownstoner:
OnNYTurf, Atlantic Yards Affordable Housing in Jeopardy Due to Housing Bond Cap "Crisis"
Runnin' Scared [The Village Voice], Could the Bond Market Hurt Atlantic Yards Affordable Housing?
But it's not clear whether Forest City Ratner has applied for those bonds, and there is a lot of evidence indicating that there might not be any money available if Forest City did, Oder wrote. The city's Housing Development Corporation wouldn't say whether the agency received the bond application from Ratner or not.
Either way, sounds like it's gonna be tough to build the affordable housing.
Queens Crap, Affordable housing much less likely
Posted by lumi at 4:52 AM
B'klyn finds it takes an online village
Crain's NY Business
By Andrew Buck
NoLandGrab gets some ink in this Crain's article about blogactivism.
It's available online to subscribers only (link):
“We used to have to beg papers for coverage on local issues, and if we published anything ourselves it would be waved off as a rumor,” says Lumi Michelle Rolley, founder of No Land Grab, a four-year-old, Atlantic Yards-centric blog. “Blogs are now a natural fit for activists.”
NoLandGrab: Correction, Lumi Michelle Rolley was a late addition to NoLandGrab, which was already active for three months by the time she joined in May, 2004.
We contend that blogactivism, though it is a relatively new phenomenon, has been a natural development since the tools for blogging became available. In an age when kids are doing their homework with friends via IM and are keeping tabs on one another on social networking sites, online activism is really a no-brainer.
Read the full article after the jump for more details.
THE COMPLETE ARTICLE APPEARS BELOW AND IS BEING PROVIDED FOR RESEARCH AND EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES AS ALLOWED UNDER SECTION 107 OF THE US COPYRIGHT LAW.
It didn't seem like a big deal when Bob Guskind posted a rendering of a building for a site on Smith Street in Carroll Gardens several months ago. But within days, other bloggers in the Brooklyn neighborhood had zeroed in on the property. They uncovered fresh details, including the developer's name and the luxury residential project's height, 70 feet, which would dwarf the surrounding brownstones.
Dubbed “the heavy metal building” by Carroll Gardens bloggers, the development quickly became a magnet for local groups and officials determined to preserve the neighborhood's low-rise charm. In response to the opposition, developer Bill Stein has replaced the original architect and modified the design.
“It is amazing how a small community was galvanized after reading one post,” says Mr. Guskind, whose blog, The Gowanus Lounge, was the first to carry an image of the building. “Three years ago, this wouldn't have happened.”
It's a new day for online community activism. According to Katia Kelly, a longtime Carroll Gardens resident and the sole blogger on Pardon Me for Asking, the movement's strength lies in networking. Cross-linking posts lets one person's message spread almost instantly. Blogs are also gaining power as their content makes it into mainstream media.
“We used to have to beg papers for coverage on local issues, and if we published anything ourselves it would be waved off as a rumor,” says Lumi Michelle Rolley, founder of No Land Grab, a four-year-old, Atlantic Yards-centric blog. “Blogs are now a natural fit for activists.”
Politicians are also in listening mode. Democratic Councilman Bill de Blasio, who represents Carroll Gardens, recently began holding monthly “teas” to meet with bloggers and other locals. Late last month, he proposed an immediate study to possibly downzone the area.
That was good news for Triada Samaras. Within days of seeing the picture of the development at 360 Smith St., she and half a dozen other fiftysomething neighbors formed the Carroll Gardens Coalition to Respectfully Develop. Among the details the group has uncovered is that the project will benefit from a zoning rule quirk that allows it to be larger than normal.
CORD has gathered more than 3,000 signatures online calling for city officials to recognize that a sizable number of residents want a moratorium on construction in the neighborhood.
“The land-use and development process has not been transparent,” Mr. Guskind says. “Blogging has changed that.”
Posted by lumi at 4:19 AM
February 24, 2008
EMINENT DOMAINIA: The Big Apple Bites!
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NY Newsday, Government abuses eminent domain How did downtowns - or any set of buildings - ever get built on Long Island without government development plans and politicians threatening property owners with condemnation? |
Well, it turns out the private sector works pretty darn well.
...
Matters go awry when government gets in the way with high taxes and costly, unnecessary regulation, including inflexible zoning. Government also needs to keep the streets clean, fill the potholes, and protect people and property.
Real Estate Observer, Willets Point, A Development Waterloo?
This update on eminent domain in Willets Point, Queens from The Observer's real estate blog was brought to our attention by Queens Crap:
The Bloomberg administration, surely aware of the stumbling blocks of predecessors, seems to be preparing itself for dissent. Earlier this month, the city held a press conference to tout the newly announced support of Queens Borough President Helen Marshall and U.S. Representative Joseph Crowley. Mayor Bloomberg has unabashedly supported the use of eminent domain to oust landowners unwilling to sell their land, and the city has brought in a number of high-profile attorneys to work on the plan.
And to drum up support in the immediate area, the city has been giving funding to a Willets Point redevelopment advocacy group led by former Queens Borough President Claire Shulman, Deputy Mayor Robert Lieber confirmed, boosting an organization that has brought on a lobbying team of its own for the push. The city has approved up to $250,000 in matching funds for Ms. Shulman’s group.
Washington Square News, Stern grad fights Columbia spread
Through the Freedom of Information Law, [West Harlem property owner Nick] Sprayregen had 167 documents handed over last June revealing the processes of how the state is allowing Columbia to carry through with its plans.
"The state, city agencies have given us some of the documents, but we have not gotten all the documents we believe we are entitled to," said Norman Siegel, Sprayregen's lawyer.
For the state to permit the condemnation of private property for development it must conduct a survey to determine an area to be "blighted." Sprayregen and Siegal do not believe the properties that Columbia is trying to seize fit this category.
Posted by lumi at 5:39 PM
Photoblogger Stopped from Taking Snow Pics on Ninth St. Bridge
The Gowanus Lounge
This is a photo of snow on the Gowanus from photographer Joe Holmes that we found while looking at snow pics on flickr. It's a great pic, but what's even more s interesting about it, though, is what is in the description. Mr. Holmes, whose photoblog Joe's NYC is very highly regarded, writes: "...taken seconds before I was told that photography is prohibited on the 9th Street bridge because of 9-11 concerns. Those crafty terrorists -- blow up the 9th St bridge, and they'll bring this country to its knees." We have taken thousands of pics from all the bridges over the Gowanus and haven't realized we were endangering national security. Thank God he wasn't taking photos of the Atlantic Yards site.
Posted by amy at 1:42 PM
Could the Bond Market Hurt Atlantic Yards Affordable Housing?
Village Voice
Michael Clancy
Could the limited pool of affordable housing bonds jeopardize the 2,250 units of subsidized housing that developer Bruce Ratner pledged as part of his Atlantic Yards mixed-use stadium project?Norman Oder, of the Atlantic Yards Report, seems to think so. Ratner seeks $1.4 billion in such bonds, which would allow him to borrow money at discounted rate over the course of the 10-year project. But it's not clear whether Forest City Ratner has applied for those bonds, and there is a lot of evidence indicating that there might not be any money available if Forest City did, Oder wrote. The city's Housing Development Corporation wouldn't say whether the agency received the bond application from Ratner or not.
Either way, sounds like it's gonna be tough to build the affordable housing.
Posted by amy at 1:39 PM
Re-Zoning the “Atlantic Yards” Footprint
Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn
What if our community was given a voice in planning redevelopment over and around the Vanderbilt rail yards?
What’s your vision for our neighborhood’s future?
The original UNITY Plan, the community-created alternative to Forest City Ratner’s “Atlantic Yards” project, covered only the publicly owned Vanderbilt rail yards. FCR has since taken control of and blighted or torn down many properties around the rail yards. But now the financing for “Atlantic Yards” is in doubt, even according to the developer – the bond financing for the arena and the affordable housing may not be feasible. What happens next?
Join your neighbors, elected officials and expert planners for a public workshop devoted to creating a community plan for the entire area – now that the global credit crisis threatens to scuttle “Atlantic Yards.”
Saturday, MARCH 1, 2008
10 am to 2 pm
St. Cyril’s Belarusian Cathedral
401 Atlantic Avenue (at Bond Street)
RSVP to Hunter College CCPD at: 212-650-3328 or ccpd@hunter.cuny.edu
Presented by the Hunter College Center for Community Preservation and Development (CCPD)
Sponsored by the Council of Brooklyn Neighborhoods
Posted by amy at 1:28 PM
Atlantic Yards Affordable Housing in Jeopardy Due to Housing Bond Cap "Crisis"
Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn
The proposed "affordable" housing for Forest City Ratner’s Atlantic Yards project is in jeopardy.According to information from the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) Forest City Ratner’s (FCR) housing would require subsidization worth $1.4 billion in federally tax-free housing bonds from the New York City Housing Development Corporation (NYCHDC). With the aid of these bonds, FCR proposes that 2,250 rental units out of a total 6,430 units would be deemed "affordable."
The problem is that there is no money now for Forest City Ratner.
New York State has a housing bond cap of about $1.6 billion per year for the entire state, New York City has only a portion of that cap, and there is a long pipeline of applications for this limited amount of financing in front of FCR. It is believed that FCR has not even applied for their housing bonds. According to Norman Oder in a story today on his Atlantic Yards Report, NYCHDC did not respond to a request for confirmation of this.
Posted by amy at 1:25 PM
HDC head curiously unconcerned about AY funding availability
Atlantic Yards Report responds to today's two-sentence NY Post article stating that federal funding shortfalls won't affect Atlantic Yards, because it's bigger than other projects.
Less than two weeks ago, Jahr wrote in City Hall News, as I reported Friday:
It is only February, but over $960 million in private activity bonds are required for affordable housing deals in HDC’s 2008 pipeline alone, while New York State overall has a pipeline of more than $6 billion. Unfortunately, however, New York State’s yearly allocation of cap is only around $1.6 billion.And, as I reported, he earlier this month told the Bond Buyer, "It's a pity to have good affordable housing projects in a city that desperately needs affordable housing for virtually all income levels, to have them sitting at the starting line with their engines idling.”
Simple physics suggests that the scale of Atlantic Yards, which would require $1.4 billion in bonds, should make it harder, not easier to find the funds--even if the scale makes AY "too big to fail."
Until and unless additional volume cap is found, thus allowing the city and state to issue more bonds, a lot of projects are going to be at the starting line.
Posted by amy at 1:19 PM
ATLANTIC YARD$TICK FOR POOR HOUSING
NY Post
RICH CALDER
A federal-funding shortfall that could hamper affordable housing projects in the city likely won't affect the Atlantic Yards project, a top official said yesterday."Given the scale of the project . . . we're not concerned that the money won't be there," said Marc Jahr, president of the city's Housing Development Corporation.
link (NoLandGrab: but really, don't bother clicking. That's the entire article. Read Atlantic Yards Report instead...)
Posted by amy at 1:15 PM
February 23, 2008
Plan to Rebuild Penn Station Area May Be Close to Failure
The New York Times
by Charles V. Bagli
The sweeping $14 billion proposal to transform Pennsylvania Station and the district around it is in danger of collapse because of the softening economy, shortfalls in government financing, political inertia and daunting logistical problems, government officials and real estate executives involved in the project said this week.
...Some government officials and real estate executives are concerned that a slowing economy and the current state of the credit markets, where there is little money available for large real estate deals, could cause problems for both the sale of the railyards and the Moynihan project.
NoLandGrab: And what about New York City's other railyard deal?
Posted by eric at 3:27 PM
Borough of Writers: Q&A: Paul La Farge
Brooklyn Daily Eagle
Brad Lockwood
Born in Manhattan, author and hyper-creative journalist/historian/urbanist Paul La Farge is now based in Boerum Hill after a stint on the West Coast. A Guggenheim Grant and Bard Fiction Prize winner, La Farge’s works include the novels The Artist of the Missing and Haussmann; or, the Distinction, and most recently, The Facts of Winter.
...
Where are you now?
Boerum Hill, right around the corner from Jonathan Lethem, I think.What’s your view on the Atlantic Yards development?
I should know more than I do. But the things I do know make me pretty unenthusiastic about it. What they did to the original Times Square was bad enough and I don’t see the need for another one of those. It’s just overburdening the transportation infrastructure and breaking up the flow of the streets and moving all these people out of the neighborhood that have been living there happily. It just doesn’t seem so great.
Posted by amy at 11:57 AM
The "spirit of the Times," or why there's no editorial criticism of Ratner
Atlantic Yards Report
Maybe you were wondering why the New York Times editorial board, despite being capable of skepticism about development puffery, has produced confused and lame editorials supporting Atlantic Yards and remained (I speculate) in the gridlock of silence, failing to take a stand pro or con when a questionable process finally reached the Public Authorities Control Board at the end of 2006.Well, the parent New York Times Company partnered with Atlantic Yards developer Forest City Ratner on the new Times Tower headquarters on Eighth Avenue, and the Times even agreed to guarantee a loan, as Editor and Publisher reported last year.
While that doesn't mean the business relationship influences coverage--though I've long argued that obligates the Times to do a better job--the editorial page is not so insulated. The Times itself has acknowledged publicly that its publisher influences the editorials.
article
NoLandGrab: Read the whole article for an interview with Editorial Board Member Carolyn Curiel from CUNY-TV.
Posted by amy at 11:53 AM
Let’s Chop Up Superblocks
Streetsblog
There's the Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn. While there are a lot of reasons to criticize this project, starting with the process that seemed to reverse the normal way development of a public parcel should proceed. But when you get down to urban design of the plan itself, it has entirely too few streets. Not only does it de-map some existing ones, it doesn't pick up the possibility of creating new ones so that this big area could be divided into smaller, pedestrian friendly blocks.
...
Why do developers haul out the superblock so quickly when designing current projects, and why do public officials let them, despite its near death in academic circles?
...
Large concentrations of money affect development in New York City disproportionately, and such large concentrations of money often favor having large concentrations of land to work with. While it may be a disservice to the city to have a large, island-like superblock - traffic flow is disrupted, walking and bicycling trips are made more difficult -- to the developer, a superblock allows for wide floor plates, campus-like settings and a level of land use control that would not otherwise be possible. And since the government sector is weak, large developers often end up doing what suits them first, not the public.
Posted by amy at 11:49 AM
Straight From The Bleachers:Downtown Detour With Brooklyn Several Years Away, Nets Begin Rebuilding in Jersey
Brooklyn Daily Eagle
John Torenli
With future Hall of Fame point guard Jason Kidd, arguably the greatest player in the history of the star-crossed franchise, sent off to Dallas and Vince Carter being mentioned in trade rumors as yesterday’s afternoon deadline for deals loomed, the Nets have the look of a team in full rebuilding mode.
...
But the dwindling crowds at the newly renamed Izod Center and the lack of any evidence that construction is under way Downtown have left the Nets in purgatory, sitting helplessly between destinations with very little fan support or buzz in the tri-state area.
article
We would also like to take this time to correct several 'location' mistakes in this story.
NoLandGrab: Would it be possible to keep this purgatory caused by management in mind when we consider the possible purgatory in Prospect Heights if buildings are knocked down and lack of financing then leaves the project for dead? This surely isn't happening anywhere else...
A. "When Ratner first informed us there’d be an NBA team in Brooklyn by the 2007-08 season — a declaration he boldly made nearly five years ago — a palpable buzz began circulating throughout our fair borough, be it in favor of a $550 million arena deal or against the overdevelopment of the Atlantic Yards and surrounding neighborhoods."
- That would be the Vanderbilt Yards, not Atlantic Yards. This paragraph also has a timing error - Ratner said the Nets would be playing in Brooklyn in the 2006-2007 season, not 2007-2008.
B. "And the star-studded triumvirate of Kidd, Carter and Richard Jefferson were supposed to be establishing the Nets as a perennial championship contender at the sight formerly known as the Atlantic Yards."
- That would also be Vanderbilt Yards, not Atlantic Yards.
C. "Though Nets team president Rod Thorn admitted earlier this week that the franchise was still going “full bore” toward landing in Downtown Brooklyn by 2010 — three years later than the original plan for arrival — the excitement surrounding what may be our first big-time pro sports franchise since the Dodgers left town in 1957 has waned considerably."
- That would be Prospect Heights, not Downtown Brooklyn.
Posted by amy at 11:31 AM
Downturn! Big D’Town project hits the brakes
The Brooklyn Paper
Dana Rubinstein
Last month’s abrupt shutdown of a major development project near Metrotech is a setback for planners’ lofty vision of a new, 24-7 business and residential mini-city in Downtown Brooklyn, said experts this week.John Catsimatidis, the owner of the Gristedes