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February 15, 2008
Downtown, Related Developments Bear Out 2004 Projections
Brooklyn Daily Eagle
By Dennis Holt
If you look at Atlantic Yards through rose-colored glasses, it's not as big or boondoggly as it seems:
Although not a construction spade has pierced any of the large ground that is known as the Atlantic Yards site, its enormous size tends to dwarf all other Downtown Brooklyn development projects.
At more than 8.6 million square feet and a total price tag of $4 billion, with more than 6,000 housing units planned, half affordable, Atlantic Yards will hold its own with just about anything except maybe the Hudson Yards project proposed for the west side of Manhattan.
But if you look carefully at what else is in the works for Downtown Brooklyn and separate the developments by area, a different story emerges. And if you break up the Atlantic Yards project into its components, it isn’t as awesome as the whole thing looks.
As a bonus, author Dennis Holt comes to this startling conclusion:
All in all, it is a safe conclusion that the goals of the 2004 rezoning plan, to overhaul much of the old Downtown Brooklyn core area, are being achieved, and there were a lot of people who scoffed at those hopes.
NoLandGrab: The Downtown Brooklyn Plan ran so far off the tracks that the Mayor had to appoint Joe Chan to try to get it back on line. Nowhere in the original rezoning plan does the City predict that the market would deliver primarily high-rise luxury housing and then head into a real estate slump, or maybe it does if you squint real hard.
Posted by lumi at February 15, 2008 5:16 AM