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March 28, 2008
Visions of parking lots at stalled Atlantic Yards site
MetroNY
By Amy Zimmer
If you're wondering why Bruce Ratner has been taking down every building he possibly can in the footprint of his stalled Atlantic Yards plan, there's only one answer... PARKING.
What’s next for Atlantic Yards? How about a giant parking lot?
At least, that’s what some Brooklynites fear is coming in light of developer Bruce Ratner’s announcement that the recessionary climate has stalled parts of the $4 billion project.
“He’s demolished a number of buildings,” said Tish James, the area’s City Councilwoman and a vocal critic of the project, at a recent City Hall hearing on congestion pricing. “I don’t want those lots to be turned into parking lots.”
Ratner has said construction on the 18,000-seat arena was scheduled to begin by yearend, but other parts of the project’s first phase — housing, retail and an office tower dubbed “Miss Brooklyn” — are on hold.
Some have already predicted that if congestion pricing becomes a reality, a boom in parking lots and garages will soon follow in easy-access portions of the outer boroughs.
James said she is worried about the parking-lot scenario at Atlantic Yards because “it’s a revenue generator and right now [land is] sitting fallow.”
...
A Ratner rep insisted the land would not be turned into parking lots.
NoLandGrab: Don't count on un-named Ratner reps to all of the sudden start telling the truth.
Ratner has already revealed that he plans to use cleared land as a "temporary surface parking lot." Only the definition of "temporary" is unclear.
The graphic above shows what Norman Oder calls "Phase 0," in July 2006:
Note that there's no official rendering of what might be called phase zero, which would show the entire site east of Sixth Avenue as either surface parking, staging, or railyards. Phase zero would persist during the construction of the first stage, over four years.
We now know that "four years" could actually be more than a decade.
Posted by lumi at March 28, 2008 6:28 AM