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September 16, 2008
Wall Street meltdown may swamp all New Yorkers
amNY
By David Freedlander, Garett Sloane, and Galen Moore
Atlantic Yards gets an honorable mention in an article about the cascading effects of this weekend's events on Wall St., which includes the local housing and commercial real estate market:
The crisis that wiped out the venerable Lehman Brothers and left two others financial giants struggling for life threatens to cascade across all sectors of city life, from the restaurant business to the pace of rebuilding at the World Trade Center, observers say.
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The continued march of bankers with boxes -- not into new homes but out on the street looking for jobs -- will certainly soften the city's real estate market.
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The fall of Lehman Brothers will also take its toll on commercial real estate, with oversupply possibly bringing prices down.
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And that's not to mention possible office consolidations from the merger of Merrill Lynch with Bank of America, set against the general downsizing throughout the financial industry.
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If the housing market softens, developers may get jittery and be less willing to finance all the new buildings going up, leading to lots of empty lots. And big projects like the new World Trade Center and the Atlantic Yards could grind to a halt, according to Chris Jones, a researcher at the Regional Plan Association, should financing becomes more difficult and tax revenues dry up.
Posted by lumi at September 16, 2008 5:01 AM