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December 10, 2008
Forest City to emphasize operations rather than development
Crain's Cleveland Business
By Stan Bullard
Forest City Enterprises Inc. (NYSE: FCEA, FCEB) is doing the switcheroo to deal with the global credit crunch.
In a conference call with analysts and investors today, Charles Ratner, Forest City CEO, said, “The near-term effect is that we are going from a developer with an operating company to becoming a real estate operating company with a development capability. We did that in the early 1990s” during the commercial realty credit crunch after the savings-and-loan crisis.
That is how Mr. Ratner summarized the $10.9 billion Cleveland-based company’s decision to “put virtually all new development on hold until the economy improves.”
...
While New York City newspapers last weekend questioned whether Forest City could continue its huge 22-acre arena and mixed-use Atlantic Yards development in Brooklyn, Mr. Ratner said workers left the site because they completed some demolition work at the rail yard that the company had ordered. Forest City has completed all it can on the site until it resolves pending litigation related to the project, Mr. Ratner said.“It will take longer than we thought it would. It already has,” he said. “We remain committed to the project.”
NoLandGrab: Charles Ratner is totally making up that crap about completing all that it can on the Atlantic Yards site. For instance, there's the half-demolished Carlton Avenue bridge that has to be rebuilt, whether or not Atlantic Yards makes it off the drawing board.
Posted by lumi at December 10, 2008 6:50 PM