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December 31, 2008
GL’s Top Ten Brooklyn Stories of 2008
Gowanus Lounge
This end-of-year review has the proposed Atlantic Yards project as the number two Brooklyn story of the year.
2) The Atlantic Yards Meltdown. Who could have predicted that by the end of 2008 the discussion would center around whether the mega-project would ever be built? During the year we saw talk of a “stall” and a “halt.” There was a dramatic scaling back of Miss Brooklyn. The timetable for building affordable housing slipped. Landscape architect Laurie Olin left the project. And Architect Frank Gehry laid off people working on the project. Our prediction: Developer Bruce Ratner will have difficulty obtaining financing for a nearly $1 billion Gehry arena and the arena will either be scraped or a new version from an off-the-rack firm for $500 million will be built. There are also significant odds the entire project will be canceled if the tanking Nets are sold and go to Newark. We now give the project odds of 50-50 at best. And, by “project,” we mean an arena surrounded by seas of parking. A pox on the officials that allowed demolition to go forward and decimate part of Prospect Heights, including destruction of the historic Wards Bakery.
Additional: 2009 Will Change Brooklyn’s Development Vocabulary
Posted by steve at December 31, 2008 3:45 PM