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December 10, 2008
It came from the Blogosphere...
Brownstoner, Atlantic Yards Celebrates A Big Birthday
Yep, it's five years old today, and DDDB has posted this photo of the big cheeses celebrating the announcement in more hopeful times.
Daily Intel, Atlantic Yards Turns Five Today!
Believe it or not, five years ago today, in the flush of the real-estate boom, Mayor Bloomberg, Brooklyn borough president Marty Markowitz, and big-time developer Bruce Ratner unveiled their vision for Atlantic Yards, which would tear down a chunk of Prospect Heights to build a Brooklyn Nets arena plus a complex of residential, retail, and office towers that would loom over the small-scale hood. As many of you know, utter chaos and protest ensued, with accusations that the project's size and scale would destroy the area. And today, the protesters have won, sort of: Construction hasn't begun and the whole thing's tied up in lawsuits and has naturally slowed due to the financial meltdown.
Campaing for Community-Based Planning, CBN Calls for Audit of Atlantic Yards
Last week, all work on the Atlantic Yards project came to a halt. Developer Forest City Ratner’s spokesperson blamed the delay on the ongoing eminent domain lawsuit. However, project opponents (and Community-Based Planning Task Force members) Develop, Don’t Destroy Brooklyn point out that the economy and financing concerns are more likely causes of the work stoppage.
According to Atlantic Yards Report, this morning another Task Force member organization, Council of Brooklyn Neighborhoods, held a press conference calling for an audit of the project upon the five-year anniversary of its announcement.
Brownstoner, FCE: "Lots of Things Could Happen" at Atlantic Yards
A reader just forwarded us an excerpt from the preliminary transcript from the conference call Forest City Ratner just held with investors. See the excerpt here.
The NY Observer, Forest City: All New Development On Hold (Except Atlantic Yards)
The word from the top brass at Forest City Enterprises, parent company of Brooklyn-based mega-developer Forest City Ratner, is the firm is suspending all new development. That is, except Atlantic Yards.
Curbed.com, Quotations from Forest City Ratner
On this, the fifth birthday of the Atlantic Yards announcement, Forest City Enterprises had a conference call about its finances today and there are many, many, many quotes from Chuck Ratner about money and Atlantic Yards. First, there was a statement that the market would determine when the project would actually be finished from Mr. Ratner's cousin, who is actually the corporate CEO. AYR reports the tone as "very somber, as Ratner declared that, though he'd seen many challenging times in 42 years of business, 'I must confess, I’ve never seen anything quite like this. We believe conditions will worsen.'" Company stock was down by mid-afternoon. Asked what "could happen" with Atlantic Yards, Mr. Ratner said:
"There’s lots of ‘coulds,’ OK?"..."There’s lots of things that could happen. We’ve been here before, right? We’re here with Brooklyn, 25 years ago, at MetroTech...That doesn’t mean everything works out, you saw our project write-offs are up."
Nets Daily, Nets Parent Company Recommits to Barclays Center Despite Economy
The Nets principal owner is Bruce Ratner but the man with the purse strings is his cousin, Charles, CEO of Forest City Enterprises. FCE owns the biggest chunk of the Nets with 23% and more importantly has been funding the Nets annual losses for five years. The other Ratner Wednesday insisted that the company remains commited to Brooklyn and the Nets in spite of the economy.
Posted by lumi at December 10, 2008 7:27 PM