« The Newark Nets, Starring Shaq | Main | Willets Point Not Vanishing Yet »
January 22, 2009
What Ever Happened to Atlantic Yards?
WNYC
By Matthew Schuerman
This story is an especially good summary for anyone who isn't up to speed on the status of the proposed Atlantic Yards project. It begins with a review of the state of the developer-blighted project footprint, and looks back at lawsuits, and the Forest City Ratner campaign to promote the project. There are sound bites from Leigh Anderson, a resident of the project footprint, Borough President Marty Markowitz and James Caldwell, head of BUILD, the Ratner-financed astroturf organization created to promote Atlantic Yards.
Also heard from is Seth Pinksy, who insists the project will proceed.
A Bloomberg administration official, Seth Pinsky, wouldn’t speculate on when the project would be finished. But he says it will be–eventually.
PINSKY: The one thing that anyone who’s lived through the history of New York City real estate is that New York’s real estate market is cyclical and during the down cycles, everyone despairs that nothing is going to get built for decades and decades, and then the boom returns and things sprout up out of the ground.
REPORTER: But Atlantic Yards is a little different from other New York real estate projects. It was sold half as a private real estate development, half as social welfare. That’s how public officials justified the 300 million dollars in direct aid, and numerous other advantages, that government will provide for the project.
The article ends by summarizing the murky future of the project:
In the meantime, Ratner has to figure out just how long he can hold out, whether he can wait out the lawsuits, and the bond market. It looks like he will continue losing more than 20 million dollars a year so long as the Nets play in New Jersey. He is also fighting rumors that his star architect, Frank Gehry, has left the project. Officially, the company says Gehry is still on board, the Nets are slated to open in Brooklyn by the end of 2011, and the entire project will be finished by 2018.
Posted by steve at January 22, 2009 6:59 AM