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March 25, 2009
DDDB PRESS RELEASE — Atlantic Yards Architect Frank Gehry on Atlantic Yards: “I Don’t Think It Is Going to Happen”
World Famous Architect Sounds Like He's No Longer Working on Bruce Ratner's Project
Brooklyn, NY — For the first time Atlantic Yards architect Frank Gehry has publicly expressed serious doubts about developer Forest City Enterprises’ arena and skyscraper development plan and its viability.
The Architect's Newspaper interviewed Frank Gehry on the occasion of his 80th birthday, and broke the news.
The world-renowned architect was asked, “Which other unrealized commissions do you most wish had been built?”
Mr. Gehry answered, “The Corcoran Gallery in DC, the Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn—I don’t think it’s going to happen…”
In the five-plus years since developer Forest City Ratner unveiled his project, with Frank Gehry by his side, the architect has not once wavered in his involvement in the project and belief in the project’s viability.
Now he has.
“While Bruce Ratner's project is a big question mark, it seems clear that Frank Gehry—who was a major selling point for the project, its investors and its naming-rights sponsor Barclays bank—is no longer working on the project. Mr. Gehry would not have made this comment if he were still involved with Atlantic Yards and Forest City Ratner as his client,” said Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn spokesman Daniel Goldstein. “Will Barclays pay $400 million for the naming-rights for a cookie-cutter concrete box rather than a landmark, Frank Gehry arena? They signed on for a Gehry arena, so it's very doubtful.”
It has been rumored that Barclays contract has an escape clause if the arena is not designed by Frank Gehry.
Forest City Ratner, a subsidiary of Cleveland-based Forest City Enterprises, has a $400 million naming rights agreement with Barclays bank to build the billion-dollar Barclays Center arena, the proposed new home of the New Jersey Nets. The company bought the Nets in 2003 and had planned to open a new arena in Brooklyn in 2006. The arena’s financing, which faces the global fiscal crisis and credit crunch, is dependent upon the British bank’s lucrative sponsorship.
“Ratner really needs to come clean about Gehry's status with the project,” Goldstein concluded.
Posted by lumi at March 25, 2009 5:28 PM