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June 2, 2009
MTA board member "concerned" about amended Vanderbilt Yard plans, says board has yet to be fully briefed
Atlantic Yards Report
The one Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) board member who voted against the deal to award the Vanderbilt Yard to Forest City Ratner said he remains “concerned” about reports of amended plans, but can’t formulate his position on the issue until board members are provided with briefing materials in about two weeks.
Mitchell Pally, who represents Suffolk County, told me that, at the MTA board meeting last Wednesday, members were briefed verbally about negotiations regarding Forest City Ratner’s request for extending payments rather than paying the pledged $100 million at the time of closing. (Press reports have indicated FCR wants to pay just $20 million up front.)
He said board members were not briefed regarding a reconfigured Vanderbilt Yard replacement, though Williams testified Friday at a state Senate oversight hearing that the MTA and FCR reached an agreement—to go from the planned nine tracks to seven—before Memorial Day. Pally told me that, while the agreement had been reached by MTA management and staff, the board had not yet weighed in.
...Is this basically a done deal? Pally said there was significant backing, from both the political structure and from many individual board members, for the project, and to make changes to continue to make it happen. “What those changes are I don’t know yet, and how they’d impact the project,” he said.
Posted by eric at June 2, 2009 10:32 AM