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September 12, 2009
What do we want? Atlantic Yards! When do we want it? Umm...
Now, even developer Bruce Ratner is all but conceding that the proposed Atlantic Yards project cannot be built in ten years.
Bruce Ratner unveils futuristic Atlantic Yards Nets arena design after critics blasted 'barn' design
By Erin Durkin
This article from the Daily News was posted earlier, but was updated to include the relevant quote from the developer.
Ratner said he hopes to have the entire project, which includes 16 office and residential towers, done in 10 years - but acknowledged it could take as long as 25.
"I don't know" if the 10-year time line will pan out, he said. "Our job is to get this done as fast as possible." Ratner vowed to begin construction on the arena by the end of the year.
That can only happen if he's able to sell $650 million in bonds and defeat a suit by opponents that will be heard by the state's highest court next month.
Bruce Ratner Admits Atlantic Yards Likely To Take 25 Years
Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn succinctly informs of the significance of a changing project time line.
Twenty-five years, eh? This is what Kahr Real Estate Services concluded in its professional financial feasibility analysis of the project, as submitted to the ESDC by the Council of Brooklyn Neighborhoods.
Why is this important? Because the ESDC maintains it is a 10-year project, without any analysis explaining why. But if 20 or 25 years is a likely scenario, as Bruce Ratner says it is and the Kahr study shows it is, then Atlantic Yards requires a Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement. The ESDC has already made it clear they will not do one.
Stay tuned...
Bruce Ratner 2008: AY in a decade; Bruce Ratner 2009: AY in maybe 25 years
Atlantic Yards Report gives evidence of a lengthening buildout period from both developer Bruce Ratner and Forest City CEO, Chuck Ratner.
A little more than a year after he pledged in the New York Daily News to build the entire Atlantic Yards project in a decade, developer Bruce Ratner has told the same newspaper it could take 25 years.
(Of course, the project is officially supposed to take a decade, though the Empire State Development Corporation in June acknowledged the potential for a delayed buildout. While ESDC suggested there was no need for a Supplementary Environmental Impact Statement, or SEIS, DDDB thinks Ratner's admission bolsters that argument. Also note that a real estate expert hired by CBN also said the project would take at least 20 years.)
In May 2008, Ratner wrote in a Daily News op-ed:
We anticipate finishing all of Atlantic Yards by 2018.The newspaper reported yesterday:
Ratner said he hopes to have the entire project, which includes 16 office and residential towers, done in 10 years - but acknowledged it could take as long as 25."I don't know" if the 10-year time line will pan out, he said. "Our job is to get this done as fast as possible." Ratner vowed to begin construction on the arena by the end of the year.
(The earlier version of that article didn't include the quote.)
Of course if the project takes 25 years, various projected benefits--affordable housing, new open space, and removal of blight--would be delayed, and blight could be exacerbated.
Forest City CEO: no AY buildings beyond arena to start next year
Despite past claims that other Atlantic Yards buildings beyond the arena will start next year, Chuck Ratner, president of CEO of Forest City Enterprises, parent of Forest City Ratner, today told investment analysts that no new construction would begin in 2010.
That contradicts statements in the Empire State Development Corporation's recent Technical Memorandum, which asserts that the construction schedule is essentially the same as before, just moved forward a few years.
The Technical Memorandum states that arena construction would begin in 2009 and three towers would begin in 2010. The memo also allows for a delay in Building 1 to 2014. (A real estate analyst, in a report for the Council of Brooklyn Neighborhoods, does not find the project timetable credible.)
Posted by steve at September 12, 2009 6:37 AM