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June 15, 2010
Forest City executives call AY "real value proposition," says "land prices seem to have come back for new opportunity" (what about that railyard?)
Atlantic Yards Report
Executives at Forest City Enterprises (FCE), speaking yesterday in a conference call with investment analysts to discuss first quarter results, said their optimism about the real estate market was continuing to grow--and that progress on the Atlantic Yards project was significant.
"We believe the bottom has been reached for most real estate fundamentals," declared FCE CEO Chuck Ratner, who acknowledged that "clearly that recovery is fragile."
AY progress
"Without question, however, our biggest pipeline-related achievement during the first quarter was obtaining vacant possession in Atlantic Yards in Brooklyn, closing our new partnership with Mikhail Prokhorov for the ownership of the Barclays Center arena and the Nets team and continuing construction work on the arena," Ratner said.
"Vacant possession" referred not to the entire Atlantic Yards site, or even the entire first phase, but the arena block.
"All projected debt and equity needed to complete the arena construction has been fully funded, and we expect to open in late spring/early summer of 2012," he said.
..."But let me just share this reflection," he added. "Y’know, in the last three to five years, all that anybody ever saw at Atlantic Yards was risk and losses from the basketball team. Look where we are now. We’ve sold 80% of the team, which was a major drag on our earnings, to a well-capitalized owner who is committed to the business. As to the arena, we are investors in a great real estate asset and we are managing partners in a great real estate asset in a great market. We together with our partners own 55% of the arena and we are the managing partner. It is a real value proposition for Forest City."
Posted by eric at June 15, 2010 11:35 AM