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September 28, 2010
Arena going up — but will the rest of the project?
The Brooklyn Paper
by Gersh Kuntzman
Atlantic yards developer Bruce Ratner will not build the $4-billion mega-project unless the economy — and more specifically, the housing market — bounces back.
The developer admitted on Tuesday that all but one of the project’s proposed 16 towers can’t move forward because they are “market dependent.”
“If the [housing] market never comes back, we’re all in trouble,” the developer told reporters after unveiling new designs for the public plaza in front of his Barclays Center arena, a $900-million sports complex under construction near the corner of Atlantic and Flatbush avenues.
That arena, plus one mixed-rent 400-unit tower on the south side of the complex, are insulated from the market conditions that affect the rest of the project — the arena because Ratner has put together the money to build it, and the residential building because it is already being prepped to begin construction early next summer.
Ratner’s less-than-rock-solid timeline for the full project contradicted his company’s own press release, which promises “construction of a new residetial building beginning every six to nine months” after the start of that first residential tower.
...Virtually all of the economic and public benefits of the mega-development — which include more than 2,200 units of below-market-rate housing, thousands of construction jobs, tax revenues for the city, and public space — are dependent on Ratner finishing the project.
Posted by eric at September 28, 2010 2:20 PM