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October 30, 2011
Neighbor: Edgemont Resident MaryAnne Gilmartin, Executive Vice President of Commercial and Residential Development at Forest City Ratner Companies
Westchester Magazine
By Deborah Skolnik
Eminent domain abuse, bypassing local representation, broken promises -- it's all okay because FCR VP MaryAnne Gilmartin, who was put in charge of the Atlantic Yards project after the sudden departure of predecessor Jim Stuckey, "...looks lovely. With shiny, coiffed brunette hair, a metallic dress, and twinkling blue eyes,.."
By 2007, Gilmartin was Ratner’s No. 3 in the company, and his No. 1 choice to take over stewardship of its massive Atlantic Yards development project, a $4 billion complex consisting of residential and commercial buildings, as well as an arena, all situated over an active rail yard. “It’s a run-down and decrepit area where the LIRR used to park and service trains,” Gilmartin says. “It’s been a labor of love for more than seven years. Of the six thousand housing units, more than two thousand will be affordable housing. It’s bringing in construction jobs and jobs for locals. And by relocating the Nets here, we’ll be bringing pro sports back to the borough that’s never recovered from the loss of the Dodgers.”
Then why all the fuss? Atlantic Yards has been the subject of several lawsuits and numerous protests. A journalist, Norman Oder, maintains a blog, atlanticyardsreport.com, that chronicles Forest City Ratner’s every move on the project. Another blog run by the anti-Yards group Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn (dddb.net) is highly critical. There’s even a movie, Battle for Brooklyn, about locals taking a stand. “The issue for many of these people is the way that some of the land was assembled through eminent domain,” Gilmartin says. “Some other people think it will make the area’s population too dense. And others don’t want a stadium in their backyard. I won’t speak in detail for the opposition.”
The opposition can speak for itself. “Forest City’s successes are inextricably related to the acquisition of public subsidies,” Norman Oder says. “Their successes are also related to major spending on lobbying, and substantial political and charitable contributions, as well as hardball tactics.” Oder also points out how initial grand promises for the Yard have been scaled back (architect Frank Gehry is no longer involved) and how many of the promised union construction jobs didn’t pan out. He cries foul on slick money-saving moves he feels Ratner made, such as convincing authorities to condemn certain land parcels in stages rather than at once. The year the New York Times building was completed, Crain’s crowned Gilmartin one of the 100 Most Powerful Women in New York.
Gilmartin doesn’t escape personal criticism either. “Look, I’ll be honest. I don’t like her,” says Daniel Goldstein, the last person to cede his apartment to the Yards project (for a reported $3 million) and the founder of DDDB. When Gilmartin first approached him to discuss a buyout, he says, she requested confidentiality, then breached it. “A friend’s child goes to the same school as her kids, and told his mom Gilmartin came to talk to the class about the Yards and gave them Nets swag,” he says. “Apparently she told them that they were building houses for poor people and bringing in a basketball team, but that a mean man named Daniel Goldstein wouldn’t leave. I wasn’t there, obviously. Who knows, maybe she said I was standing up for my beliefs. But to discuss me at all with a bunch of third graders? That’s warped.” He also feels Gilmartin portrayed his settlement to the media as “having been all about money, when the big holdup was, they wanted me to accept a gag order and I kept refusing.”
Oder is no Gilmartin fan either. “She commutes by chauffeured car to Brooklyn and strikes me as comfortable among real estate peers, but chilly at the few—and heavily managed—opportunities she has to interact with Brooklynites with qualms about Atlantic Yards,” he says.
Related coverage...
Atlantic Yards Report, In Westchester magazine, a heroic profile of FCR's Gilmartin, with some acknowledgment of controversy
Reporters aiming to profile Forest City Ratner executives have a couple of options: there's the route of total sycophancy, as with the Real Deal's portrait of CEO Bruce Ratner, or the path of complication, as with a piece in the Forward on Ratner.
Given that Westchester Magazine is one of those glossy publications with a booster-ish edge, it's unsurprising that the publication's profile of FCR executive MaryAnne Gilmartin emphasizes triumph: Neighbor: Edgemont Resident MaryAnne Gilmartin, Executive Vice President of Commercial and Residential Development at Forest City Ratner Companies: She’s overseen some of the area’s largest real-estate projects. But before MaryAnne Gilmartin could become a force among New York’s developers, she had to build up something else from nearly nothing: herself.
The summary:
If the woman in front of [FCR's] 8 Spruce Street is a household name, the woman behind it is less so, though remarkable in her own right: MaryAnne Gilmartin, executive vice president of commercial and residential development at Forest City Ratner Companies. Indeed, the Spruce tower is far from the only mark this innovative and tenacious builder has left on the skyline. The Edgemont mom of three made her first splash by winning the contract to build the New York Times building, an intricately designed tower that brought new life to Eighth Avenue. In Brooklyn, she’s helping to shape Atlantic Yards, a complex of residential and commercial buildings that will also be the new home of the New Jersey Nets. Right here in Yonkers, her handiwork can be seen at Ridge Hill, a cluster of stores, offices, and residences beckoning like Mecca off the Sprain Brook. “They’re more than just buildings to me,” Gilmartin says of her projects. “They sort of become like my children.”
Some controversy
However, the article acknowledges some controversy:
Problem children, some. Atlantic Yards has been a focal point of bitter controversy going on a decade, with certain locals protesting everything from the destruction of neighborhood character to use of eminent domain. Ridge Hill, too, inspired opposition and incited scandal. Smack in the middle of the Sturm und Drang, helping her company’s visions go from point A (abstraction) to point B (built!) is Gilmartin, poised and proud. “We tend to take things on only when they’re complicated,” she declares.
And if you think her present life sounds complicated, wait till you hear about her past.
In other words, the article stresses how Gilmartin, who "looks lovely" during a meeting at a "posh Yonkers restaurant," survived a painful family life by working hard, getting a scholarship (and working her way through school), and graduating Phi Beta Kappa and summa cum laude. (Yet, she still doesn't understand Atlantic Yards affordable housing.)
Posted by steve at October 30, 2011 11:49 PM