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June 25, 2012
Behind the revision of the railyard deal: MTA says it leaves agency whole, won't try to put a dollar figure on work so far, says disruptive work to meet deadline not expected
Atlantic Yards Report
As noted on June 7, the Wall Street Journal broke the news that developer Forest City Ratner, which successfully revised the Vanderbilt Yard development rights deal to build a smaller, cheaper replacement railyard and to attenuate payments, has managed to save cash flow by renegotiating another aspect of the schedule with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.
Instead of beginning the permanent railyard this June 30, as indicated in an MTA Staff Summary dated 6/22/09, the official start date has been moved back 18 months to 12/31/13, with terms disclosed to the MTA board members on June 4.
Now that I have the underlying documents and posed questions to the agency, I can attempt answers at some of the lingering questions:
- Does Forest City save money? Probably.
- Does it leave the MTA where it wanted? Yes, but thanks in part to the agency's own delays.
- Will a concentrated schedule mean noisy late-night work? No, they say.
- Can the schedule be extended/relaxed again? Surely.
- Does Forest City have the upper hand? Looks that way.
NoLandGrab: Next time you curse the fact that the bus you used to take no longer exists, or wait 30 minutes for a subway, or find yourself in a filthy '60s-era subway car, don't curse the MTA — they're just following orders from their parent company, Forest City Ratner.
Posted by eric at June 25, 2012 11:29 AM