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June 20, 2012
Brooklyn Nets a Mega Mall: Forest City Mulls What’s Next for Atlantic Terminal and Atlantic Center
NY Observer
by Matt Chaban
It could be the biggest thing to come to Atlantic Yards since Barbara Streisand and Justin Beiber announced they would be playing concerts at the Barclays Center this fall. While everyone (but the neighbors and former neighbors) is looking forward to the opening of the new arena, Forest City Ratner now has its eyes trained across the street, to the two malls it owns there.
Once work on the arena is complete, the difficult task of moving forward with the adjoining apartment buildings lies ahead. But as interest in the area’s retail has boomed in anticipation of the new 18,000-seat venue, Forest City Ratner has also accelerated plans to redevelop the Atlantic Center and Atlantic Terminal malls.
“It’s an obvious opportunity,” MaryAnne Gilmartin, Forest City’s executive vice president, told The Observer. “One of the many things we think about is the impact the arena will have, and how we can help create a holistic neighborhood at Atlantic Yards from there.”
The impact the arena will have is pretty much the only thing nearby residents are thinking about.
One piece in the possible architectural transformation of the two malls is more than a million square feet of development rights Forest City still holds on the property. Together, the two malls equal a little less than 800,000 square feet, meaning an expansion could more than double the space.
This does not necessarily have to be retail development, as the Atlantic Terminal building already has an office tower on top, known as 2 Hanson Place. As Norman Oder pointed out back in 2006, preliminary designs for the Atlantic Yards project revealed three towers atop the mall, tucked away in the background and unmentioned in discussions of the project.
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Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn, Whodathunk It! Ratner's Arena Benefits Ratner's Malls!
In case there was still any lingering doubt about who benefits from Atlantic Yards—the developer Forest City Ratner or the loser, the public—this article should end all of those doubts. (Perhaps the judicial system that thought eminent domain for the project was legitimate because the public was the intentioned beneficiary of the Atlantic Yards project might now agree that that was just a load of, we'll be polite here, hogwash)....
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In Brooklyn Nets a Mega Mall: Forest City Mulls What’s Next for Atlantic Terminal and Atlantic Center, the Observer's Matt Chaban writes:
While everyone (but the neighbors and former neighbors) is looking forward to the opening of the new arena, Forest City Ratner now has its eyes trained across the street, to the two malls it owns there.
Everyone? Really?
But it surely is worth pointing out, to use Michael D.D. White's "mega-monopoly" term, that Forest City Ratner's Atlantic Yards project was sure to rain benefits on the developer's adjacent malls, and that should have reflected in the public negotiations.
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Brownstoner, Atlantic Mall Might Get Re-skinned and Repositioned
While discussing the balancing act of broadening the mall’s demographic appeal without alienating its core constituency, Ms. Gilmartin said that “everything [short of razing the building] is on the table,” including making over the dreary, uninviting brick facade.
Posted by eric at June 20, 2012 11:14 AM