« Before the Barclays Center ribbon-cutting, a protest casts harsh light on Atlantic Yards' broken promises (though most media steer clear) | Main | The Times takes a balanced-ish look at "Hurricane Barclays," but still significant omissions (like construction violations, Ratner on timetable) »
September 22, 2012
The Barclays Center ribbon-cutting: big win for Ratner, as media focus on impressive building, not broken promises
Atlantic Yards Report
The Barclays Center ribbon-cutting event yesterday, with self-congratulatory speeches by developer Bruce Ratner, Mayor Mike Bloomberg, and allies, was a big win for Ratner, especially as most media outlets treated it as a story about an impressive new building and about sports, disregarding or downplaying the protests and choosing not to examine the larger Atlantic Yards promise of "Jobs, Housing, and Hoops" (much less the Culture of Cheating).
The dailies, for example sent mostly sports reporters and columnists, so no one played up the rather small turnout of Brooklyn elected officials, and Mikhail Prokhorov, the charismatic Russian billionaire who owns most of the Brooklyn Nets and has finally backed up his promises of success by opening his wallet, got significant attention (and equated the arena to the opening of the Brooklyn Bridge).
...
It was still surprising to see a semi-tough Times editorial this morning, coming after a predictably laudatory New York Daily News editorial, one which revealed that the newspaper will be sponsoring the Barclays Center plaza, an apparent conflict of interest that may have only marginal effect, given the newspaper's record. (Does this mean the tabloid rival New York Post will become more critical of the arena?)
The Times editorial, Hoopla in the Atlantic Yards in Brooklyn, stated:
Amid all the razzle-dazzle, however, it is worth reminding residents as well as the Barclays Center developer of promises made nine years ago. Forest City Ratner Companies, which is building the $4.9 billion project, originally sold the city on the arena plan because it would provide at least 2,250 affordable apartments, 8 acres of open space in the 22-acre project and 10,000 jobs.
Company officials said this week that they would, at some point, make good on those promises. The recession and numerous lawsuits from opponents have slowed down their progress, according to MaryAnne Gilmartin, an executive vice president of the company.
On Friday, Bruce Ratner, chairman of the development company, announced that he would break ground on the first of 14 residential buildings in December. The first building is supposed to offer 181 units of affordable rental apartments, which leaves more than 2,000 affordable units to be finished by 2031.
In some ways, it feels as though the developers got their dessert first — the splendid arena that will draw crowds and superstars starting on Friday night. Now for the meat and potatoes.The Times didn't mention that it would be impossible to provide the promised 10,000 office jobs, since the developer changed the configuration. Nor did the Times mention that the developer promised 15,000 construction jobs, which would likely be curtailed by the planned use of modular housing.
Nor did the Times mention that the starting date for that first tower has been pushed back at least a dozen times. (Ratner's public statement was almost an afterthought, and he didn't mention whether or not the building would use modular technology.)
Nor did the Times mention that there would be far fewer family-size subsidized units than promised in the first tower, or that those units would skew dramatically toward better-off households, with a plurality of the two-bedroom apartments renting for at least $2,700 a month.
And while the Times clearly queried Forest City's Gilmartin for an explanation of delays, it left out the fact that the developer long promised to build Atlantic Yards in ten years, but was given 25 years by the state. (That's 2035, actually; the 2031 date refers to the deadline to acquire Vanderbilt Yard development rights.)
Posted by steve at September 22, 2012 12:12 PM