July 4, 2009
Happy Birthday, America!
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What better way to celebrate America's birthday than with a cake* in the shape of the Atlantic Yards footprint, to remind us that, 233 years after our Founding Fathers declared independence from a repressive regime, the King can still take your property for a basketball palace.
Will New York State, which joined originally with the twelve other colonies in UNITY against the crown, pull the plug on the troubled project, or will it continue to do the bidding of King Bruce?
(*Actual use: the celebration of the birthday of Historic Districts Council Deputy Director Frampton Tolbert; bakers, Cassie Murdoch and Andrew Sloat)
Posted by eric at 2:48 PM
July 1, 2009
State’s highest court sees some ‘appeal’ in Yards eminent domain case
The Brooklyn Paper
by Mike McLaughlin
In a twist that could be disastrous for Bruce Ratner, New York’s highest court surprised many and agreed to hear an appeal that the state has illegally used its power of eminent domain to spearhead the embattled $4.9-billion Atlantic Yards project.
Previous eminent domain cases have gone well for Ratner, but even if he wins another court battle — this time in the Court of Appeals — he could still lose hundreds of millions of dollars in possible construction and financing delays stemming from another round of litigation.
To qualify for tax-exempt financing that could save him millions, Ratner must begin construction by Dec. 31 on the Barclays Center, now a $772-million basketball arena no longer designed by Frank Gehry. Also on the line is the British bank’s agreement to pay $400 million to have its name on the Nets’ now-generic future home court, another deal that turns into a pumpkin at the end of this year.
Posted by eric at 10:01 AM
Is Ratner’s goose cooked?
Not another f*cking blog
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Miraculously, New York State’s highest court, the Court of Appeals, has accepted an appeal of the Atlantic Yards eminent domain case! This case had been dismissed by a lower court in May of this year. The earliest the appeal would be heard by the court is mid October, and their decision would follow 6 or 8 weeks later, sometime around Thanksgiving. What this means for the developer, Forest City Ratner (FCR), is their goose (aka Atlantic Yards) is that much closer to the oven, and just in time for the holidays!
...So, after the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) brazenly forked over more of our money to FCR just last week to keep the zombie proposal stumbling forward, the Court of Appeals may end up being the stake through the heart that kills this zombie once and for all.
NoLandGrab: Stake through the heart? That's no way to kill a zombie. Only way to kill a zombie is to destroy the brain.
Posted by eric at 9:14 AM
Atlantic Yards project faces roadblock from New York State Court of Appeals
NY Daily News
by Erin Durkin
More on this week's Atlantic Yards legal news.
The New York State Court of Appeals agreed to hear an appeal by nine plaintiffs who sued to prevent the government from taking their homes and businesses under eminent domain to make way for developer Bruce Ratner's long-delayed Nets arena and 16 residential and commercial towers.
When a lower court ruled in his favor, Ratner told the Daily News it was the "last hurdle" to the project and vowed to break ground in September. The latest court action will likely push that date back.
"You can't start building until you own the land and demolish the buildings," said Daniel Goldstein, whose Pacific St. home sits in the middle of the site of the planned arena. "It's just not possible for that to happen in '09 with this ruling."
Additional coverage...
New York Law Journal, Newsbriefs: Judges to Hear Challenge To Atlantic Yards Project
Yonkers Tribune, Atlantic Yards Eminent Domain Case Going to New York's High Court
Metro NY, Atlantic Yards' new hurdle
Posted by eric at 8:40 AM
June 30, 2009
State’s Top Court Will Hear Appeal Against Atlantic Yards
The New York Times
by Charles V. Bagli
New York’s highest court has agreed to hear a case challenging the state’s use of eminent domain on behalf of the Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn.
The decision by the top court, the Court of Appeals, to hear arguments in October came as something of a surprise to the project’s developer, Bruce C. Ratner, who had expected a clear path after a lower court rejected the case in a unanimous decision in May.
And not a pleasant surprise, for sure. We wish we could've been there when Bruce got the news.
The Court of Appeals’ involvement, announced on Monday, is the latest hurdle to Mr. Ratner’s plans to build a $772 million basketball arena, the centerpiece of the project. The developer and his bankers intend to sell about $650 million in bonds for the arena in late September.
That $650 million figure is up some 10% from estimates just last week. One wonders, why the increase?
Mr. Ratner must finance the project and begin construction by Dec. 31 to qualify for tax-exempt status, which would save him millions of dollars in borrowing costs. Most analysts say it is unlikely that conventional bonds would sell in the current market.
“I certainly don’t envy anyone who has to raise capital in the current environment,” said Robert White of Real Capital Analytics, a research firm.
Posted by eric at 11:35 PM
It came from the Blogosphere...
Joshing Politics, M.T.A. And Ratner's Deal Breaks The Law
The M.T.A. has no problem raising the fare for straphangers in their attempt to make ends meet. Yet when it comes to the rich and powerful, they have no problem making deals with people like Bruce Ratner in his attempt to build part of his Atlantic Yards site. The only problem though with saving Ratner some money is that the M.T.A. violated the law in doing so.
Brennan said the likelihood that the arena project was a boondoggle was substantial, since the New York City Independent Budget Office (IBO) has already testified at a hearing of the State Senate Corporations Committee on May 29^th that a preliminary updated review of the costs and benefits of the arena showed that city and state outlays for the project would exceed positive tax revenues from the project even over a 30-year period.
I would say there is more than a substantial likelihood that this is a boondoggle, because it is definitely a boondoggle. Assemblyman Brennan knows that and so does everyone else in Brooklyn, including the principals who are orchestrating this deal. Forest City Ratner may think their legal troubles are over, but they've got another thing coming.
Gideon's Trumpet, Too Many Sports Arenas
From time to time, we have blogged about the problems of municipal waste of taxpayers’ money which cities have been squandering in their efforts to attract and support sports arenas. It appears that now the predictable is happening. Charles V. Bagli, As Arenas Sprout, a Scramble to Keep Them Filled, N.Y. Times, June 29, 2009, reports that there are just plumb too many arenas, even for a big market like New York...
...And in Brooklyn, Forest City Ratner is rushing the start of construction of yet another sports facility, an arena for the Nets, which, if successful, will add another sports arena to the glut.
...Moreover, this problem is not confined to New York. Bagli reports that similar difficulties are unfolding in New Jersey, Arizona, Minnesota, and Ohio. And given that the current recession is not disappearing, it looks like these folks are in for — shall we say? — interesting days. And so are the taxpayers who, lest you forget, are subsidizing this whole shebang with your tax dollars.
inversecondemnation.com, Tuesday Round-Up
The New York Court of Appeals (that state's highest court) will be hearing arguments in the Atlantic Yards cases.
structureHUB, Hotlanta: tons of towers, most of them ugly and with little prospect for a makeover
As desperate as Atlanta is for some architectural eye-candy, it is simple unnecessary to go to the most extravagant lengths to build some. Then again, my point is made harder to make in light of the ridiculous situation of the Atlantic Yards development in Brooklyn. There, Forest City Ratner also assumed that architectural beauty is an all-or-nothing game. No Frank Gehry? Okay, lets put up a beastly warehouse “arena” that will suck away the potential for neighborhood redevelopment faster than you can say Metrodome.
Posted by eric at 10:59 PM
HEADLINES: Not-so-frivolous eminent domain lawsuit (late) edition
Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Atlantic Yards Likely Delayed Until Winter
The Eagle's Ryan Thompson has an excellent wrap-up of today's legal news, and its implications.
The state’s highest court will consider the constitutionality of Atlantic Yards, and regardless of what it decides, the multibillion dollar project will likely be delayed until winter.
Arguments are scheduled for October, and a decision from the court is expected to be issued in November or December, meaning that resolution of the eminent domain issues and transferring of title likely won’t happen until the winter, if not next year.
Developer Bruce Ratner, facing financial deadlines, had vowed to break ground on the Barclays Center basketball arena in the fall. That now appears impossible, according to the court’s scheduling of the case.
...“We are gratified that the state’s high court will hear this important case about whether our state’s constitution protects the homes of its citizens from the wrecking ball of greed wielded by influential developers and the public officials who do their bidding,” [plaintiffs' attorney Matthew] Brinckerhoff said. “This case provides an opportunity for the New York Court of Appeals to continue its proud tradition of interpreting this state’s constitution in a manner that affords more protection to individual rights and liberties. We look forward to the argument in October."
NY Post, STATE'S HIGHEST COURT TO HEAR ATLANTIC YARDS CASE
In a stunning move, the state's highest court has agreed to hear a legal challenge over the use of eminent domain to seize private land for Brooklyn's controversial Atlantic Yards project.
..."It is a great day for New Yorkers concerned about abuses of power," Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn spokesman Daniel Goldstein said. "We will vigorously continue to defend our rights. But New York State and Mr. Ratner have a choice: they could avoid our legal challenge by finally taking eminent domain off the table."
Crain's NY Business, Atlantic Yards faces fresh obstacle
Just when it seemed that Forest City Ratner Cos. was overcoming all the obstacles blocking its controversial plan to develop Atlantic Yards, another potentially serious hurdle has emerged.
What Crain's means is "just one day after we wrote a silly whopper of an editorial supporting Atlantic Yards, another potentially serious hurdle has emerged."
WNYC Radio, Court of Appeals to Hear Atlantic Yards Case
By agreeing to hear the case, plaintiffs say, the court has already decided there's a constitutional issue worth settling. They also contend that the appeal will put Ratner dangerously close to a December 31st IRS deadline for issuing tax-exempt bonds. If it takes longer than that to sort out legal questions, Ratner would have to resort to conventional bonds, which would cost hundreds of millions of dollars more in interest payments. Last year, the court of appeals did decide all of its October cases by December 2nd. If that schedule holds this year, and Ratner wins the appeal, a late December groundbreaking for the basketball arena is still possible.
WNYC's Brian Lehrer Show, Gridlock at Ground Zero
"[Bruce Ratner's] got a very small window of opportunity here, which just got even a little bit smaller today."
[Atlantic Yards segment from 17:10 to 19:10]
NLG: The New York Times's Charles Bagli and WNYC's Andrea Bernstein confuse the dates of the Court hearing and the ESDC public hearings, but the upshot is still not great for Bruce Ratner.
Posted by eric at 6:24 PM
HEADLINES: Not-so-frivolous eminent domain lawsuit edition
NY Observer, New Uncertainty for Atlantic Yards as Court of Appeals Takes Eminent Domain Suit
New York’s highest court has agreed to hear an eminent domain case over the Atlantic Yards project proposed for Brooklyn, a move that infuses new uncertainty into the planned $4.9 billion development that entails a new Nets basketball arena and 6,400 apartments.
The decision by the Court of Appeals was not expected by the project’s developer—Bruce Ratner and his Forest City Ratner—at least based on its public statements and actions. After a year and a half of stagnation, the development seemed to gain new momentum in recent weeks after an appellate court ruled against opponents. Mr. Ratner had been pushing for new public approvals and renegotiated deals with the stated intent of breaking ground on the arena this fall.
Mr. Ratner already confronts a tight schedule in securing $530 million in tax-free financing for the arena. Based on a Dec. 31 I.R.S. deadline for the financing, the cost of the arena would jump by tens of millions of dollars without a tax exemption, and the task of securing financing would grow substantially harder (the broader real estate financing market is more inclement than the tax-free bond market). Thus the viability of the project seems to depend in large part on how fast the court can turn around a ruling.
NoLandGrab: The ESDC and MTA giveth, and the Court of Appeals taketh away.
Reason Hit & Run, New York Court of Appeals to Hear Atlantic Yards Case
The New York Court of Appeals (the state's highest court) agreed today to hear arguments in the case of Goldstein v. New York State Urban Development Corporation, which deals with the controversial use of eminent domain on behalf of developer and New Jersey Nets owner Bruce Ratner. As I discussed in an article last week, Ratner is the real estate powerbroker behind the Atlantic Yards redevelopment project in Brooklyn, a massive boondoggle centered on a new basketball arena for the Bruce Ratner-owned Nets.
Things are certainly heating up now. Last Monday, the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA), which controls a crucial 8-acre rail yard at the center of the Atlantic Yards footprint, offered Ratner a massively discounted new offer, whereby he would pay just $20 million up front for the land, then pay another $80 million over the next 22 years. Three years ago, however, the MTA wanted the full $100 million up front (and that's for 8-acres that have been appraised at over $200 million). Bear in mind that the MTA just raised subway and bus fares, yet somehow still has the cash to bail out Ratner and his lousy corporate welfare arena. So much for acting responsibly during an economic recession! As for Ratner, he still needs to raise over $500 million and break ground before the end of the year in order to qualify for tax-exempt status. So it's wonderful news that he'll be tied up in court trying to explain away eminent domain abuse while the clock keeps ticking away.
NY Daily News, Court challenge could delay Ratner plan to break ground at Atlantic Yards in fall
The developer has vowed to break ground this fall, but the latest court action could throw a wrench in those plans.
When a lower court threw out the eminent domain case in May, Ratner told the News: "This is really the last hurdle that we have and now we can do what our company does best and build an arena and houses."
NLG: Actually, Forest City did what it does best last week — secure more handouts of public money courtesy of the MTA and ESDC.
The Local {Fort Greene/Clinton Hill, Court of Appeals to Decide AY Suit
The suit was filed by nine property owners and tenants, including DDDB spokesman Daniel Goldstein, whose corner of Prospect Heights was deemed “blighted” and whose homes and businesses in the proposed Atlantic Yards footprint have been slated for government seizure.
The Architect's Newspaper Blog, See Bruce in Court!
We recently wrote above how opponent’s best hope of stopping Bruce Ratner’s Atlantic Yards Project was not the departure of Frank Gehry but lawsuits. There was a good possibility the “sweetheart” deals the state had crafted to make Ratner’s project easier to move forward could have triggered further litigation, but it seems it may not even come to that, as the Court of Appeals, the state’s highest court, has decided to hear Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn’s challenge to the state’s use of eminent domain.
Nets Daily, Court of Appeals Will Hear Critics’ Lawsuit
New York’s highest court will hear a critics’ appeal against the Empire State Development Corp., further tightening the schedule for Barclays Center and possibly jeopardizing it. The court asked for briefs by July 31, with a hearing in mid-October. The ESDC, Ratner’s partner in the arena project, had asked the court for a hearing in September so Ratner could meet a Dec. 31 deadline for tax emempt bonds.
Curbed, Atlantic Yards Tripped Up Again
In a somewhat surprising decision, the state's highest court has decided to hear the appeal filed by Atlantic Yards opponents in the eminent domain case against New York State.
NY Politics, Atlantic Yards Eminent Domain Case To Be Heard By Court of Appeals
Willets Point United Against Eminent Domain Abuse, Appeals Court agrees to hear Atlantic Yards case
Queens Crap, Appeals Court will hear Atlantic Yards case
CastleWatch Daily, New York High Court to Consider Atlantic Yards Suit
Brownstoner, Court of Appeals Will Hear AY Eminent Domain Case
Posted by eric at 12:40 PM
State's highest court accepts eminent domain appeal; oral arguments in October, thus complicating AY end game
Atlantic Yards Report
The Atlantic Yards end game just got a whole lot more complicated.
Despite claims May 15 by Forest City Ratner CEO Bruce Ratner that the unanimous dismissal of the state eminent domain case in May "is really the last hurdle," the state's highest court, the Court of Appeals, has accepted (PDF) an appeal in the case and won't hear oral arguments until the middle of October.
While eminent domain law still tilts significantly to the advantage of the condemnor, in this case the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC), the court's willingness to hear it indicates that it believes the originating court, the Appellate Division, did not address some aspect of the legal argument.
Also, as Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn (DDDB) noted, last year half of all civil appeals were affirmed, and the other half were either reversed (about 40%) or modified (about 10%).
The case is brought by nine residential and commercial tenants and property owners in the AY footprint, and is organized and significantly funded by DDDB.
Delays in groundbreaking, arena bonds
At the very least, the appeal delays Forest City Ratner's announced plans to begin construction by October and severely narrows--but does not close--the window of opportunity to have crucial tax-exempt bonds issued by the end of the year.
Click through for a rundown of the constitutional issues in question.
NoLandGrab: The New York State Court of Appeals has just blasted a very large hole in any and all claims that legal challenges to the use of eminent domain for the Atlantic Yards project have been "frivolous."
Attorney George Locker, who represents a group of Atlantic Yards footprint rental tenants who are fighting condemnation, added this comment to Norman Oder's post:
The appeal halts all moves by ESDC to proceed with relocation and the EDPL Article 4 vesting proceeding. The project has just ground to a halt. There certainly will be no groundbreaking in 2009, and probably no groundbreaking ever. Or maybe the basketball coach sees it differently.
Posted by eric at 10:15 AM
The Partnership for New York City's evolving (and misleading) support for Atlantic Yards
Atlantic Yards Report
One project booster is finding it harder to say nice things about Atlantic Yards:
The Partnership for New York City (PFNYC), which exemplifies the business community, is sure straining in its support for Atlantic Yards, dropping previous enthusiasm about Frank Gehry and affordable housing to focus on the goal of building an arena, while misleadingly suggesting that the project as it stands would generate many permanent jobs.
The PFNYC is essentially the city's Chamber of Commerce, a nonprofit membership organization with some 200 CEOs (“Partners”) from New York City’s "top corporate, investment and entrepreneurial firms."
Given that Forest City Ratner, Nets Sports & Entertainment, and Barclays Capital are among the partners, it's hardly surprising that the PFNYC supports Atlantic Yards, but testimony from PFNYC President Kathryn Wylde opening the June 22 Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) Finance Committee meeting was notably thin, clocking in at half the allotted two minutes.
Posted by lumi at 5:58 AM
Why Atlantic Yards matters
Mr. Ratner must act quickly, or it will be too late
Crain's NY Business, Editorial
Crain's justifies Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards project by ignoring ever-growing public subsidies and dwindling public benefits.
It all began with a phone call from Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz to Forest City's Bruce Ratner. “You have to buy the New Jersey Nets and move them to Brooklyn,'' said Mr. Markowitz.
...
At the time, Mr. Ratner admits, he was clueless about professional basketball, both on the court and as a business.
...
Mr. Ratner was intrigued by the borough president's plea because it fit with his belief that the Atlantic Yards area, consisting mostly of a rail yard, was the perfect place to continue Brooklyn's revival.
NoLandGrab: The lie that the Atlantic Yards footprint consists "mostly of a rail yard" appeared in this weekend's NY Daily News editorial too. The railyard comprises approximately eight acres of the 22-acre project.
Also, "Atlantic Yards" is Bruce Ratner's own brand name for the project; there was no such thing as "the Atlantic Yards area" back when Ratner was pondering the project.
It is worth noting that while Forest City may wind up with a bonanza, up to now it has been a black hole.
NoLandGrab: Development company Forest City proposed a project that was tenuous at best, and now taxpayers are expected to turn a "black hole" into a "bonanza" for Bruce?
And here's Crain's flimsy justification for the project:
New York can continue to support Atlantic Yards, realize what is economically possible now and bet that the entire project can be built in the future. Or it can abandon Mr. Ratner and the project, in which case it is certain that Atlantic Yards will remain an open sore for decades to come.
NoLandGrab: Should New York support Ratner, who has consistently lied to the public and press, steadfastly refused to reveal the actual amount of subsidy required for the project, and has been disingenuous about the project timeline, on the hope that he'll eventually build the entire project?
Posted by lumi at 4:41 AM
June 29, 2009
Public hearing set for July 29 & 30; arena due 2012, 25 years to get Phase 2 started
Atlantic Yards Report
An Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) legal notice (below; click to enlarge), which takes some three-quarters of a page in today's New York Post announces a public hearing on the Atlantic Yards Modified General Project Plan to be held from 2-5 pm and 6-8 pm on July 29 and July 30.
The location: the Klitgord Auditorium of New York City Technical College, where the epic 8/23/06 hearing on Draft Environmental Impact Statement and General Project Plan was held.
Speakers will be limited to three minutes. (Let's see if that's strictly enforced.) Comments will be accepted for 30 days after the close of the hearing. That suggests that the ESDC board will vote to approve the plan in early September.
The schedule is related to developer Forest City Ratner's need to secure tax-exempt bond financing for the arena by the end of the year. The financing would last approximately 33 years.
Time limits: 6 years, 12 years, 25 years
The hearing notice, for the first time, imposes a 25-year deadline on the project as a whole, though I read that as 25 years to get construction started, not completed. So AY indeed would take "decades," as ESDC CEO Marisa Lago has predicted.
It states that the developer "shall use commercially reasonable efforts to construct the Arena by 2012." (I've written previously that Forest City Ratner's announced 2011 opening date is dubious.) However, as stated in the State Funding Agreement, the developer has six years without penalty to complete the arena after vacant possession of the arena block.
The State Funding Agreement says the developer has 12 years without penalty to complete the buildings on the arena block after vacant possession. The legal notice states that the interim leases for the arena block will expire no later than the 12th anniversary of vacant possession. I read that as saying that construction must have begun, but not necessarily completed.
Posted by eric at 4:31 PM
In "Why Atlantic Yards matters" editorial, Crain's ignores inconvenient facts
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder offers a running correction of this week's Crain's NY Business blinders-on, error-filled editorial extolling Atlantic Yards, which is only available to subscribers, or else we'd have done the job ourselves.
We'll post the offending item if we can get our hands on it.
In an editorial headlined Why Atlantic Yards matters: Mr. Ratner must act quickly, or it will be too late, Crain's New York Business goes to bat for Forest City Ratner.
I've bolded sections for emphasis.
The editorial states:
Amid an outcry that the state and the MTA have given Forest City Ratner a sweetheart deal to keep alive its Atlantic Yards project, it's time to recall how this scheme originated and why it has such steadfast backing from responsible city and state officials. For those who are optimistic about the city's prospects, Atlantic Yards is crucial for realizing New York's potential.
...The editorial closes:
New York can continue to support Atlantic Yards, realize what is economically possible now and bet that the entire project can be built in the future. Or it can abandon Mr. Ratner and the project, in which case it is certain that Atlantic Yards will remain an open sore for decades to come.Why does Crain's, tribune of the business community, not endorse free market practices--an appraisal, an effort to seek new bidders--but rather embrace a "market of one"? Why does Crain's not even endorse the RPA's desire to harness the upside?
And why does Crain's call a working railyard "an open sore," and treat the railyard as a substitute for the site itself, which just happens to be bounded by a new historic district?
Posted by eric at 4:09 PM
Brooklyn Broadside: Keeping Pace with Albany, Adultery and Atlantic Yards
Brooklyn Daily Eagle
by Dennis Holt
If someone can get used coffee cups or fingernail clippings or hair samples from Dennis Holt and the Park Slope Courier's Stephen Witt, we'd like to conduct a CSI-style DNA test to establish paternity. 'Cause you certainly can't chalk up all the similarities to cluelessness.
But closer to home, we have the continuing saga of the fate of the Atlantic Yards project. The day that the MTA was to agree to a revised scope and financials for the rail yards part, Develop Don’t Destroy came along with a straight face and offers $120 million to replace Forest City Ratner.
The first question people asked was where did this “pass-the-hat-crowd” get the money? It turns out, the group doesn’t have the money: the sum would come from developers given the right to replace Forest City.
Actually, the first question people asked was "where is Ratner going to get the money?" DDDB, unlike the would-be Atlantic Yards developer, relies 100% on private donations. Ratner, on the other hand, counts on hundreds of millions, if not billions, in taxpayer-funded subsidies.
The plan these developers would have to follow doesn’t include an arena, and what really happened this week was nothing more than a replay of what happened just before the decision to accept the Forest City plan was made.
It’s like watching a bad movie that keeps being edited with new players all saying the same thing.
Couldn't have said it better ourselves, except Holt is talking about us and we're talking about Forest City. More hat-passing by Ratner? Check. More supportive "testimony" by entities that benefit financially if Atlantic Yards gets built? Check. More pre-cooked public giveaways given cover by phony public "hearings?" Check.
Knowing the track record of Develop Don’t Destroy, expect some monkey wrenches to be tossed around.
We know you are but what are we?
NoLandGrab: Far be it for Holt to treat any Forest City, ESDC or MTA action or statement with even a trace of incredulity.
Posted by eric at 3:30 PM
It came from the Blogosphere...
Joshing Politics, Markowitz...And Atlantic Yards Gets A Challenge
Borough President can be seen as a largely ceremonial job with no real duties but in Brooklyn this year, voters are going to be presented with a real choice for the office. Marty Markowitz is an affable guy, gets plenty of laughs and is generally well liked. Yet his hearty support for Bruce Ratner and the Atlantic Yards development is loathed by Brooklynites that wish to preserve their home and not let an obnoxious developer dictate what is blighted and what is not.
...The Daily News recently started a "throw the bums out" campaign in response to the State Senate debacle. However, that "party" can be extended to local government and unfortunately, Markowitz is just another bum, despite the persona. I wish Myrick the best of luck in his race and hope that when Brooklyn goes to the polls, that they punish Markowitz for his collusion and install Myrick to give the borough a real chance for change.
Noticing New York, Is New York Coming or Growing? The Bloomberg Administration Is of Little Mind
If New York City's population will grow to nine million people by 2030, as the Bloomberg administration claims, why then, Michael D.D. White wonders, is the Mayor shrinking our infrastructure, such as with Bruce Ratner's undersized replacement railyard and the disappearing Coney Island amusement zone?
Just what does the Bloomberg administration have on its little mind? Does it think that New York will grow and will it then plan for growth accordingly? Or is the Bloomberg administration planning for a shrinking New York? We think we can perceive some unfortunate consistency in the Bloomberg administration’s inconsistent answers.
Brownstoner, Historic District and AY: Like Pieces of a Puzzle
This map that Tracy Collins put together for the Atlantic Yards Report last week caught our eye but we didn't have room to fit it in at the end of the week. It very nicely summarizes how the newly-designated Prospect Heights Historic District overlays with the footprint of Forest City Ratner's proposed Atlantic Yards project. Cozy!
NoLandGrab: "Cozy" yes, but "overlays" no. The historic district is carved out by the footprint of the Ratner project.
Nets Daily, Final ESDC Hearing on Barclays Center Skedded for July 29-30
New York’s Empire State Development Corp. has scheduled hearings July 29-30 on Bruce Ratner’s revised plans for the Barclays Center and Atlantic Yards project. It’s anticipated that the ESDC will move soon after to approve the project. Ratner needs the approval–and a favorable ruling from the Court of Appeals–before he can market a half billion dollars in arena bonds.
Third String Safety, Jay-Z Can Save the Nets
Bruce Ratner is having difficulty supporting his franchise in flux. Reports have surfaced stating that Ratner is looking for other investors to help him manage the cost of the New Jersey Nets. A couple of outsiders have been rumored as possibilities, but someone who is already on the inside could be the best man for the job.
Shawn Carter, better known as Jay-Z, is part owner of the Nets and may hold the key to their future, both on and off the court. His particular celebrity status has the innate ability to change the face of the Nets.
NoLandGrab: Unless Mr. Z can hit a three in the final two minutes of NBA games, its unlikely he'll be the savior.
Nets Daily, Thorn: “We’re in Position to Sign Two Maxed Out Players in 2010″
In a 45-minute conference call, Rod Thorn told season ticket holders he expects the Nets to be “$27 to $30 million under the cap” in 2010, permitting them “if we so choose, to sign two maxed-out players”. Thorn didn’t rule moves this summer. He denied Bruce Ratner forced him to trade Vince Carter, adding it’s a “terrible spot to be in when you have a star in the later stages of his career and not a good team.”
Posted by eric at 2:32 PM
Yards supporters outnumber foes
Park Slope Courier
by Stephen Witt
Project booster Stephen Witt reports, in laughable fashion, from some parallel universe on last weeks MTA and ESDC hearings. We'll be taking up a collection to buy Mr. Witt a book on statistics, probability and sampling. And Norman Oder does some remediation work below.
The Empire State Development Corporation and MTA public meetings last week regarding the Atlantic Yards project highlighted once again how Brooklynites in support of the project far outnumbers opponents.
At the ESDC hearing before the vote to approve a modified General Project Plan, 40 members of the public gave comment with 31 speaking in favor of the project.
This group represented all ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds, while opponents were mainly white and⁄or property owners.
Ergo, the Atlantic Yards project is mostly loved, except by a handful of white people facing the prospect of having their homes seized. Mr. Witt forgot to add "gentrifying," "rich" and "interlopers," too, which would further help make his case.
Others spoke how even President Barack Obama realizes that economic stimulus is needed.
Why, the President practically endorsed the project himself. Did we mention the Prez enjoys a game of hoops now and then?
This outpouring of support did not stop opponent organization Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn and its spokesperson Daniel Goldstein from offering up a threats of new litigation.
Witt forgets to mention that the "outpouring of support" also came from paid and/or interested parties, like construction unions and Brooklyn United for Innovative Local Development, which is funded, mostly or fully, by Forest City.
Goldstein also offered a counter proposal of $120 million for the parcel during the public speaking session of the MTA hearing.
Under this “Unity Plan,” the eight−acre MTA Vanderbilt Yards section of the site would be divided and developed as individual parcels and not include an arena.
This "Unity Plan" is actually called the Unity Plan, no quotation marks necessary.
Atlantic Yards Report, And how did the Courier-Life's Witt twist last week's news? With a head count
A little dose of truth serum from Atlantic Yards Report.
However, a companion article, headlined Yards supporters outnumber foes, showed Witt's uncanny ability to twist the news....
...Witt somehow treats the decision of 31 people, most associated with organizations that profit from (or stand to profit from) the alliance with Bruce Ratner/Atlantic Yards arena, to testify at one board meeting--not a public hearing--during work hours as a definitive indication of community sentiment.
He neglects the fact that the issue before the MTA board was not the project itself, but whether it should renegotiate the sale of the Vanderbilt Yard into what even his own newspaper calls a "sweetheart deal."
In other words, their testimony about the virtues of the project was irrelevant. Sure, development brings jobs, but the MTA is a transportation agency.
Also, no elected officials (other than a rep for) Borough President Marty Markowitz spoke in favor of the MTA bailout, while four spoke against it. Also calling for caution were the Straphangers Campaign, the Regional Plan Association, and the Permanent Citizens Advisory Committee to the MTA--all organizations that represent far more people than the individuals/groups Witt cites.
Posted by eric at 1:23 PM
June 28, 2009
Atlantic Yards Report Sunday Sampler
When the MTA's Hemmerdinger called the AY arena a "public good," he was fantasizing
A humdinger from Hemmerdinger.
"And I think, in this economy, jobs and an arena in Brooklyn is a public good.”--Metropolitan Transportation Authority Chairman Dale Hemmerdinger, June 24
...I suspect Hemmerdinger meant that an arena in Brooklyn was a "good thing for the public," rather than a public good.
NoLandGrab: We suspect that by "public," Hemmerdinger, who has made his fortune in real estate, meant "Ratner."
The Bloomberg and Ratner dodge on indirect subsidies for Atlantic Yards
For months, Mike Bloomberg had been saying the gravy train for Atlantic Yards had run off the rails. And then what happened? His boys on the MTA board voted another sweetheart deal for Bruce Ratner. What gives?
Flashback, 2004
Shortly after the project was announced, in January 2004, Bloomberg, asked about government support for the project, claimed:
Fundamentally, the answer to your question is: this will be done with private money, and any city monies of any meaningful size will be debt issues financed by the extra tax revenues that come from this. So, we’re not going to have to divert money from education, or police or fire or any other part of the city to do this. No. It is private money in that sense.Along with "police" and "fire," he might have mentioned "mass transit."
NLG: Best-case scenario? Bloomberg's stupid. Worst-case? He's a liar. Even worst-er? He pulled the plug on term limits.
Posted by eric at 9:14 PM
June 27, 2009
Build, Bruce, build: Developer Ratner presses ahead on Atlantic Yards
Daily News
This editorial advocates for building Atlantic Yards, but doesn't actually say why that would be a good idea.
Bully to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority for making a deal that keeps the Atlantic Yards development alive in Brooklyn. And bully to builder Bruce Ratner for hanging in there to get the project done.
In trying to force a boondoggle at taxpayer expense, yes the MTA and Ratner are bullies.
After five years, the defeat of 23 lawsuits and an economic meltdown, he is pushing to start the $4 billion development's first component: an 18,000-seat arena, home to the Nets and a major entertainment venue.
The plan then envisions construction of 6,400 apartments (35% of them deemed affordable), a school and a health care center, amid 8 acres of open space. This good stuff would be located primarily on land that has been vacant for decades, including a Long Island Rail Road yard. But financing is not as available as it was a few years ago. The MTA board wisely voted to let Ratner pay $100 million over time for the rights to build above the yards, rather than demand a lump sum. With interest, the agency comes out whole.
Wow, where to start... The proposed project is to be built in phases. Just about all of the above-mentioned benefits wouldn't happen until Phase 2. Nobody can say how far into the future that would happen, if ever. Also, how is a working rail yard and an adjoining, active neighborhood vacant land? If there's going to be a school and health care center, someone besides Bruce Ratner will be paying for it.
Ratner will now seek private financing for the arena. His bankers hope to raise the money by the end of the year. Wouldn't that be nice for Brooklyn?
NoLandGrab: No, this most definitely would not be nice, but it would be a big money-loser, as the Daily News has already pointed out: Study shows Atlantic Yards NBA arena project could cost city big-time
Posted by steve at 6:55 AM
June 26, 2009
Despite MTA Nod, Atlantic Yards Saga Still Unfolds
GlobeSt.com
by Cody Lyon
GlobeStreet's Lyon offers an excellent summary of this week's Atlantic Yards events, including an interview with the Regional Plan Association's Neysa Pranger.
The project, steeped in years of controversy, litigation and now a dried-up credit market, has evolved into a scaled-down version of what was originally sold to public officials and city residents. More evidence of a project facing challenges arrived on June 5, when despite being the recipient of millions of city and state taxpayer-dollar subsidies, Forest City Ratner admitted the shedding of star architect Frank Gehry. Soon after, renderings surfaced that showed less than dynamic designs for the centerpiece arena portion of the project. On June 8, New York Times architecture critic Nicolai Ourousoff referred to the project renderings as a “monstrosity.”
When asked about the scathing Times critique that lambasted what it called more than a “betrayal of a particular community,” an ESDC spokesman tells GlobeSt.com that a final design and rendering of the project has not been released. The spokesman says that “an initial rendering was released, but that will look very different from the end product.”
NoLandGrab: Can't wait for that "end product!"
Posted by eric at 12:26 PM
It came from the Blogosphere... (Not just bailouts edition)
The Huffington Post, It's Atlantic Yards "Push" Week!
Steve Ettlinger runs down the week in bailouts.
If the ESDC had done its job, the MTA would already have cash it so desperately needs. Now, instead, the MTA has decided at its June 24th board meeting to bail out the billionaire developer, giving him 20 years to pay out what was supposed to have been paid up front. And this is despite at least two viable alternatives they completely ignored, one when this first came up (from successful developer Extell) and one from Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn, at the board meeting, with $5 million of financing already in place . Amazing. We should all get such deals.
For all our subsidies, it looks like we'll get a run-of-the-mill arena and thousands of parking spots on the rubble-strewn lots.
It just doesn't figure right.
Malarky News — Pure Torture, NYC MTA’s Bailout Of Brooklyn Atlantic Yards Developer
Remember this corporate welfare bailout when fares go up and more aid is sought from New York State taxpayers.
There is an alternative. Vote Libertarian this year. Joseph Dobrian is our candidate for Mayor, Jim Lesczysnki is running for Public Advocate, while John Clifton is seeking the Comptroller’s post.
The Libertarian Party opposes corporate welfare and eminent domain abuse.
The Campaign for Community-Based Planning, MTA Approves Renegotiated Deal for Ratner at AY
Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn, Breakfast-of-Candidates (33rd Edition): Ken Baer
Louise Crawford interviews Ken Baer, candidate for the City Council in the 33rd District.
Baer was a very early opponent of Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards project. In 2004, he attended one of the very first meetings organized by Develop Don't Destroy at a local school and instantly had a bad feeling about the oversized project which left the community out of the development process.
He continues to be an aggressive opponent of the project...
Curbed, Frank Gehry's Beekman Tower is Only Gehry on the Surface
Gehry's East River Guggenheim never happened, his New York Times Tower design was passed over for Renzo Piano's rods, and Atlantic Yards—well, we all know what happened there.
Gideon's Trumpet, Atlantic Yards Project — More Problems
It reports that the redeveloper is experiencing problems raising the funds necessary to complete the project as planned.
...No kidding, fellows. Don’t that beat all?
The redeveloper, Bruce Ratner, is quoted as offering the excuse that “Delays due to litigation and a difficult economic environment required the approved changes.” But isn’t that how the development cookie crumbles? Surely, Mr Ratner did not expect that the property owners whose land he covets for his development would quietly go along with his vision, and offer no resistance to being kicked out of their homes and businesses for his benefit, without full compensation for all their economic damages. So litigation of this type — over proposed development — is par for the course; as the California Supreme Court once explained, it it is only to be expected as “normal” delay.
Cash Cow, Barclays gets a New York subway station named after it
While naming a subway station will certainly get a lot of visibility and awareness, it seemed to have created a negative impact judging by the comments on the article on New York Times. So the marketing move may rebound on Barclays.
Posted by eric at 12:02 PM
It came from the Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder must get paid by the word over at AYR, 'cause he sure is cranking out the blog posts this month — 119 this month, to date.
Crain's: blame Amanda Burden for the leaked "hangar" renderings
From Crain's Insider, under the headline Fixing Atlantic Yards:
Forest City Ratner is hoping changes to its Brooklyn basketball arena will stop people from likening it to an airplane hangar. Renderings were leaked—by Planning Commissioner Amanda Burden, sources say—prompting ridicule. But the leak was early enough to allow time to amend the design. Forest City needs to break ground this year.The leak was early enough? That sounds like Joe DePlasco-esque spin. The leak was not early enough to allow time to get a new design in the revised documents issued this week by the Empire State Development Corporation.
But yes, there's always time to tweak.
NoLandGrab: And yeah, six years of "tweaking" have really made a big improvement.
Crain's also reports:
The Central Labor Council, a politically influential coalition of labor unions, left 10 Democratic City Council members off its list of endorsements this week. Thirty-three were endorsed without going through the formal interview process... [Council Member Letitia] James opposes Atlantic Yards.... [which] will create union jobs.Still, Crain's does not count James in the category of the unendorsed incumbents appearing vulnerable to defeat in September.
The Prospect Heights Historic District passes, will wrap around block designated for AY parking
Note how two fingers of row houses would bookend the southeast block of the Atlantic Yards site, slated to be a staging area for arena construction, and also a massive parking lot for workers and visitors, ultimately with 2070 spaces.
...The Atlantic Yards site, according to the Empire State Development Corporation, is blighted. I wonder how many blighted areas are abutted by historic districts.
WNYC, following the Times, gets conclusory: "basketball arena... will soon be built"
WNYC apparently read the New York Times story Wednesday about the naming rights deal signed by Barclays, but not the corrective comment posted on the online article or on my (and others') blogs.
So, just as the Times could declare "There will, however, soon be a Barclays Center," so an WNYC reporter could reference (starting at about 1:38 of the report) "the Nets basketball arena that will soon be built along Atlantic Avenue."
There are no shovels in the ground yet, and while governmental approvals this week certainly have made the arena more likely, it's conclusory to say it "will soon be built."
Here's the link to the original WNYC story.
Posted by eric at 11:35 AM
June 25, 2009
"As Naked an Abuse of Government Power as Could be Imagined."
How the Sotomayor nomination revived the debate over eminent domain abuse
Reason Online
by Damon W. Root
That headline refers to the case of Didden vs. Village of Port Chester, but it could just as easily apply to Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards project — or the separate approvals this week by the MTA and ESDC to bail out the developer's tenuous boondoggle.
Property rights were probably the last thing on President Barack Obama's mind when he selected Judge Sonia Sotomayor to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice David Souter. But that hasn't stopped Sotomayor's nomination from reigniting the long-simmering national debate over the use and abuse of eminent domain.
The controversy centers on Sotomayor's vote in a 2006 eminent domain case, Didden v. Village of Port Chester. New York entrepreneur Bart Didden says Port Chester condemned his land after he refused to pay $800,000 (or grant a 50 percent stake in his business) to a developer hired by the village. One day after Didden refused to pay those bribes, Port Chester began eminent domain proceedings against him.
...None of that is likely to derail Sotomayor's nomination, however, which the Senate is fully expected to approve next month. But this renewed national focus on eminent domain abuse might still benefit a group of long-suffering property owners in Brooklyn, New York, who have been waging a five-year battle against the combined forces of Mayor Michael Bloomberg, the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA), real estate developer Bruce Ratner, and the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC), a controversial quasi-public entity empowered by the state to seize private property via eminent domain.
...This week the saga went from bad to worse, as the MTA, which controls the central portion of the land needed for the project, released a disastrous new plan. Consider this: In 2006 the MTA agreed to sell Ratner its 8-acre Vanderbilt rail yard—which had been appraised at over $200 million—for a lump-sum payment of just $100 million. Now the MTA says Ratner can pay just $20 million upfront, with the rest due over the next 22 years.
...So what happens next? The state will no doubt approve this sweetheart deal just as it approved the previous one. But Ratner still needs to sell more than $500 million in arena bonds and break ground before year's end in order to qualify for tax-exempt status. Here's hoping Goldstein's lawsuit, a lousy economy, and renewed public outrage over eminent domain abuse make the Atlantic Yards the perfect size to fail.
Posted by eric at 6:11 PM
Bailout-free news round-up
NYPost.com NETS BLOG, Psycho T or T-Will or. . .
Money, staff, scouts — and unis — are in short supply for the New Jersey Nets.
And now they've gone too far. No more blue uniforms.
The Nets have slashed inside personnel by 1/3. They've mandated summer Friday furloughs for office workers. They've whacked scouts (at least two), cut assistants' salaries all with their eyes of moving to Brooklyn, which remember was going to happen by 2008.
They are holding their draft party in New York. That's a slap in the face too but here's the kick in the gut.
The Nets are dropping their blue road jerseys. Why? Because they say "New Jersey."
So they keep their home whites that say Nets and those red things that make them all look like giant blood clots. Blood clots that say "Nets" on the front, not "New Jersey." Personally, we like the blue uniforms but again, this is all about moving across the river. Still, couldn't they have waited until they at least put a shovel in the ground before spitting on New Jersey?
Yahoo! Sports, Draft buzz: Shaq gone, Amare on the move?
Nets sources say that if owner Bruce Ratner is going to bail on the Brooklyn arena and sell his team to cut his losses, ownership groups who would potentially purchase the team would rather he doesn’t gut it.
Nets Daily, ESDC Approves New Plan for Atlantic Yards
Don't be fooled by the headline — this item's about tickets for Nets' games in Newark, not another bailout.
The next presale for the Newark Exhibition Series has started. The presale code is “prucenter”. Regular ticket sales start on Friday at 11 am.
The Moment [NY Times blog], The Concierge | Good Dive Bar Needed
Dear Concierge, I’m looking for a good dive bar.
...In Brooklyn, he likes Freddy’s Bar & Backroom across from the police precinct just off Flatbush Avenue at Dean Street. (Get there before it’s knocked down to make room for the Atlantic Yards.)
The Epoch Times, Community Gardens May Become Protected Under Parks Department
In a city known for concrete and skyscrapers, the small community-run garden often gets overlooked. But in neighborhoods where clean air, open space, and fresh produce are hard to come by, these volunteer-run gardens are vital, be they producers of flowers or vegetables.
...The constant tug-of-war between housing developers and preservationists in this land-scarce city put gardeners in a tough place.
Brooklyn Council Member Letitia James expressed concern for the gardens in her district when the 16 Atlantic Yards are built. “The gardens will be in the shadows,” she said. “I don't know how they will survive.”
NoLandGrab: "16 Atlantic Yards?" [Shudder] One Atlantic Yards is more than we can take.
Fast Company, Frank Gehry's Rx for New Orleans
Has Frank Gehry learned his lesson? Apparently he can do context.
In the wake of these letdowns Gehry last week unveiled his most modest plan in memory, a humble shotgun house to be built in the sixth ward of New Orleans. He designed the modular shotgun house, known as the "Modgun," with urban planner Robert Tannen (shown with model
leftright).No titanium swoops here. Like traditional shotgun houses, it has an elevated pitched roof for natural cooling and stilts for flooding. It will be built on a rundown block on Ursuline Avenue, but it's meant as a prototype that can be duplicated in the various neighborhoods still blighted four years after Hurricane Katrina.
Posted by eric at 1:54 PM
Bailouts and more bailouts
Brownstoner, MTA Ignores Fiduciary Duty, Approves Revised Yards Plan
If you read the Atlantic Yards Report's account of yesterday's MTA hearing that resulted in a 10-2 vote approving the sale of the Atlantic Yards to Forest City Ratner at a drastically reduced price (in both present and expected value terms), it's hard not to come to the conclusion that either (a) the people that sit on the MTA Board ain't too bright or (b) the fix was most certainly in. Or (c) both. The heart of the MTA's fallacious position was encapsulated by board member Jeff Kay's defense of the new pricing structure: “The market is what the market is,” declared board member Jeff Kay." Um, except that the board rejected a higher price from Extell back in 2005 and has refused to either get a current independent appraisal or solicit new offers to find out what the market price really is.
The Brooklyn Paper, BAILOUT! State cuts new deal to save stalled ‘Atlantic Yards’
For now, the ESDC is sticking to the line that the full “Atlantic Yards” project will someday be built.
“The remainder of the site will be acquired when necessary for development,” Steve Matlin, the ESDC’s counsel, told the agency’s board on Tuesday.
The “remainder” includes the vast majority of the 2,250 below-market-rate housing and open space that was part of the project when it was originally approved in December, 2006 — key public benefits that greased the approval process of the highly controversial project.
Field of Schemes, Nets arena gets land bailout, still needs bond backing
New Jersey Nets owner Bruce Ratner got his sweetheart land deal for a Brooklyn arena yesterday, as the Metropolitan Transportation Authority board approved a plan that would let him defer payments and spend $100 million less on replacing a rail yard on the proposed arena site. In a last-minute twist, arena opponents Develop Don't Destroy tried placing their own competing bid for the land, saying they had just as good a shot at getting financing for their Unity development plan as Ratner did for his arena, but the MTA refused to consider the offer.
Regional Plan Association, RPA Testimony on Atlantic Yards
The RPA, which really ought to know better than to support the Atlantic Yards plan, even conditionally, testified against the revised deal terms at yesterday's MTA board meeting.
RPA weighed in at the MTA board meeting saying we oppose the deal as it's currently structured but think it should be salvaged under stricter provisions. Those include granting the MTA a greater portion of future proceeds, conducting a new cost benefit analysis and creating a new ESDC subsidiary to review design elements and oversee the development process as it goes through different iterations.
Posted by eric at 11:51 AM
Atlantic Yards Project Enters a Crucial Period
The New York Times
by Charles Bagli
Despite this week's preordained ESDC and MTA votes, Atlantic Yards is still far from a sure thing.
Armed with a set of concessions wrung from state officials this week for his Atlantic Yards development in Brooklyn, the developer Bruce C. Ratner faces what may be his most daunting challenge. He is trying to raise more than $500 million over the next four months to build the $4.9 billion project’s centerpiece: the most expensive basketball arena in the country.
Mr. Ratner, chief executive of Forest City Ratner, the company that is to build the development, still must get final state approval and withstand any new lawsuits, while selling about $586 million in arena bonds by Dec. 31 in order to qualify for tax-exempt status.
On Wednesday, the board of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority voted 10 to 2 to revise a deal to sell Mr. Ratner a railyard that sits within the 22-acre development. Instead of insisting on a $100 million lump-sum payment, the authority gave Mr. Ratner 21 years to pay the money in increments. It also allowed the developer to build a more modest replacement railyard than he had once promised.
Critics, and even some supporters, have complained that the Atlantic Yards project’s public benefits are disappearing before construction even starts. Much of the housing at Atlantic Yards, including 2,250 units for moderate- and middle-income tenants, has been delayed, along with the creation of eight acres of open space.
..."Nearly all the alleged public benefits are gone,” said Daniel Goldstein, a spokesman for Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn, the project’s leading opponent. “It’s highly likely that we’ll sue the M.T.A. as a result of their actions.”
NoLandGrab: Like John Paul Jones, DDDB has not yet begun to fight.
More coverage...
Atlantic Yards Report, Decoding a Times euphemism: "more modest" = "saving FCR $100 million"
That "more modest" replacement would save developer Forest City Ratner about $100 million.
That information has not appeared in the Times, not in print, and not on the web.
It certainly raises questions about whether the Times--which did disclose the parent Times Company's business relationship with FCR--can ever be exacting in its coverage of AY, as it should be.
Posted by eric at 12:23 AM
Goldstein Outbids Ratner, In Vain
The Local [Ft. Greene/Clinton Hill]
by Andy Newman
Shortly before it voted today to let Atlantic Yards developer Bruce Ratner defer the payments on his $100 million purchase of the development rights to the Vanderbilt rail yard, the MTA heard from, and snubbed, a rival developer who offered $20 million more for the parcel and promised to build a project entailing less risk, more affordable housing, a more sensible streetscape and no use of eminent domain.
The developer was Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn, Atlantic Yards’ loudest opponent. The project their spokesman, Daniel Goldstein, pitched to the board was the Unity Plan, an alternative vision that DDDB a team of planners and architects proposed in 2007. Mr. Goldstein conveyed to the MTA board today DDDB’s “firm offer” to pay $120 million for the development rights over the Vanderbilt Yard.
The board listened to Mr. Goldstein for a while, then told him his time was up. An MTA spokesman reached by phone this afternoon said only, “We have no comment.”
Mr. Goldstein insisted that the offer was serious.
“The fact that they’ve ignored this offer and dismissed it out of hand shows that THEY are not serious about getting the best financial return for their properties,” he said of the MTA.
Mr. Goldstein said that DDDB has already secured $5 million in financing for its alternative proposal. As for where the rest of the money would come from, Mr. Goldstein said DDDB’s plan was at least as likely to get financing as Forest City Ratner’s, given the developer’s current bleak fiscal situation.
Here’s how it would work, Mr. Goldstein said:
We negotiate an up-front payment with the MTA. We get financing for it from banks, not-for-profit and for profit developers and the community and private individuals. We are certain we could match the 20 up front, though we wouldn’t need to because the delayed payments would be bigger and faster.
We then create a Trust that controls the rail yard rights, and oversees the financing to pay the MTA for the rights, pay them the construction costs of the new yard and oversees the build out.
The Trust divides the Yards into multiple parcels and puts them out to bid. The competitive bidding process would bring in at least $120 million NPV and it would do so over approximately 12 years of build out. Though most would be front ended when the land deals close.
Posted by eric at 12:10 AM
June 24, 2009
This Week in Bailouts: MTA Edition
NY Observer, M.T.A. Approves Less Lucrative Atlantic Yards Deal
Bruce Ratner can now cross a major task off his to-do list.
For months now, Mr. Ratner, the developer planning the $4.9 billion Atlantic Yards apartment and arena complex in Brooklyn has been seeking financial relief from an agreement he struck with the M.T.A. in better times.
...Voting 10-2, the M.T.A.’s board approved a new deal that involves $180 million less in upfront payments and early expenditures for the project than was pledged in 2005, accepting a reduced-size rail yard and $20 million at first, with another $80 million (in today’s value) to be paid in pieces over the next 22 years.
...In a statement, Mr. Ratner praised the M.T.A. and the Empire State Development Corporation, from whom he also received an approval for a revised design.
“The MTA approval today, along with ESDC Board authorization yesterday, was critical to this project going forward. Delays due to litigation and a difficult economic environment required the approved changes. We have worked very hard, however, as have our colleagues in government, to ensure that these changes would in no way impact the overall benefits of the project. We’re are extraordinarily appreciative of the professionalism and vision of these two agencies and all who believe that development is good for the City, that jobs are good and that affordable housing is good should applaud their actions.”
NoLandGrab: Yup, professionalism. That's the term that always comes to mind first when thinking of the MTA board and the ESDC.
NY1 News, MTA Board Approves Extension For Atlantic Yards Developer
"From the MTA perspective, our goal was transportation; we're very satisfied that we have a yard that meets our needs," said MTA Interim Chief Executive Officer Helena Williams. "[I'm satisfied] that we have transportation improvements for the subway entrances."
Cityfile New York, Bruce Ratner Gets His Way
Critics took to the podium before today's vote to deride the deal as a "massive bailout." And, shockingly, the MTA didn't pay any attention to the last-minute counterbid that landed its lap when the main Atlantic Yards opposition group, Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn, "tried to upstage the meeting by offering $120 million for the development rights over the Vanderbilt Yard."
Brooklyn Daily Eagle, MTA Approves Revised Atlantic Yards Deal
Among those who spoke against the revised deal, said [MTA Spokesman Aaron] Donovan, were Councilwoman Letitia James, a longtime foe of Atlantic Yards; Councilman David Yassky, Assemblyman Jim Brennan, and Dan Goldstein of the anti-Atlantic Yards organization Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn.
Among those speaking in favor of the project were members of Brooklyn United for Innovative Local Development (BUILD), which would provide jobs within Atlantic Yards for low-income area residents; and Carlo Scissura, chief of staff for Borough President Marty Markowitz.
BUILD is contractually obligated to support the project publicly.
Councilman John Liu (D-Flushing), head of the City Council’s Transportation Committee, said, "The public just bailed out the MTA -- the MTA should not use the money to bailout a developer. Much to the public's dismay, the same authority that was crying for cash just weeks ago has now cut a generous break for a real estate developer. As difficult as times may be, it doesn't warrant a bailout for developers.”
WNYC Radio, MTA Approves New Deal for Atlantic Yards
REPORTER: Some board members expressed regret that they were accepting less cash up front and a less valuable rail yard than originally proposed in 2005. But Jeff Kay, who represents Mayor Bloomberg on the board, said it was better than nothing.
KAY: There is no other market, no one else has come forward with a credible proposal at this time.
Um, could that be because the deal with Ratner has been cooked from day one?
REPORTER: At the last minute, opponents of the Atlantic Yards project offered to pay $120 million over a period of 12 years for the rail yards. Developer Bruce Ratner is paying $100 million over 21 years under the new deal.
Board members did not appear to take the counter-offer seriously and the board chairman refused to comment when asked about it.
Crain's NY Business, MTA approves Atlantic Yards schedule changes
The outcome was expected despite a cadre of critics claiming that the MTA is shirking its financial responsibility by allowing the $100 million payment to be stretched out over two decades. Now instead of paying the money upfront, Forest City will deliver $20 million at closing and the rest in payments ending in 2031.
The MTA vote comes a day after the board of the Empire State Development Corp. approved changes to its deal with Forest City that also awards the developer more financial breathing room. Now Forest City will be able to pay for the land in pieces instead of all at once. A public comment period will follow the vote and any negative testimony—which is virtually guaranteed—will require another tally. The result is expected to be the same, however.
That's an understatement. Did someone say something about a cooked deal?*
Forest City’s next major agenda item is selling bonds to finance the project’s centerpiece: an arena that where the company’s basketball team, the Net’s will play. The company hopes to begin selling $490 million worth of bonds to finance the $772 million arena this fall.
Daily News I-Team Blog, Done deal: MTA approves Ratner pact - and that's that
MTA officials who approved a sweetened deal on Wednesday for Nets owner Bruce Ratner refused to consider an alternative plan for Brooklyn's Atlantic Yards which its proponents say would provide the embattled transit authority more money in a shorter period of time.
The UNITY Trust plan pushed by Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn, which has led the opposition to Ratner's plan to build a basketball arena and housing towers in Prospect Heights, calls for the MTA to receive $120 million over 12 years. The plan approved by the MTA calls for Ratner to pay $20 million up front and $80 million by 2031.
The Vanderbilt Rail Yards would be placed into a trust that would oversee financing and management of the project. The trust would generate more revenue by dividing up the land over the railyard and offering it to several developers.
The MTA's own appraisal valued the Vanderbilt Rail Yards at $214 million, and Extell Development offered $150 million for the site. So DDDB's Daniel Goldstein says he is not surprised that the MTA snubbed the UNITY Trust, even though the agency clearly could use the extra money (the state legislature approved a $2.26 billion rescue plan for the MTA last month).
2nd Ave. Sagas, MTA Board approves renegotiated Ratner deal
No surprise here, but the MTA Board has approved the sweeter sweetheart deal for Bruce Ratner. Instead of paying anything close to market price for land valued at $214 million four years ago, Ratner will pay the MTA the lump sum of $20 million with deferred payments over the next 22 years totaling $80 million. In return, he will provide a smaller-than-promised rail facility for the Atlantic Yards. Only two MTA Board members — Allen P. Cappelli and Mitchell H. Pally — voted against the new deal.
Posted by eric at 11:22 PM
THE ORIGINAL DEAL -- OR NONE
NY Post Editorial
The Post's editorial board must have actually started reading Rich Calder's stories.
After pleading poverty, jacking up fares and squeezing $2 billion from Albany, the MTA is now flush with cash.
Or so one might think -- if the agency OKs a plan to let a developer pay for air rights over the Atlantic Avenue rail yard on a 22-year layaway plan.
It better not. When its board votes today, it should nix the plan -- and demand that Forest City Ratner stick to the old deal.
Forest City and CEO Bruce Ratner had agreed to pay $100 million up front for the rights. Now, it seeks to put just $20 million down, paying the rest over the next 22 years.
Plus, it wants a below-market interest rate. And it would scale back work to develop the yard for the agency.
This would be a bum deal even if the MTA was rolling in dough. It's surely not a bank or finance company, able to peddle valuable property rights on the installment plan.
Indeed, the agency lacks funding for its own critical needs -- like maintaining and upgrading equipment.
Sure, times have changed since the deal was reached in 2005.
But if the climate is so bad today that a major developer with a solid track record like Forest City can't raise $100 million, what hope is there that it'll be able to raise $4 billion-plus to cover the entire project's costs?
Make no mistake: We backed the Atlantic Yards development, including a new basketball arena for the Nets and 16 new buildings, from the start. We still think investment there will benefit Brooklyn.
But the MTA needs to watch its wallet. It can't afford to subsidize private developers, and it shouldn't try.
A "no" vote on the revised plan today will send that message clearly.
NoLandGrab: Guess the 10 MTA board members who voted "yes" today missed this editorial this morning — like we did.
Posted by eric at 3:20 PM
Atlantic Yards MTA Bailout: Tabloid Edition
The city's tabloids weigh in on today's straphanger-funded MTA bailout of Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards project.
NY Post, MTA APPROVES ATLANTIC YARDS BAILOUT PLAN
Bruce Ratner got his own MTA bailout today.
The agency approved a plan for Brooklyn's controversial Atlantic Yards project that lets the mega-developer pay off $100 million he owes the agency over 22 years.
The deal -- okayed after a heated three hour meeting at MTA headquarters in Midtown -- also allows him to shave off more than $100 million of the $345 million in transit improvements he had promised.
NY Daily News, MTA signs off on sweet Atlantic Yards deal Bruce Ratner: Money down drops from $100M to $20
The 10-2 approval lets developer Bruce Ratner off the hook for his $100 million cash payment for Brooklyn's Vanderbilt Railyards, part of the site for his planned new arena.
...If Ratner couldn't proceed without help, the critics said, the MTA should have looked for other developers.
Posted by eric at 2:53 PM
Atlantic Yards Developer Is Allowed to Defer Payments
City Room
by Michael Grynbaum
The developer Bruce C. Ratner can defer his payments for the Atlantic Yards project over a period of two decades, the governing board of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority voted on Wednesday, despite objections from community advocates who derided the deal as a “bailout” for Mr. Ratner.
Only two members of the authority’s board voted against the plan, which will allow Mr. Ratner’s company to pay $20 million up front and $80 million in deferred payments through 2031. Mr. Ratner was originally obligated to pay $100 million up front to the agency, but he requested revised terms after the real estate market entered its steep decline.
Nearly 50 speakers, ranging from private citizens to labor representatives to politicians, spoke before the board’s vote, although their opinions on the matter were mixed.*
...Voting against the plan were Allen P. Cappelli, an appointee of Gov. David A. Paterson, and Mitchell H. Pally of Long Island. Andrew M. Saul, the vice chairman, abstained, and Norman I. Seabrook was absent.
In the board’s debate, Mr. Cappelli said he was bothered by Mr. Ratner’s plans to ratchet down the renovation of the railyards at the heart of the project. He added that the sales price determined by the authority might be below market rate.
“This land is very valuable,” Mr. Cappelli said. “I know the economy has changed a lot in the four years since this plan was initially approved. There may be some risk in pushing the developer back to the table, but unfortunately it’s a risk that I would recommend we take.”
* Norman Oder offers a correction:
Re: “Their opinions on the matter were mixed.”
Actually, no. Almost all the supporters of Forest City Ratner’s plan praised the project as a whole, ignoring the transportation and fiscal impacts of the offer before the MTA.
No elected official other than (a rep for) Brooklyn BP Marty Markowitz spoke in favor of the project.
Along with Letitia James, Assemblyman Jim Brennan and state Senator Bill Perkins (via a rep) spoke against the deal. So did Council Member David Yassky.
Posted by eric at 1:35 PM
PRESS RELEASE: AVELLA CALLS FOR ATLANTIC YARDS PROJECT TO BE SCRAPPED
New York City - The MTA today announced that Bruce Ratner, the developer of the controversial Atlantic Yards project, will be allowed to defer $80 million of the $100 million total he has agreed to pay for the site. The final installments will not be paid until 2031. The MTA board members who will meet tomorrow to vote on the revised agreement were given only 48 hours to review the complex documents.
“It only points out how this project should never have been approved in the first place,” said Council Member and Mayoral candidate Tony Avella. “It's time to kill this monster once and for all.”
The Atlantic Yards project has been diminishing in recent months as the developer attempts to cut costs. Frank Gehry’s ambitious stadium plans were replaced with a smaller barn-like structure by architectural firm Ellerbe Becket. The number of cars that can operate out of the Long Island Railroad station has also been reduced from 76 to 56 cars.
“This project would tear the fabric of Brooklyn for many generations to come,” Avella said. “It must be stopped.”
Posted by eric at 11:59 AM
DDDB PRESS RELEASE: Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn Offers $120 Million to MTA for Vanderbilt Yard
Offer is More Money, Less Risk Than Forest City Ratner’s
New York, New York — On Wednesday a Brooklyn community organization, Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn, Inc. (DDDB), made a firm offer of $120 million to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) to purchase the development rights for the 8-acre Vanderbilt Yard in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn. The group proposes a mixed-use development plan over the rail yards based on the UNITY Plan framework. (See: www.unityplan.org and download the full PDF.)
To complete their offer, the Vanderbilt Yard would be placed into a trust (modeled after the successful Hudson River Trust), for the purposes of financing and managing the development over the yards. It will be called the UNITY Trust.
The UNITY Trust would be administered by local community organizations, a subsidiary of the Empire State Development Corporation, and local elected officials. The Trust would be mandated to bid the yards out in smaller, manageable parcels (6-8), for development and payment over a far shorter timeline than developer Forest City Ratner’s proposed 22-year Atlantic Yards timeline. The UNITY Trust will seek out both for-profit and not-for-profit development teams.
The group estimates—based upon comparable efforts elsewhere and extrapolating the 2005 MTA appraisal and rail yard construction cost projections—that the project can be completed in approximately 12 years.
Benefits to the MTA
• The offer is secured by the land; there is no risk of default.
• The amount paid to the MTA for this valuable asset will exceed the amount promised to the MTA in a proposed agreement between the MTA and Forest City Ratner. It will be paid over an accelerated timeframe (about 12 years vs. 22 years by Forest City Ratner).
• The MTA will directly control the newly built, permanent rail yard under the development and will be able to construct it to their capacity needs. There will be no need to waste money on a temporary solution, since Forest City Ratner’s urgency to build its proposed arena—the only reason for a temporary rail yard—will not be an issue. The MTA will be reimbursed for the rail yard construction costs.
• The UNITY Trust will not be forced into an immediate disposition of development rights into an uncertain economy (which undervalues them); it will be able to coordinate the sales and construction over time in order to obtain the best value for the UNITY Trust.
• In aggregate the payments to the MTA will be over $200 million, and the net present value of the payments will be nearly $120 million. Both amounts exceed MTA’s renegotiated proposal with Forest City Ratner’s.
Public Benefits
The project will result in true public benefits (affordable housing skewed towards lower income levels, union labor, open public space designed for public use, a community center, a school, small retail space for local businesses, light industry and new roads connecting neighborhoods):
• Eminent domain will not be used;
• Streets will not be removed, new neighborhood connecting streets will be constructed;
• There will be true affordable housing for low and moderate incomes delivered in the early phases of the project;
• 10,000 construction job years;
• A legally binding, city and state guaranteed Community Benefits Agreement will be negotiated, involving all community stakeholders in the project’s impact radius;
• It will be a less risky project than Atlantic Yards by including multiple developers and the financial resources that each would bring to the UNITY framework;
• The project will be financed, in part, with tax-free municipal funding in a legitimate fashion (rather than the murky use of PILOTS contemplated by Forest City Ratner), reducing overall costs;
• Community organizations in Central Brooklyn have signed on to the UNITY framework and strongly support it. They would not challenge it or litigate against it.
The group has secured working capital in excess of $5 million towards this effort.
DDDB’s proposal will provide the MTA with a more attractive financial return than the Forest City Ratner offer, and on the basis that DDDB’s proposal will likely engender widespread community and civic support, DDDB hopes and expects that the MTA will provide the opportunity through discussion and negotiation for further refinement of the UNITY proposal.
“DDDB is certain that our offer would receive stiff competition if the Vanderbilt Yard were put out to bid with a Request for Proposal and underwent a competitive, fair bidding process. But we feel fortunate that we can make such a discounted offer, for such a great piece of real estate, due to the absence of a competitive bidding process,” said Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn spokesman Daniel Goldstein. “The MTA Board must table any decisions on the Vanderbilt Rail Yards sale until it has time to review our offer along side its renegotiated agreement with Forest City Ratner. The Board has a fiduciary duty to do this.”
Posted by eric at 10:59 AM
Greetings from Scott Turner: The Lessness of Senses
via Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn
I'm amused these days thinking about a remark someone made at Rocky's a couple of months ago. Things weren't going well for Bruce Ratner. Community opposition, the crashing economy and Ratner's own incompetence had brought the Atlantic Yards project to a halt. Hadn't killed it, mind you, but halted it was.
Noticing my Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn badge, a gentleman said "C'mon, man, whattya want? The project's dead. You want his head on a pike, too?"
Only if it would end the madness that is the Atlantic Yards project. Once and for all. But Bruce Ratner, the zombie who doesn't know he's dead, just keeps coming and keeps coming, so selfish and self-absorbed is he. And that's why the project's not packing the moving van for Kaputsville.
As it stands, the MTA -- the same one always threatening to cut subway and bus routes, services, repairs and new capital projects -- is feeling so flush and happy that it's letting Bruce Ratner pay $20 million for a property the MTA had originally valued at $214 million.
For a property that another developer offered $150 million for when Ratner was offering only $50.
For a property that currently has ten tracks and Ratner's design will leave a growing system with only seven.
For a property that Ratner will be allowed to pay off during the next twenty-two years as fare hikes jump and services get cut, so warns the same MTA honchos bending over backwards to accommodate Bruce.
Posted by eric at 10:57 AM
Atlantic Yards, Metaphorically Speaking
Noticing New York
NNY's Michael D.D. White searches for just the right term to describe Atlantic Yards. Is it a zombie? A possum? Dracula? Click through to find out.
Finding the right metaphor to describe Atlantic Yards can be edifying and, at the same time, a challenge. Recently, ESDC head Marisa Lago formulated the metaphor of Atlantic Yards as a kitchen renovation. We found that her metaphor adapted quite well for our purposes. (See: Monday, June 1, 2009, Negotiating With Your Contractor: The Atlantic Yards As Kitchen Renovation Metaphor.)
It is not so clear that Ms. Lago herself had success with the metaphor because exactly one week after she coined it she was let go from ESDC after having served barely nine months in her position.
...We noticed that Develop Don’t Destroy was recently offering a new metaphor, describing Atlantic Yards as a “Zombie Project.” (See: Nets, Ratner, Yormark Desperately Trying to Market Zombie Project, posted: 6.04.09.) The idea behind that, of course, is that the strange political forces that keep re-animating Atlantic Yards don’t seem to recognize when a natural death and permanent grave rest under the lilies is appropriate.
Posted by eric at 10:45 AM
June 23, 2009
It came from the Blogosphere...
Restless, Thank You Mayor Bloomberg!
This morning I noticed a personal note from Mayor "Mike" Bloomberg in the City Room comment section, on complaints about developer Bruce Ratner getting yet another break on Atlantic Yards, this time from the MTA:
Bruce Ratner is rich.
He deserves special treatment. The rest of you should be thankful we even let you live in NYC. It’s very difficult being around all you poor people.
— Bloomie
To me, Bloomberg's greatest sin is his relentless effort to turn NYC into a whitewashed suburban simulation of a city, where his buddies -- the developers and their Masters of the Universe clientele (now getting back to business as usual, rebuilding the house of cards) -- can feel comfortable in their self-centered skin, and party-on undisturbed by the notion that other people, unfathomably unlike them, exist.
Field of Schemes, Revised Nets deal includes reduced payments, subway naming rights
A bigger break for the developer — and one not mentioned by many news outlets, including the New York Times — is that Ratner would also spend $100 million less on replacing the MTA's train yard than he'd previously promised.
Brownstoner, MTA Finance Committee Approves New Ratner Deal
In... what may end up being the quote of the year, MTA finance chief Gary Dellaverson said of the deal, "It's not quite as good as we had hoped." Priceless.
Nets Daily, ESDC Approves New Plan for Atlantic Yards Tuesday
Just as the MTA moved Monday to expedite Bruce Ratner’s request to stretch out payments for the railyards beneath Barclays Center, the state’s main development arm–Ratner’s partner in Atlantic Yards, did the same Tuesday in permitting changes in his plans for the project.
Posted by eric at 10:51 PM
ATLANTIC YARDS BUDGET BALLOONS BY NEARLY A BILLION
NY Post
by Rich Calder
The Post's Rich Calder has a must-read wrap-up of today's "brutally weird" Atlantic Yards developments.
All the bells and whistles have been stripped from it -- most notably "starchitect" Frank Gehry and his expressionist building and arena designs -- but the cost of developer Bruce Ratner's controversial Atlantic Yards project has ballooned by nearly a billion dollars, state officials said today.
The now-$4.9 billion plan re-introduced by the Empire State Development Corp. claims Ratner will deliver a project similar to the $4 billion plan approved in Dec. 2006 that called for an NBA arena and 16 residential and office towers.
But the new plan is filled with many holes. It anticipates a 2019 project completion date for the long-delayed project but leaves the door open to future delays.
...Following today's meeting, critics of the plan, many of who supported the original Atlantic Yards concept, questioned whether the 2,250 units of affordable housing Ratner promised to help win community support are now a pipe dream. Some even accused the state and Ratner of trying to dupe the public with a "bait and switch."
"The sweeping promises of affordable housing made by the developer at the onset of this project have now evaporated to a mere whisper," said Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries (D-Brooklyn), who supported the original project plan.
"At this point, it is not clear that the developer plans to build anything other than an arena and a few affordable apartment units, and that is simply unacceptable."
The ESDC says the modifications are strictly financial and don't require a new application process because key facets of the project remain unchanged, including the arena still calling for 18,000 seats and the project expected to create thousands of jobs.
But opponents say the plan is so dramatically different that the ESDC must start the state environmental review process from square one -- a process that could delay the project by months if not years years.
...Ratner already successfully panhandled the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.
The cash-strapped agency Wednesday is planning to help bail the project out by giving Ratner 22 years to pay off $100 million he owes the MTA and by letting him shave off more than $100 million of the $345 million in transit improvements he promised in exchange various state approvals.
Posted by eric at 6:33 PM
Ladies and Gentlemen, introducing your Modified, $5 Billion Atlantic Yards Project!
NY Observer, The New Atlantic Yards: Less Pretty, More Pricey
Two and a half years after receiving the go-ahead to build a $4 billion complex of apartments and a Nets basketball arena, developer Forest City Ratner is back with a modified plan, trying, once again, to wrap up approvals and to get financing for the project.
The plan has been heavily battered by the recession and rising costs: Star architect Frank Gehry was once promised and relentlessly advertised as designer of the whole project, including the arena—now he’s out, on account of costs. Payments to the public sector—in the form of cash up front and a new rail yard for the M.T.A., have been delayed and curtailed, respectively. The housing is slated to start after the arena starts. And the total price tag now is estimated in state documents at about $4.9 billion, up from $4 billion.
Tuesday, the state released some early renderings of the new, trimmed down and less attractive arena by arena architect Ellerbe Becket (The Times architecture critic called it a “stunning bait-and-switch”).
Be sure to check out the Observer's slide show, complete with new landscaping design by Field Operations — though according to Forest City spokesman Joe DePlasco, the "master plan" is still the work of Laurie Olin.
Brooklyn Daily Eagle, State Approves Changes To Atlantic Yards Plan
The original General Project Plan was approved by ESDC in December 2006. The proposed modifications approved Tuesday are summarized below:
Acquisition of the Project Site in Stages — This would allow Forest City Ratner to move forward with the development of the planned Nets basketball arena and four surrounding towers, as well as construction-phase parking and parking for the arena. The first stage would include construction of the arena as soon as the company gains possession of the intended site and the beginning of construction for the first non-arena building. The remainder of the site would be developed during the second phase.
MTA Site Acquisition — ESDC will acquire a portion of the MTA property for $20 million, which will be paid by Forest City. Forest City will agree to pay the MTA the balance of the $100 million purchase price, plus interest, in installments. This is basically the same deal Forest City Ratner made with the MTA.
Upgrades to Vanderbilt Railyard — Forest City will provide the MTA with a letter of credit (in the amount of $86 million) to secure its future obligation to upgrade the Vanderbilt Railyard, prior to the first property acquisition by ESDC.
Crain's NY Business, Atlantic Yards developer wins longer schedule
The entire modified plan hasn’t been publically disclosed, but the ESDC says it allows for Forest City to acquire the 22-acre site in stages instead of all at once. It said the developer would first take possession of the parcel that is set to hold the arena, its parking, and four towers, and take over the rest later on.
...In a statement, Forest City Chief Executive Bruce Ratner said, “The modified plan will allow us to proceed and at the same time ensure that the many benefits of Atlantic Yards become a reality.”
The Cross Pollinator, Atlantic Yards: Poster Child For NY State Corruption
I wouldn’t want to waste too much breath on a corrupt process that has come off the rails (no pun intended). However, as an honest person who lives in New York City, watching this deal go down while the Republicans and Democrats have a cosmic pissing match upstate, it is hard not to see New York State as a gigantic toilet where rich developers get what they want and normal folks get it up the ass.
There’s no hesitation in raising fares on subway riders, and there’s no hesitation in allowing Ratner out of the deal he made with the MTA but can no longer afford. They are a match made in heaven. The MTA should be dissolved and Ratner should throw in the towel on this ill advised attempt to stuff his no good basketball team into a Kentucky Fried Chicken Box style arena in the middle of Brooklyn.
How do you look at this deal and say the fix is not in?
Posted by eric at 6:06 PM
DDDB PRESS RELEASE: Empire State Development Corporation Continues Atlantic Yards Charade
Decision Makes Agency Vulnerable to Litigation
New York, New York – Today the unelected members of the Empire State Development Corporation board voted with a straight face to adopt a Modified General Project Plan (GPP) for Bruce Ratner’s failed Atlantic Yards development proposal in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn.
The adoption of the plan triggers a sixty-day comment period and a public hearing, followed by an ESDC board vote likely to come in the Fall.
During the public board meeting none of the board members asked a single question once the summary of the Modified Project Plan was introduced. None asked if the “affordable” housing could be funded, if there was a cost-benefit analysis. Especially noteworthy was the complete absence of any renderings of the proposed arena or any of the 16 skyscrapers Forest City Ratner insists it will build. None of the board members asked to see what the project looks like.
ESDC claims the project has not changed substantially and that it will be built in ten years as originally planned. But in April the outgoing head of the ESDC Marisa Lago stated publicly the project would take decades to construct.
“The ESDC engaged itself in a charade today that the project it approved in 2006 would still be built. It won’t be. What is planned now, in the middle of a housing crisis, is an $800 million arena that will be a money loser for New York City and sit empty most of the time, one skyscraper and a handful of ‘affordable’ housing units, while the rest of the site stagnates under Ratner’s land speculation,” said Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn spokesman Daniel Goldstein.
Posted by eric at 5:33 PM
ESDC will announce a ten-year buildout for Atlantic Yards, but MTA deadlines make that timetable very dubious
Atlantic Yards Report
While the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC), at its board meeting today, will announce that Atlantic Yards still would take ten years to build--thus avoiding a Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement and delay in project approval--the revised deal for the Vanderbilt Yard revealed yesterday puts that timetable in significant doubt.
Notably, Forest City Ratner would have until September 1, 2016 to build a new permanent railyard. That would leave a little more than three years--until the later part of 2019--to finish the project.
However, the construction schedule approved as part of the Final Environmental Impact Statement projected that, to complete the project, it would take six years and eight months to build new platforms and then towers on them after the railyard had been built.
NoLandGrab: Bruce Ratner and the Empire State Developerment Corporation is planning on lying? We're shocked, SHOCKED!.
Though this week's events are a farce, it is disheartening that Ratner knows that the courts don't take into account whether or not NY State and the developer are telling the truth.
Posted by lumi at 6:43 AM
DDDB, Latest News: Kabuki, Mockery and Malarkey
And Now for Season Six Act Two of the Atlantic Yards Kabuki
Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn calls it "kabuki," but it may be more like the theater of the absurd — today developer Bruce Ratner's new plan is to be annointec by the ESDC:
Today, June 23. 9am
Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) Board Meeting
at ESDC offices, 37th Floor, 633 Third Avenue (40-41) in Manhattan.The ESDC Board is expected to present and adopt a modified General Project Plan for Atlantic Yards, triggering a 60-day comment period.
Members of the public who wish to attend the meeting are instructed to RSVP to (212) 803-3760.
(If you get a voicemail, leave your name and phone number and that you will attend the board meeting.)
MTA's New Deal Ratner Makes Mockery of MTA's Fiduciary Duties
[T]his is the key moment from today's Finance Committee "deliberations"...:
Board member Doreen Frasca asked why the committee and board were being given less than 48 hours to review the deal and called it "pretty outrageous."
"It relates to Forest City Ratner's desire" to market the tax-exempt bonds, [MTA Chief Financial Officer Gary] Dellaverson said of the approval process. "That's the primary driver of the timing."
Get that? The Metropolitan TRANSPORTATION Authority is rushing a bailout for Forest City Ratner not because of some urgent transit need or urgent need for revenue but, rather, out of concern for Forest City Ratner's ability to issue bonds.
Ratner said in a statement Monday, "While the world has changed significantly since Atlantic Yards won public approval in December 2006, and we are trying to adapt to those changes, the project and the project benefits, including the arena, the jobs and the affordable housing will remain the same."
The world has changed, but everything remains the same? What malarkey. Bruce, you're a land speculator not a magician.
Posted by lumi at 5:03 AM
June 22, 2009
Why an economic downturn should have been factored into AY plans
Atlantic Yards Report
I've pointed out that Forest City Ratner started renegotiating the deal before the economic downturn, and Michael D.D. White follows up in his Noticing New York blog:
One can try to blame the proposed Forest City Ratner’s bail out on the economic downturn in the economy but that is not how it actually works.To quote former ESDC head Marisa Lago... it would be a multi-decade project of perhaps 30 or even 40 years duration... That means that the mega-development could never have been done in a single real estate cycle so encountering the “downturn” was virtually inevitable.
NoLandGrab: And blaming opponents of the Atlantic Yards project for the project's myriad problems would be like victims of Bernie Madoff's pyramid scheme blaming investigators for exposing it.
Posted by eric at 12:14 PM
ESDC claims AY will take just ten years (though Phase 2 and new railyard fuzzy); Brennan, Montgomery express dismay
Atlantic Yards Report
Despite Empire State Development Corporation CEO Marisa Lago’s candid acknowledgment in April that Atlantic Yards would take “decades,” the revised Modified General Project Plan (GPP) to be released by the ESDC Tuesday will assert that the project would take just ten years, the timteable in previous construction documents, even though there’s no contractual requirement to meet the timetable.
Lago, who has resigned but hasn’t yet left her post, vigorously defended the plan at a briefing for local elected officials, held Friday at ESDC offices in Manhattan. ESDC officials asserted that project was essentially the same--thus not triggering a new environmental impact statement (EIS) or vote by the Public Authorities Control Board (PACB).
Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn has said it would sue regarding these issues.
Assemblyman Jim Brennan and state Senator Velmanette Montgomery, in interviews yesterday, both expressed dismay about the ESDC’s plans. Brennan said he didn’t find the timetable credible--”I think the project will limp along piecemeal”--and noted that some three-quarters of the project is “still subject to market conditions and further financing requirements.”
Brennan asserted that, given the Independent Budget Office’s estimate that the arena would be a money-loser for the city, the arena shouldn’t be built. (The arena’s Forest City Ratner’s priority, however, given losses in New Jersey and the potential for new revenues.)
Montgomery said she felt “very frustrated that the ESDC does not consider itself representing the people of this city and state” but rather serves as “an arm of the developer.”
NoLandGrab: With all the dysfunction in Albany, is it possible Forest City Ratner is actually running New York State's government? The idea seems farfetched, yet when one reads things like this, one has to wonder.
Posted by eric at 7:26 AM
DDDB breaks down the "bait and switch"; New York magazine critic seems to agree
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Atlantic Yards Report reviews Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn's latest flier covering the mother of all bait and switches. [article]
Click image to enlarge.
Posted by lumi at 6:29 AM
June 21, 2009
Atlantic Yards won't be derailed
Crains
By Theresa Agovino
The proposed Atlantic Yards project, and its promised public benefits, have continued to shrink over the years. This assessment continues to inisist on the inevitability of the project.
Forest City Ratner's long-delayed, dramatically altered Atlantic Yards project faces two key votes this week on its latest changes. Critics say the modifications will dilute—or erase—the plan's pledged public benefits.
On Tuesday, the Empire State Development Corp. board is expected to weigh in on a timetable that would put the completion date for the $4 billion, 22-acre project far past the original 2014 target. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority will probably vote the next day on a proposal allowing Forest City to delay delivery of a $100 million lump-sum payment to the MTA for development rights, and possibly reduce the payment amount.
Despite fierce opposition to the shrinking project, bets are running heavily in favor of state officials' reaching the necessary compromises to push it along. Far too much time and money has been invested, officials say. It's also unlikely that another developer could be found to take over in this economic climate.
...
The reality is that a host of lawsuits and the recession have forced so many delays and design changes that, at this point, Atlantic Yards disappoints everybody, perhaps even Forest City—which declined to comment for this story.
“Is this still the best deal for the people?” asks state Sen. Bill Perkins, D-Manhattan, who chairs the committee overseeing the MTA. “It's a deal being done behind closed doors, and at the rate it is changing, it doesn't seem to deliver on the promises.”
Mr. Perkins has written Ms. Williams demanding to know why the MTA is renegotiating with Forest City and whether the agency has considered that the “alleged public benefits have since substantially diminished or vanished altogether.” Seven elected officials have asked that this week's vote be postponed to allow for public hearings.
...
When plans for Atlantic Yards were announced in 2003, Forest City boasted that stararchitect Frank Gehry was the master planner and designer of the development's showpiece: an arena for the Nets basketball team, which the company owns. But by last year, the cost of his arena had hit nearly $1 billion, and Mr. Gehry was officially ousted from the project earlier this month. Though not everyone was enamored of his striking design, the initial renderings by his successor, architectural firm Ellerbe Becket, have been likened to an airport hangar.
...
Foes point out that the Independent Budget Office, which monitors the city's finances, said last month that it no longer believed the arena would generate the $25 million net positive benefit over 30 years that the group had forecast. The benefit was wiped out by the city's doubling its contribution to the project to $205 million—a figure officials dispute.
...
Affordable housing, which many in the community saw as a key sweetener, is also on hold. Three residential buildings were supposed to be up by 2010 offering as many as 633 units of low-, moderate- and middle-income housing. Construction on one of the buildings is slated to start later this year, and a second at an undetermined time after. The total number of units in each is not available.
“This was a classic bait-and-switch,” says Councilwoman Letitia James, a Brooklyn Democrat. “They [Forest City] made promises so they could get their arena.”
NoLandGrab: If the proposed arena is going to be a money-loser for the City, and the highly-touted affordable housing is pushed into a an ever-receding future, and there can be no jobs created without office towers, maybe those officials who say "far too much time and money has been invested" could instead realize that there's no public gain to be had from this money pit.
Posted by steve at 6:28 AM
June 19, 2009
What could $20 million buy? Well, not even two small Alphabet City sites
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder continues his effort to provide the MTA with "comps" for the pricing of the Vanderbilt Yard. Who wants to bet they're not paying attention?
From the Spring 2009 Massey Knakal Sales Journal, covering the second half of 2008:
644 East 14th Street
sold : $12.3 milion
Neighborhood: Alphabet City
Type: Conversion Site
Lot Size: 115’ x 88’
Buildable Square Feet: 68,262The segment of the Vanderbilt Yard at issue is 495' x 200', or 99,000 square feet, nearly 10 times larger than the Alphabet City site, which is 10,120 square feet. If you multiply the Alphabet City price by 10, it comes out to more than $120 million.
Posted by eric at 9:00 AM
Keep your eye on the ball: FCR began renegotiating this deal well before the economic downturn
Atlantic Yards Report
As we approach key meetings next week, expect the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, (MTA), the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) and and Forest City Ratner (FCR) to say the deal for the Vanderbilt Yard and the Modified General Project Plan for Atlantic Yards as a whole must be renegotiated because of the economic downturn.
But the economy crashed last September.
The State Funding Agreement and City Funding Agreement, which provided no schedule for Phase 2 (which would contain all the open space and a large majority of the affordable housing) and allowed FCR to build a much smaller project without penalty, were signed in September 2007.
And it was April 2008 when Chuck Ratner, CEO of parent Forest City Enterprises, said "we still need more" subsidies.
Posted by eric at 8:56 AM
June 18, 2009
The Brooklyn Paper mailbag
The Brooklyn Paper, Letters
Two letters this week address the last week's kooky pro-Conseco Fieldhouse, um, new Barclays Center editorial.
Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn's Daniel Goldstein weighs in first.
To the editor,
Ralph Waldo Emerson railed against “foolish consistency.” Surely he had even less respect for foolish inconsistency. A newspaper’s editorial opinion means nothing if it is inconsistent. In last week’s editorial (“Just do it,” June 11), The Brooklyn Paper seems to be priding itself on some imagined consistency when it advocates for a taxpayer-funded arena on top of private property, city streets and the Vanderbilt Rail Yards — part of the proposed Atlantic Yards project — even more vehemently now that starchitect Frank Gehry has been dropped from the whole project.
But The Paper is downright defensive in its claims of consistency. That defensiveness is understandable because there is nothing consistent in the Paper’s opinion. In March, 2008, it editorialized: “The state must take back the development rights over the rail yards and put them out for bid. Doing so would not only cleanse state officials of the Original Sin of Atlantic Yards (namely selling Ratner the air rights for $100 million less than their appraised value), but it would also set right Bruce Ratner’s very wrong project.” So, while the Paper may now claim it has always wanted this arena, it hasn’t; it has never actually supported Ratner’s plan and never supported eminent domain or public subsidies upon which the arena and the rest of the project are dependent.
Did “Bruce Ratner’s very wrong project” suddenly become very right because the developer dumped the architect whose reputation he levered for project approval?
[Warning: The following letter to the editor is rated NC-17.]
To the editor,
Just do it???????
Are you f—ing kidding me?
On the front page of our newspaper????
You f—ing traitor!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Just build a f—ing shack so Ratner can make money??????? What the f–????
Do you have any principles??? Do you have any balls at all????
“Just do it”???? I’ll just stop reading the only paper that told the truth!!!
Holy f–!! I’m disgusted!!!!!!!
Shame on you!!!!!!!
Shame on you!!!!!!!!
Robert Frumkin, Prospect Heights
Posted by eric at 5:25 PM
June 17, 2009
What happened to the two "central" and "critical" towers closest to the transit hub? Never mind
Atlantic Yards Report
MISSING: "Miss Brooklyn," the "Urban Room," and Tower at "Site V"...
The demise of Frank Gehry's arena block design, and the realignment of the planned arena from a diagonal to a north-south placement casts significant doubt on the future of Building 1 (aka Miss Brooklyn), the office tower (with attached Urban Room, now missing from renderings, below) once destined for the western wedge between Atlantic and Flatbush avenues, as well as the tower at the western point of the footprint, Site 5.
They once were "central" and "critical" to the project and thus, presumably, to the Empire State Development Corporation's (ESDC) approval, so we'll have to see what emerges when the ESDC releases a revision of the Modified General Project Plan (GPP) at its meeting June 23.
Forest City Ratner and the ESDC should be asked about the fate of both Building 1 and the tower at Site 5, the site now occupied by P.C. Richard and Modell's, bounded by Pacific Street and Flatbush, Atlantic, and Fourth avenues. Neither appear in the latest renderings of the arena block.
Posted by lumi at 5:11 AM
June 16, 2009
It came from the Blogosphere...
Curbed LA, Sold! Forest City Unloads Mercury Units To Investors
A press release just issued from real estate development [sic] Kennedy Wilson notes that their firm has purchased the remaining 149 units in The Mercury, that 23-tower condo project developed by Forest City Residential West. The project, which has a total of 238 units, opened in 2007.
...Senior Managing Director Stuart Cramer stated that the condominiums will be priced from the low $200,000’s to the high $700,000’s." Just a few weeks ago, the project was advertising prices starting in the mid-$300s.
UPDATE: According to a spokesperson for Kennedy Wilson, 89 units sold in the Mercury previous to their purchase of the building. So that's 89 units sold over about two years.
NoLandGrab: It's a safe bet that Kennedy Wilson didn't buy all those units to take a loss, and if they've dropped the prices by a third from what Forest City was trying to sell them for, it's also a safe bet that Bruce Ratner's parent company took a hefty loss on this project.
The Provocateur, Ratner and ACORN: Alinsky Would be Proud
More on the strange tale of Brooklyn's odd couple, Bruce Ratner and Bertha Lewis.
In other words, the accumulation of power is far more important that being true to your ideology. Saul Alinsky is the philosophical and strategic god father to groups like ACORN. Keep those thoughts in mind as I unravel this story.
...So, the same person who only years earlier had turned ACORN from an adversary to an ally was now giving a life line to the same group. The story doesn't end there. It turns out that the date on the loan was September 4th, 2008. In other words, Lewis had already signed onto the loan on behalf of ACORN before she even presented the deal to the board. Then, Lewis orchestrated a sham vote in favor of the same deal she had already put into motion. of course, before most of this could be properly investigated internally, most of those that protested were removed and are now members of ACORN 8.
Meanwhile, Ratner, for $2 million, some marketing expenses, and about a thousand underpriced units, was able to get the most effective grassroots group to organize in his favor rather than against him. ACORN, on the other hand, had just gained a long term powerful ally.
Brownstoner, Nets Poised to Cash In on Brooklyn, the Brand?
Newsday checks in on why the Atlantic Yards arena, no matter what it looks like, would be such a boon for the Nets in terms of revenue.
Nets Daily, Critics File “Last, Best Chance” Appeal
Critics of plans for the Nets’ Brooklyn arena have appealed a lower court ruling upholding the state’s right to condemn land for the arena. New York Law Journal called the appeal the critics’ “last, best chance”. The Court of Appeals doesn’t have to take the case. If it does, oral arguments wouldn’t take place for months, perhaps beyond a Dec. 31 deadline for ground breaking, threatening the project.
TimesUnion.com, Looking Back
Technically not from the blogosphere, but hey.
On this date in...
1984: Troy Industrial Development Authority laid down a tax-exempt red carpet for Forest City Enterprises, the Cleveland-based company ready to buy Uncle Sam Atrium.
NLG: The more things change...
Posted by eric at 3:00 PM
June 15, 2009
Atlantic Yards YES! New York City's sales-tax payers, NO!!
While Bruce Ratner will reap millions in savings because the Empire State Development Corporation has exempted all Atlantic Yards arena construction materials from sales taxes, the New York City Council has just endorsed a sales tax increase for the rest of the city's taxpayers.
City Room, City Council Endorses Sales Tax Increase
By a 37 to 10 vote, the New York City Council on Monday called on the State Legislature to raise the city’s share of the sales tax to 4.5 percent from 4 percent, a move that is expected to raise $518 million in the fiscal year that starts next month and help alleviate some of the city’s mounting fiscal pressures.
If Albany goes along with the proposal, which Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has described as essential, the sales tax in the five boroughs would rise to 8.875 percent from 8.375 percent. (The state’s sales tax is 4 percent, and the city, as part of the area served by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, pays a Metropolitan Commuter Transportation District surcharge of 0.375 percent.)
NoLandGrab: One of the causes of the "city’s mounting fiscal pressures" is the massive giveaway, in cash and tax breaks, to Bruce C. Ratner's Atlantic Yards project, which, you can be sure, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg considers "essential."
Posted by eric at 10:14 PM
A Puerto Rican In Brooklyn & The Clyde of Watchdog Bloggers
Who Walk In Brooklyn
Brooklyn native, octogenarian blogger and Walt "Clyde" Frazier fan Cal Dolowicz compares Norman Oder to the Hall of Fame Knicks' guard.
...thankfully, Norm isn’t taking “nobody cares” for an answer and here breaks down the defense of the Brooklyn Paper’s bought-and-paid for petit editorialist a hell of a lot better than any fucking Nets point guard ever will. Norman Oder: swishing and dishing!
NoLandGrab: We know Norman Oder pretty well, and we have to admit, we've never thought of him as "The Clyde of Watchdog Bloggers." The Big "O", maybe. The Mad "O"? Definitely.
Posted by eric at 9:29 PM
Daughtry slams Yards critics
Courier-Life Publications
By Stephen Witt
The Reverend Herbert Daughtry takes aim at project critics by sidestepping some of the most serious issues, in an interview with project sympathizer and reporter Stephen Witt.
“I think they [Sen. Velmanette Montgomery and City Council member Letitia James] have been captured by a tiny minority that are bent on destroying the project,” said Daughtry.
NoLandGrab: It's worth pointing out that the State Senator and City Councilmember are free to take whatever stand they wish, while Daughtry has struck a deal with Atlantic Yards developer Bruce Ratner and must publicly stump for the project.
Here's the best hey-lookie-over-there moment of the article:
When questioned about how Atlantic Yard (sic) blogger Norman Oder, who many media outlets utilize for information without checking his facts, continually writes how CBA signatories have taken money from FCR, Daughtry said his CBA strategy comes from working directly with Martin Luther King.
“Was Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. a sell−out? If he was a sell−out, then I’m a sell out,” said Daughtry, explaining how he headed King’s Operation Breadbasket initiative in New York City.
Atlantic Yards Report, Sloppy and irresponsible, the Courier-Life’s Witt gives the Rev. Daughtry a platform to soliloquize without rebuttal
Norman Oder is such an obvious sore spot with Bruce Ratner and supporters, that Stephen Witt can't help but to grumble about other media outlets' reliance on his track record of solid reportage on Atlantic Yards.
Today, Oder, who has studied the published works of Daughtry, explores Witt's own track record and publishes a line-by-line rebuttal of the article, citing facts, quoting officials, and (gasp!) linking to primary source documents.
...the Courier-Life’s notorious Stephen Witt irresponsibly chose to give an unskeptical platform to the Rev. Herbert Daughtry (at right, heckling), a project supporter and the most disruptive person at the event.
The article is wrongheaded and unfair, so I'll go through it line by line.
Posted by lumi at 6:24 AM
June 14, 2009
Two On A Sunday Morning From The Atlantic Yards Report
Atlantic Yards Report
An AY thread in the election for Community Board 8 Chairperson
Though not explicitly an issue, the race for CB 8 Chairperson featured a choice between a supporter and a skeptic of the proposed Atlantic Yards project.
It can’t be said that the election Thursday for Community Board 8 Chairperson, in which First Vice-Chairperson Nizjoni Granville was elected handily over Second Vice-Chairperson Marlene Saunders, was about Atlantic Yards.
After all, Granville ranked higher on the board, was publicly endorsed by the retiring chairperson, Robert Matthews, and, according to attendees at the hearing, gave a better speech.
But Atlantic Yards, though not an explicit theme in the contest, was a thread, with Saunders known as an AY supporter and Granville as something of a skeptic, if not an opponent.
...
Saunders is a board member of BUILD (Brooklyn United for Innovative Local Development), a signatory of the AY Community Benefits Agreement (CBA), which brought over 150 people to support the project to the May 29 state Senate oversight hearing.
...
Granville, in her brief remarks, said it was important to be careful about alliances with developers, and said it was important to listen to the people most affected by development, citing the example of Atlantic Yards.
Her biographical note mentioned her contribution to CB 8's response to the AY Draft Environmental Impact Statement; as chair of the Housing/ULURP Committee, she raised questions in her brief submission about the accuracy of some neighborhood information.
Lupica: new AY arena design looks "like a White Castle"
Jumping on the bandwagon of architectural criticism, Daily News sports columnist Mike Lupica today opines:
Is it just me, or is the design for Bruce Ratner’s new Nets arena starting to look more and more like a White Castle?I'd say it looks like Conseco Fieldhouse and its inspiration, Hinkle Fieldhouse at Butler University, both in Indianapolis.
Posted by steve at 9:48 AM
June 13, 2009
Catching a Ratner - Post Gehry, Atlantic Yards opponents plot their next moves
The Architect's Newspaper
By Matt Chaban
Here is coverage of a public meeting last Tuesday, June 9th, sponsored by Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn that reviews possible strategies to be used in the coming months to stop the proposed Atlantic Yards project.
While the news that Frank Gehry is officially off Forest City Ratner’s Atlantic Yards project may not come as a surprise, it has certainly stirred up new feelings for the project, most of them negative. Whether or not the departure of the famed Santa Monica architect will have any political impact remains to be seen. But at a public meeting held last night by anti-Yards group Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn, the “bait-and-switch” was mentioned, but also pushed aside as a tactic in what the group sees as the final, crucial fight for the site through the end of the year.
Instead, the activists, politicians, and attorneys who spoke focused squarely on the same battlefield that has carried them throughout the process: The courts.
Factors that will influence DDDB's strategy include:
- A deadline for developer Forest City to issue tax-exempt bonds before the end of this year.
- Meetings of the MTA board and the ESDC as they consider accepting changes to the project.
- A possible requirement of the ESDC to perform a supplemental environmental impact review and convene a public hearing.
- A need for the Public Authorities Control Board (PACB) (a.k.a. "Three Men in a Room") to reconsider approval for the project.
Depending on what the State does, further litigation could be brought by DDDB.
The article ends with Daniel Goldstein, DDDB spokesman, advising all concerned to stay vigilant and active.
“As you saw in today’s Times, architecture critic Nicolai Ouroussoff wrote that the departure of Frank Gehry was a betrayal of the public trust,” Goldstein told the audience of about 100 at the Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church. “It is, but this project from the beginning was a betrayal of the public trust, the way it was conceived, the way it proceeded. It’s all been one big bait-and-switch.”
“We don’t know, but we suspect this may be make or break time for this developer,” he continued. “We’ve held them at bay for this long, so it would be a real shame to hold back in the next few months.”
Posted by steve at 10:21 AM
June 12, 2009
"What's Going On Here?"
Atlantic Yards developer finds another great use for duct tape!
Photographer Tracy Collins snapped some shots of this sign in the footprint of Atlantic Yards that has not only been cleverly redacted, but is also in need of some editing, since we highly doubt that the infrastructure work on the site will actually "be completed by June 2009."
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Atlantic Yards Report, "What's Going on Here?" Well, no answers from FCR on Sixth Avenue
Norman Oder explains that developer Bruce Ratner is no longer staffing the "Community Liaison Office," thus "transparency has decreased."
Though former Ratner PR flack Loren Riegelhaupt is no longer around to remind us, this is what he probably meant when he said:
"When it comes to sharing information with the public and governmental bodies, there’s no such thing as too much, as far as we are concerned."
Posted by lumi at 5:44 AM
June 11, 2009
It came from the Blogosphere...
Gothamist, No More Frank Gehry At Atlantic Yards At All
According to the Times, DePlasco also "conceded that the announcement issued last week 'should’ve been clearer.' But, he added, Mr. Gehry’s master plan for the development and his guidelines remain in place." Whatever!
...Flashback to the February 2, 2004 issue of the New Yorker, where in a Talk of the Town piece by Ben McGrath, FieldofSchemes.com's Neil deMause predicted, "I’d guess it’s probably fifty-fifty the arena gets built entirely...I wouldn’t be shocked if five years from now we’re still arguing the logistics."
Brownstoner, Ratner Cans Gehry For Good
Yesterday Forest City Ratner made official what everybody already knew: Architect Frank Gehry, his name having been prostituted to sell a sham project to the public, will have nothing to do with the design of any of the buildings in the Atlantic Yards footprint.
...But don't cry any tears for Gehry: The Times reports that he's already been paid "tens of millions of dollars" for his work up to this point.
Brownstoner, Quote of the Day
The final dots that need to be connected are left unconnected by Ourossoff. Bait-and-switchers don't just bait-and-switch once, it is a pattern. And if Ratner's Gehry bait-and-switch is stunning, so is the bait-and-switch on "affordable" housing, "publicly accessible open space," job creation, commercial space, reneging on a contract with the MTA, and changing the project timeline from 10 years to, unofficially "decades" and officially 6 years to build just the arena according to state financing documents. Atlantic Yards itself is a monument to bait-and-switch.
— by DDDB in Ratner Cans Gehry For Good
The Back Page [NY Post blog], No Brooklyn, no LeBron for Nets
Less than a month ago, Ratner told The Post that groundbreaking would take place in September and the Nets could play in Brooklyn by the 2011-12 season.
Now, the timetable for the project's completion is 24-29 months, down from the 30 months predicted for the Gehry project. So the Nets would be in a new Brooklyn arena for the start of the 2012-13 season.
Daily Intel, Frank Gehry Completely Out at Atlantic Yards
According to the Times, even supporters of the project are turning sour on it.
The Architect's Newspaper Blog, Gehry Officially Gone
While this is unsurprising news, it highlights just how challenging the project will be going forward, from the prospective of design, and also reaffirms a frequent criticism of Ratner’s project, that the developer has no interest in building anything but the arena.
Who Walk In Brooklyn, Bonus!
Atlantic Yards Report notes a certain type of alchemy, or as Caz Dolowicz might put it, how the New Jersey Nets turn bullshit into bigger bullshit (with apologies to all Bovine-Americans...)
Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn, Gov. Paterson Is Worried About the Lobbyists
As you probably know there is a big mess going on up in Albany right now. What did Governor Paterson say to persuade Senate lawmakers to open the chamber doors and get to work? The Times reports:
The governor also made one of the more unusual pleas for sanity, imploring lawmakers to “think of the lobbyists,” explaining that they had worked hard “to persuade legislative leaders and legislators of issues.”
Is this a serious comment? Though he is known for his sense of humor, he wasn't joking.
So this Governor, who is about to let the money-hungry MTA bail out Bruce Ratner and give him a sweeter sweatheart deal for the 8-acre Vanderbilt Rail Yards, is more interested in the welfare of lobbyist types who have been pushing deals, such as this one with Bruce Ratner, than the taxpayers and transit riders who will lose out if he lets his MTA rubberstamp Ratner's New Deal.
Plan NYC, Many Locals Upset About Design Changes at Atlantic Yards
Posted by eric at 5:27 PM
It Came from the Twittesphere (Twittesphere?)
Susan Dybbs
"If you agree to buy a Mac you should not end up with a commodore 64"
architect's response to the bait and switch of Atlantic Yards design
Posted by eric at 12:02 PM
A box to put your dreams in
SeanElder.com
The Brooklyn writer/editor/blogger offers a rebuke to the "cultural missionaries" who swallowed Bruce Ratner's Gehry-bait hook, line and sinker.
I was at a benefit for the the Brooklyn Museum not long ago, seated between a couple of well-heeled benefactors — both, notably, from the Upper East Side — when the subject came up.
One of them mentioned how much she loved Jhumpa Lahiri’s last book. I mentioned that Lahiri (or “Jhumpa” as I like to call her) had done a reading at my house to benefit Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn, a neighborhood association that opposes the AY project. The silence that followed was deafening, or would have been if you could hear silence in the museum’s cavernous ballroom. “We’re all for not destroying Brooklyn,” one of them finally said, “but we also care about The Future.”
She pronounced it with caps like that, and I don’t think she was talking about the Leonard Cohen song either. She meant a big behemoth, representing progress, that cultural missionaries have always brought to simple primitives like us. The fact that the wheels are coming off Gehry’s glimmering gift gives me qualified pleasure (though it ain’t dead yet, kids! Get involved!). I guess we’ll just have to make do with the blossoming food and music scenes here, the non-stop party that is Fulton Street, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, the countless artists, musicians and writers who have chosen to make this area their home. Somehow we’ll make do.
Posted by eric at 11:37 AM
The BQA: Daniel Goldstein
Brooklyn Based
The excellent best-of-Brooklyn "bleemail" (blog and email) publisher interviews Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn's Daniel Goldstein.
We've excerpted a couple highlights, but it's well worth clicking through.
One thing few people know about you:
I like pro sports a lot.What else do you want to be or do?
I also want to be a painter, author and political operative with a direct line to Governor Paterson’s ear to explain that the populist position on Atlantic Yards would be to scrap the project.
...Your dream place to live in Brooklyn:
Well, I was living in my dream place until Forest City Ratner asked Governor Pataki to take it from me, forcing me to fight for years to stay in it. Brooklyn has so many great neighborhoods it is really impossible to choose. So I’ll stick with where I live, Prospect Heights, and keep working to keep it from becoming that mega-schlock known as Atlantic Yards.
Posted by eric at 9:25 AM
New York and Los Angeles Mayors Engage in Crisis PR for ACORN
Hot Air Green Room
by Anita MonCrief
"The world’s first full-service conservative Internet broadcast network" posts a commentary by the ACORN whistleblower.
After weeks of getting hammered in the press, the article is the sort of feel good puff piece that ACORN proudly splashes on its website. The only problem is that the two mayors mentioned by name happen to be Bloomberg and Villaraigosa. We will come back to Villaraigosa in a minute, but Mayor Bloomberg’s storied history with ACORN deserves a moment’s attention.
Bloomberg’s relationship with ACORN spans a number of years and goes back to when Bertha Lewis, ACORN’s CEO and Chief Organizer, was the Executive Director of the New York ACORN. Though Lewis and Bloomberg have engaged in the occasional street theater, they have managed to push through lucrative deals including the highly controversial Atlantic Yards project. A deal so financially lucrative to ACORN that it earned Bloomberg a kiss on the lips.
Speaking of Bloomberg, his mayoral re-election campaign has so much money to burn that it served up his ad at the top of the story page — a story critical of Bloomberg. Now that's synergy!
Posted by eric at 9:00 AM
Brooklyn Daily Eagle lays blame on "The Spoilers" and "carpers and cranks"
Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Missing Real Culprit in Arena Debacle
Ignoring the fact that developer Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards plan was never viable to begin with (hence, Ratner's demand for even more public subsidies) and his track record of banal architecture, Senior Editor Dennis Holt blames Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn for "ordinary things."
Brooklyn Daily Eagle, The Spoilers
Henrik Krogius passes over Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn and lays blame on everyone else who by "going beyond the concern with their local interests they fail to appreciate what may be good for a greater Brooklyn outside the confines of their home precincts" and "have been unable to grasp the huge potential of Atlantic Yards."
The first-tier group would not have had their “success” were it not for a kind of reflex anti-development sentiment infecting the various brownstone neighborhoods surrounding downtown. The Cobble Hill Association, for instance, even though its neighborhood is considerable distance away from Atlantic Yards, lent encouragement to the opposition. Cobble Hill and Community Board 6 have on the whole taken a carping view toward new development, in some cases justified but in others verging on plain obstructionism. The Brooklyn Heights Association, still farther removed from the site, took a negatively-tinged wait-and-see stance on Atlantic Yards. What is so disappointing is that so many Brooklynites jumped immediately to a hostile view of the project rather than seeing it for the brilliant proposal it was. Some sensational local papers abetted the hostility. The literary and intellectual set, which might have been expected to respond to so imaginative and idea, tended instead to retreat to a sentimental preservationism (preservation of what?!), as manifested by such as the author Jonathan Lethem and the children’s performer Dan Zanes. There was even a purported “documentary” film created to fight the project.
Atlantic Yards Report, OK, we get it: It's all BrooklynSpeaks's fault (and other Brooklyn Eagle misreadings)
Norman Oder actually takes time to parse through and analyze Krogius's screed.
Posted by lumi at 5:20 AM
June 10, 2009
At DDDB update on AY, talk of changed public opinion, potential strategies, and a crucial next six months
Atlantic Yards Report
Like a modern-day version of You Are There, Norman Oder recreates yesterday's DDDB-hosted Atlantic Yards update meeting, for those of us who weren't.
The tide may not have turned regarding Atlantic Yards, which has been officially approved and likely heads for new approvals, but public opinion is shifting, with the widespread disapproval of new designs for the arena.
Yesterday New York Times architecture critic Nicolai Ouroussoff called it a “"stunning bait-and-switch" and a "shameful betrayal of the public trust" and today the New York Daily News quotes general disdain from locals.
So last night was an opportune time for Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn to hold a long-scheduled community update on the project, drawing some 130 people to the Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church in Fort Greene.
I saw a good number of unfamiliar faces, and there was a distinct energy in the crowd; they enthusiastically applauded speakers and gave City Council Member Letitia James a partial standing ovation.
The project, as a DDDB handout (below) explained, is neither a dead deal nor a done deal, and the next six months will be crucial, as project backers pursue revised approvals. They hope to get the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to accept a new deal for the Vanderbilt Yard--perhaps $20 million down, instead of $100 million--and get the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) to issue a revised Modified General Project Plan (GPP).
Here's more coverage of the meeting, in pictures, from photographer Tracy Collins: 2009 DDDB Atlantic Yards Community Meeting
Posted by eric at 1:48 PM
Checkin’ in with…Robert Scarano, Brooklyn’s ‘bad boy’ architect
The Brooklyn Paper
by Mike McLaughlin
Brooklyn's least-beloved architect weighs in on the Brooklyn architect who never was.
MM: ...So what do you think of Frank Gehry’s dismissal from Atlantic Yards and the Kansas City firm Ellerbe Becket, the architect replacing him?
RS: Why can’t we get a guy from New York to do it? Gehry’s designs, as magnificent as they are, are not for the faint of heart. They’re only for those with an unlimited budget. When they’re wildly overpriced to begin with, the real drama comes later when there are 80 percent cost escalations. [Forest City Ratner] brought him in to be the main star guy and he had a shelf life, as did Daniel Liebeskind at the World Trade Center. When that shelf life was up, they let him go.
Click through for Mr. Scarano's appraisal of the Conseco Fieldhouse, um, new Barclays Center, and his fear of Fourth Avenue redux.
Posted by eric at 1:39 PM
Project renderings: A look back
Atlantic Yards Report has two posts, looking back at previous renderings of the Atlantic Yards project and the much touted Barclays Center arena.
AY Image Galleries: 2006, 2008, 2009
Norman Oder posted screen caps from previous versions of the "Image Gallery" on www.atlanticyards.com.
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The Barclays Center web site has subtracted Gehry, the "Visionary"
The Barclays Center web site, unlike the official Atlantic Yards site, has expunged Frank Gehry. The only solution is to present the arena, for now at least, as a set of interiors.
Posted by lumi at 6:09 AM
June 9, 2009
Frank Gehry Out of Rest of Yards Too
WNYC Radio
More bait-and-and switch from the folks who brought you the Conseco Fieldhouse, um, new Barclays Center.
Just two years ago, developer Forest City Ratner was insisting Gehry would design each and every one of the 16 towers that surrounded the arena. Gehry had dubbed one of them Miss Brooklyn. But two sources close to the project say now the developer is not planning to use Gehry any more, citing costs, the architect's lack of interest and the complications of meshing different architectural styles in a small space. A spokesman for Forest City Ratner said Gehry is still "involved" in the project but did not answer specific questions. The developer says it plans to break ground on the arena this fall, and the first residential building six months later.
NoLandGrab: Gehry is still "'involved' in the project" to the extent that Forest City Ratner (not even trying) and Barclays (giving it the old college try) have failed to scrub his presence from AtlanticYards.com and BarclaysCenter.com, respectively (yo, guys, there's a text-only version of BarclaysCenter.com — don't forget to purge that of Gehry mentions, too).
Posted by eric at 4:57 PM
June 8, 2009
Bait-n-Switch
Abby Weissman from SouthOxford.com posted the bait-and-switch with a twist.
Posted by lumi at 9:27 PM
Developing News
The Brian Lehrer Show, WNYC Radio
Real estate reporter Matthew Schuerman updates the host on the latest Atlantic Yards rigamarole. Our favorite bit came in the discussion of the departure of Empire State Development Corporation CEO Marisa Lago.
Brian Lehrer: Did her release have anything to do with this project?
Matthew Schuerman: Not that I know of. All I can say, Brian, on that, is that I saw her at the [State Senate Atlantic Yards Oversight] hearing, this was a little more than a week ago, and she was sweating bullets, in fact, she ran through a couple bottles of water there when she was on the stand, and so it may have been that the pressure got too much for her.
link (the Atlantic Yards discussion begins at about the 1:35 mark, and runs for six minutes)
NoLandGrab: "The pressure got too much?" Wonder if that was the pressure of having to listen to a bunch of morons blowing whistles, or of having to mislead the public constantly about the Atlantic Yards project.
Atlantic Yards Report, On Brian Lehrer Show, WNYC's Schuerman talks about architect shift, IBO info, and Lago's departure
Norman Oder adds some detail to the Lehrer-Schuerman conversation:
Even though the Independent Budget Office has concluded that the arena would be a money-loser for the city, in terms of new tax revenues, Mayor Mike Bloomberg still supports AY. Lehrer asked why.
Schuerman pointed out that city officials expect their own cost-benefit analysis—I think it’ll be a fiscal impact analysis, without costs—to say the project as a whole is a net positive.
I’m sure it will, but there’s a lot of reason to doubt that the city’s projections about the timing of AY. I think Bloomberg, like many elected officials, wants a ribbon-cutting.
Posted by eric at 3:34 PM
The Approval Matrix: Week of June 15, 2009
Our deliberately oversimplified guide to who falls where on our taste hierarchies.
New York Magazine
The misconduct at the May 29th State Senate oversight hearing on Atlantic Yards falls decidedly on the disapproving end of NY Mag's "Approval Matrix."
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Posted by eric at 1:08 PM
Gehry leaves Brooklyn megaproject
Good news for the architect, bad news for the neighbourhood
Toronto Globe and Mail
by Simon Houpt
Why does it take a north-of-the-border author/columnist/art critic to see through Forest City's smoke and mirrors?
So much for architecture.
Late last week, the developer of Atlantic Yards, the massive insta-neighbourhood planned for downtown Brooklyn, confirmed the rumour that had been swirling since late last year: Frank Gehry is off the project.
...Gehry should pour himself a glass of Champagne at the news: He just safeguarded his legacy.
...It's clear now that Ratner doesn't have much regard for architecture, no matter his words of praise when he first signed Gehry. His choice of replacement architects, Ellerbe Becket, has a numbing track record of uninspired sports complexes: Their other professional sports arenas include the Memphis Grizzlies' FedEx Forum and the Washington Wizards' Verizon Center, both buildings about as lacklustre as the teams inhabiting them.
With all of the changes to the master plan, New York State should be calling for a new environmental-impact review, which would cause a potentially crippling delay to the project. (Ratner needs to break ground by the end of this year in order to be able to sell tax-exempt bonds.) And will Barclays, which pledged $400-million for 20-year naming rights to the arena, really want to put its insignia on what critics are already calling a tricked-out airplane hangar?
Posted by eric at 11:35 AM
DDDB PRESS RELEASE: Assemblyman Brodsky Warns That New MTA Sweetheart Deal for Ratner Would Violate Fiduciary Duty
City Has Been Raising Land Assessments Under Proposed Ratner Arena, Raising Serious Questions
New York — Assemblyman Richard Brodksy, Chair of the Committee on Corporations, Authorities and Commissions, as reported by the Atlantic Yards Report, made the following comment on the MTA’s plans to approve a sweeter deal with developer Forest City Ratner’s Nets team during a conference titled "The Proposed Legislation to Amend the Public Authorities Law: Maintaining the Balance Between Authority Autonomy and Accountability,” held June 3rd at the Government Law Center at Albany Law School:
On the MTA…this [fiduciary duty] is going to come up very quickly, because the Nets are going to ask the MTA to take less money for the Nets arena. I believe that the decision to accept that offer would be a violation of the fiduciary duty of the board members.
The MTA has announced that it plans to propose a newly negotiated deal with Ratner for the developer’s purchase of the MTA’s 8-acre Vanderbilt Rail Yard. The original agreement was $100 million in cash at closing (the yard was appraised at $214.5 million) and a new state-state-of-the art rail yard. Reports are that Ratner wants to pay only $20 million up front, and build a rail yard on the cheap.
“The MTA has no business sweetening its sweetheart deal with Ratner, not when the authority is so needy of money for operations and capital expenses. Gifting Ratner further would be a punch in the face of transit riders and taxpayers,” said Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn spokesman Daniel Goldstein.
Talking about the misuse of PILOTS (Payments in Lieu of Taxes) the Assemblyman also made these comments:
So you go ahead and create a PILOT--a payment in lieu of taxes. And that you securitize. And that’s what the [Yankee] stadium deal and the Mets deal and the Nets deal is probably going to be. That is diversion of tax money into debt without any elected officials looking at it. That is an extraordinary kind of thing.
“We have been concerned for years that Forest City and New York City would inflate land values in the Atlantic Yards footprint in order to game IRS regulations governing tax-exempt bond financing,” Goldstein said. “Our concerns are becoming even stronger now that we see the City’s land assessments in the Barclays Center arena footprint skyrocketing in broad daylight.”
Norman Oder, also reporting on his Atlantic Yards Report, has done the numbers, after Independent Budget Office official George Sweeting stated at a Senate hearing that the land values under the arena have increased threefold in the past year alone.
In a report published this morning Oder has found some parcels that “have leaped 17 or 20 or 34 times in one year” in their re-assessments by the New York City Department of Finance. These re-assessments are eye-popping, even more so because they are all within an area designated as “blighted” by New York State’s Empire State Development Corporation.
“These re-assessments are extremely fishy and the IRS, Senator Perkins and Assemblyman Brodsky, who oversee the authorities that will deal with the arena bonding, need to take a very close look at what the heck is going on here,” Goldstein said.
Why do these skyrocketing assessments matter? Forest City plans to pay for most of its arena construction with a triple-tax exempt bond. The bond is estimated to be at least $800 million. Forest City will make PILOT (Payments in Lieu of Taxes) payments to pay off the bond and debt service. In other words they will use money otherwise meant to go to the City treasury like all other property taxes, to pay their construction costs.
The problem is that the IRS requires the PILOT to be the equivalent of the foregone taxes for the assessed land. A legitimate assessment of the land under the proposed arena would not come close to meeting the $800 million bond the developer wants to float for the arena. So, the developer and city officials appear to be working backwards—start with the $800 million PILOT it wants to pay and then fix the land assessments to meet that payment. If that is what is going on that would be a violation of IRS regulations.
“An investigation into these land assessments and the PILOTS is necessary. Now.” Goldstein concluded.
Posted by eric at 11:06 AM
In plain sight: are dramatic re-assessments on arena block a prelude to "gaming" PILOTs to pay off construction?
Atlantic Yards Report
Something is rotten in the state of land valuations in the Atlantic Yards arena footprint.
Will the city’s dubious practice regarding assessments of land for Yankee Stadium--in which the value of the site went up eight times in a single day, using dramatically different land sales as comparables--recur regarding assessments for the Atlantic Yards arena site?
Well, we don't have an assessment for the arena block as a whole, but evidence of questionable decisions by the Department of Finance (DOF) is mounting. For some properties on the block, land assessments--which are a percentage of market value, and rise with the latter--have leaped 17 or 20 or 34 times in one year. Perhaps an oversight hearing is in order.
Meanwhile, Forest City Ratner wants to lower the amount it pays upfront for another piece of the arena block, the Vanderbilt Yard, to a reported $20 million, instead of the $100 million it initially promised.
...I took a look at Department of Finance records myself, and found several questionable aspects:
- some properties have rocketed up more than 17 times market value and assessment just in the past year
- even though official market value may remain below what Forest City Ratner paid for the land--a not uncommon occurrence--the increase in value occurred only recently, several years after the land was purchased, even though city officials say that NYC assesses each property every year
- the increases include land owned by the city that has never been on the market
- while the increase in assessment might be tied to a change in classification, the leap in value sometimes occurs after the change
- the land value under several major neighboring properties--the stores at Site 5, Forest City Ratner’s two malls, 470 Vanderbilt--has remained stable for several years
- anomalies abound; the site at Flatbush and Dean street that formerly housed a Mobil station is valued at more than 50% of the land under the much larger Atlantic Center and Atlantic Terminal malls
NoLandGrab: While Oder's post is dense with numbers, we suggest you read through, because we expect we're going to be hearing a lot more about land-valuation shenanigans in the coming months.
Posted by eric at 10:53 AM
What should $20 million buy? What's the Block 1119, Lot 7--the western railyard segment--worth? (First in a series)
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder begins a multi-part look at the next big Atlantic Yards scam — the coming manipulation of land values designed to maximize the benefit to Forest City at the expense of taxpayers.
Will New York State and New York City officials aid and abet the developer, or actually serve the public interest? We know how we're going to bet.
Forest City Ratner reportedly wants to pay just $20 million to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority for the portion of the Vanderbilt Yard it needs to build the Atlantic Yards arena. It initially promised to pay $100 million for the whole railyard. This series attempts to add some context.
Let's put aside, for the moment, the bait-and-switch aspects of pledging to pay for the whole railyard, then offering to pay for it in segments. (After all, if that were preferred public policy, then parcels could have been bid out, as with the UNITY Plan.)
One strange aspect about FCR's apparent plan to pay $20 million for Block 1119, Lot 7, is that it doesn't even represent a pro rata payment.
According to city Finance Department records, the segment is approximately 495 feet x 200 feet. That 99,000 square feet represents 2.27 acres, or 26.7% of the 8.5-acre railyard. So a pro rata payment of 26.7% would be $26.7 million.
(The arena block is above. The full AY footprint Block and Lot map is here; the yellow indicates properties owned by either the MTA or the city.)
Posted by eric at 10:31 AM
June 7, 2009
Atlantic Yards Report Looks at "Brutally Weird" Criticism of Project Opponents
Atlantic Yards Report
Brutally weird: Post columnist blames "cunning, well-financed"... DDDB
A column by Steve Cuozzo was so wrong in so many ways that opponents of Atlantic Yards were likely just to dismiss it without a second thought. Norman Oder has the patience to go over each point.
New York Post columnist Steve Cuozzo is giving the Courier-Life's Stephen Witt a run for his money in brutally weird interpretations of Atlantic Yards.
In a column headlined 'NET' LOSS IS DEVASTATING: DREAM PROJECT DEAD WITHOUT GEHRY, Cuozzo laments Forest City Ratner's decision to trade architect Frank Gehry's magnificent design for the Nets arena" for a design he likens to a "Dumpster" in comparison to Gehry's Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao.
[Here's DDDB's response: NY Post real estate columnist Steve Cuozzo writes an Orwellian column, where it is Develop Don't Destroy that has been the "Orwellian-titled," "well-financed," "bullying", "liars." Not Ratner with his billionaire Cleveland backers, his orchestrated bullying disruptions of public hearings by his surrogates and partners, and his—yes we'll use the word—lying (see: Gehry, Frank, still "our lead architect").]
Cuozzo offers a conclusory lament: Reconfiguring the arena and much else on the site will require a whole new set of state and city approvals for design and financing -- a return to square one when the credit markets are frozen and government has no appetite for subsidizing developers.
There's no way to sugar-coat the calamity. There's near-zero hope for Ratner's declared plan to proceed. With apologies to "King Lear," nothing more will come of nothing.
Can't the man read? His own newspaper reported today that there will be no need to re-approve the design, just the financing. And that's expected to be rubber-stamped on June 24, starting a 60-day process.
Nor does he bother to inquire why Gehry's arena, approved in 2006 at $637.2 million, ballooned by half, and is being replaced by a pedestrian arena with an $800 million price tag. Why did costs go up?
Missing the boom?
Cuozzo sounds like he hasn't gotten outside of Manhattan much, writing: Its tall towers weren't necessarily in the same league. But the multi-use arena, beautiful and humane, was possessed of the transformative power unique to the greatest architecture. At a stroke, it would have ennobled and energized a swath of Brooklyn that the boom mostly passed by.
He should have checked this October 2006 New York Times article on Prospect Heights.
Blaming DDDB
Cuozzo writes: Great enterprise requires great ambition and courage. Ratner had both, but he needed to start work immediately. The main reason he couldn't was the Orwellian-titled Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn -- a cunning, well-financed advocacy group that sued, lied and bullied for four years, all with the purpose of foiling development.
DDDB's raised about $1 million, which is about how much Forest City Ratner spends on lobbying each year. And it's certainly less than the amount Forest City Ratner has paid Community Benefits Agreement signatories, given the developer's $1.5 million bailout (including a $1 million loan) of ACORN, a piece of news that seems to have evaded Cuozzo.
The Orwell prize, actually, remains with former Forest City Ratner point man Jim Stuckey.
Missing the facts
You'd think a columnist might be curious about Forest City Ratner's continued attempts to renegotiate the deal, notably a much-lowered initial payment of $20 million--instead of $100 million--to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.
Or the developer's willingness to help orchestrate a hijacking of a state Senate oversight hearing.
Rather, facts are so distant from Cuozzo that he calls the project a "15-building kit and caboodle on the triangular site where Atlantic and Flatbush avenues diverge."
It's not even close to a triangular site. And it was approved at 17 buildings: an arena and 16 towers.
Brutally weird: Markowitz says legal challenges to AY are examples of misusing democracy
Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz and New York Post columnist Steve Cuozzo are apparently drinking the same Kool-Aid.
Markowitz, opining on democracy, might have taken the opportunity to criticize the pro-Atlantic Yards people who hijacked the May 29 state Senate oversight hearing on Atlantic Yards. He might have mused on whether unelected, quasi-public bodies like the Empire State Development Corporation are sufficiently transparent or whether eminent domain law in New York state needs a revision.
He might even, should he look in the mirror, wonder whether the overturning and extension of term limits, which gave incumbents like himself an enormous advantage, was really so healthy, given that all potential Democratic challengers for his post have withdrawn.
No. Instead he blamed Atlantic Yards opponents for seeking redress through the courts. And the Courier-Life, often friendly to Markowitz, didn't let him off the hook.
The article
The article, headlined "Just too much democracy for Marty," begins: Former President George W. Bush was always fond of saying how much easier governing the United States would be if only it were a dictatorship. Old Number 43 may be history, but that sentiment about our democracy has apparently not faded out with him.
Earlier this week, Borough President Marty Markowitz told the Manhattan Beach Neighborhood Association meeting at PS. 195 on Irwin Street, "I love democracy. It works. It's always worked for us. But you can use it for good, and you can use it sometimes where it may not be good."
The borough president-- currently running for a third term - was talking about legal challenges to the Atlantic Yards project and his ongoing efforts to transform the borough.
"Having the [New Jersey] Nets and having an arena in Brooklyn opens up unbelievable opportunities for economic growth," Markowitz declared.
As for economic growth, Markowitz is assigned to read the works of Brooklyn author Neil deMause.
Posted by steve at 7:26 AM
Hanger Wan
Gumby Fresh
Here's one that was missed yesterday. Gumby Fresh muses on both last week's state oversight hearing and Frank Gehry's departure from the proposed Atlantic Yards project.
About the hearing:
I'm still unsure about the provenance of the people who were so insecure about the Atlantic Yards rationale that they needed to drown out a rather milque-toast set of interrogations. I read variously that they were genuine unionised construction workers or a mob assembled by the community groups that Ratner has paid to support the project. That said, I have an enduring fascination with the iconography of the American hard-hat. That the use of the hard-hat in the practice of wedge politics still has an edge even as America's native working class has largely abandoned the construction sector to recent, usually non-union, immigrants, and the country's heavy industry sector has hollowed out.
About Gehry:
I was tempted to carve out the news about the replacement of Frank Gehry with the hanger-building hacks into its own post, but the pub beckons, and I don't have much to say about architecture.
I'll just leave you with this datapoint. Last year, the Louisville Arena Authority started construction on a $238 million arena with a capacity of 22,000 seats. That can host ice shows, concerts and swimming. Even after tossing Frank Gehry's design and "value engineering" the hell out of the arena, they've managed to come up with an $800 million arena that won't host ice hockey and has a capacity of 18,000. AND IS UGLY AS HELL.
I'm not going to go over the model again. I'm not even going to argue about whether New Yorkers are going to pour three times as much love into a second-rate NBA basketball franchise as the good people of Louisville will into their top-ranked NCAA basketball franchise.
Let's remember the lower naming rights payments from Barclays, the slowing economy, the lackluster suite sales, the crumbling political support and say: Good. Luck. With. Your. $800 million. Hanger. Brooce.
Posted by steve at 6:47 AM
June 6, 2009
'NET' LOSS IS DEVASTATING
DREAM PROJECT DEAD WITHOUT GEHRY
NY Post
by Steve Cuozzo
The Post columnist is bereft over what he believes is Atlantic Yards's fate.
There's no way to sugar-coat the calamity. There's near-zero hope for Ratner's declared plan to proceed. With apologies to "King Lear," nothing more will come of nothing.
You'll never guess where he lays the blame.
Great enterprise requires great ambition and courage. Ratner had both, but he needed to start work immediately. The main reason he couldn't was the Orwellian-titled Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn -- a cunning, well-financed advocacy group that sued, lied and bullied for four years, all with the purpose of foiling development.
DDDB co-founder Daniel Goldstein gloated time and again over the effectiveness of his delaying tactics. He ran Ratner ragged until the bottom fell out of the market and made financing impossible.
So, don't expect Brooklyn's ugliest wasteland of exposed rail tracks and rat-strewn lots to blossom -- the Dodgers will return sooner.
NoLandGrab: Cuozzo appears to be off his meds, or maybe suffering from hallucinations. We really shouldn't waste our time on this brand of twaddle, but we feel a duty to correct his "Orwellian" load of bull.
Courage? Ratner may have ambition, but courageous he ain't. Try greedy.
Orwellian-titled? Not even close. DDDB, and nearly everyone else opposed to Atlantic Yards, has advocated tirelessly for the UNITY Plan, a version of which Vanderbilt railyard high-bidder Extell Development was ready to build — more than three years ago.
Well-financed? That's priceless. Shall they buy or lease a corporate jet? DDDB has been supported by 4,000 community donors whose median donation is about $50. Forest City Ratner has been given $305 million cash money by the City and State, and total subsidies pledged for Atlantic Yards are most likely north of one billion dollars.
Lied? We invite Mr. Cuozzo to point out any lies by Atlantic Yards opponents. To help him better recognize lying, we point him to Forest City Ratner's "liar fliers."
Bullied? Apparently, Mr. Cuozzo is confusing project opponents with project supporters, many of whom are recognizable by their spotless hardhats, brand-new safety vests and ear-piercing whistles.
Lastly, those rat-strewn lots, Mr. Cuozzo, are courtesy of the "courageous" Bruce Ratner."
Hope you're right about the fate of Atlantic Yards, though. Have a nice day!
Posted by eric at 12:56 PM
On Second Thought
MetropolisMag.com
by Martin Pedersen
The Metropolis columnist, who wrote what he terms a carefully hedged appraisal of the Atlantic Yards project more than five years ago (seems like a fair description), symbolically joins with critics and opponents of Bruce Ratner's boondoggle.
In fairness to the opposition, Forest City never engaged the community in a serious dialogue. They did try to buy off and co-opt various neighborhood factions, but the sheer size of the project—and the possibility of scaling it down—was never up for discussion. And, yes, it seems as if the opposition was right about Frank Gehry’s real role here: he was the pixie dust that Ratner & Co. sprinkled over the project to make it more attractive to culturally susceptible types like me, and the late Herbert Muschamp, and good government groups like the Municipal Art Society (who in the Times today began to express their doubts).
I think today’s news should be greeted for what it is: an act of desperation on the part of Forest City Ratner. The clock is ticking. According to Charles Bagli of the Times, Forest City must start the arena by December or they will lose the ability to use tax-exempt bonds. As it stands today, Atlantic Yards is no longer a massive mixed-used development featuring a glitzy arena by Frank Gehry (World’s Most Celebrated Architect), but a stand-alone building that, according to Bagli, “bears a likeness to an ‘airplane hanger.’” And if the arena does move forward, given the current state of commercial and residential real estate, that is all we’re likely to get on that corner for many, many years to come. So, put me down as a “No!” for that one. Here’s hoping Daniel Goldstein can successfully stall into the new year.
NoLandGrab: Given reports that Ellerbe Becket has been consulting with Forest City since 2006, it's possible that Ratner never intended to build a Gehry-designed project. Regardless, the bloom is now fully off the rose, and all that's left are thorns.
Posted by eric at 12:13 PM
Norman Oder on Atlantic Yards Oversight
Brian Lehrer Live
CUNY TV posted video of the segment from Wednesday's show featuring Atlantic Yards Report's Norman Oder, which you can watch right here. It's Must-See TV for anyone interested in the truth about the Atlantic Yards project.
Norman Oder on Atlantic Yards Oversight from Brian Lehrer Live on Vimeo.
Posted by eric at 11:58 AM
June 5, 2009
State Senator Perkins Hosts First Hearing on Atlantic Yards
Our Time Press
by Mary Alice Miller
Helena Williams, president of the Long Island Railroad and the interim executive director of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, touted Atlantic Yards’ benefits to public transportation system: new rail yards, a new subway entrance for the arena, and new tax revenues (based upon the assumption that fans from NJ would come to Brooklyn to see the Nets). After intense questioning, Williams admitted the original 2006 deal for Ratner to pay MTA $100 million for the Vanderbilt rail yard would have to be modified due to the current economic climate. When pressed if it would be closer to $50 million, Williams said there may be an upfront payment of $20 million with incremental payments as MTA parcels are consumed by the project. In addition, the new rail yard would be downscaled from nine to seven rails to reduce costs. A final determination is expected when the MTA holds its next board meeting on June 24.
NoLandGrab: Given the radical new undesign of the Conseco Fieldhouse, um, new Barclays Center, is that "new subway entrance for the arena" even in the cards anymore? Is there any benefit to the MTA at this point?
Posted by eric at 2:26 PM
Gehry's design was impossible, so dropping him wasn't just cost; what do MAS and RPA say now?
Atlantic Yards Report
AYR has more on the latest Atlantic Yards bait 'n' switch.
None of the news coverage this morning notices that, as I pointed out last night, the rendering omits the much-touted Urban Room, a large, glass-enclosed public space.
Given the hold-up in constructing the flagship Building 1 (formerly Miss Brooklyn), the Urban Room became an impossibility and, I'd contend, so became Gehry's design. His arena, as the New York Times's architecture critics rhapsodically reminded us, was to be different.
Herbert Muschamp: Instead of sitting isolated in a parking lot, the stadium will be tucked into the urban fabric, just as buildings surround a Baroque square. The arena becomes a stage, with the towers around extending the bleachers to the sky.
Nicolai Ouroussoff: If a new model is ever going to emerge, it may well be in Brooklyn, where Frank Gehry is designing a stadium for the Nets that will be embedded in layers upon layers of housing.
Not anymore. And even though the Ellerbe Becket arena would be more expensive, at $800 million, than the $637.2 million Gehry arena approved in 2006, at least it doesn't have Building 1. Given that Forest City has been working with Ellerbe Becket for three years, did the developer--when the plan was approved in 2006--really intend to build the Gehry design?
NoLandGrab: We have to admit, we're really looking forward to Nic Ourousoff's review of the Conseco Fieldhouse, um, we mean, new Barclays Center.
Posted by eric at 10:16 AM
June 4, 2009
Finally, someone challenges Marty (oops, he’s a Republican)
The Brooklyn Paper Politicrasher
Who would have thunk it! Marty Markowitz is the Atlantic Yards critic in the race for Brooklyn Borough President!
Opponents of Atlantic Yards who hoped for a candidate to run against project cheerleader Borough President Markowitz got half their wish this week — a challenger has finally emerged, but he thinks Markowitz hasn’t championed the mega-development enough!
...During an interview with The Brooklyn Paper, D’Ottavio, a sales manager at an auto dealership on Nostrand Avenue, stuck mostly to the Beep’s supposedly lackluster support for Bruce Ratner’s $4-billion basketball, housing and retail development in Prospect Heights — a project that Markowitz has made his signature issue.
“He was very gung-ho about it [at the start], but where is he now?” asked D’Ottavio. “He’s closed his mouth since there have been stories about the economic problems [at Atlantic Yards].”
NoLandGrab: Have Republicans all gone crazy? What ever happened to the Party of smaller government, individual freedom and fiscal responsibility?
Just one question for the GOP standard-bearer: how does championing a subsidy-laden boondoggle "protect mom-and-pop shops" — unless Marisa Lago is your mom and Bruce Ratner is your pop?
Posted by eric at 11:08 AM
On Brian Lehrer Live, video from Friday's state Senate oversight hearing
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder was a guest last night on CUNY TV's Brian Lehrer Live show (the program can be viewed on the CUNY TV web site — click on the "RealVideo" button, segment begins at about the 8:00 mark), and he filed a report this morning on his appearance, featuring a summary of the discussion.
Perhaps the most important element of the show is video shot by Steve de Sève for Freddy's Brooklyn Roundhouse, showing the disruption in the room, with state Sen. Bill Perkins trying to maintain order, and Sen. Velmanette Montgomery reminding the crowd that it was not up to Sen. Marty Golden, a Republican, to move legislation forward, but Majority Leader Malcolm Smith.
Bogus numbers
Then Lehrer showed Seth Pinsky of the New York City Economic Development Corporation claiming Atlantic Yards will achieve half a billion dollars in net incremental revenue.
I said the numbers were bogus, because it wasn't a cost-benefit analysis, and it was based on an old configuration of the project, with four office towers.
Lehrer asked what government officials are obligated to do.
"They're obligated to tell the truth at an oversight hearing," I said, offering a version of that quote from Three Days of the Condor: "Not getting caught in a lie is not the same as telling the truth."
Posted by eric at 9:15 AM
June 3, 2009
It came from the Blogosphere...
Room 8: Hildy Johnson's Blog, FAIR, BALANCED AND WELL-SOURCED
The still-pseudonymous Room 8 blogger responds to our criticism of a recent piece with a spate of source-material links, and critiques our critique:
Were perhaps unfair aspersions cast upon City Council candidate Brad Lander?
......Lander cannot hide from his paper trail documented above. He equivocated on Atlantic Yards in a manner which often provided its supporters with cover; he failed to criticize ACORN‘s race-baiting of his potential constituents, he accepts support from its political party, and he strongly supports its tactics and its agenda.
As “No Land Grab” notes, some serious questions have been raised about the WFP's role in elections and development. They are openly and notoriously trying to game the political projects to choose the people who will decide if their projects get built and their pockets get lined. Even if we can take Brad Lander’s recent conversion on Atlantic Yards seriously, can anyone doubt where he will stand on every other ACORN project in the City, whatever its merits?
The Campaign for Community-Based Planning, Task Force Submits Testimony on Atlantic Yards
The task force headed by the Municipal Art Society Planning Center published its testimony submitted to the State Senate Committee on Corporations, Authorities and Commissions for last Friday's hearing. The plan was to deliver oral testimony, but "because of the chaotic nature of the hearing, the... testimony was submitted in writing to the State Senators present."
Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn, Breakfast-of-Candidates (33rd Edition): Ken Diamondstone
Louise Crawford talks with the candidate for the 33rd City Council district.
Diamondstone estimates that he has owned approximately 20 properties over the years and currently oversees 85 units of housing which he rents at "way below market value."
"I could have made a killing in real estate over the years," he said. But that wasn't his interest. Clearly, Diamondstone business has sustained him over the years and allowed others to live well, too. Recently he found someone to manage his real estate holdings, which gives him more time to devote to his political goals.
Affordable housing is clearly Diamondstone's passion and with his business has been able to translate his ideals into action. He is also a member of three local Democratic clubs and was an early opponent of Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards project.
Pardon Me For Asking, Comment Of The Day: The Toll Brothers' PR Firm
Never would've expected this — Toll Brothers, the would-be Gowanus Canal overdevelopers, have hired Geto & deMilly, the lobbying firm that has done the Atlantic Yards bidding of Forest City Ratner.
Toll Brothers has hired the Geto/Demilly PR firm to campaign against the possible Superfund designation of the Gowanus Canal. The firm specializes in representing real estate interests. In 2007, they ranked 9 in NYC's top ten lobbyists, right before Yoswein you mention being instrumental for IKEA.
Info about them on: http://www.cityhallnews.com/news/127/ARTICLE/1218/2007-07-16.html
"Geto is a lobbyist who works with leading real estate development firms like Bruce Ratner's Forest City Ratner...He's also a .. frequent political advisor. He's worked on campaigns for George McGovern, Robert Abrams, and Howard Dean."
"Prior to becoming a lobbyist. Michele DeMilly was press secretary for the Empire State Development Corporation. She feels that her experience there largely shaped the firm’s client list, which includes some of the city’s largest developers."
NoLandGrab: Hmm, wonder if G&d had anything to do with the anonymous anti-Superfund Liar Flier that Gowanus-area residents started receiving in the mail these past few days?
CoStar Group, IN THE PIPELINE: CoStar Development News for June 1-7
Last month, In the Pipeline reported a step forward in the long effort by Forest City Ratner Cos to break ground on a new arena in Brooklyn, NY, for the New Jersey Nets in the $4 billion Atlantic Yards development. Out-of-work construction workers and neighborhood activists have faced off over plans for the arena and other building projects around the city that have been stalled by the recession and/or legal challenges.
planning to succeed, Crowd Jeers As Elected Protect Their Interest in Atlantic Yards
Hakeem Jeffries served his constituency handsomely by asking the MTA why it hadn’t collected all or most of the $100 million up front from FCR, given its recent proposal to raise fares, defer maintenance and cut bus routes. Rather, the MTA agreed to accept allotment payments and can’t commit to holding fares to the increases that go in effect June 28, 2009.
Posted by eric at 2:40 PM
Counterfactual: what if Daniel Goldstein had testified first at the Senate oversight hearing?
Atlantic Yards Report
Citing significant portions of Atlantic Yards-footprint resident testimony, Norman Oder imagines how Friday's Atlantic Yards hearing could have gone differently.
Counterfactual history considers what might have happened should key events proceeded differently. So, what might have happened at the state Senate oversight hearing Friday on Atlantic Yards if Daniel Goldstein, spokesman for Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn, had testified first, before state officials got their turn?
Goldstein testified later and was given only a brief amount of time; he departed from his prepared remarks to respond to the crowd and the testimony of the government officials in the preceding panel.
But his prepared testimony would've essentially put the government officials on the defensive and prompted state legislators, who seemed underequipped to challenge those officials, with questions.
It would have been a very different hearing.
NoLandGrab: Heck, they should've just let Goldstein, or Oder, ask the damned questions. And next time, put the ESDC, MTA and NYC EDC under oath, and issue a subpoena to one Bruce C. Ratner.
Posted by eric at 11:27 AM
Atlantic Yards Report Lightning Round
It's dismaying to me that none of New York City's daily newspaper columnists thought to show up at the state Senate oversight hearing Friday on Atlantic Yards.
As with the similarly-ignored (by columnists and editorialists) 8/23/06 public hearing on the Draft Environmental Impact Statement, it was a remarkable piece of street theater, and the fodder for much potential commentary about, as i wrote nearly three years ago, "democracy versus demagoguery."
Indeed, there's a curious story line generating just from the New York Daily News. Columnist Errol Louis denounced the hearing ahead of time but didn't bother to show up. Would he have been proud that the Rev. Herbert Daughtry, the single most disruptive individual during the 4.5-hour hearing, invoked his column?
Yes, the good Reverend seems to have forgotten the Golden Rule.
Indeed, there's a column to be written about the fundamental category error displayed last Friday: this was an oversight hearing, more akin to a courtroom trial than to a public hearing. The aim was to solicit information from and about the performance of government agencies, not to seek public input about the merits of the project.
I've been to state oversight hearings held on the 19th floor of 250 Broadway near City Hall. They're sober affairs, with no disruptions. That should've been the case Friday. And people other than O'Keeffe and a couple of online journalists should've pointed it out.
ESDC Construction Update emerges, late and inaccurate
Looks like there is slightly more going on at the Vanderbilt Yards than we and the ESDC reported yesterday — and we accept responsibility, since inaccuracy appears the norm for the Atlantic Yards sponsor.
Work in the past two days has been going on in Blocks 1120 and 1121, the railyard blocks to the east, bounded by Sixth Avenue to the west, Vanderbilt to the east, and Atlantic and Pacific.
I'll be on CUNY-TV's Brian Lehrer Live tonight
Not content with keeping NoLandGrab from even taking a bathroom break, the ubiquitous Norman Oder will be on TV tonight, too.
I'll be on CUNY-TV's Brian Lehrer Live tonight talking about--what else--Atlantic Yards. The hour-long show starts at 7:30 pm and the segment in which I'll appear should be in the first half of the show.
CUNY TV can be viewed on most cable systems in the New York metropolitan area on Channel 75* as part of the NYC TV, the City's cable television network. (Check the web site for explanation of the asterisk.)
Posted by eric at 10:32 AM
June 2, 2009
Time to stop bullying at Atlantic Yards
NY Daily News I-Team Blog
by Michael O'Keeffe
The Daily News's O'Keeffe apparently didn't get the internal memo that everything Atlantic Yards is wonderful and all that's preventing it from being even more wonderful are rabid development foes. Speaking of rabid...
Why do the people who turn out at public meetings to support Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards project insist on acting like thugs?
The boorish behavior was on full display at Friday's State Senate hearing on the proposal to build luxury condos and an arena for the New Jersey Nets in Brooklyn. According to Norman Oder’s Atlantic Yards Report, once again the bullies acted like they were going to school on a Saturday: absolutely no class.
The supporters, primarily construction union members, acted like Johnny Friendly's crew from "On the Waterfront." Union members handed out whistles to disrupt the meeting, and they hooted and hollered in support of every statement made by AY proponents, no matter how inane. They also heckled project critics, no matter how gentle the question or criticism.
State Senator Bill Perkins, who was running the hearing, never asked for security to step in and enforce a minimal level of decorum, but even he became frustrated by the end: "Everything you disagree with does not have to be sounded out," he told the proposal's supporters.
Blogger Michael D.D. White of Noticing New York called the supporters thuggish behavior "manufactured chaos."
...These attempts at intimidation are par for the course at AY public meetings. There's no question these bullying tactics are supported and perhaps coordinated by Forest City Ratner and the company's allies.
NoLandGrab: It's humorous, though not surprising, that Atlantic Yards supporters (we're talkin' 'bout you, Daily News) use words like "rabid," "obstructionist," "frivolous" and "propaganda" to describe project critics and their constitutionally protected efforts to oppose Bruce Ratner's boondoggle, while ignoring what O'Keeffe very accurately describes as the "boorish behavior" of their compadres.
The shouting, whistle-blowing (near a baby's ears, no less), heckling and all-around disruptiveness at Friday's hearing betray the lack of actual, measurable, verifiable project benefits — the forces orchestrating the outbursts know that when substance is lacking, creating a circus sideshow may well divert attention from the truth.
Posted by eric at 9:01 PM
ESDC: Atlantic Yards Project Will Shrink
GlobeSt.com
by Cody Lyon
Lyon gives Norman Oder a run for his money in terms of word count, but Atlantic Yards Report beat GlobeSt to the punch by some 90 hours, give or take. And we don't think ESDC admitted to any shrinkage, except maybe in arena fit and finish.
[Independent Budget Office Deputy Director George] Sweeting noted that current plans call for the Atlantic Yards arena, much like Yankee Stadium and Citi Field, to be financed through an "aggressive interpretation of Internal Revenue Service regulations that will make it possible to use tax exempt bonds for most, if not all, of the arena’s construction costs"--provided they break ground by the end of the year. However, he said, in the previous stadiums’ cases, the city finance department indicated what the property tax assessments would be prior to the start of construction. In the case of Atlantic Yards, he said no similar announcement had been made. But he did say it was notable that the land assessments for the parcels under the arena have more than “tripled in the last three years.”
NoLandGrab: If land assessments have indeed "tripled in the last three years," doesn't that mean that the Vanderbilt Yard, appraised by the MTA in 2005 at $214.5 million, is now worth $643.5 million? And if so, why is the MTA apparently going to allow Forest City to back pedal even more from its already-low balled "commitment"?
As with just about everything else Atlantic Yards, these numbers just don't add up.
Posted by eric at 1:25 PM
It came from the Blogosphere...
2nd Ave. Sagas, A sweeter sweetheart deal for the Atlantic Yards
Transit blogger Benjamin Kabak weighs in on the shady dealings between Forest City Ratner and the MTA.
So let me get this straight. A few months after the MTA needed an Albany bailout to avoid Doomsday cuts, they’re going to accept $50 million less than they had originally agreed to and $164 million less than market rate for the Atlantic Yards land, and this is somehow acceptable? No wonder the public does not trust the MTA.
MyBrooklynReport.com, 172 Brooklyn Avenue: Whose in Charge of this Eye Sore
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Atlantic Yards is invoked by a real estate blog that wonders why the City of New York has allowed a Crown Heights building to sit vacant for decades.
Like most states, New York has exercised its power of Eminent Domain for what the State deems for the highest possible use for its land. Projects like Yankee Stadium, the expansion of Columbia University’s campus, Atlantic Yards project, etc… were all projects that began with the legal condemnation of existing property.
Yet, this property’s highest possible use for 38 years was being a tax shelter.
...Do you think that buying this property and rehabilitating it for affordable condo ownership would be a project worth using some of the $24 million dollar grant for the Neighborhood Stabilization Program?
(or is it absurd to assume that the city is interested in stabilizing neighborhoods hard hit by the foreclosure crisis; neighborhoods like Crown Heights?)
Room Eight: Hildy Johnson's Blog, BRAD LANDER AND THE ACORN/RATNER ATLANTIC YARDS CONSPIRACY: AN INVESTIGATIVE REPORT
This lengthy, allegedly "investigative" piece on ACORN and the Working Families Party is short on citations, obscured by anonymity ("Hildy Johnson" was a character in the newspaper-themed classic films The Front Page and His Girl Friday), and casts perhaps unfair aspersions* on City Council candidate Brad Lander. But we publish it here because it does raise some serious questions about the WFP's role in elections and development.
...a questionnaire sent out by the Party to prospective candidates for Brooklyn Borough President included a section on “Land Use”. The section notes that “Borough Presidents appoint representatives to local community boards and the City Planning commission, which vote on land use and zoning actions under the NYC Uniform Land Use Review Procedure.”
It then asks if the candidate will “pledge to”:
“A. Consider the advice” of the party “regarding your appointments”.
“B. Commit to consulting with” the party “on development before deals with the developer are struck”.
Council candidates were asked to make similar pledges.
This is already a substantial grab for power for a political party. But WFP is not merely interested in using this power to increase its influence and increase its leverage. It is, itself, an actual beneficiary of the deals over which it seeks power.
* Norman Oder wrote the following this past Sunday, in an article headlined "Council candidate Lander, in testimony prepared for Senate hearing, gets tougher on AY, saying deal should be canceled":
Lander, the fund-raising frontrunner for the seat held by Bill de Blasio, has long had a more nuanced position on Atlantic Yards, previously taking a more BrooklynSpeaks-ish position, on his web site stating that "we should use the opportunity to either fix the flaws or reconsider the project." (Lander, former director of the Pratt Center for Community Development, is now a senior fellow there.)
Recently, in debates, Lander has ramped up his criticism of AY. Lander told me that, when he wrote his position a year ago, "I imagined that the economic crisis (which was then just beginning to become clear) might be an occasion for a renegotiation between ESDC/MTA/City/State and FCRC that might include the opportunity to fix some of the fundamental flaws. But as has become clear over the past year, and was evident at the hearing, that is not the case."
Lander's position also might be seen as an effort to compete with Josh Skaller, who's second in fundraising and has long been fundamentally opposed to the project, allying himself with Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn.
Posted by eric at 9:31 AM
Brooklyn Daily Eagle Tuesday Trifecta
LOCAL INTELLIGENCE, June 1, 2009
Numerous media outlets reported on the State Senate hearing on Atlantic Yards that took place at Pratt Institute on Friday. Many of the 300 seats at the Pratt auditorium were filled with union workers who support the project because of the thousands of jobs it would create. The five-hour hearing was called by State Senator Bill Perkins and other senators to determine the status of the $4.2 billion project, which is being reevaluated by designers in a bid to cut costs. Officials from several city agencies testified, as did supporters and opponents of the plan. Conspicuously absent was the developer, Forest City Ratner, who declined an invitation to attend the hearing.
Ratner’s 80 DeKalb Project Benefits From Union Pact
Forest City Ratner’s residential development in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, will benefit from an agreement signed Friday by the city’s construction unions and their management counterparts.
For Brooklyn GOP, Rudy’s Still the Man
It was a tale of two mayors as Brooklyn Republicans endorsed former Mayor Rudy Giuliani for governor and honored current Mayor Michael Bloomberg at the party’s annual Abraham Lincoln Dinner on Thursday evening.
...Bloomberg emphasized his priorities such as education, welfare reform, stronger private investment and lower crime rates. He got applause when he declared, “Atlantic Yards is going to be built!”
NoLandGrab: Ah yes, the eminent domain-loving, public subsidy-embracing GOP!
Posted by eric at 9:16 AM
Atlantic Yards, for Better or Worse
WNYC News Blog
by Matthew Schuerman
Atlantic Yards is looking like a worse and worse deal for the city treasury, according to the Independent Budget Office. Back in 2005, the nonpartisan IBO said the new Nets arena would bring the city $28.5 million more in tax revenue than it would cost in subsidies, over the next 30 years (PDF). But the city has since decided to pitch in about twice the amount of money it said it would spend back then. And as the costs of the arena have grown, the city stands to lose more money because of an agreement that it would not collect mortgage recording taxes and sales taxes.
The IBO didn’t come up with a new estimate, but numbers outlined at a state legislative hearing Friday suggest that the city would see a net loss of about $76 million (PDF).
David Lombino, spokesman for the Economic Development Corporation, said the IBO report is incomplete since it only considers the economic impact of the arena, and not the housing and office space.
NoLandGrab: EDC spokesman Lombino's contention that the IBO report is "incomplete" is laughable, since the only "analysis" of the Atlantic Yards project's fiscal impact conducted by EDC a) relied wholly on Forest City Ratner's unsupportable claims and b) didn't deduct the cost of subsidies.
Posted by eric at 9:02 AM
Work on the railyard appears to resume, but there's no ESDC Construction Update
Atlantic Yards Report and threecee's flickr photostream
As hinted Friday in testimony by MTA Acting Executive Director Helena Williams at the state Senate oversight hearing on Atlantic Yards, work has apparently resumed at the Vanderbilt Yard, at least according to these photos (1, 2) taken yesterday by Tracy Collins.
“They have since informed me they will resume construction and will complete construction,” Williams said Friday of Forest City Ratner, though she didn’t offer a timetable.
Where's the announcement?
No new Construction Update was issued by the Empire State Development Corporation, though the agency--which essentially passes on updates from Forest City Ratner with a new header--is already behind schedule, given that the last update covered the weeks beginning May 11 and May 18.
NoLandGrab: Parking a couple pieces of heavy machinery in the rail yard doesn't necessarily constitute resuming work. Maybe Forest City can pose some of those phony construction workers from Friday's hearing there, too.
Posted by eric at 8:44 AM
Atlantic Yards Report Lightning Round
Waiting for June 24: both the MTA and ESDC will hold board meetings
Well, we already know that the Metropolitan Transportation Authority at its June 24 board meeting (9:30 am) plans to consider a revised payment plan for the Vanderbilt Yard.
I've since learned that the Empire State Development Corporation plans to hold its June board meeting at 10:30 am the same day.
There's no official word yet, but that would be the first time the board could officially adopt a revision of the Modified General Project Plan (GPP), setting the stage for a new hearing process.
Moment of cognitive dissonance: how "public" is AY?
A Rochester Assemblywoman cited Atlantic Yards as an example of a "public work" in promoting her bill calling for the payment of prevailing wages to construction workers employed by such projects.
It's an interesting example. Sure, there's an argument that, if public subsidies are used, they should go to prevailing wage jobs, especially on a large project.
At the same time, if we're going to call Atlantic Yards a "public work," shouldn't the public, for example, have a little more input on the configuration of affordable housing, rather than let Forest City Ratner and its partner ACORN (in hock to the developer) make the call? And shouldn't there be a little more public oversight?
Senate hearing condensed for Twitter: double standard obvious
OK, first I published some 10,000 words on Friday's Senate hearing on Atlantic Yards, then distilled it earlier into a medium-lengh Cliff's Notes.
Here's a version almost short enough for Twitter:
Why do the state and city proclaim public benefits based on old fiscal data, but renegotiate with Forest City Ratner based on changing economic conditions?
NoLandGrab: Why, indeed?
Posted by eric at 8:33 AM
June 1, 2009
Negotiating With Your Contractor: The Atlantic Yards As Kitchen Renovation Metaphor
Noticing New York
Michael D.D. White's brilliant, entertaining, sardonic, must-read blog entry riffs on ESDC CEO Marisa Lago's testimony at Friday's Atlantic Yards hurly-burly — and it could come in handy, too, if you're planning any home renovations.
At Friday’s state senate hearing on Atlantic Yards, Marisa Lago (head of the Empire State Development Corporation and responsible for Atlantic Yards on behalf of Governor Paterson) tried to make current negotiations with proposed project developer, Forest City Ratner easy to explain by likening Atlantic Yards to a kitchen renovation. That therefore allowed Ms. Lago to tell Senators Bill Perkins, Velmanette Montgomery and Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries that Forest City Ratner is going to give the public a lot less than the public was once supposedly going to get by telling the legeslators that there isn’t going to be a garbage disposal, the level of trim and finishes won’t be the same (Formica countertops instead of granite?) and that the stove was only going to have four burners rather than six.
...We rather like the kitchen renovation metaphor. Maybe it provided Ms. Lago with an out to avoid saying things in less blunt, specific or informative terms but we think that it does help make some things easier to explain.
...NOTICING NEW YORK’S KITCHEN RENOVATION RULES
(Applicable also to NYC megadevelopments)1. When selecting a contractor, get bids.
2. If you can (as noted above), it is good if you can bid out your kitchen renovation when things are otherwise slow in the construction business.
3. Establish a schedule by which the contractor must complete the renovation.
4. Specify ahead of time all the work to be done before bidding out the job.
5. Don’t let the contractor demolish the kitchen before you have a contract.
6. Don’t front-load the payments to the contractor.
7. If you advance money to the contractor that is going to be used to buy materials, you probably want to specify that the materials bought will belong to you rather than the contractor.
8. If you’re trying to economize and save money, don’t let the contractor turn the job into a bigger, more costly job than it needs to be by going crazy and ripping out and throwing away a lot of walls, baseboard moldings and appliances that are perfectly serviceable and ought still to be used.
9. Check out your contractor’s credit worthiness before engaging him.
10. Maintain the option to terminate and bring in another contractor- especially if the contractor wants to renegotiate after accepting the job.
Click through to learn all the ESDC's secrets for how not to get the most from your contractor!
Posted by eric at 3:52 PM
It came from the Blogosphere...
Joshing Politics, Atlantic Yards Continues To Be A Debacle
This past Friday state lawmakers tried to have a discussion about the controversial Atlantic Yards development. Ratner's supporters however, decided that they'd rather create a ruckus than anything that resembled a civil discourse.
Brownstoner, Recapping the State Senate Hearing on Atlantic Yards
After more than five years since Atlantic Yards came onto the public radar screen, the State Senate finally got around to holding a hearing on Friday, and from all reports it was the standard spectacle-over-substance event that has come to define the process. The auditorium at Pratt was filled with BUILD employees dressed up as construction workers who persisted to disrupt the proceedings with only a few reprimands from State Senator Bill Perkins, who was running the show.
Curbed, It Happened One Weekend: Half-Price Yards
Atlantic Yards developer Bruce Ratner might end up paying the MTA only half of the $100 million he was supposed to pony up for the Vanderbilt Rail Yards land, the Post reports. Meanwhile the Times wonders if the Nets will ever play in Brooklyn, and if ground is broken on the arena by December 31 (the deadline to sell tax-exempt bonds), they very well might. Hurry up, good seats are still available!
Field of Schemes, Nets crystal ball says: Reply cloudy, ask again in December
The New York state senate held a hearing on Ratner's Atlantic Yards project on Friday, but that didn't shed much light on things, unless you had a burning desire to find out what it sounds like for a roomful of construction workers to blow whistles at the same time.
The Local [Ft. Greene/Clinton Hill], The Day: Backwards and Forward
If you’ve still yet to apprise yourself of what happened at Friday’s jam-packed much-heat-relatively-little-substance state senate committee hearing on Atlantic Yards at Pratt, Norman Oder has condensed his 9,695-word exegesis from Friday night down to Powerpoint size.
Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn, A Civics Lesson for Bruce Ratner's Bruce Bender
Here we'd like to give a civics lesson to Bruce Bender:
The hearing on Friday was not a debate. It was a Senate oversight hearing by the Committee on Corporations, Authorities and Commissions. The way government works is that legislative committees hold hearings to oversee government action. The hearing was to get answers to scores of questions arising from the Atlantic Yards project.Unfortunately Mr. Bender's corporation and his boss Bruce Ratner didn't deign to testify at the hearing and explain, over/under the din of the disruptions Bender orchestrated, what jobs, housing and tax benefits his imperiled project would bring.
American Chronicle, Detroit, New Jersey Mentioned As Boozer Possibilities
Are the Nets in the running for Utah Jazz all-star forward Carlos Boozer?
New Jersey would be a surprise destination for Boozer. The Nets went 34-48 last season and owner Bruce Ratner reportedly has lost tens of millions in recent years while trying to move the team to a development in Brooklyn.
The Nets ranked 25th in the NBA in attendance (15,147) and are expected to do everything to cut costs from reduce the number of assistants coaches on Lawrence Frank's staff to field a consolidated summer-league entry with another team.
Nets Daily, Ratner, MTA in “Intense Negotiations” over Yards
In an effort to expedite construction of the Nets’ new arena, the MTA appears willing to give Bruce Ratner a break on the price of the railyards at the center of his Atlantic Yards project. Ratner originally agreed to pay $100 million for the rail yards, but now wants to cut that number in half, and pay in installments. The MTA is on board and in “intense negotiations” with Ratner to get it approved this month.
NoLandGrab: The next time any government entity or NY pol has "intense" negotiations with Ratner will be the first time any government entity or NY pol has "intense" negotiations with Ratner. Pardon us if we think our definition of "intense" might differ from theirs.
Posted by eric at 3:20 PM
LIRR chief: Sweeter MTA deal for Ratner could get Yards back on track
The Brooklyn Paper
by Mike McLaughlin
Atlantic Yards developer Bruce Ratner is poised to receive new generous terms from the MTA that could jumpstart his stalled mega-project even as a new report revealed that the city and state would actually lose money on the $4-billion arena, housing and office complex.
Helena Williams, president of Long Island Rail Road and the interim executive director of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, told a state Senate committee on Friday that she’s in “intense negotiations” with Forest City Ratner to alter the deal to sell the Vanderbilt rail yards to the developer.
Ratner agreed to pay $100 million to acquire air rights to build over the trench between Atlantic Avenue and Pacific Street. But pleading hardship due to the global credit crunch, Ratner is looking to pay perhaps as little as $20 million up front and to spread the remainder out of over years.
And the MTA appears to be on board.
NoLandGrab: Okay, let us get this straight.
Later this month, straphangers are going to start paying 25 cents more for each bus or subway ride, a 12.5% increase. Long Island Railroad and Metro North passengers will start paying between 5% and 20% more.
Bruce Ratner, however, because of "hardship due to the global credit crunch," is only going to have to put down $20 million for the Vanderbilt Yard, an 80% decrease from the $100 million he was obligated to pay.
So every time you swipe our MetroCard or buy an LIRR or Metro North ticket after June 28th (perhaps on your way to a job interview or to plead with your mortgage lender for a little more time to make your payment), you can feel good that the higher rate you'll be paying will be going to help a near-billionaire (and his corporation) make ends meet.
Oh, and one other thing. The MTA will apparently allow Ratner to construct a new railyard with only seven tracks, two less than what they'd originally agreed upon. This despite the terms of the MTA's own request for proposal for the sale of the Vanderbilt Yard, which stated that the sale should:
"maximize the economic benefit to MTA for improvement of the public transportation facilities and functions of the MTA" and that "any development on the site should contemplate that LIRR would maintain uninterrupted use of the yard and support facilities at no less than the existing capacity and functionality."
Just for the record, there were 10 tracks in the original yard — click here and count 'em yourself.
Posted by eric at 11:12 AM
DDDB PRESS RELEASE: At State Senate Hearing on Ratner's Atlantic Yards Proposal:
NYC IBO: Nets Arena Would Be Money-Loser for NY City
MTA: Will Bail Out Ratner from Financial Commitments
ESDC: Modified Project Plan Will Require New Hearing & Vote
BROOKLYN, NY— The NY State Senate Committee on Corporations, Authorities and Commissions, chaired by Senator Bill Perkins, held an oversight hearing on Friday on the beleaguered and indeterminate Atlantic Yards project proposed by developer Bruce Ratner in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn.
Bruce Ratner, CEO of Forest City Ratner, refused Senator Perkins' invitation to testify before the committee, which was seeking answers to questions about the project's past and future viability. Though the developer did not deign to testify, he did send his flacks Joe DePlasco and Bruce Bender to orchestrate ongoing disruptions of the Senate hearing by people claiming to be union construction workers.
But key agency heads did testify, including: Marisa Lago, Chair of the project's lead agency the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC); Interim MTA Chair Helena Williams; and NYC Economic Development Corporation President Seth Pinsky.
The biggest news to come out of the hearing is that:
The $800-900 million Barclays Center Arena, with its $400 million in naming rights for Ratner, will be a money-loser for New York City;
The sweetheart deal the recently bailed-out MTA gave to Ratner in 2005 is about to get sweeter for the developer and sour for the transit riding and taxpaying public;
The ESDC will release a modified project plan in the coming months, which will require a new public hearing on the project and a new unanimous vote by the Public Authorities Control Board (PACB) comprised of Governor Paterson, Assembly Speaker Silver and Senate Majority Leader Malcolm Smith.
(Here is a roundup of key, but simple, questions that were not asked and, thus, not answered.)
"Had the MTA and ESDC chosen the higher competing bid, and viable development proposal, from Extell Development Company in 2005, we would have affordable housing going up over the rail yards now, rather than an impossible development plan, pie-in-the-sky talk about a money-losing arena, and a negotiated developer bailout on the backs of MTA riders and taxpayers," said Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn spokesman Daniel Goldstein.
"Ratner and the ESDC continue to blame our opposition for their problems, but had they listened to us in 2005 they wouldn't be in their self-made mess. They must learn from history and stop trying to prop up the zombie Atlantic Yards project. It's a debacle harming the public interest while draining public resources and energy.”
The most enlightening testimony of the day came from George Sweeting of the New York City Independent Budget Office (IBO), who said that the project's proposed Barclays Center Arena would be a financial loss for New York City. Since the IBO's last report in 2005 the City subsidy had more than doubled from $100 to $205 million. Sweeting said, "This change alone therefore eclipses the $25 million net positive benefit to the city that we previously estimated for the arena."
Norman Oder on the Atlantic Yards Report dug deeper:
(He didn't provide the math, but it's apparently a $66 million loss.) The bottom line, Sweeting told Perkins, was that all the assumptions about benefits touted by the city and state officials need to be recalculated based on current numbers, and they're not available yet. Notably, most of the gains in tax revenue come from commercial space, and there are no plans to build an office tower as of now.
More shocking is the news from the MTA. Ms. Williams confirmed in her testimony that a tentative agreement has been reached with Ratner, pending MTA board approval which will come as a rubberstamp after a public comment session during their June 24th board meeting. In 2005 the MTA appraised the Vanderbilt Rail Yard at $214.5. Eighteen months after Atlantic Yards was announced and Ratner anointed the MTA site, the transit authority issued an RFP which, unsurprisingly due to the stacked political deck, received only one other bidder. Extell Development Company outbid Ratner $150 to $50 million. The MTA, which was just bailed out by taxpayers, forced Ratner to up his bid to $100 million still well below the Extell bid and the appraisal.
The MTA justified acceptance of the lowball cash offer because of the benefit the developer promised to the MTA of a new "state of the art" rail yard. Of course Extell was offering the same thing, but Ratner inflated the value of that new yard. Now, the MTA is set to allow Ratner to build a scaled back version of that promised yard, and, depending on which rumor pans out, pay only $50 million for the 8-acre site in the heart of Brooklyn, or require only $20 million at closing of the deal with the balance to come in "delayed payments."
"It is not apparent how saving $50 million overall or $80 million up front puts Ratner over the top in his effort to build the project, those don't seem to be make or break numbers. So, apparently, it's just another giveaway to Ratner and a fleecing of the public," Goldstein said.
The ESDC's Marisa Lago declared with near certainty that there will be a modified General Project Plan coming out sometime in the coming months, which will trigger a new public hearing, a new vote by the ESDC board and a unanimous vote by the PACB. This would require Governor Paterson to put his stamp of approval on the project for the first time, which would be difficult to do considering the state of the economy, budget cuts, public opposition to the project and changed political perspectives since it was first approved in 2006.
Finally NYC EDC Presdient Pinsky spent his testimony using outdated financial data to continue the city's outdated argument for the project and the New York City Housing Development Corporation testified that they do not know how many "affordable" housing units the project would include or when those units would be built.
Though Forest City Ratner did not bother to come before the Senate Committee, his partners at the MTA confirmed that the developer has a December 31, 2009 deadline to float the tax-exempt bond for the arena. If that deadline is not met, Ratner would lose the tax-exempt option costing him an estimated $150 million, severely jeopardizing the project.
For complete, comprehensive coverage of the hearing visit the Atlantic Yards Report:
http://www.atlanticyardsreport.com/2009/05/senate-hearing-no-tough-questions-for.html
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DEVELOP DON'T DESTROY BROOKLYN leads a broad-based community coalition fighting
for development that will unite our communities instead of dividing and destroying them.
DDDB is a 501c3 non-profit corporation supported by over 4,000 individual donors from the community.
Posted by eric at 10:38 AM
Recapping the Senate hearing: what was learned/missed, plus the biggest deceptions, memorable moments, and more
Atlantic Yards Report
For those of you who don't have hours to sift through all the coverage of last Friday's Atlantic Yards hearing political theater, today's post from Norman Oder gets our vote for best recap. Featuring the best and worst and most "brutally weird" moments from the event, it also sums up what we learned and what we still don't know.
Our vote for best category:
Most "Monty Python" moment: After DDDB attorney Baker accused Forest City of orchestrating disruptive forces, a construction worker bellowed, "We're not disruptive"
Click through for the rest of the "awards."
"Boy, what is it with you people? You think not getting caught in a lie is the same thing as telling the truth?"--CIA employee Joe Turner (Robert Redford), in Three Days of the Condor.
The state Senate oversight hearing Friday, held by the Committee on Corporations, Authorities and Commissions (chaired by Sen. Bill Perkins), was titled “Atlantic Yards: Where are We Now, How Did We Get Here, and Where is this Project Going?”--an enormous goal that was hardly met.
Almost no light was shed on the past and relatively little shed on the present. As suggested by the quote above, government officials were hardly candid--and they (and others) get their due below.
What we learned
But we did learn some important things:
- the Independent Budget Office (IBO), recalculating its 2005 cost-benefit analysis, concluded the arena would be a money-loser
- the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) is willing to compromise with Forest City Ratner on the timetable (and perhaps the total) for the $100 million owed, as well as the quality of the new Vanderbilt Yard
- neither the state nor the city have updated their analysis of new revenue--already deeply flawed, because it excludes costs--to acknowledge current conditions
- that the New York City Housing Development Corporation is waiting for Forest City Ratner and ACORN (which is in hock to the developer) renegotiate the configuration of the affordable housing
- the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) likely will produce a revision of the Modified General Project Plan (GPP) in the next month or two, which will trigger a new public hearing
What we didn't learn
Some other important things we didn't learn:
- how long the project might take
- when construction might begin
- when affordable housing might begin
- whether there are enough bonds for affordable housing
- how the per-unit cost of affordable housing compares to other projects
- whether architect Frank Gehry is on the project
- whether officials realized FCR decided to seek more subsidies well before the economic downturn
- why the ESDC lets private companies benefit from naming rights to public buildings
Posted by lumi at 6:30 AM
A thousand words
This photo by Jonathan Barkey taken outside of last Friday's State Senate hearing on Atlantic Yards pretty much explains it all.
Posted by lumi at 6:03 AM
Two points got lost in media circus
Who were the hard-hatted guys in orange vests really?
In general, the media gave a pass to all of the newly minted hard hats who showed up at last Friday's hearing on Atlantic Yards. Most of the press coverage called them "construction workers," yet no one appeared to have interviewed any of these workers to learn where they received their brand new hard hats (notice the lack of scuff marks) and safety vests (ditto, and you can still see the folds). Presumably, they were compliments of Forest City Ratner or one of the astroturf organizations founded to support the megaproject.
Land valuation coming up
Toward the end of the hearing, George Sweeting, from the city's Independent Budget Office, brought up the issue of the upcoming bond offering, the value of which will be based on the value of the land:
"...it is notable that the land assessments for the parcels under the arena have more than tripled in the last three years."
The value of this land will allegedly be based on comparisons with property in the surrounding area, a comparison that was never made when the land was declared blighted by the Empire State Development Corporation.
Seriously, if this neighborhood is "blighted," then how in hell is the land underneath the arena supposed to triple in value during the past few years?
Posted by lumi at 5:31 AM
Brooklyn Day (2008) vs. Perkins hearing (2009); why FCR's operatives got better results
Atlantic Yards Report
So, why was Brooklyn Day, the Forest City Ratner-sponsored event June 5 at Borough Hall, such a dud, while the FCR-orchestrated response at the state Senate oversight hearing on Friday succeeded in disrupting the event and--in some news accounts--overshadowed more analytical coverage?
Here are a couple of suggestions:
1) It's easier to be against something than to be for something.
2) The above goal is much easier to accomplish when you're committed to being disrespectful.
3) A group is much louder inside a building than outside a building.
4) Probably the most important witness, at least in volunteering vital information, was George Sweeting of the Independent Budget Office (IBO), and he spoke late in the hearing, which meant some in the press had already checked out.
Posted by lumi at 5:24 AM
May 31, 2009
Yet More On A Sunday From Atlantic Yards Report
There were two more entries from Sunday's Atlantic Yards Report that weren't included here earlier:
Brutally weird: for "Brooklyn," substitute "Forest City Ratner"
The Daily News editorial today cites "a new basketball arena for Brooklyn."
But the arena wouldn't be for Brooklyn.
Forest CIty Ratner would get the naming rights and the revenues. Brooklyn would get a chance to buy tickets.
Pinamonti predicted it
Brutally weird? Well, John Pinamonti predicted it, in "The Burrow":
Makes me sad, yea it's such a pity
They're trying to rename Brooklyn "Forest City"
More testimony submitted for the Senate hearing: why eminent domain should be reformed
This entry points out the need for reform of New York State eminent domain law. The abuse of eminent domain is vital for the proposed Atlantic Yards project.
The issue of eminent domain and blight got short shrift at the hearing on Atlantic Yards held Friday by State Senator Bill Perkins.
One person who submitted testimony, but couldn’t attend, was Michael Rikon, an attorney since 1980 in private practice representing property owners in condemnation proceedings. (He also represents some property owners in the AY footprint.)
“In my opinion, it is fundamentally wrong to take someone’s property and turn it over to a private party,” Rikon said in his prepared testimony. “We understand that eminent domain is necessary on occasion. But the use of this most extreme power should be limited to a true public purpose. Atlantic Yards should be limited to a stadium site for the Nets.”
Posted by steve at 7:19 PM
It Came from the Blogosphere...
Gothamist, Public Meeting on Atlantic Yards Derailed by Project Supporters
State Senators held a public hearing at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn on Friday to get a sense of where things stand for developer Bruce Ratner's $4.2 billion dollar dream of building a Nets arena and mixed-use towers on a 22-acre site that includes part of the MTA railyards. But it was difficult to get a sense of just how FUBAR the controversial project actually is, in part because the meeting was packed with hundreds of jeering construction workers wearing hard hats and "Atlantic Yards Now" buttons. At one point State Senator Bill Perkins futilely begged for silence, telling the crowd, "I think if we could eliminate some of the whistling and shouting..." But he was drowned out by cries of "Go, home Bill!"
Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn, Bruce Ratner to Get New Deal From the MTA
Bruce Ratner refused to testify before the hearing of the NY State Senate Committee on Corporations, Authorities and Commissions about the past, present and future of the Atlantic Yards Project. It was confirmed that the MTA has offered him an even sweeter sweetheart deal and the Empire State Develop Corp will release a modified project plan in the coming months, which will require a new public hearing on the project and a new unanimous vote by the Public Authorities Control Board (PACB) comprised of Governor Paterson, Assembly Speaker Silver and Senate Majority Leader Malcolm Smith.
...
The most enlightening testimony of the day came from George Sweeting of the New York City Independent Budget Office (IBO), who said that the project's proposed Barclays Center Arena would be a financial loss for New York City. Since the IBO's last report in 2005 the City subsidy had more than doubled from $100 to 205 million. Sweeting said, "This change alone therefore eclipses the $25 million net positive benefit to the city that we previously estimated for the arena."
...
The ESDC's Marisa Lago declared with near certainty that there will be a modified General Project Plan coming out sometime in the coming months, which will trigger a new public hearing, a new vote by the ESDC board and a unanimous vote by the PACB. This would require Governor Paterson to put his stamp of approval on the project for the first time, which would be difficult to do considering the state of the economy, budget cuts, public opposition to the project and changed political perspectives since it was first approved in 2006.
Daily Gotham, Atlantic Yards: Costing YOU Money in Two New Ways!
Bruce Ratner's gigantic Atlantic Yards project has already been costing YOU, the taxpayer, millions of dollars. You have even been asked to pay for the cost of the land! But the story keeps getting worse and worse. It seems Ratner's arena will be an ongoing money sink for New York City, and further more, some of the federal bailout money to help the MTA and keep out transit working in NYC will actually go to Bruce Ratner. This man is one of the greediest in the city! And with people from Pataki to Bloomberg to Marty Markowitz to Vito Lopez (corrupt Party Boss and the newest ally of Working Families Party) all helping him out, taxpayers are getting repeatedly screwed over.
...
You know, I have an idea. Maybe Marty Markowitz, Vito Lopez and Michael Bloomberg can just rename Brooklyn "Ratneropolis." After all, so much of our money and land are being handed to Ratner by these politicians.
Posted by steve at 7:01 PM
Atlantic Yards hearing: “It’s Déjà vu, all over again”
Not Another F*cking Blog
This blog entry considers the possibility of bridging the divide between opposing sides of the Atlantic Yards fight.
What’s more depressing for me is that most Atlantic Yards opponents and supporters, and particularly those living in and around the footprint, all really want the same things, but we stand on opposite sides of a seemingly impenetrable divide. I believe we all want:
development over the MTA’s Vanderbilt Rail Yard, which only makes up 8 of the 22 acres of the proposed project site development that produces, first and foremost, affordable housing and living wage jobs for area residents development that does not displace residents development that’s funded prudently and makes the most of our limited tax dollars (seems that Atlantic Yards would be a net loss, per the Independent Budget Office [pdf] ) development that enhances and encourages diverse and robust growth of local business and amenities How we attempt to achieve these goals is where we part ways.
Supporters seem to believe that Forest City Ratner’s Atlantic Yards development is the way to go, despite the fact that the basketball arena, a structure that nobody needs, would be built first. The touted affordable housing would be built soon thereafter, so says the developer. Supporters point to their Community Benefits Agreement (CBA) as a guarantee that FCR is legally-bound to follow-through on its promises, although it’s not legally binding. I doubt the penalties in the CBA would ever be enforced if (when) FCR reneges on its “guarantees,” and I know that the supporters aren’t naive enough to take FCR’s word at face value. I suppose they figure any agreement with the developer is better than no agreement.
...
You can view more of my photos from the hearing here.
Posted by steve at 8:05 AM
Crowd packs hearing on Atlantic Yards
NorthJersey.com
By John Brennan
This article was overlooked yesterday. It is excellent summary of Friday's state hearing on the proposed Atlantic Yards project.
An often-rowdy, overflow crowd of about 200 packed a Brooklyn auditorium today for a four-hour hearing on the proposed $5 billion Atlantic Yards project that would include a new basketball arena for the Nets.
Construction workers made up the bulk of the crowd for the New York Senate hearing titled, “Atlantic Yards: Where are We Now, How Did We Get There, and Where is the Project Going?”
Many used their union-supplied whistles whenever a state official expressed support for the stalled, struggling project. After about an hour, some began to heckle state Sens. Velmanette Montgomery, D-Brooklyn, and state Sen. Bill Perkins, D-Manhattan, chairman of the Senate committee that reviews major projects, as they continued to ask questions about the wisdom of building Atlantic Yards near downtown Brooklyn.
...
Lago and other state officials touting the project appeared to be using financial estimates that were several years old, with little or no adjustment for the much-less-robust current economy.
State officials also said that they do not yet know what percentage of affordable-housing units would fall under various income levels, ranging from $30,000 to $134,000 for a family of four.
MTA Executive Director Helena Williams, executive director of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, said that Forest City Ratner, the developer, is seeking to renegotiate a 2006 agreement under which the company would pay $100 million up front for air rights at the Vanderbilt Yards site that comprises a portion of the project footprint.
Williams added that she has agreed to allow Forest City to construct a seven-track replacement to the previous nine-track Vanderbilt Yards site, saving the developer considerable money. She said she wanted to ensure an effective rail site, “but we’re not building the Taj Mahal either.”
Posted by steve at 6:38 AM
May 30, 2009
Senate hearing: no tough questions for ESDC; MTA yields on yard; IBO calls arena a loss; arena 2012; raucous AY supporters make for 8/23/06 flashback
Atlantic Yards Report
As followers of the Atlantic Yards fight would expect, Norman Oder scrupulously documented yesterday's hearing held by State Senators Perkins and Montgomery. He was disappointed that the state and city officials who were there to testify were not subject to tougher questioning.
In some ways, the State Senate hearing held today on Atlantic Yards was eerily reminiscent of the epic 8/23/06 hearing on the Draft Environmental Impact Statement: the house was packed--I’d estimate at least 2/3 of the crowd at Pratt Institute’s Higgins Hall--by union members and Community Benefits Agreement signatories, many wearing "Atlantic Yards Now" buttons, who raucously disrupted the hearing and, when some of their members testified, repeated old arguments for the project.
Though this was supposed to be a fact-finding hearing, the representatives of city and state agencies emerged almost completely unscathed by questions posed by the panel led by State Senator Bill Perkins, despite testifying for some two hours. No one asked about the current timetable or cost of the project, nor challenged a stale, purported cost-benefit analysis. (Forest City Ratner, though it helped orchestrate the turnout and had uberflack Joe DePlasco in the aisles, did not testify.) More than 200 people were present in the main hall; more people were in two overflow rooms.
This is the ultimate recounting of what went on in the hearing:
-The revelation by George Sweeting of the IBO that the project arena will provide a net loss to the city.
-Deceptive information from Seth Pinsky, President of EDC, on economic benefits.
-The lack of any timetable for the affordable housing.
-The vague and misleading answers given by representatives from the State, City and MTA.
-The disruptions from project supporters.
-And much, much more!
Posted by steve at 10:03 AM
Friday, May 29, 2009 Today’s State Senate Hearings on Atlantic Yards and Noticing New York Testimony
Noticing New York
One thing in particular that was noticed at yeasterday's hearing was that the crowd of men wearing orange hard-hats and day-glo vests were not actually construction workers but BUILD members/supporters.
To say that the hearings were chaotic would be an understatement. As commented upon at the hearing’s conclusion, much of it was characterized by people who attended (including two senators, Carl Kruger and Marty Golden, who sort of crashed the event) for the purpose of intentionally showing disrespect to the proceedings and who exhibited open hostility toward any legislative inquisitiveness about the vast resources going into Atlantic Yards or about what Forest City Ratner is expected to produce in return. This meant that throughout much of the afternoon men dressed like construction workers with hard hats and red mesh Day-Glo caution vests were standing up to shout and use steel whistles to drown out and/or indicate their opinion on what was happening.
Senator Perkins did not ask security to enforce order and the disruptions were tolerated except for an occasional request for more respect or to tone things down.
Construction Workers Really BUILD?
While the men looked like construction workers it may be that, rather than being supplied by the unions as so often happens, they were instead supplied by BUILD, the Ratner-created and financially supported Astroturf organization. The best indication of this was that while there were several people who spoke on favor of proceeding with Atlantic Yards (or whatever the megaproject turns out to be), the caution-vested fellows where particularly emphatic about applauding the testimony of two individuals testifying who were actually from BUILD. The hard-hatted men were apparently on the clock. We noted that when one of their number inquired of someone else who seemed to be in charge whether it would be OK to leave, the other responded by holding up five fingers. From this we interpreted that they were committed to stay until 5:00 PM. That assessment seemed to be spot on when, at two minutes of 5:00, the entire group stood up and then exited the doors at exactly 5:00.
Testimony provided by George Sweeting of the IBO gets special mention:
Senator Perkins commented after the hearing was over that the most important testimony was that provided by George Sweeting of the city’s Independent Budget Office. Senator Perkins noted that during that testimony “you could hear a pin drop” which he pointed out was quite something given the many people in the crowd who had come specifically to be raucous and disruptive. What we heard from the IBO was that the Atlantic Yards megaproject has changed enough so that, even though there are still further reductions that need to be taken into account in the calculated amount of benefit the project will provide, it is already clear that the reductions in benefit which are already known, identified and susceptible to calculation now “eclipse” (that means “wipe out”) the meager amount of “net public benefit” that the IBO had once been able to calculate that the project could deliver. (Technically, the calculations done so far extend just to the arena, as we noted all that will be built at first, but see the section above per the benefit of the housing and read on with respect to what we say about the zoning override.) In other words the project is NOT delivering any public benefit
This blog entry also questions the wisdom of adding more subsidies to the project rather than going back to the drawing board as well as written testimony provided to Senator Bill Perkins by Michael D.D. White
Posted by steve at 9:40 AM
Construction Workers Dominate Atlantic Yards Hearing
Nets Daily
Construction workers chanting “Jobs!” and “New York Nets!” dominated a State Senate hearing Friday on Atlantic Yards. Workers booed and heckled critics of the project as well. At the hearing, state officials said the Barclays Center may be downsized. Among possible changes: fewer luxury suites. The officials confirmed Bruce Ratner wants to reduce what he owes the MTA, owner of the railyards beneath the arena.
Posted by steve at 8:58 AM
Job hungry hardhats jeer opponents at debate over Atlantic Yards
Daily News
By Jotham Sederstrom
The Atlantic Yards project has apparently changed a great deal since it was first proposed. One thing that hasn't changed is the desire by the project's proponents to squelch information that would help determine just what is being proposed and whether it provides benefits in return for state and city subsidies.
A public hearing on the controversial Atlantic Yards project spun out of control Friday as hundreds of job-hungry union laborers repeatedly shouted down opponents of the building plan.
...
"I think if we could eliminate some of the whistling and shouting ..." the event organizer, said state Sen. Bill Perkins, only to be interrupted by a new round of jeers.
"Go home, Bill!" several workers shouted at Perkins, whose district is in Harlem. "I live here! Bill, go home!"
The five-hour hearing was called by Perkins and other state senators to determine the status of the delayed $4.2 billion project, which is being reevaluated by designers in a bid to cut costs.
...
Senator Marty Golden, acting as a tool of the developer, made an unexpected appearance at the hearing.
At one point, the hearing veered completely off track when state Sen. Velmanette Montgomery (D-Brooklyn), a critic of the plan, berated fellow Sen. Marty Golden (R-Brooklyn) for showing up late.
That prompted workers to erupt in jeers in a show of support for Golden, who backs the 22-acre project.
Posted by steve at 8:14 AM
May 29, 2009
It came from the Blogosphere...
Streetsblog, Sotomayor’s Eminent Domain Stance: What Does it Mean For Cities?
Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor is dominating the conversation in Washington as analysts begin to dig into her past rulings. And while she has yet to weigh in on abortion, the judge has spoken loud and clear on an issue of interest to livable streets advocates: eminent domain.
As a judge on the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, Sotomayor ruled against property owners in Didden v. Village of Port Chester, a case that centered on plans for a CVS drug store in Westchester County.
…In theory, eminent domain can and should be used for beneficial purposes, such as transit expansion. Yet a recent push along those lines was halted by the Colorado state legislature last year, and proposed curbs on eminent domain are also imperiling the future of light rail in the Houston area.
On the flip side, local governments often take private property for new development projects, claiming that commercial and office buildings justify a standard of "public use" -- as was the case in Kelo and in Brooklyn's Atlantic Yards case, which was turned away by the Supreme Court last year. Another eminent domain case heard by Sotomayor's court, Brody v. Village of Port Chester, involved condemnation to build a Stop-'n-Shop supermarket parking lot.
UrbanOmnibus, Times Square’s Lesson in Design Value
New York City’s plan to close Times Square to vehicles looks like a triumph. The chaise-lounges [or chaises-longues, depending on whom you ask - Ed.] the city dropped at the Crossroads of the World on May 24th have stayed popular throughout the week, like day-glo brigadiers in a battle against delivery trucks. (I saw two tourists taking pictures of their feet on the pavement on May 26.) At the same time, the luxuriant plans that Gehry Partners concocted for developer Bruce Ratner’s Atlantic Yards project are failing to keep the project financially credible - and the latest rumor is that a no-fuss plan from Ellerbe Becket for the project’s focal basketball arena may bump Gehry’s bundle of crumples.
So: plastic chaise-lounges win a wave of rear ends, while titanium arenas leave the court with a hobble and nary an ovation. What’s the takeaway for urban design? I say it’s an axiom: people want to be together. If they come together under a roof shaped like a hoopoe bird, fine. But in an era of lean government budgets, the plan that gets people together quickly and cheaply should guide policymaking.
Nets Daily, Ratner Asking MTA for Compromise on Railyards
In slamming critics for hobbling Bruce Ratner with “frivolous litigation”, Daily News columnist Errol Louis reveals that the MTA, owners of the Brooklyn railyards, may decide Friday whether to accept a $20 million “down payment” from Ratner…instead of the full $100 million he owes the agency. Meanwhile, El Diario becomes the first city daily to oppose any more Atlantic Yards funding…calling it “developer welfare”.
Curbed L.A., Is Gehry Out At Atlantic Yards?
While the developer's spokespeople keep insisting Gehry is still the master architect for Atlantic Yards, Gehry himself has been saying the project is dead. Ratner plans to re-evaluate Gehry's design in July, but the smart money is on a plan that would be cheaper to execute.
Transit Blogger, Ratner Looks To Pay MTA Less Upfront
One of the most controversial construction projects of any kind to come in the last decade is the Atlantic Yards. The $4B project is centered around building a new arena & at least 16 high-rise buildings in downtown Brooklyn. The project has featured a multitude of supporters on both sides of the aisle. The average citizen has mostly been against the project as it features the status quo setup, benefit the rich while displacing & screwing over the less fortunate.
The project & its supporters have seen better days as lawsuits have held up groundbreaking & more so of late the global financial crisis. Now Bruce Ratner, CEO of Forest City Ratner Companies is looking to use the crisis as an excuse to shortchange the MTA money his company was due to pay the agency.
Little China Girl, Attack of the killer zongzis
Brooklyn’s least-favorite megaproject makes a cameo in this entertaining blog post about Beijing, food poisoning, quarantine, and the threat of eminent domain.
It’s about the government using its power to uproot citizens from their homes and raze a historical ground. Kinda like Atlantic Yards in Brooklyn. And it kinda makes me want to go to Kashgar.
UnBeige, Atlantic Yards Rumors Appear True as Ellerbe Becket Steps in to 'Reevaluate' Frank Gehry's Plans
Remember when it was rumored that developer Bruce Ratner was looking for another architect to replace Frank Gehry on the much-trimmed Atlantic Yards project, despite the press teams fighting off such ideas ("Frank Gehry has not been removed from the project")? And then Frank Gehry himself sort of stuck his foot in his mouth by saying he'd given up hope on being involved with the Yards going forward -- again much to the chagrin of the press handlers? Well, if you can believe it, apparently all of these crazy rumors seem to have maybe come true after all.
Posted by eric at 7:53 PM
REMINDER: Atlantic Yards Public Hearing, Today
SENATE STANDING COMMITTEE ON Corporations, Authorities and Commissions, Senator Bill Perkins, Chair
Subject
Atlantic Yards: Where are we now; How did we get here; Where is the Project going?
Testimony by invitation only. Written submissions welcome!
Purpose:
To elicit recommendations for improved accountability, and transparency, land use planning, and community participation for large scale development.
Friday, May 29
1PM - 5 PM
Pratt Institute, Higgins Hall
61 St. James Place (corner Lafayette Ave.)
Brooklyn, NY 11238
Description
The Atlantic Yards Arena and Redevelopment Plan (AY Plan) was announced by the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC), a public authority, in 2003. The plan includes a 19,000 seat Arena and 16 high rises which are to be built during a ten year time period. The 22 acre site adjoins the neighborhoods of Fort Greene, Prospect Heights, Parks Slope and Boerum Hill in Brooklyn. It includes an 8 acre site owned by the MTA, and other properties owned by the City and private property owners.
The Plan received all of its approvals in December 2006. The approval includes an override of the local zoning laws; an override of a more strict NYC Environmental Review; and approved taking properties by Eminent Domain.
The ESDC designated Forest City Ratner Corporation (FCRC) as the sole developer. New York State and New York City have committed to subsidize the Project through issuing bonding debts, infrastructure improvements, and other subsidies.
The Committee will hear testimony regarding financing, project oversight and the role of the Empire State Development Corporation, a public authority, in the Atlantic Yards Arena and Redevelopment Plan (AY Plan).
Posted by eric at 9:15 AM
Some questions for today's Atlantic Yards oversight hearing
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder summarizes some of the questions that State Senator Bill Perkins might want to pose at today's State Senate hearing on Atlantic Yards.
Why is the cost of the project and arena a secret? And why did Bruce Ratner disclose the cost to the Times? Where's the new timetable and budget? How long would the arena take to build? Could it really open in 2011?
...Is there an interim plan for the site, should nothing get built over most of it?
...What is the financial accountability for the project? How are the government agencies considering renegotiating the deal? Is there any new analysis of expected benefits? Will there ever be a cost-benefit analysis?
...Is Frank Gehry still on the project? What's Ellerbe Becket's role? How does Gehry's diminished role affect naming rights and expected revenue?
...Will Forest City Ratner pay the MTA the promised $100 million once the ESDC begins to pursue eminent domain? Will the MTA be willing to compromise with Forest City's request to amend the agreement and pay only $20 million up front?
...Did the ESDC do any independent evaluation of Forest City Ratner's claim that it had stalled work because of litigation?
...Has the developer exacerbated blight via demolitions?
Posted by eric at 8:59 AM
May 28, 2009
Senator Perkins confirms that Forest City Ratner was invited to the hearing
Atlantic Yards Report
Rabid fabulist Errol Louis ought to get a second opinion when told things by unnamed Forest City Ratner spokespeople, since what they say and what is true are frequently and often very different things.
State Senator Bill Perkins took umbrage at the quotation from an unnamed Forest City Ratner representative, as reported in Errol Louis’s Daily News column today, that the developer “wasn't even asked to testify at Perkins' invitation-only hearing.”
“I’m disturbed by the insinuation we did not invite Forest City Ratner,” Perkins told me, after I called his office to inquire. “You can be sure that if they called to meet with me”—the developer asked Perkins to postpone the hearing—“you can be sure they were invited.”
He said that FCR had been invited by mail, fax, and email, and that, “when their representative met with me to share some of their concerns, they were invited by me personally.”
NoLandGrab: Here's a prediction — neither Bruce Ratner, nor any employee of the company that professes that "when it comes to sharing information with the public and governmental bodies, there’s no such thing as too much," will show up to testify at tomorrow's hearing, since Perkins hasn't actually subpoenaed anyone.
Posted by eric at 5:40 PM
As public hearing approaches tomorrow, questions of benefits and blight; will Bruce Ratner testify?
Atlantic Yards Report
Though NY Daily News columnist Errol Louis claims "that Forest City - the single most knowledgeable source of changes to the project - wasn't even asked to testify" at tomorrow's invitation-only hearing, Norman Oder is reporting that "CEO Bruce Ratner has been invited, but, at least as of yesterday, had not confirmed participation."
NoLandGrab: Note that "Forest City Ratner Corporation" is on the list to testify from the official "Media Advisory." We're not saying that Louis's Forest City Ratner source is lying, only that he or she is being a little dramatic.
Another question: will there be any witnesses from the Community Benefits Agreement (CBA)? If so, maybe they'll be asked about their financial dependence on Forest City Ratner.
Remember, Delia Hunley-Adossa, chair of the CBA executive committee (and a City Council candidate), won't say who supports her dubious environmental organization, Brooklyn Endeavor Experience.
The national organization ACORN never announced that it was bailed out--with a $1 million loan and $500,000 in grants--by Forest City Ratner, which has relied on ACORN's New York affiliate to supply crucial political support for the project. Can New York ACORN criticize the diminished plans for affordable housing? Unlikely.
Remember, experts on CBAs have criticized this agreement for unenforceability if Forest City Ratner sells the project--not unlike the apparent switch in architects--and because signatories are not supposed to accept money from developers.
Campaign for Community-Based Planning, Comment on Atlantic Yards!
The Community-Based Planning Task Force will join City and State agencies, environmentalists, planners, and other community members and advocates to give testimony at a public hearing on Atlantic Yards on Friday, held by State Senators Bill Perkins and Velmanette Montgomery. Oral testimony on Friday is invite-only, but the public may submit testimony via email.
Posted by lumi at 7:16 AM
MEDIA ADVISORY: Updated list of confirmed attendees to NYS Senate Public Hearing on Atlantic Yards and Public Authorities
UPDATE:
Below is an updated list of confirmed attendees. List still in development.What:
NYS Senate Public Hearing on Atlantic Yards and Public Authorities: “Atlantic Yards: Where Are We Now, How Did We Get There, and Where is this Project Going?”Who:
- NYS Senator Bill Perkins, Chair of the Committee on Corporations, Authorities, and Commissions; Members of the Committee
- NYS Senator Velmanette Montgomery
- Empire State Development Corporation CEO Marisa Lago
- Metropolitan Transportation Authority Interim Chair and LIRR President Helena Williams
- Forest City Ratner Corporation
- NYC Economic Development Corporation President Seth Pinsky
- Other City and State Agencies and Officials
- Environmental and Social Justice Witnesses
- Members of Affected Communities
Posted by lumi at 7:13 AM
May 27, 2009
Atlantic Yards Nets Arena Will Be Less Gehry, More Cheap
Gothamist
by John Del Signore
As embattled developer Bruce Ratner—who just won't let go of his $4.2 billion dream to build a Nets basketball arena, office towers and thousands of apartments in Prospect Heights— continues to stagger around like a zombie who refuses to believe he's dead, the project's celebrated architect Frank Gehry is becoming increasingly uninvolved.
Last November, Gehry quietly dismissed two dozen staffers working on revised designs, and in March he told a reporter he doubts the project is "going to happen." Ratner is still determined to break ground on the $800 million arena as early as September, but it seems likely that Gehry will eventually have his name removed from Atlantic Yards; the Daily News reports that Ratner has hired Kansas City architecture firm Ellerbe Becket to essentially redo Gehry's design to cut costs.
NoLandGrab: Is it just us, or does "Ellerbe Becket" sound like the latest chapter in Bruce Ratner's series of unfortunate events?
DDDB.net, The Frank Gehry Clock is Ticking, According to Forest City Ratner
The Gehry clock is ticking, according to Forest City Ratner, and it is at the eleventh hour.
Brownstoner, Gehry Finito as Lead Designer for AY Arena?
Posted by eric at 11:47 PM
End developer welfare at Atlantic Yards
El Diario La Prensa
The Spanish-language El Diario continues to oppose Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards project — a uniquely honorable distinction among New York City's dailies.
At a time of economic crisis, in which the city, state and nation are struggling to fill budget holes and provide critical services, every public dollar must be wisely spent and invested. This calls into question mega projects such as the Atlantic Yards redevelopment plan.
Forest City Ratner (FCR), the private developer, billed the gargantuan $4 billion project as one that would bring affordable housing to Brooklyn. Thirty percent of the housing units were supposed to be for low and moderate income households.
But a slew of critics have questioned the supposed affordable housing, tax revenues and other benefits that the project is supposed to provide, especially with FCR’s inability to secure financing for the project’s housing component.
FCR, with the support of the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) and the Bloomberg administration, planned to build an arena for the Nets and 16 residential and commercial towers. Those plans have been scaled back. FCR has reportedly lobbied for more taxpayer support and even a slice of stimulus funding, and tried to renegotiate on money it owes to agencies like the MTA.
Aside from an oversized project threatening to rupture neighborhoods and communities in Brooklyn, the lack of transparency around costs or benefits to the public is unacceptable.
NoLandGrab: Is El Diario's common-sense opposition to Atlantic Yards just too simple and straightforward for the other papers to fathom? Or do they just not like getting scooped?
Posted by eric at 11:21 PM
Money questions for the Senate hearing: public benefit plunging, MTA obligation thrown off, per-unit subsidy compared
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder keeps coming up with questions for Friday's State Senate hearing on Atlantic Yards, including some worth posing about promised affordable housing.
I've previously questioned whether the ESDC ever considered whether enough housing bonds would be available to build the affordable housing at the announced timetable.
Evidence suggests the timetable was never realistic.
But did the ESDC ever compare the per-unit subsidy with the subsidy for units at other developments? Would this be a prudent use of housing subsidies? Obviously, cost should not be the only factor, but when and how should the various factors be applied?
These questions never came up in public, to my knowledge, but they're still worth asking.
Posted by eric at 10:28 AM
FCR was evasive on open space, Olin's role, bridge openings, plausible timetable, so the state should be answering these questions
Atlantic Yards Report
Let's look back at some not-so-transparent responses from Forest City Ratner to community concerns, and consider that the Empire State Development Corporation, not the developer, should be answering such questions.
The list includes:
- How about a "current expected and worst-case construction timelines," as has been released in the rebuilding of the World Trade Center site in Lower Manhattan?
- Is litigation holding up construction as development company Forest City Ranter (FCR) claims, or can the company start construction on property it has already acquired, as asserted in court documents?
- Is FCR's contention "that construction of Phase 1 will be complete or underway at the time of the Arena opening" even "plausible?"
- Will FCR really create temporary open space "in the event that a development site on the Arena Block is not in construction or needed for other project purposes by the time the Arena is completed?"
- Is landscape designer Laurie Olin on sabbatical, as FCR contends, or is he off the project as public statements suggest?
- Who is in charge of making sure that the Carlton Avenue bridge is reopened?
- Will the State heed the community's call for more public outreach concerning construction-related environmental impacts?
- So what about FCR's promise of "3,000 new, permanent jobs" to be created by Phase 1 of the project? How did they get these mind-blowing numbers and how has this number changed as the project has changed?
Posted by lumi at 4:52 AM
May 26, 2009
Kevin Caplicki
Justseeds.org
Justseeds is offering signed screenprints of artist Kevin Caplicki's "Built for Collapse."
Click here for more info, and to buy — just $20.
Posted by eric at 5:50 PM
In Pinamonti's new album, listen to "The Burrow," "It Wasn't the Rain," and more
Atlantic Yards Report
Brooklyn roots musician John Pinamonti, best known in AY circles for his live version of "The Burrow," part-elegy, part-fight song, has released a studio version of the song--with richer instrumentation--as part of his fifth album, End of Smith.
It's well worth a listen, as is the rest of the album.
Posted by lumi at 5:50 AM
May 22, 2009
Islanders, Nets linked together by common history, together again in Brooklyn?
Examiner.com
by Evan Weiner
The more things change...
So how much has changed in the three years and eight months to the day since this column was written by this reporter in the New York Sun about a proposed arena being built in Brooklyn for Bruce Ratner's New Jersey Nets and how Nassau County politicians shouldn't feel so snug that Charles Wang would keep his Islanders in the county?
Apparently not much. Just change a few dates and the September 21, 2006 column could be easily rewritten today and it is. Remember just about all of the column is nearly four years old and it serves to illustrate just how slowly government works on big project proposals.
Posted by eric at 11:37 AM
Support wanes for Atlantic Yards?
Crain's Insider
Political support for the Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn was nearly unanimous when it was proposed in 2003 and for years afterward. That’s no longer the case—despite a string of court decisions favoring the developer, Forest City Ratner, and its partner in state government, the Empire State Development Corp.
In the past two years, local officials including Councilman David Yassky and Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries have done little cheerleading for Atlantic Yards and have periodically been critical. Project booster Roger Green quit the Assembly in 2006, leaving Borough President Marty Markowitz as the only unflagging supporter among local officials. Not one of more than a dozen candidates in two City Council districts near the project openly supports it, according to opposition group Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn.
Initially, the Brooklyn political and nonprofit establishment lined up behind Atlantic Yards and Forest City, while opponents were marginalized and deemed NIMBYists. That made it easy for Mayor Bloomberg, Assembly Speaker Shelly Silver and Govs. Pataki and Spitzer to grant Forest City the funding and approvals it needed. Two exceptions were Councilwoman Tish James and state Sen. Velmanette Montgomery, who have opposed the $4 billion project from the outset.
The waning of political support for Atlantic Yards could cost Forest City if it decides to seek new approvals from ESDC and the Public Authorities Control Board for an arena-only general project plan. The developer has been unable to get financing for the project’s huge housing component—and affordable housing was the major reason it garnered support from elected officials and Acorn, an influential nonprofit group. The developer must break ground on the arena this year to qualify for tax-exempt financing.
Posted by eric at 11:31 AM
Support wanes for Atlantic Yards? Maybe, but not at the PACB, most likely
Atlantic Yards Report
Today's Crain's Insider, under the headline Support wanes for Atlantic Yards, notes:
Political support for the Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn was nearly unanimous when it was proposed in 2003 and for years afterward. That’s no longer the case—despite a string of court decisions favoring the developer, Forest City Ratner, and its partner in state government, the Empire State Development Corp.In the past two years, local officials including Councilman David Yassky and Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries have done little cheerleading for Atlantic Yards and have periodically been critical. Project booster Roger Green quit the Assembly in 2006, leaving Borough President Marty Markowitz as the only unflagging supporter among local officials. Not one of more than a dozen candidates in two City Council districts near the project openly supports it, according to opposition group Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn.
OK, but at the same time very few in the local political establishment line up behind DDDB, either. John Heyer, who works for Markowitz, does support an arena. And Jeffries certainly would like to see housing at the site.
Keep in mind that the two leading fundraisers in the 33rd District, Jo Anne Simon and Steve Levin, both steer clear of DDDB's opposition, as noted by Noticing New York. The leading fundraiser in the 39th, Brad Lander, seems closer to mend-it-don't-end-it BrooklynSpeaks on his web site but has expressed greater opposition in public, while Josh Skaller, second in fundraising, is an unequivocal opponent of the project.
Posted by eric at 10:12 AM
May 21, 2009
491-499 Dean Street
 |
Photo, Tracy Collins, via flickr Atlantic Yards Photo Pool
Dean Street near 6th Avenue
Prospect Heights
Brooklyn, New York499 Dean Street has a bit of a past.
If Atlantic Yards is built as currently planned, a high rise tower would replace the 3 small homes on the left and no sky would be visible in this photo. The high rise, currently called "Building 15", would be 272 feet tall, roughly 5 times as tall as 499 Dean Street.
Posted by eric at 10:43 AM
Catching up on some media mentions: FCR's stonewall, NYT's correction, Stern's (mis)information, and more
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder catches up on some recent Atlantic Yards-related stories, including:
2) In the May issue of a magazine called Selling Power (thanks to NetsDaily), there's a profile of New Jersey Nets CEO Brett Yormark, headlined Slam Dunk Sales. It contains this line:
The $950 million, Frank Gehry-designed Barclays Center in Brooklyn is expected to be completed in time for the start of the 2010 season.No, it's not $950 million, it's not necessarily designed by Gehry, and it certainly won't be completed by 2010.
Posted by eric at 9:53 AM
ESDC Stands by Atlantic Yards
GlobeSt.com
by Cody Lyon
Debate surrounding Brooklyn’s long-delayed Atlantic Yards project continues as a group of residents and business owners--who last week saw their challenge to the Empire State Development Corp.’s use of eminent domain dismissed by a state Appeals Court--vow to press on to the higher New York State Court of Appeals. Meanwhile, ESDC--the state’s quasi-governmental agency that partnered with FCRC to develop the 22 acres near downtown Brooklyn--defends the rationale behind public "support" of the project, telling GlobeSt.com that Atlantic Yards "will result in the revitalization of an underutilized and blighted area."
Regardless, beyond a widely reported statement expressing Forest City Ratner Cos. CEO chair Bruce Ratner’s "thrilled" reaction to the court dismissal, when asked about the very timely issues of financing and star architects, an FCRC spokeswoman tells GlobeSt.com the company has "no other comment" at this time. However, in April, a spokeswoman did tell Globest.com that FCRC hopes to see the Barclay’s Center Coliseum portion of the project open by 2011.
According to the ESDC, the agency will "own the arena" where the Nets plan to play basketball in Brooklyn. "However, pursuant to various lease agreements, all operational obligations will be borne by an FCRC affiliate," says the ESDC spokeswoman.
...While FCRC did not respond to questions regarding its ability to finance Atlantic Yards, ESDC’s spokeswoman says the agency "believes financing is viable at this point in time ESDC regularly meets with FCRC and its various financial advisors to discuss financing issues. Obviously, FCRC is counting on accessing financial markets at the time of closing." Of the arena’s final design, size and scope, the ESDC spokeswoman says "clearly the design of the arena will impact costs and have an affect on financing requirements."
In response to GlobeSt.com’s question as to whether FCRC would use the original Frank Gehry design for the arena or perhaps another architect altogether, ESDC says GlobeSt.com that was a question best answered by FCRC. Told that FCRC had not provided an answer, the ESDC spokeswoman says "regardless of Gehry’s involvement, ESDC’s design guidelines must be met."
NoLandGrab: Need we revisit ex-Forest City Ratner spokesperson Loren Riegelhaupt's claim that "when it comes to sharing information with the public and governmental bodies, there’s no such thing as too much, as far as we are concerned?" Nah.
Posted by eric at 9:28 AM
It came from the Blogosphere...
Curbed, Nets Begin Pitching Barclays Center Tickets at Atlantic Yards
Nothing gets basketball fans more hot and bothered than an eminent domain court ruling and affordable housing — "Courts Rule in Favor of Atlantic Yards — Secure Your Spot in Brooklyn":
While most NBA teams are using the excitement of the playoffs or the promise of the NBA draft to get their fans excited about next season, the Nets are taking a different approach, as exhibited in today's e-mail blast sent out to potential ticket buyers. Can't you just feel the excitement bursting out of this update on the appellate court's eminent domain ruling?! It's like a Vince Carter dunk in an opponent's face, converted to legalese!
Atlantic Yards Report, "Secure your spot in Brooklyn," urge the Nets, a tad prematurely
Norman Oder got the same email as Curbed, only his was branded with The Barclays Center, instead of the NJ Nets. Scouring AtlanticYards.com, he found one page that hadn't been updated yet.
Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn, The 33rd Candidates Meet Up In Williamsburg
Louise Crawford has been doing a great job reporting from local candidate forums. One candidate in the 33rd District has been in the trenches from the beginning in the fight against Bruce Ratner's massive eminent domain-abusing development scheme:
Ken Baer, who often had a smile on his face, is the only one of the group who seemed to be having fun. As usual he was having trouble with his microphone and suffered for a speaking style that is less than engaging. He is not, however, an equivacator. A longtime environmentalist, Baer was an early opponent of the Atlantic Yards and now supports superfund status for the Gowanus Canal.
plannyc.org, Developer Says Atlantic Yards Arena Construction Will Start in 2009
Forest City Ratner Cos. chairman and chief executive and New Jersey Nets owner Bruce Ratner said that ground will be broken on the team's new Atlantic Yards arena this year. He also said that the arena will be ready for the National Basketball Association's 2011-2012 year.
Property | Properties, Atlantic Yards Will Face More Lawsuits; Will It Face Eternal Delays?
This is a repost of our post excerpting yesterday's Brooklyn Daily Eagle article on the next steps in the litigation against Atlantic Yards.
Pardon Me for Asking, 'City Limits' Takes An In-Depth Look At Councilman Bill DeBlasio's Political Career
Councilman and candidate for Public Advocate Bill de Blasio's mediocre record with his own constituents goes beyond lip service on Atlantic Yards. Blogger Katia Kelly is quoted in a City Limits article, recalling the time when de Blasio practiced doing nothing on the local school board.
Puckchaser.com, NBA chatter up at Sprint Center? Really?
A Kansas City hockey fan puts a damper on his fellow sports fans' hopes of wooing the Nets to the Sprint Center arena, which has no anchor tenant:
Don’t even give the Nets moving to KC another thought unless the Atlantic Yards project completely falls through.
...
So many things would have to fall in place for KC to even sniff the Nets.-The Atlantic Yards project would have to fall through. -Same as the NHL, the team would have to be put up for sale, it isn’t right now, and the new owner would have to want to move to KC. -The new owner would have work out a lease deal at Sprint Center. -That lease deal would have to be better than one the team would get from the Pru.
Posted by lumi at 5:28 AM
May 20, 2009
When the Voice of the People isn't your voice or your people
Fans for Fair Play
Occasional blogger Scott M.X. Turner turns his attention to Monday's mad-dog editorial in the NY Daily News.
Wow. This morning, the New York Daily News has really laid its Atlantic Yards cards on the table. As usual, they're covering their crap hand with over-the-top bluffing.
In an editorial, the Daily News' board slammed "rabid obstructionists" for fighting Bruce Ratner's superblock project. Apparently the News doesn't want you going to court if they don't like why you're going to court. Constitutional rights really get in the way when they're someone else's bag, baby. Those same rights could still delay the Atlantic Yards project anywhere from months to years. In the Daily News' worldview, the Voice of the People they like the best is no voice at all.
Anyway, who are these insidious obstructionist nogoodniks whose foaming at the mouth is enough to coat a runway for an emergency landing?
Why, people who've figured out that Ratner's innocuous Jobs Hoops & Housing is really Pink Slips, Blight and Lies.
People who, facing the backs government officials have turned on them, did what the nation's stated ideals urges all of us to do -- protest, write, organize, fight, litigate, reach out, implore, investigate, report, analyze. The thing that was so popular in the 1770s, lobbing cannonballs at tyranny. Of course, if democracy comes too close to upsetting Michael Bloomberg's gilded applecarts, standing up to tyranny is no longer a celebrated thing. Citizenry Speaking Out become Rabid Obstructionists.
Read the whole essay for a sneak-peak at the name of Mr. Turner's next band.
Posted by eric at 10:51 AM
The AY endgame? The deadline for tax-free bonds, the impact of lawsuits, and Atlantic Lots
Atlantic Yards Report
Two articles published yesterday give some hints of the Atlantic Yards endgame, including an effort by developer and Forest City Ratner (FCR) and the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) to gain additional subsidies (and to delay developer obligations), and plans by opponent Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn (DDDB) to file more lawsuits, none of which may block the issuance of tax-free bonds by the December 31 deadline.
Also hinted is a plan by the ESDC to issue a revision of the Modified General Project Plan (GPP), which would describe a new timetable and offer new financing numbers and could--I believe--trigger an additional public hearing in the summer or fall.
You can be sure that any additional hearing — should one be mandated — would be scheduled around the last week in August, in an attempt to minimize public participation.
Meanwhile, another front has been opened in the legal war.
Also, I learned yesterday, there's a hearing June 8 in state Supreme Court on a motion filed on behalf of residents in two buildings in the AY footprint, who ask that a decision against them be vacated and that a new ESDC hearing be held, given questions about project benefits and timetable.
A motion filed by attorney George Locker pointed to ESDC CEO Marisa Lago's acknowledgement that the project could take "decades":
As of April 8, 2009, the evidence is clear that ESDC believes that Atlantic Yards is a project that will take decades. This is an enormous change from the 10-year project that was approved in 2006. ESDC should be directed to hold a public hearing on all of the changes.
Posted by eric at 10:33 AM
The Weinstein case, a deceptive land ownership map, and some questions for the oversight hearing
Atlantic Yards Report
We're quite used to getting something less than the truth from the Empire State Development Corporation and Forest City, but as Norman Oder explains, even their maps can't be trusted.
It's plain to see, not in black and white but in bright color.
The Empire State Development Corporation, which has regularly taken Forest City Ratner's cue in presenting facts to the public (as in the Construction Updates provided by the developer), in the December 2006 Modified General Project Plan provided this map of property ownership in the AY footprint.
(Click to enlage)The asterixes in the three properties owned by Henry Weinstein (see oval) indicate: FCRC has closed on an option to take by assignment the lessee's interests under the ground leases for these properties. However, the property owner has objected to such assignments.
More than an objection
It wasn't merely an objection; it was a bitter legal dispute. Weinstein had leased the properties to Shaya Boymelgreen, who operated his office in the building at 752 Pacific Street.
At about the same time that Boymelgreen sold the Ward Bakery to Forest City Ratner, he also transferred the lease to Weinstein's properties to FCR--without getting approval from Weinstein. Both parties went to court, as I wrote in August 2006.
Weinstein won a fundamental victory in March 2007; the Boymelgreen leases were terminated. This month Weinstein saw that upheld--and more--in appeals court.
Posted by eric at 10:21 AM
May 19, 2009
How Forest City Ratner pulls the strings behind the AY Construction Updates (and why the ESDC should answer questions
Atlantic Yards Report
Whoopsie! The Empire State Developerment Corporation forgot to remove the original distribution-list names on one "Construction Update," indicating that developer Bruce Ratner (not NY State) is calling all the shots and explaining why pesky watchdog reporter Norman Oder keeps getting the run around.
This may not seem like a big deal, but it's illustrative of an uneasy relationship in which ESDC must both oversee and promote Atlantic Yards. Officially, the ESDC circulates and posts the updates, announcing:
In an effort to keep the Atlantic Yards Community aware of upcoming construction activities, ESD and Forest City Ratner provide the following outline of anticipated upcoming construction activities.
The statement that "ESD and Forest City Ratner provide" suggests that the state agency should be willing to answer questions raised by discrepancies in the updates, such as my query about why announced utility work on Pacific Street never apparently occurred.
However, the ESDC sent me to Forest City Ratner, which ignores my queries and, not being a government agency, is not subject to any oversight. So the government and the developer should be asked about Pacific Street utility work at the upcoming Senate oversight hearing.
Posted by lumi at 6:13 AM
May 18, 2009
Times two
Two from the Times's blogs, that is.
City Room, Bradley Wants Nets to Play in Newark, Not Brooklyn
NBA legend and former NJ Senator Bill Bradley is betting his Dollar Bill on the Nets ending up in Newark.
Add Bill Bradley, the former Knicks star and United States senator from New Jersey, to the list of skeptics regarding the planned 18,000-seat basketball arena that is to be a centerpiece of the Atlantic Yards development near downtown Brooklyn.
Mr. Bradley, who sought the Democratic nomination for president in 2000, said in a recent interview that he supports efforts by Mayor Cory A. Booker of Newark to lure a professional sports team there. Mr. Bradley believes that the Nets, which currently play in the Izod Center in East Rutherford, N.J., can play in the Prudential Arena, the home of the Devils.
The former senator noted that the controversial Atlantic Yards project — which would include apartments, offices, stores along with the arena — has been delayed as a result of the economic downturn.
The Local [Fort Greene/Clinton Hill], The Day: Politics, Money and More
Those of you who follow Atlantic Yards Report closely know that Norman Oder occasionally spars with an anonymous commenter who goes by the web handles of Bobbo or Net Income. Which makes it all the more surprising that someone posting as Bobbo scolded The Local (and The Times more broadly) for continually allowing Oder to scoop them.
Why does the Times, and particularly Mr. Newman, continually permit Mr. Oder to do what the Times should be doing on its own? Why outsource your journalism?
All this material is public and online. You don’t even need to expend shoe leather, just a few key strokes. No wonder Mr. Oder has such disdain for the Times.
— Bobbo
Posted by eric at 11:00 PM
May 17, 2009
When Is Atlantic Yards Groundbreaking? Bruce Ratner Doesn't Seem to Know
Develop Don't Destroy
Is there any reason to take Bruce Ratner's words at face value when it comes to Atlantic Yards? Of course not.
In the aftermath of yesterday's Appellate Divsion ruling against nine property owners who sued to keep NY State from seizing their homes and businesses to enrich Bruce Ratner, Bruce Ratner was trotted out to talk directly to the press. It has been rare that the man behind the Brooklyn Boondoggle has spoken directly to anyone in the press or public over the years of the Atlantic Yards saga. Yesterday's performance explains why.
Three daily newspapers came away with three different stories after talking to sports baron and blight maven.
The NY Post had Ratner saying he'd break ground on Atlantic Yards in September.
The New York Daily News had him saying "this summer."
And the New York Times had him saying "this October."
And the official statement from the developer on the Barclays Center website (not the AtlanticYards.com website, which appears to be moribund) says "this year."
(All this inconsistency must have had lead flack Joey DePlasco muttering to himself.)
It was September 2008 when Bruce Ratner told the New York Times he'd break ground in December 2008. (In the same article DDDB commented that was impossible and we were correct.)
It was late March 2009 that Nets President and marketing guru Brett Yormark told WFAN sports radio that they'd break ground "this summer."
Now they are saying (see above) summer, September, October and "this year." Take your pick.
We'll tell you again, all are wrong—for legal and financial reasons.
Posted by steve at 8:52 AM
Nets project moves ahead, but toward what?
Field of Schemes
In a difficult economic time, questions and concerns persist about the viability of an arena for the Nets.
While there's always a chance this court will be unlike all other courts, the bigger question now appears to be: If all the lawsuits are cleared away, then what will Ratner do? Or, more to the point, what can he do? We've already noted that the economic crash has essentially doomed Ratner's proposed office tower, that the apartment buildings might not happen for years, if ever, and that the original arena design has been abandoned as way too expensive; that leaves, um, an on-the-cheap arena surrounded by vacant lots?
The state senate is scheduled to hold its first-ever hearing on Atlantic Yards (only six-and-a-half years after it was first proposed) on May 29, and Norman Oder of Atlantic Yards Report has a list of proposed questions that should be asked:
Is it guaranteed that Atlantic Yards will still include affordable housing, or can Ratner put off that portion of the project indefinitely without penalty?
When will the state Metropolitan Transportation Authority get the $100 million Ratner promised to pay for development rights to its rail yards — money it could kind of use.
Is Frank Gehry still working on this thing or what?
I'll add one more question: Given that the entire economic landscape has changed since this plan was first proposed back in 2003, and that the design will apparently bear little resemblance to what was originally approved by the state back then, might it make sense for the state to just go back to square one and issue a new request for proposals for the site?
Posted by steve at 8:40 AM
Atlantic Yards YES! Libraries, NO!!
The City of New York was able to give Developer Bruce Ratner $100 million to acquire private property in the footprint of the proposed Atlantic Yards project - a number that just happens to be the budget for the Brooklyn Public Library.
Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Drastic Cutbacks Are Expected at Brooklyn Public Library
Looking at a $17.5 million cut in city funding, the Brooklyn Public Library (BPL) could face hefty lay-offs and stiff cuts in hours and service.
If the mayor’s proposed executive budget is adopted, it will represent an almost 20 percent reduction in BPL’s overall budget of $100 million. This would translate into lay-offs of approximately 175 staff members, which is one out of every six full-time employees, says BPL’s Marketing and Communications Director Stephanie Arck.
The fifth largest library system in the country, BPL will also have to enact huge cuts in the library’s operating hours. Most neighborhood libraries would only be open five hours a day, five days a week. The six-day service that is now universal in the libraries will only remain at 15 of the 60 libraries in the system. “It’s enormous. This is the biggest cut in service since 2001,” said Arck.
Posted by steve at 6:00 AM
May 15, 2009
Court Rules Against Tenants, Owners in Eminent Domain Case. Plaintiffs Will Go To Court of Appeals
Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn
DDDB prefaces the posting of the press release they issued earlier today with this appeal:
To all of DDDB's supporters. Please help continue to financially support the legal defense of the homes and businesses of your neighbors, as they challenge the use of eminent domain for Atlantic Yards in the appeal stage.
You can donate online (or find out how to donate by mail) at: www.dddb.net/donate.
Posted by eric at 5:12 PM
Goldstein et al v. New York State Urban Development Corporation in the news
NY Observer, Court Rebuffs Atlantic Yards Opponents as Legal Options Narrow
Developer Bruce Ratner has won another victory in his undying attempt to bring the Nets to Brooklyn as part of the $4 billion mixed-use project, Atlantic Yards. In a decision posted online on Friday, landowners and tenants were rebuffed by the state appellate court in a case that contested the use of eminent domain for the project (the case was against New York State, not Mr. Ratner himself).
...Of course, at this point a court victory for Mr. Ratner’s Forest City Ratner is nothing surprising, as it has defeated numerous legal challenges contested in both federal and state court, which have been appealed repeatedly. But more than anything else, the decision amplifies the ticking clock for critics and opponents, as Forest City needs to complete the deal with the state for the project by the end of the year in order to qualify for tax-exempt financing on the Nets arena (without the tax-free financing, its cost would rise substantially, further placing into doubt the project's viability).
BrooklynPaper.com, Nothing but net: Ratner wins a big one!
Atlantic Yards developer Bruce Ratner won an important court victory against nine property owners inside the project’s footprint who had argued that the state Constitution bars the use of eminent domain for any development that includes luxury housing.
Ratner reveled in today’s unanimous decision by the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court, saying it would allow construction on the long-awaited basketball arena to begin later this year.
NoLandGrab: Bruce's bosses out in Cleveland earlier this week announced they don't "anticipate commencing any new vertical development in the near term," and we don't think they expected to lose this court decision.
Crain's NY Business, Atlantic Yards wins key legal victory
In the decision, the court ruled that the developer’s private benefit from the construction of Atlantic Yards does not outweigh the overall public benefit. Forest City said it is the 23rd ruling in its favor regarding the massive project which includes the Nets sports arena and residential buildings.
NLG: Notice they're no longer using the word "consecutive" after "23rd," given the setback the Appellate Division dealt them earlier this week in a suit over Henry Weinstein's Prospect Heights property.
“We’re thrilled with today’s decision,” said Forest City Chief Executive Bruce Ratner, in a statement, adding that he is confident that the $4 billion project would break ground this year. “This significant victory keeps Atlantic Yards moving forward. We are ready to get started.”
NLG: Oh, are they, now.
According to Mr. Ratner the arena and larger development are expected to create 16,924 direct jobs and over 30,000 indirect jobs. The tax revenues that will be generated for the City and State during the construction period are expected to exceed $240 million and after construction reach approximately $70 million a year.
NLG: Either Crain's misheard Mr. Ratner, or Mr. Ratner's figures are suffering from hyperinflation.
Runnin' Scared, Atlantic Yards Resists Court Challenge; More to Come
Curbed, Atlantic Yards Master of its Domain
Nets Daily, Atlantic Yards Wins Big Victory in State Court
Posted by eric at 4:47 PM
Eminent domain case is dismissed unanimously; appeal in this and EIS case remain as last legal hurdles
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder analyzes today's Atlantic Yards court decision.
The Atlantic Yards eminent domain case was always a long shot in state court (even more so than in federal court), and today a state appellate court dismissed Goldstein et al. v. Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) in an unanimous opinion.
In New York State, an appellate court, rather than a trial court, hears eminent domain cases, and no testimony or cross-examination is allowed.
The straightforward language of the 16-page decision, which gave no quarter to the petitioners' claims, contrasted with the appellate decision in the case challenging the Atlantic Yards environmental impact statement (EIS), which took pains to express some skepticism about the project and featured a concurrence that sounded like a dissent.
Appeal issue
Eminent domain law in New York State gives unusual deference to the government condemnor. A major issue raised in legal briefs and the February oral argument is whether the defendant ESDC conducted a study to measure the relative benefit to developer Forest City Ratner.
In legal papers, the ESDC claimed it had done so, though it cited a document that didn't perform such a measure. In court, the ESDC lawyer said it wasn't necessary, and the court agreed.
Plaintiffs’ attorney Matthew Brinckerhoff said today, “The court’s logic is faulty. The private benefit to Ratner was never compared with the alleged public benefit because no one knew or cared to ask Ratner whether he would make billions, tens of billions or hundreds of billions. The ESDC has conceded that it had no idea how much money will be made by Ratner when it agreed to seize my clients’ homes and businesses on his behalf."
...The nine petitioners, organized and funded by Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn, will appeal to the state's highest court, the Court of Appeals, and say that they have the right to appeal without asking permission.
Update: Brinckerhoff said that the state Constitution and the Civil Practice Law and Rules allow the right to appeal when a case raises a constitutional question. That's been interpreted to mean a "substantial contitutional question." He said "we have multiple substantial constitutional questions, which gives us the right to appeal." However, he acknowledged, if the Court of Appeals disagrees, it could reject the appeal and require the petitioners to ask the Appellate Division to file a motion for leave, which would be discretionary. "I have a high degree of optimism [that the Court of Appeals would hear it], but I can't guarantee it," he said.
Such an initial request for leave to appeal is still pending in the case challenging the EIS. It could take several months--likely until the fall, given the courts' summer recess--for final appeals to be denied, and it would take much longer should the appeals be accepted. If the latter, there could be two more years of delay.
Posted by eric at 2:52 PM
DDDB PRESS RELEASE: Court Rules Against Home, Business Owners and Tenants in Atlantic Yards Eminent Domain Lawsuit
Plaintiffs Will Ask the Court of Appeals to Stop New York State From Seizing Their Properties to Enrich Bruce Ratner
BROOKLYN, NY— A New York State Appellate Division* (Second Department) panel of 4 judges ruled against nine Brooklyn homeowners, business owners and tenants who had filed a lawsuit to stop New York State from seizing their homes and businesses by eminent domain to benefit developer Bruce Ratner for his indeterminate and uncertain development proposal known as Atlantic Yards in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn. (The ruling in Goldstein et al. v. Empire State Development Corporation is here.)
The plaintiffs will appeal the ruling to the Court of Appeals.
In the decision, the court wrote: “We find that, on the record in this case, the condemnation does not violate the Public Use clause of the New York Constitution because it cannot be said that the public benefits which the Atlantic Yards project is expected to yield are incidental or pretextual in comparison to the benefit that will be bestowed upon the project’s private developer.”
“The court’s logic is faulty. The private benefit to Ratner was never compared with the alleged public benefit because no one knew or cared to ask Ratner whether he would make billions, tens of billions or hundreds of billions. The ESDC has conceded that it had no idea how much money will be made by Ratner when it agreed to seize my clients’ homes and businesses on his behalf. There is ample evidence that the public benefits are minor compared to the enormous benefits for Ratner,” said plaintiffs’ attorney Matthew Brinckerhoff. “We have the right to appeal directly to the State’s highest court, the Court of Appeals, which we will do, so that Court can determine that the New York Constitution’s Public Use Clause provides greater protection to its citizens than the federal constitution.”
Developer Forest City Ratner (FCR) cannot build its beleaguered, $4 billion Atlantic Yards development proposal, including the billion-dollar Barclays Center arena, unless New York State seizes the plaintiffs’ properties on behalf of Bruce Ratner and it secures financing. FCR has been unable to attain the financing for the project or pay for the rail yard portion of the project site. The developer does not own or control** the land the needs to build the project, including the arena. The project has not started construction, and the developer halted all preliminary work in December 2008. Two days ago Cleveland-based parent company Forest City Enterprises stated that the developer will not start any new vertical development “in the near term.”
“We’re disappointed in the ruling, but are optimistic that the Court of Appeals will see the importance of setting clear boundaries between constitutional and unconstitutional uses of eminent domain in New York State. The benefits the original project allegedly offered were negligible, at best, and with the changed economy they are now non-existent. Despite this setback, our fight against the improper use of eminent domain and against the Atlantic Yards project is far from over,” said Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn legal director Candace Carponter. “Forest City Ratner may claim again, like the boy who cried wolf, that they will break ground soon. But they won’t; they are unable to do so.”
The initial complaint to the Court, all the briefs, and today’s ruling for Goldstein et al. v. Empire State Development Corporation can be downloaded at: www.dddb.net/eminentdomain.
* Note: The ruling today is on the initial case, not an appeal. The ruling comes from the Appellate Division because New York State law requires that all eminent domain challenges must be initiated in the Appellate Court, rather than the lower court—the Supreme Court.
**Note: Just last week FCR lost control of an additional 1+ acres of property in the project site, when they lost a case to property owner, and plaintiff on this eminent domain case, Henry Weinstein. Within the proposed 22-acre project site, Ratner only owns or controls about 6-7 acres.
Note: Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn, in its effort to defend the homes and businesses of members of our community, and to advocate for their rights, organized the eminent domain lawsuit, and raises the funds to support it.
RELATED NEWS: In two weeks the New York State Senate will probe the Atlantic Yards project. Forest City Ratner and the Empire State Development Corporation (the State agency overseeing the project) will be testifying in the first State Senate public hearing on the Atlantic Yards project scheduled for May 29th in Brooklyn. More details here.
Posted by eric at 1:31 PM
In Ombudsman's response, ESDC maintains dubious timetable, says Carlton Ave. Bridge might reopen for pedestrians
Atlantic Yards Report
Atlantic Yards Ombudsman Forrest Taylor has responded with the Empire State Development Corporation's (ESDC) answers to several questions raised at Taylor's February 11 public appearance in Brooklyn sponsored by the Council of Brooklyn Neighborhoods (CBN).
In one case, at least, the official ESDC answer--that construction would be completed during the ten-year timeframe set out in the General Project Plan (GPP)--contradicts ESDC CEO Marisa Lago's acknowledgment last month that the project would take decades.
So I think any further claim of a ten-year timetable should be backed up not merely by a construction schedule--which indicates technical possibility--but by a "probabilistic" date that indicates what might go wrong.
The ESDC, in its answers, does not offer much in the way of compromise, except for being willing to entertain the option of temporarily reopening the Carlton Avenue Bridge for pedestrians.
CBN shared the document with me. I've bolded the questions and put the answers in italic, all verbatim, then interpolated some of my own comments.
Click through to the article for the questions and (mostly) non-answers.
Posted by eric at 10:20 AM
It came from the Blogosphere...
Runnin' Scared, Atlantic Yards Continues to Not Get Built
If you're wondering what's going on with the troubled Atlantic Yards development project, the answer is nothing much and nothing good for developer Forest City Ratner. Back in 2007 a judge ruled that the way a long-term tenant of Henry Weinstein's Pacific Street building transfered his lease to Ratner -- a ploy to get the property for Ratner's Atlantic Yards project -- was illegal. That ruling was upheld on appeal this week, and Weinstein given the right to sue for damages. Ratner's stock has fallen 12 percent, and Ratner is issuing a stock split to raise money.
NoLandGrab: It's not technically a stock split, because that would not dilute the value of current shares.
Stick News, 752 Pacific Street Owner Looking for $25 Mil in Damages
While some Atlantic Yards opponents probably think the recent appeals court ruling that Jeshayahu Boymelgreen violated the terms of his lease with the owner of 752 Pacific Street by subletting to Forest City Ratner is priceless, the owner's law firm is being a little more precise in its calculations: It's going to sue for $25 million or so to make up for loss in value since the lease was violated back in 2006, reports Crain's.
Curbed, Atlantic Yards Oops
The rightful landlord can evict Boymelgreen and sue the for damages, which exceed $25 million according to the plaintiff's lawyer. Will the guy end up selling to Ratner himself? "My client declined to sell the property to Ratner and has never been desirous of selling his properties," his lawyer says.
GlobeSt.com, Court Okays Eviction of FCRC, Boymelgreen
The lead attorney for Weinstein, David Brody, of Borah, Goldstein, Altschuler, Nahins & Godel, PC, tells GlobeSt.com that FCRC’s Bruce Ratner "recorded his option for the assignment of the buildings, then he recorded certain other things and all for purposes of allowing him to represent to the ESDC that he controlled the property in terms of the Atlantic Yards project."
Standing firm, the ESDC spokesperson tells GlobeSt.com that in fact, FCRC "did not misrepresent its position to ESDC, as it believed it had a valid assignment of Boymelgreen’s lease hold interest in the premises. The courts, however, disagreed."
...Brody tells GlobeSt.com that while his client may not win in the end, the ruling at least provides an opportunity for discovery to see how far up the ladder they can go. "Boymelgreen illegally assigned the lease to Ratner," he says.
...Brody says that under the lease, Weinstein "has the right to go in and inspect his property." But he adds Weinstein has even encountered difficulties when he visited his properties.
He says that Weinstein’s desire has been to be left alone and to be allowed to own his property and develop it as he sees fit. "That’s what this is really about for him," Brody says.
Posted by eric at 12:40 AM
May 14, 2009
DDDB Press Release: Atlantic Yards Developer Announces: No New Vertical Development This Year
Forest City Enterprises Dilutes Existing Shares By Selling 45.5 Million New Shares To Pay Off Debts
BROOKLYN, NY— Just last week NBA Commissioner David Stern said Forest City Ratner would break ground this summer on the besieged Barclays Center arena in Brooklyn. Or, at least, that is what he has been told by the developer, who last year said they’d break ground in December 2008, and in 2003 said they’d open their arena in 2006.
Today, announcing the sale of 45.5 million new shares to raise cash to pay off a heavy debt burden, parent company Forest City Enterprises stated in a press release that:
“…Forest City does not anticipate commencing any new vertical development in the near term…”
Presumably if they were going to start construction on the arena this summer, or even this year, they would have said so as an exception to their overall construction freeze.
Forest City Ratner (FCR) continues to maintain that the Barclays Center Arena would open in 2011. But if construction does not start in 2009, that would be impossible, as would a 2012 opening date given stated build out schedules.
“Currently Forest City Ratner doesn’t own the land it needs to build the arena or the rest of Atlantic Yards, and does not have the financing to build the arena. It appears that the numbers no longer compute to build the arena or affordable housing they once envisioned. The project is also being litigated in two major lawsuits,” said Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn spokesman Daniel Goldstein. “The new stock issued by Forest City Enterprises shows a desperate company in a precarious position with no creditor friends.”
Apparently banks are reluctant to extend more credit to Cleveland-based Forest City Enterprises, so the developer issued 45.5 million new shares priced at $6.60. As of noon the market has responded that $6.60 is overpriced, the stock is trading at $6.36 a share and was as low as $6.06. The stock is down about 80% since September.
Answers from the developer and the Empire State Development Corporation (the State agency overseeing the project) about these and many other questions will hopefully be forthcoming in the first State Senate public hearing on the Atlantic Yards project scheduled for May 29th in Brooklyn.
Posted by eric at 1:40 PM
May 13, 2009
Atlantic Yards project faces fresh hurdle
Appeals court rulings could complicate life for developer Forest City Ratner
Crain's NY Business
by Amanda Fung
Two New York state appeals court rulings could put a wrench in Forest City Ratner Cos.’s plans to build its sprawling Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn.
The recent rulings give Henry Weinstein, a developer who owns almost an acre within the proposed Atlantic Yards footprint, the right to evict the property’s tenant, Brooklyn developer Jeshayahu Boymelgreen and Forest City.
Forest City was given an illegal assignment to Mr. Weinstein’s properties according to last week’s rulings. The court also said Mr. Weinstein can sue the entities involved in the case for monetary damages. The unanimous decisions reverse a March 2007 decision made by Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Ira Harkavy, which allowed Mr. Boymelgreen to remain an occupant despite termination of the lease.
The decisions were reached last week and announced Wednesday by Mr. Weinstein’s law firm Borah Goldstein Altschuler Nahins & Goidel. The law firm of Herrick Feinstein, which represents Mr. Boymelgreen, did not return a call for comment. A spokesman for Forest City said these rulings will not have an impact on the proposed project.
“We are now pushing for an eviction,” said David Brody, a senior partner at Borah Goldstein Altschuler Nahins & Goidel, adding the next step will involve asking for a hearing to determine the difference between the present-day value of the property and its value when the lease was terminated in July 2006, so Mr. Weinstein can recoup that money. The value is unknown, however. According to preliminary calculations in the lease, Mr. Weinstein’s damages exceed $25 million, the law firm said.
NoLandGrab: $25 million seems like a stretch, but hey, we could say the same thing about trying to sell $800 million worth of tax-free bonds to finance an arena in Brooklyn when a perfectly fine arena is available in Newark.
Posted by eric at 4:45 PM
It came from the Blogosphere...
Brownstoner, Boymelgreen-Ratner Deal on Pacific Was Indeed "Improper"
A 2007 Supreme Court ruling that declared a lease deal between the developers Shaya Boymelgreen and Forest City Ratner improper was upheld yesterday by an Appeals Court in Brooklyn.... Now the question is what the impact of the appellate ruling will be.
mcbrooklyn, Cancel Your Cancun Vacation and Party in Brooklyn, and More Briefs
— Just one more legal glitch in the way of Ratner's Atlantic Yards project. Brooklyn Eagle
Not Another F*cking Blog, It’s about time: Atlantic Yards gets it’s first State Senate hearing, May 29
I would have thought/hoped that the Atlantic Yards project would have come under scrutiny years ago, but I suppose it’s better late than never that the State Senate will finally take a close look at this boondoggle.
Curbed LA, “Conversations With Frank Gehry": NYT Reviews
Architecture critic Martin Filler, one-time friend of Frank Gehry (he was even asked by Gehry to write his authorized biography), seems to be making amends in his NYTimes review of Barbara Isenberg’s “Conversations With Frank Gehry.” Filler, you may remember, wrote a scathing indictment of Gehry's design for Brooklyn's Atlantic Yards project in House & Garden in 2007, declaring it would “ruin a racially and economically diverse neighborhood of a sort almost extinct in today’s money-mad metropolis” and the scale "nothing less than nuts.” Ouch.
Huffington Post, Online News is Not Arianna Huffington's Dastardly Plot to Destroy the Newspaper Industry And Other Reality-Based Observations
FiredogLake.com blogger Jane Hamsher cites Norman Oder's Atlantic Yards Report in her rebuttal of David Simon's critique of the current media landscape:
Simon seems to have reached the conclusion that any news organization that doesn't cover the pie eating contests of Baltimore is woefully inadequate, those were the days, etc etc. I don't recall anyone ever covering the Atlantic Yards as meticulously as Norman Oder, who has written quite thoughtfully on the subject of local online news coverage. Perhaps if the Atlantic Yards project moved to Baltimore, Oder would pass Simon's litmus test.
Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn, What Does MTA Chief Lee Sander's Ritual Resignation Mean, If Anything, for Ratner's Rail Yard Deal?
What does the resignation of a seemingly upright public servant mean for the negotiations rumored to be taking place between the MTA and Forest City Ratner to restructure the $100 million deal for the developer to purchase the rights to develop the Vanderbilt Rail Yard—the 8-acre MTA-owned, active rail yard portion of the 22-acre Atlantic Yards projec? Remember, the developer has yet to pay a dime towards his winning, lowball bid.
Was Sander playing ball in those negotiations or playing hard ball? What will his successor do?
Posted by lumi at 5:48 AM
May 12, 2009
State Senator Perkins sets oversight hearing on Atlantic Yards for May 29
Atlantic Yards Report
After one postponement and some questions as to timing, the oversight hearing regarding Atlantic Yards has been scheduled by the Senate Standing Committee on Corporations, Authorities and Commissions, chaired by Senator Bill Perkins, for the afternoon of Friday May 29.
I've posted several questions/issues I think the hearing should address, and will be posting more.
Among the issues to be covered in all of four hours: the current status of the project; the public cost; the process behind and impact of eminent domain; the cost of the arena and impact of default; and conditions under which a developer is considered in default.
Looking at the timetable
Note that the announcement states that the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) gave Forest City Ratner Companies (FCRC or FCR) 10 years to develop the project but the developer has not begun construction almost three years after gaining approvals.
Well, given that approvals from the ESDC and Public Authorities Control Board (PACB) came in December 2006, the time lapse is about 2.5 years.
More importantly, the timetable, according to the State Funding Agreement, hasn't even started. It gives FCR six years to build the arena after the close of litigation and the ESDC's exercise of eminent domain to acquire needed properties. It gives FCR 12 years to build the five towers of Phase I after the close of litigation and the ESDC's exercise of eminent domain to acquire needed properties. And there's no timetable for the eleven towers of Phase II.
Posted by eric at 11:03 AM
Notice of Public Hearing
SENATE STANDING COMMITTEE ON Corporations, Authorities and Commissions, Senator Bill Perkins, Chair
Subject
Atlantic Yards: Where are we now; How did we get here; Where is the Project going?
Testimony by invitation only. Written submissions welcome!
Purpose:
To elicit recommendations for improved accountability, and transparency, land use planning, and community participation for large scale development.
Friday, May 29
1PM - 5 PM
Pratt Institute, Higgins Hall
61 St. James Place (corner Lafayette Ave.)
Brooklyn, NY 11238
Description
The Atlantic Yards Arena and Redevelopment Plan (AY Plan) was announced by the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC), a public authority, in 2003. The plan includes a 19,000 seat Arena and 16 high rises which are to be built during a ten year time period. The 22 acre site adjoins the neighborhoods of Fort Greene, Prospect Heights, Parks Slope and Boerum Hill in Brooklyn. It includes an 8 acre site owned by the MTA, and other properties owned by the City and private property owners.
The Plan received all of its approvals in December 2006. The approval includes an override of the local zoning laws; an override of a more strict NYC Environmental Review; and approved taking properties by Eminent Domain.
The ESDC designated Forest City Ratner Corporation (FCRC) as the sole developer. New York State and New York City have committed to subsidize the Project through issuing bonding debts, infrastructure improvements, and other subsidies.
The Committee will hear testimony regarding financing, project oversight and the role of the Empire State Development Corporation, a public authority, in the Atlantic Yards Arena and Redevelopment Plan (AY Plan).
The Committee will hear testimony to ascertain:
(1) The status of the Brooklyn Atlantic Yards Arena and Redevelopment Plan (AY Plan).
After approval of the project in 2006 FCRC has been quoted in various media as having delayed the opening date of the arena, changed the number of affordable units and the scale of the project. What is the plan now?
(2) Cost, the extent of public financing commitments through bonding, Payments In Lieu of Taxes (PILOTS), infra-structure improvements, and other public subsidies.
· What is the total public expenditure and cost of subsidies through infrastructure improvements, tax breaks, abatements, undervalued land, Brownfield tax credits, green construction tax credits, and reimbursements for land acquisition? · FCRC has applied for bonding to build affordable housing. Where has the developer applied for bonding, for how much and what is the per unit subsidy? · What amount has been set for the non arena PILOTS, and what is the formula for reimbursement for city services?
(3) The process for use and the impact of eminent domain.
(4) The cost of the arena
· How much will the arena bond issue be and the PILOT to pay off the bonds? · If there is a default on the arena bond who will be responsible to pay off the debt?
(5) Conditions under which a developer is considered in default.
· The ESDC gave FCRC 10 years to develop the project. FCRC has not yet begun construction almost three years after gaining approvals. The ESDC has given the developer extensions. At what point will the ESDC say “Enough is enough,” no more extensions because of the lack of activity. · Where is the point at which the ESDC will consider FCRC in default vis a vis the Memorandum of Understanding between the City, State and FCRC? And, if and when FCRC is declared in default does the ESDC agree that FCRC loses all rights to transfer, and/or sell any aspect of the project to another developer or entity.
Persons wishing to present testimony at the hearing should complete and return the attached reply form by Wednesday, May 20. You may reply by email, regular mail, or fax. It is important that the reply form be fully completed and returned so that persons may be notified in the event of postponement or cancelation of the hearing.
Testimony at the hearing is by Committee invitation only. However, written comments will be accepted by all who wish to submit comments.
The Public is encouraged to attend the hearing.
Witnesses are asked to keep oral testimony to no more than ten minutes. Written testimony will also be accepted and may be sent to the contact person listed on the reply form. In preparing the order of witnesses, the Committees will attempt to accommodate individual requests to speak at particular times in view of special circumstances. If you are testifying, please submit ten copies of any prepared testimony at the hearing registration desk. In order to further publicize the hearing, please inform interested parties of the Committee’s interest in receiving written testimony from all sources.
In order to meet the needs of those who may have a disability, the New York State Senate and Assembly have made their facilities and services available to all individuals with disabilities. Accommodation will be provided to individuals with disabilities upon reasonable request, to afford such individuals access and admission to Senate and Assembly facilities and activities.
Posted by lumi at 6:02 AM
May 10, 2009
Of Illicit Leases and Typhoid Mary
Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn
This item ties together this past week's court ruling with financial issues plaguing Forest City Ratner.
As if Bruce Ratner needed any more obstacles, a state appeals court has upheld a judge’s March 2007 decision that another developer improperly assigned leases to a Pacific Street building and adjacent parking lot to an affiliate of FCR.
...
Weinstein's property comprises about one acre of the 22 acres in the proposed Atlantic Yards project, and Weinstein is also a participant in the Goldstein et al. v. Empire State Development Corporation eminent domain lawsuit. Says AYR writer Norman Oder:
"...the ruling can't stop the state from using eminent domain to take the properties, but it might make it more costly, as Weinstein has contended that Boymelgreen’s deal with Ratner would diminish the value of his property."
And "more costly" isn't the kind of phrase the Ratner team needs to hear right now. In his Gumby Fresh blog, the pseudonymous blogger Gari N. Corp takes the New York Times to task for its "special dumbness about stadium finance bond insurance" (and the NYT should be grateful that it attracts Mr. Corp's scorn only rarely, as his dissection is both merciless and quite funny).
After untangling the issue of the Mets' stadium bonds to conclude that the downgrading of the bonds' insurer was not, as the Times suggested, tantamount to downgrading the bonds themselves, he added this caution:
"Before anyone says that...the preceding might be construed as a clean bill of health for the business of New York sports, please read the bit about the Mets' resilient brand, and note also that the Mets attracted new financing from the one standing bond insurer (Assured Guaranty) for a small amount for a pretty much complete stadium for a solid team. It won't do the same for the Nets. The New Jersey Nets are the Typhoid Mary of High Finance, and no-one wants to eat their delightful cooking."
Posted by steve at 8:56 AM
May 9, 2009
Two For Saturday Morning from Atlantic Yards Report
Forest City Ratner just outside top ten in lobbying, but has third largest state contract
Norman Oder notes the recently released figures on state lobbying and duly notes the spending to promote the proposed Atlantic Yards project.
The New York State Commission on Public Integrity released its 2008 Annual Report Thursday, with real estate and construction, spending $26.1 million on city and state lobbying, in second place behind health and mental health organizations, spending $29.9 million.
And Fried Frank Harris Shriver &; Jacobson had the third largest contract, valued at $370,399, with Forest City Ratner's Atlantic Yards Development Company. (In 2007, Fried Frank's work on Atlantic Yards represented the second largest contract, at $771,170.)
Forest City Ratner, according to my calculations, finished just outside the top ten in combined lobbying.
Oder goes on to note how the media has ignored this report and fails to keep the public informed regarding Atlantic Yards.
There was very little coverage of the report. There was no mention of the Atlantic Yards contract in Daily News coverage of the report, or in a brief wire report in Newsday. The Times ignored the report. Last year, the Times ignored the report, though others gave it more coverage.
...
WNYC talk show host Brian Lehrer, who generally does a decent job, on Thursday wondered if "people go to Norman Oder's site, which is, y'know, pitched primarily anti-Atlantic Yards Project and have a discussion on both sides? Or is it just an echo chamber of the like-minded?"
He missed the point, I argued, and today's news buttresses my argument. My goal is to explain to people what's going on, and to look into questions of civic importance, I wrote. Have Lehrer or WNYC informed the public of the Commission on Public Integrity's report? Not as far as I can tell.
Should the public know that Forest City Ratner is spending so much on Atlantic Yards, especially when little work is going on? Sure. (DDDB pointed out that FCR was working the back room.)
Isn't a behind-the-scenes lobbying effort "just an echo chamber of the like-minded"? And isn't that a lot less transparent than a blog that links to publicly available sources?
Yes, the Times reviewer notices the gentle treatment of AY in new Gehry book
From Martin Filler's review of Conversations With Frank Gehry, in Sunday's New York Times: Doubtless eager to remain in her subject’s good graces, [Barbara] Isenberg poses few questions of the confrontational sort that wise interrogators withhold until the end of a session, lest they be shown the door. For example, from her upbeat recapitulation of Gehry’s Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn — a large-scale mixed-use urban redevelopment centered on a professional basketball arena — you’d never know that the scheme has aroused heated opposition from community groups and planning experts, or that its future is imperiled by the current economic crisis.
That's mainly because the interview was conducted in 2005 and, as I wrote, interviewer Isenberg didn't follow up. (Will she do so at Monday's public interview session with Gehry?)
More than two years ago, Filler wrote critically about AY.
Posted by steve at 8:57 AM
May 8, 2009
Snag in AY? Appeals court upholds decision that said Boymelgreen improperly assigned lease of footprint building to Ratner
Atlantic Yards Report
Big news out of New York State's Appellate Division today: the court has upheld — unanimously — a 2007 ruling in favor of Atlantic Yards footprint property owner Henry Weinstein.
In a unanimous decision that may crimp the state’s pursuit of eminent domain on the Atlantic Yards site, a state appeals court has upheld a judge’s March 2007 decision that Henry Weinstein’s tenant, developer Shaya Boymelgreen, improperly assigned leases to a Pacific Street building and adjacent parking lot to an affiliate of Forest City Ratner.
The Appellate Division: Second Judicial Department, in one case, known as 752 PACIFIC, LLC v PACIFIC CARLTON DEVELOPMENT CORP. and argued 11/17/08 stated:
The Supreme Court properly awarded the landlords summary judgment on their third and fourth counterclaims to the extent of declaring that the tenants’ assignment of their respective leases violated the leases and that the leases are terminated.... The terms of the subject leases are clear and unambiguous.The court further bolstered Weinstein’s case, ruling that the Supreme Court erred in not giving Weinstein back possession of the properties at issue:
Having found that the tenants breached the leases, and the landlords thereafter terminated the leases, the Supreme Court should have granted the landlords such relief.
...As I wrote in March 2007, the ruling can't stop the state from using eminent domain to take the properties, but it might make it more costly, as Weinstein has contended that Boymelgreen’s deal with Ratner would diminish the value of his property.
Forest City Ratner told the New York Times in 2007 that it did not believe the ruling would have an impact on the project. Because this property is in Phase 2, the eastern portion of the project site, it might be thought that condemnation could begin on the arena block while this case remains in litigation. However, the General Project Plan states (p. 2 of this PDF):
All of the properties within the Project Site would be acquired by ESDC... at the outset of Project implementation.After all, Weinstein's property is needed for the interim surface parking for construction workers and the arena.
...In a companion case, which also involved Forest City Ratner along with Boymelgreen, PACIFIC CARLTON DEVELOPMENT CORP v 752 PACIFIC, LLC, the appeals court ruled that it was appropriate for the lower court to grant the portion of the motion in which Forest City Ratner and affiliates argued they were not liable to a breach of contract, because they were not actual parties to the contract alleged to have been breached.
The court also ruled that it was appropriate for the lower court to grant the portion of the motion in which Boymelgreen himself was not personally responsible, because his personal guarantee of the leases had already expired.
Weinstein did win a partial victory, however. The appeals court stated:
However, the court erred in granting those branches of the motions which were to dismiss the second cause of action alleging tortious interference with the leases insofar as asserted against Boymelgreen and the Forest City defendants.So Weinstein can pursue damages.
NoLandGrab: We're anxiously awaiting the Forest City press release saying they're now 22-1 in court decisions. Of course, since they lost the original decision, too, they'd have to make it 21-2.
Posted by eric at 10:37 AM
In the case of Atlantic Yards
Though there is still much that we don't know about Bruce Ratner's planned megaproject, "Atlantic Yards" has come to mean many things and has been popping up as a case in point for other issues:
Lack of integrity and consideration
From a letter to the editor from The Brooklyn Paper on the Federal proposal to clean up the Gowanus Canal as a "superfund" site:
Just as in the case of Atlantic Yards, people aren’t against development, per se. It has to do with scale, with integrity, with consideration for, and with the will of human beings.
Political fecklessness
In this month's The Brooklyn Rail, "Atlantic Yards" is a yard stick measuring a politician's sincerity.
Fighting the real estate industry is indeed a tall order, and it’s a primary reason that [City Councilman Tony] Avella’s campaign coffers amount to only a fraction of Comptroller Bill Thompson’s, the current Democratic frontrunner. At the same political club meetings, Thompson made mention of the overdevelopment issue, and argued for strengthening community boards. But, other than in the West Side stadium battle, as comptroller over the past eight years Thompson mounted no visible opposition to large development plans even when they involve significant sums of public money, such as the Atlantic Yards project. Avella, meanwhile, has worked with community groups across the city, including the Harlem Tenants Council in fighting the 125th Street rezoning, and he has spoken at Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn events against the Atlantic Yards.
NoLandGrab: Though developer Bruce Ratner has spent millions of dollars on the pr campaign for his mammoth Atlantic Yards project, it seems that he has been unable to curb the public perception that ATLANTIC YARDS = BAD.
Posted by lumi at 5:14 AM
May 6, 2009
"Brooklyn Boondoggle": a short film that packs in protest, ambivalence, and AY episodes circa 2008
Atlantic Yards Report
A new review from AYR's film critic.
To me, the most interesting element of the 11-minute documentary Brooklyn Boondoggle, which debuted last night at Galapagos Art Space in DUMBO, was not the critique of Atlantic Yards, made by elected officials and a diverse array of residents.
(The title apparently takes off from City Council Member Letitia James's statement calling the project "a gigantic boondoggle.")
Nor was it the general absence of political and community supporters of the project--though footage of "Build It Now" counter-protestors assembling does appear early in the film.
Ambivalence
Rather, it was the not-so-coherent ambivalence expressed by some residents around the project site, in the main working-class black Brooklynites who identify with neither the project's supporters nor opponents.
....
It's impossible for a film this short to fully convey the complexity of the project and the debate, but "Brooklyn Boondoggle" packs a good amount in.
Posted by eric at 9:10 AM
Once-planned Atlantic Yards hotel is one of 43 in the city "on ice;" FCR won't comment
Atlantic Yards Report
At least 43 planned hotels in the city, with an aggregate of some 10,150 rooms, are delayed or completely axed, reports the Real Deal.
...the chart offers this tidbit about what was once a planned 180-room hotel component of Building 1:
With the Atlantic Yards arena and high-rise project mired in lawsuits and unable to get financing, there’s no telling when or if the project’s signature masthead building, renamed Building 1, would get built. At one point, the hotel component was scuttled altogether, but now a spokesman declined to comment on whether it still exists.
As I pointed out a year ago, new renderings of the flagship tower, originally called Miss Brooklyn, provided the clue.
The Daily News reported that the building would include 650,000 square feet of office space, which is more than the 528,000 square feet described the previous October at an Investor Day. Given that the building was once supposed to also include a hotel with 164,652 square feet, I noted, it's a good bet that the revised plans traded hotel space for office space.
NoLandGrab: Are you getting the sense that no one knows what Bruce Ratner is planning for the signature tower, not even Bruce Ratner? Seriously, the plans for the configuration of the tower keep shifting because the market conditions keep changing. [A few years back Brooklyn didn't have enough hotel rooms, now there are too many.] Ratner will configure the tower once or twice more because he has no clue what the market needs or wants — he just really, really wants to build the tower very badly.
Posted by lumi at 6:03 AM
May 4, 2009
TOMORROW: Brooklyn Boondoggle
This Tuesday, Meerkat Media Arts Collective will be screening their documentary short, Brooklyn Boondoggle, as part of Scene: Brooklyn, Independent Film and Media Arts, a new film series produced by the Brooklyn Arts Council.
Exploring the highly controversial Atlantic Yards project, BROOKLYN BOONDOGGLE questions the trend of top-down urban development and asks, what if we were allowed to decide the future of our own neighborhoods?
MEERKAT MEDIA ARTS COLLECTIVE is an interdisciplinary group of artists dedicated to making media that matters. And while the story of the Atlantic Yards is not a new one, as it has already been widely debated, we hope to use this film as a cautionary tale and do what only a short doc can do best — inspire insight and action.
Tuesday, May 5th, 7 p.m.
Galapagos Art Space
16 Main Street [Map]
DUMBO, Brooklyn
$5 at the door
Posted by eric at 10:06 AM
May 3, 2009
Your Sunday Atlantic Yards Report Fix
The end of the Times's City section likely means even less attention to AY
The coverage of the Atlantic Yards fight in the New York Times has been biased and sadly incomplete. Expect to see even less coverage and commentary for this boondoggle as the Times' Sunday City section is about to disappear as a result of cost-cutting.
After today, you have two more weeks to say goodbye to the New York Times's weekly City section, which on May 24 (as noted in the Observer) will be replaced by a section consolidating it and the other regional weeklies, thus saving spending on newsprint and freelancers.
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I've been critical of the Times's use of the City section to cover Atlantic Yards, but also recognize that it's better than further diminishment of space and attention. (The Observer ran a nice piece about the loss of the section's urban essays.) But that's the newspaper business these days.
NHL Commissioner says Nets should play in Newark
Norman Oder finds a way to save over $100 million in Federal money: Instead of subsidizing a new arena in Brooklyn for the Nets, have them play at an arena that's already been built - Newark's Prudential Center.
Missed this one, from Newsday's Islanders blog April 24: [NHL Commissioner Gary] Bettman also was asked about the possibility of the NBA's New Jersey Nets moving from the Izod Center at the Meadowlands to join the Devils at the Prudential Center in downtown Newark. NBA commissioner David Stern told APSE the Nets are fine where they are, but Bettman had a different view.
"I don't understand why the Nets aren't playing at Prudential Center now," the NHL commissioner said. "The Devils are drawing, and the atmosphere is great. It has to be costing the State of New Jersey a boatload of money to keep [Izod Center] open. I hope, at some point, the Nets decide to go there."
Helping owners
On the NetsDaily blog, Brooklyn move supporter NetIncome comments: It’s all about helping owners. Stern knows the Nets’ owners would benefit from owning their own arena in Brooklyn and Bettman knows the Devils’ owners could use a tenant to shore up their finances.
True enough, given that the value of the Nets franchise has gone down but likely would go up significantly.
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But there's one big difference: the Prudential Center has already been built. The construction of the Barclays Center would be subsidized by federal taxpayers by well over $100 million. (I've estimated $165 million, but all numbers are in flux.)
Council Member, which sports entertainment corporation do you prefer?
An article in the The New York Times seems to be just so adorable in surveying who in the City Council is a fan of which baseball team. But there's nothing cute about how New York's sports franchises use up taxpayer money and destroy neighborhoods.
An article on the baseball allegiances of New York City Council members made the front page of today's New York Times, headlined In Council, It’s Mets 18, Yanks 13, and Neither 12.
Cute.
While Council Members were apparently asked about their "team preference," the question could have been better phrased, using language from Bettina Damiani of watchdog group Good Jobs New York, "Which 'sports entertainment corporation' do you prefer?"
Given that context, the next step would be to ask what other entertainment corporations they prefer.
Not in Dodgerland any more
Sports fandom just isn't pure any more. Not that it ever was--but the distance from Dodgerland ever increases. Maybe that's why some of the Council Members expressed no preference.
There was exactly one mention in the article of how the teams played hardball to get new stadiums built: Councilwoman Helen D. Foster of the Bronx said that she used to root for the Yankees “before they destroyed my community,” referring to the construction of the team’s new $1.5 billion stadium, which replaced public tennis and basketball courts, baseball and soccer fields, and a running track with smaller parks.
Meanwhile, in an article to be published tomorrow (in print) about the departures of key mayoral aides, the Times again ignores the potential connection between Finance Commissioner Martha Stark's resignation and the suspicious reassessment of the Yankee Stadium site.
Posted by steve at 6:28 AM
Times Editorial On “The Ever-Deepening Pension Mess”: You Heard It Here First
Noticing New York
This item is primarily concerned with corruption in the New York State pension system, where politicians send pension funds to investment firms and receive kickbacks in return. Noticing New York suggests additional oversight for the pension system, but points out that any committee added for the purpose of reform need to be structured properly. For example, the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) board failed in its responsibility to review the proposed Atlantic Yards project:
For the sake of using this as another opportunity to take a pot shot at the project we think is above all others most deserving of criticism, consider for example the abdication of responsibility by the Empire State Development Corporation’s board for the Atlantic Yards project. Not only was the board’s initial approval quick and cursory for an extraordinarily monumental set of propositions, but the project has since been allowed to migrate substantially from what was originally touted. That migration has been entirely the responsibility merely of staff. We would not therefore deem Atlantic Yards an “approved” project. That lack of valid approval for what is currently proposed raises issues akin to the need for the altered Atlantic Yards project to go back to the Public Authorities Board before legally valid financing can ever proceed.
Posted by steve at 6:12 AM
May 2, 2009
AY Report: Saturday Morning Edition
Norman Oder takes a look at the interview with New Jersey Nets CFO Charlie Mierswa in CFO Magazine.
In an interview in CFO Magazine headlined "It Still Hurts When You Lose." New Jersey Nets CFO Charlie Mierswa expresses unbridled optimism--and even convinced the reporter to state, without equivocation that "[i]n two years the franchise says good-bye to New Jersey and heads for a Frank Gehry–designed arena in Brooklyn."
Well, that timetable is in doubt, but Mierswa's interview is a reminder that Atlantic Yards backers are still betting on the new arena to reverse huge Nets losses, bring in new revenues, and raise the value of the team, which has actually declined since an ownership group led by Forest City Ratner's Bruce Ratner bought the team in 2004.
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Do you anticipate any problems raising the funds to build the stadium?
The project has the political support that it needs, and the reason is the number of jobs it's going to bring. The recent financing that the Mets and Yankees did — municipal debt with PILOT payments [payments in lieu of tax] — that's the same vehicle we are going to use. The Yankees's $370 million issue was oversubscribed. Clearly there's an appetite for that kind of financing. We met with the rating agencies and they were very enthusiastic. All we need is the green light. We expect to get it in the next three or four months. We think we will prevail in the remaining lawsuits.
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If the political support depends on jobs, the Mierswa either hasn't listened to Nets CEO Brett Yormark's affordable housing mantra or AY backers have given up on predicting that such housing would arrive in a timely fashion.
While it's likely that the state will prevail in the remaining lawsuits, appeals may last beyond Mierswa's timetable.
Beyond that, Forest City Ratner's cash crunch also may stall plans. Remember, the developer must deliver $100 million to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority before the Empire State Development Corporation starts exercising eminent domain.
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But you're also scaling back the architectural plans for the arena, right?
We're going through a process of "value-engineering" the stadium plans. That will bring down construction costs to a level that will facilitate the financing. There's no question it will continue to stand as a landmark in Brooklyn; it will also be economically viable in this marketplace.
That doesn't tell us whether Frank Gehry is still working on the arena or why, given Gehry's pride in working "tight to the bone," costs need to be cut nearly in half.
"Brooklyn Boondoggle," a short doc about AY, screens Tuesday
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I haven't seen Brooklyn Boondoggle, an 11-minute short film about Atlantic Yards that will be screened on Tuesday, May 5, at the Galapagos Art Space along with other short documentaries, so I asked about it.
"We didn't interview any politicians, or major activists - we simply went out onto the streets and talked to our neighbors about their feelings about the project," producer Zara Serabian-Arthur of Meerkat Media said in an email message. "We talked to folks who are being kicked out of their homes, business owners hoping for increased sales, young people hoping for jobs, families concerned that the development would lower their quality of life."
"Since there are already a lot of people doing good, in-depth investigative work into the project (including, of course, yourself, and the folks that made "Brooklyn Matters"), and we are by no means experts, the film simply tries to start a dialogue about this kind of top-down, corporate-led development, and serve as a tool for people in any city that is experiencing these kind of issues to rethink this model and imagine alternatives."
NoLandGrab: The frame shown is definitely NOT taken from "Brooklyn Boondoggle".
Posted by steve at 7:34 AM
May 1, 2009
Atlantic Yards YES! Everyone else's tax exemptions, NO!!
While Bruce Ratner is still counting on a Mortgage Recording Tax exemption for Atlantic Yards worth $77 million, and a Sales Tax exemption on all Barclays Center construction materials and fixtures, worth unspecified millions (still no word on the actual cost of the arena), Mayor Bloomberg has proposed a sales tax increase that'll cost city residents north of a half-billion dollars a year — plus the repeal of the sales tax exemption on clothing under $110.
Crain's NY Business, Mayor’s budget treads cautiously on job cuts
Trying to put a positive spin on what will be the gloomiest city budget in seven years, Mayor Michael Bloomberg emphasized Friday that his proposal to shrink the city workforce by 14,000, or 1.3%, in part by laying off almost 4,000, will not affect teachers or uniformed workers like police and firefighters.
But his budget proposal does increase sales taxes and fees by more than $1 billion for the 12 months beginning July 4 and anticipates $400 million in union concessions.
..."We just don't have the money. And the public doesn't want to pay any more taxes," Mr. Bloomberg said during a City Hall press conference. "I'm not happy about raising any tax."
NoLandGrab: "We just don't have the money" because Bruce Ratner doesn't have to pay taxes.
Posted by eric at 3:39 PM
Atlantic Yards YES! 13,500 City Jobs, NO! 3,750 City Workers, NO!!
Today, Mayor Bloomberg is expected to announce the elimination of 13,500 city jobs, 3,750 through layoffs. So far, there are no plans to cutback the $205 million in direct cash subsidies for Bruce Ratner's eminent domain-abusing Atlantic Yards overdevelopment.
Here are some of the headlines anticipating the bad news in today's budget address:
amNY, Worse news for New York City workers: Mayor will propose 3,750 layoffs
NY1, Bloomberg To Outline New Layoffs, Sales Tax Hike
WCBS, Sources: Sales Tax Bump Part Of Bloomberg's Budget
Posted by lumi at 6:01 AM
April 30, 2009
Atlantic Yards YES! Late-night subway riders NO!!
What's the point of building a basketball arena near a transit-hub if the sweetheart deal for the railyard over which a portion of that arena would be built shortchanges the cash-strapped transit authority, leading to huge fare increases and draconian service cuts?
The New York Times, New Cuts Could Doom Late-Night Subway Service, M.T.A. Director Says
The executive director of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority said on Wednesday that a possible second round of service cuts and fare increases in the near future would take the transit system “beyond doomsday” and that extreme measures like stopping late-night subway service could not be ruled out.
...The authority revealed on Monday that it faces an additional $621 million shortfall this year, even after deep service cuts and fare increases of as much as 30 percent go into effect. The new deficit estimate is due to the slumping economy, which has cut revenues from taxes and fare and toll collections.
A deficit of more than $1 billion is forecast for next year.
Subway and bus fares are scheduled to go up on May 31, with the base fare rising to $2.50, from $2. Service cuts, including the elimination of 35 bus routes and the W and Z subway lines, will be phased in over the rest of the year.
NoLandGrab: You may recall that "increased weekday evening and weekend service to the Atlantic Avenue/Pacific Street subway station complex" was one of the proposed "traffic mitigation measures" listed in the Final Environmental Impact Statement for Atlantic Yards. Many critics thought that wasn't plausible when the FEIS was issued in 2006. How about now?
Posted by eric at 3:39 PM
April 29, 2009
Built For Collapse
Just Seeds
A graphic artist put Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards megaproject to good use, by making it the poster project for the NYC high-rise condo glut (aka, the real estate bubble that would never go bust like the rest of the country).
In the artist's words:
The Atlantic Yards is a mega-development project designed by Forest City Ratner a company with close relationships to powerful NY politicians as well as the NY Times. The company wishes to build a basketball arena and 13 towers, mostly residential, near downtown Brooklyn. There are so many problematic factors to this project like traffic congestion, desire to use eminent domain, community displacement, request of "Federal Stimulus" money, and so much more.
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I felt like referencing the renderings of this development project was appropriate in highlighting how overdevelopment of cities, like Brooklyn, has led to economic crisis. Construction combined with predator lending and stretching potential homeowners beyond their means has brought us to the stage of crisis that we are experiencing.One hope of mine is to make this into stickers, for the front door of every new condo in NYC. If you are interested in using this image, gimme a holler, I can pass along a high-res file.
Posted by lumi at 5:49 AM
April 28, 2009
It came from the Blogosphere...
Brownstoner, Brooklyn Paper and Courier Begin Sharing Content
It's light fare, but an article about a stolen bench appearing on the Brooklyn Paper website Friday was notable for the fact that it was attributed to Thomas Tracy of the Community Newspaper Group, the publisher of the Courier-Life chain of newspaper; as of last month, the two papers share a corporate parent named Rupert Murdoch. The cross-publication was noticed by the ever-vigilant Norman Oder of the Atlantic Yards Report. Like many observers, Oder is wondering whether the fact that The Paper is now owned by News Corp will mean its critical coverage of Bruce Ratner and the Atlantic Yards project will lose some or all of its edge to fall in line with the pro-development stance of its sister publication and the generally pro-business tack of Murdoch's empire.
The Score, Pacers pain not isolated incident
Smaller-market NBA teams aren't the only ones hurting these days.
The New Jersey Nets are showing an 8 percent revenue decline in the 12-month period that ended Jan. 31. The Nets’ financial results are detailed in the recently released financial disclosures of Forest City Enterprises, a publicly traded Cleveland-based real estate company which owns 23 percent of the team.
While the Nets’ revenue was down to $92.4 million during the most recent fiscal year, its losses were up, to $27.8 million. That compares to a $22.6 million loss during the previous fiscal year. The losses have escalated dramatically since 2006, when the team lost $9.5 million.
Nets Daily, State Official: We’re Driving Arena “Aggressively”
Driving the arena aggressively? Says one commenter, "someone better remind them to disengage the parking break."
DenverPost.com, Stapleton top-selling community
Developed by Forest City Enterprises, the Stapleton neighborhood has 24 parks and 25 miles of walking and biking paths designed to connect residential neighborhoods to restaurants, shops, parks and schools.
NoLandGrab: One major criticism of Forest City's Atlantic Yards project is the way it would divide the neighborhoods of Fort Greene and Prospect Heights.
Posted by eric at 12:09 PM
April 26, 2009
Rocawear Pop Shop
This view of the Rocawear Pop Shop parked on the Atlantic Yards Footprint shows a reflection of the Williamsburg Savings Bank Building.
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Posted by steve at 8:34 AM
April 25, 2009
Atlantic Yards Report Saturday Quartet of Exactitude
Norman Oder publishes four blog entries for a Saturday morning. One entry looks at construction labor costs, another at politics and two deal with media issues. And what have you, dear reader, done today?
In Council races, CBID endorses Skaller for 39th, Simon for 33rd
On Thursday, Central Brooklyn Independent Democrats voted to endorse Josh Skaller for City Council (39th District) and Jo Anne Simon for City Council (33rd District) in the upcoming Democratic primary.
The endorsement of Skaller was unsurprising, given that he previously was CBID president. But Simon, according to rivals like Ken Diamondstone, did not have the strongest reform credentials among the seven candidates.
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I wasn't there for either the public or private segments of the discussion (I'm not a member), but I suspect the endorsement of Simon was in part a strategic move. Like most of the candidates, she's certainly qualified.
She's also a woman, and thus has the strongest chance among the "brownstone" candidates to beat Stephen Levin of Greenpoint, who's county leader Vito Lopez's chief of staff and seen as the machine candidate.
Skaller sides with Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn on Atlantic Yards; Simon has been critical of the project but has been associated with the milder position of BrooklynSpeaks. Several CBID leaders are well to the "left" of BrooklynSpeaks, but, obviously, the Atlantic Yards issue wasn't dispositive.
Construction unions agree to some concessions, but reduction wouldn't cut arena price tag in half
Crain's reports:
After six months of discussions, building contractors and unions have reached an agreement to slice labor costs. The problem is that developers estimate the deal will only save them no more than 15%—far less than the 25% they had sought when negotiations began.Labor makes for roughly half the costs of the project, and Crain's suggests that these cuts--work rule changes more than wage/benefit concessions--might not be enough to get projects moving.
Also, Crain's notes that construction costs across the city have fallen from 5% to 15% since last summer.
None of that suggests that the Atlantic Yards arena price tag could be cut nearly in half, as developer Forest City Ratner apparently hopes.
Sign of consolidation? Brooklyn Paper begins to publish work by Courier-Life staffers
Another hint of the creeping consolidation of the once-rival weekly newspapers has emerged.
On the Brooklyn Paper's web site yesterday, an article was attributed to Thomas Tracy/Community Newspaper Group. Tracy works for the Courier-Life chain, and a longer version of that article appears in this week's Courier-Life.
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I sent Brooklyn Paper editor Gersh Kuntzman a link to the first article and asked if there was a new policy about the two papers sharing staff or content.
His response didn't mention a policy: "Tom Tracy is one of the best community reporters in Brooklyn. His sources are wide and whose knowledge is deep, so we are privileged to be able to run his stories, where appropriate, in our newspaper."
I have no reason to question Tracy's sources or knowledge, but Kuntzman's explanation was a bit overboard for an article about the theft of "the multi-colored snowboard bench that’s been greeting shoppers outside the 4 Play Brooklyn clothing boutique on Seventh Avenue for eight years."
It seems like the two publications were sharing a neighborhood story.
If and when they get to sharing more substantive coverage, then things will get more interesting.
Second attempt to row the Atlantic fails, but that gets much less ink
Two months ago, I criticized the local press for paying attention to the second attempt by Victor Mooney to row the Atlantic while ignoring bigger stories of civic concern.
Now Mooney's second attempt has been aborted, due to a failure of water purifiers; that news gets a brief in the Brooklyn Eagle and the Courier-Life chain.
The New York Times, which ran a story in February, hasn't told us about the demise of the Goree Challenge II. Well, the Times hasn't covered Forest City Ratner's bailout of ACORN, either.
Posted by steve at 7:25 AM
April 24, 2009
It came from the Blogosphere...
WBGO.org, IF THE NETS STAY, WHERE WILL THEY CALL HOME?
Plans to move the Nets to an 18,000 seat arena in Brooklyn’s Atlantic Yards may not be realized in this tough economic climate. Mayor Cory Booker argues the best place for the franchise is the Prudential Center. However, State Senator Paul Sarlo wants the Nets to stay put because of the economic impact it will have on Bergen County.
“We also believe that both the Nets and Devils, the marriage of them two working under one roof may not work. The typical NBA teams don’t want to be second class citizens to an NFL team.”
NoLandGrab: We think he means N-Aitch-L. And based on this silly argument, the Knicks will soon look to have their own, exclusive arena.
Gothamist, Rats Now in Charge at Atlantic Yards
A spokesman for Bruce Ratner's properties naturally blamed the rat infestation on the sorry state of the site before the developer came in and "corrected the problems." If the area around the stalled project follows the course laid out in Life After People, expect the rats to return to the wild in the next few months, only to be replaced by the arrival of wolves.
moleinfoblog, Blue Wolf Capital Management, Politicians and What is Wrong With NYC
I also recently had a confrontation with Marty Markowitz at an IND meeting where I took exception to being called "anti-development" because my opposition is NOT to development per se, but to the overwhelming influence of developers in NYC politics and the lousy policies it buys them that hurts the community but lines the pockets of developers. An example is the city actually BUYING the land for Bruce Ratner so he can build his Atlantic Yards project at the same time fire houses are being closed and schools getting over crowded thanks to funding cuts.
ImprovResourceCenter.com, Prospect Heights
Does anyone live in PH? And if so do you have any issues re: the Atlantic Yards project/ specifically the empty lots on Dean and below. I'm looking to move to the area but hear that there's a bit of an uptick in crime due to the lack of people etc.
The $mart A$set, [Village Voice blog] Cuomo's embarrassment of riches
Maybe if [NYS Attorney General Andrew Cuomo] has time, he might even start investigating the Yankees' suspiciously sweet deals with the city that resulted in huge public subsidies for a team that charges $2,600 a seat. Or the taxpayer bailout money funneled overseas to Barclays that is helping finance the NBA arena that Bruce Ratner's trying to build in Brooklyn.
Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn, Scarce Lenders, Underperforming Properties
Morningstar also offers a suggestion: "If Forest City were to hand back a few highly leveraged underperforming properties, its overall debt picture could improve materially...." It's not quite what they mean, but when one hears "underperforming" it's hard not to think "Nets."
Posted by eric at 10:39 AM
April 23, 2009
Rat-infested Yards site stirs catcalls
NY Daily News
By Jotham Sederstrom
While concern is increasing about the growing rat problem around Ratnerville, a spokesman for Atlantic Yards developer Bruce Ratner blames the victims:
"It's worse now than it's ever been," said Dean Street Block Association member Peter Krashes. "Whenever the work happens, rats are everywhere, eight at a time."
The problem has gotten so bad that a meeting was held on Monday by the block association to determine how best to protect against the scourge of rats and mice.
Residents believe the rats scatter to the streets each time a building is demolished or roadwork occurs. Although Krashes admits rodents are a citywide problem, he said the it has worsened in Prospect Heights, where he has lived since 2001, in the last year.
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Doug Derryberry, who has lived in a Dean St. building not owned by Ratner since 2005, said the rodent population appeared to multiply around his home last year.
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A Forest City Ratner spokesman said all property owned by the developer is baited before being razed and the entire project site is routinely checked for illegal dumping."The properties [Ratner] controls today are by far cleaner than they were when the developer acquired them," said Ratner spokesman Joe DePlasco, who suggested other property owners near the site are to blame for the increase in rodents.
Posted by lumi at 7:05 AM
Big Projects Slow Down But Still Moving
The Epoch Times
Marisa Lago, president and CEO of Empire State Development Corp (ESDC), reiterated the state sponsor's support of Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards megaproject at an April 14 breakfast panel:
Inevitably, questions arose at the forum about Atlantic Yards, the ambitious project caught in the financial crisis crossfire. Lago called it “one of our most controversial projects.” She said the City and State were determined to work with Forest City Ratner Co. to keep it going but the time frames are changing.
NoLandGrab: How are the time frames changing and who determines these changes, the state or developer? Benefits to the public, like affordable housing, remain in limbo, while the developer takes his time, despite receiving hundreds of millions, possibly billions, of dollars in taxpayer support.
Posted by lumi at 5:47 AM
April 21, 2009
Advisory Board Member Awarded Pulitzer
Congratulations for Lynn Nottage from Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn:
DDDB congratulates Lynn Nottage, DDDB Advisory Board member and Brooklyn native, on winning the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Her winning play Ruined, about the fate of women in the civil war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, is playing through May 10 at Manhattan Theatre Club's New York City Center Stage I.
Posted by lumi at 5:32 AM
April 18, 2009
Time running out for Atlantic Yards? Maybe not yet, but AMBAC going "junk" doesn't help
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder notes the discussion of the proposed Atlantic Yards development on yesterday's Brian Lehrer Show. Problems facing the development include a downgrading of AMBAC, the corporation that originally promised to back bonds issued by Bruce Ratner to purchase the MTA's Vanderbilt railyards. Featured in this radio segment were WNYC reporters Bob Hennelly and Matthew Schuerman.
"Time might be running out for Atlantic Yards," Hennelly said in the lead-in to Schuerman's segment.
Scheurman said, "The New Jersey folks, it seems, are just positioning themselves to pick up the scraps that Brooklyn leaves behind." He noted that the Nets say they're moving to Brooklyn by 2011, but pointed out that the developer has steadily been promising a move.
"There will be a point where if they don’t complete the Brooklyn arena or get it into the ground, they may well decide to evaluate other options," he said.
There's an Internal Revenue Service deadline this December to issue tax-exempt bonds that could save Forest City Ratner $150 million, Schuerman said. (I've estimated $165 million, but all numbers are approximate.)
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Schuerman was asked what was keeping the bonds from being issued. First, lawsuits must be cleared. But even if they are, developer Bruce Ratner "might not be able to issue the bonds in this economic environment as it is. When he first bid on the MTA railyards, he submitted a letter of interest from the AMBAC corporation, saying AMBAC would back these bonds, but AMBAC has been downgraded to junk status… all the institutions he was relying on to finance the arena have really come undone, because of the banking collapse."
Posted by steve at 7:20 AM
April 17, 2009
The Great Recession: A Stimulus to Get Our City Back to “Bidness?”
Noticing New York
Blogger Michael D.D. White wonders why what's good for the goose isn't good for the gander — the gander being we taxpaying citizens of New York State.
So state and local governments everywhere else are saving significant money on public sector work by getting bids during this economic downturn, and Forest City Ratner claims it is similarly going to reduce costs for itself through the lower bids they can get during the economic downturn. . . Who isn’t invited to the party to get the benefits of such bidding? The New York taxpayers who are expected to shoulder the unbelievably huge subsidies (more than $2.1 billion) being given to Forest City Ratner, without bid, for its proposed Atlantic Yards project! That is because, our politicians gave Ratner (without any bid) a multi-decade monopoly on a 22-acre site which, in theory, precludes competition for perhaps 40 years.
Are our politicians really telling us with straight faces that they have made a deal with Ratner that precludes any competition for however many decades it takes his company to complete Atlantic Yards? Are they saying that the public can’t even give project work to competing developers if Ratner dawdles for decades, goes bankrupt or reneges on what was once promised for delivery?
NoLandGrab: White cites the $2.1 billion in Atlantic Yards subsidies estimated by the New York Post, which many project-watchers consider an overstatement. However, even Forest City Ratner has copped to more than a billion dollars in assorted tax breaks.
Posted by eric at 2:11 PM
Without upgraded railyard, would General Project Plan be violated?
Atlantic Yards Report
AYR offers up another line of inquiry to State Senator Bill Perkins, who's planning a committee hearing on Atlantic Yards.
If developer Forest City Ratner does not create the upgraded railyard it intended--as the New York Times reported, citing an anonymous source--would that be violating the General Project Plan?
ESDC response
I got a response this week from the ESDC: "Based on the current economic climate, we are reviewing all GPP requirements but have not reached a decision on whether further modifications are necessary or appropriate."
Surely the ESDC does not want to modify the GPP nor the Final Environmental Impact Statement; that would only delay the project.
But if there are major changes to the project, shouldn't they be documented and defended?
Posted by eric at 11:51 AM
April 16, 2009
Permission to Speak Frankly: How We Know More and Less From Breakfast Interviews With Marisa Lago
Noticing New York
Blogger Michael D. D. White goes on the record about off-the-record questions posed to Empire State Developer Development Corporation CEO Marisa Lago at last week's breakfast sponsored by City Hall News:
As noted, the Q&A session was “off the record” but since we think it is important for the public to know what was said about Atlantic Yards, here is our solution for partially informing you. We can tell you on the record what our question to Ms. Lago was. Also, because we conferred with City Council candidate Josh Skaller, we can tell you for the record the question he asked Ms. Lago about Atlantic Yards. While we can’t tell you what Ms. Lago’s answers were at the breakfast and we don’t even think we can tell you whether our questions were, in fact answered, Noticing New York submitted these questions to Ms. Lago for on the record responses which we got.
In light of her call for more stringent cost-benefit analysis for the ESDC's Empire Zone program, how does Ms. Lago justify Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards megaproject?
Although AY is a developer initiated project - we have carefully reviewed the expected impact of the project and the expected benefits to be generated from the project - in terms of jobs, fiscal benefits, the production of affordable housing and the removal of blight. We think this is a good deal for the City and State - especially now.
Atlantic Yards Report, ESDC CEO predicts AY groundbreaking in 2010 (and semi-answers other Noticing New York questions)
For those of you who don't have the opportunity to read White's entire post, Norman Oder posted crib notes, including the breaking news:
Michael D.D. White's lengthy Noticing New York post brings us some news: Empire State Development Corporation CEO Marisa Lago indicates Atlantic Yards groundbreaking won't occur until 2010, as opposed to the 2009 pledge by developer Forest City Ratner.
NoLandGrab: Lago's responses underscore the fact that a cost-benefit analysis was never done for the project, or if it was, it's being withheld from the public.
In general, it is interesting that reporters and watchdogs have to "stalk" those who are actually in the know on Atlantic Yards. Whether it is in pursuit of the ombudsman, the CEO of the ESDC, architect Frank Gehry, Forest City executives etc., these watchdogs wind up at panel discussions and on radio call-in shows hoping to get simple answers to simple questions. Folks, this is democracy through the looking glass.
Posted by lumi at 5:57 AM
This timeline is not so timely
GlobeSt.com, Construction Forum Talks New Timelines
Construction executives heard familiar tunes from two top local economic officials Tuesday morning at the New York Building Congress industry breakfast. The featured speakers--Maris Lago, president and CEO at the Empire State Development Corp. and Robert Lieber, the city’s deputy mayor for economic development--both stressed that scope, size and timelines of major public-private projects are subject to economic realities, while down cycles are prime times to invest in infrastructure.
...
Later, when New York Times reporter Charles Bagli--who moderated the discussion with Anderson--asked Lago if the original scope, size and current time frame--2011 for completing the first phase--of the Atlantic Yards were indeed realistic, given the times and climate, Lago acknowledged the financials are challenging. She said her agency was focused on meeting a December 31 deadline for tax-exempt bonds at the downtown Brooklyn project.
NoLandGrab: These bonds are regulated by the IRS, who grandfathered them in for Atlantic Yards.
They are also from the same program that the Yankees took advantage of when land values were fudged in order to qualify for more of these tax-free bonds. Could city and state agencies be hard at work trying to figure out how to do the same for the arena at Atlantic Yards?
Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Intelligencer
News from Norman Oder's Atlantic Yards Report:
The Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) Wednesday indicated that two of the major questions swirling around the Atlantic Yards project should be answered: the agency will “soon” go public with both a new construction timetable and a new project budget.
Posted by lumi at 5:46 AM
April 15, 2009
ESDC predicts new AY timetable and budget; those should still be questions for the Senate oversight hearing
Atlantic Yards Report
More on issues that should be addressed in a possible NY State Senate Committee hearing on Atlantic Yards:
The Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) yesterday indicated that two of the major questions swirling around the Atlantic Yards should be answered: the agency will "soon" go public with both a new construction timetable and a new project budget.
Both could be big news. For nearly two-and-a-half years, at least in court papers, the ESDC has stuck to the ten-year construction schedule announced in the Final Environmental Impact Statement. Last week, ESDC CEO Marisa Lago acknowledged that it could take "decades."
And the ESDC, which announced a $4 billion project budget in December 2006, has since asserted that information about the project budget and cost of the arena is a trade secret. That, however, sets up the possibility that developers and public agencies can announce one set of numbers to the public, then turn around and keep the actual numbers secret.
Since the Atlantic Yards project is highly subsidized, Norman Oder points out that the actual timeline "requires candor:"
The ten-year timeline was crucial to public support for the Atlantic Yards project. Within ten years, blight would be removed, 2250 units of affordable housing would be built, eight acres of publicly accessible open space would be provided, and new tax revenues would be available. Even before that, a new arena and railyard were to be built.
Posted by lumi at 5:47 AM
April 14, 2009
Jay-Z’s truck never gets out of park
The Brooklyn Paper
by Ben Muessig
UPDATE: Jay-Z's Rocawear Popshop seems to be on the same timetable as Bruce Ratner's 2006 2009 2010 2011 whenever arena opening.
Looks like Jay-Z’s Rocawear tractor-trailer ran out of gas.
Despite a much-ballyhooed announcement that the rapper — and miniscule part owner of the New Jersey Nets — would roll out a “new premium line” of apparel at a temporary store inside an 18-wheeler parked at the corner of Pacific Street and Fifth Avenue starting today, the truck never showed.
“The woman managing the tour says that they’re postponing until Thursday,” said Shayna McClelland, a spokesperson for the company that designed the pimped-out truck.
NoLandGrab: We have a call in to Newark to see if anyone has spotted the truck over by the Prudential Center.
Posted by eric at 3:58 PM
Projects Whose Names None Dare Speak
WNYC News Blog
by Matthew Schuerman
The chiefs of economic development for the city and the state spoke before construction industry executives this morning, trying to reassure them that all was well even in these hard times.
New York Times reporter Charles Bagli, one of the moderators, got impatient at one point, telling panelists, “I was struck by the fact that so many of the projects–the public private partnerships that dominated the headlines, that dominated the public approval process–were not mentioned or were barely mentioned this morning.”
The answer, whatever the project, was pretty much the same: these things were supposed to take a long time to build anyway.
Marisa Lago, of Empire State Development, said Atlantic Yards was “clearly a challenging project in this environment.” She said her agency was focusing on meeting a December 31st deadline to qualify for tax-exempt bonds.
NoLandGrab: If it's "clearly challenging," why doesn't ESDC pull the plug rather than throwing good money after bad? The December deadline ESDC is trying to meet pertains only to the financing of the arena; wasn't there supposed to be some affordable housing somewhere along the line?
Posted by eric at 1:13 PM
DDDB Tuesday Trifecta
Actually, we're playing catch-up — two of these items were posted yesterday.
How Many Sports Venues are Too Many?
In terms of timing, Bruce Ratner is at the very end of the "those guys" line. How much longer will his investors let him stand there?
Nets Season Grinds to Halt, Dumps Tix on Schools
PS 139 has been awarded free tickets to see the NJ Nets play the Bobcats at the Izod Center in NJ. The tickets arrived unexpectedly at the school today and the game is Monday April 13 at 7:30 pm!...
"Awarded" seems a bit of overstatement--although it's certainly the case that anyone who would travel all the way from Ditmas Park to fill a seat in the deserted Izod Center should deserve some kind of award.
AY Oversight Hearing Delayed but Prep Continues
Posted by eric at 12:29 PM
Jay Z opens a store in a truck
The Brooklyn Paper
by Ben Muessig
The streetwear retailer Rocawear will roll out a “new premium line” of apparel at a temporary store inside an 18-wheeler that will be parked at the corner of Pacific Street and Fifth Avenue starting today.
The so-called “Rocpopshop” will park in front of the Atlantic Terminal Mall to showcase the brand — which is backed by a guy named Shawn Carter (you know him as Jay-Z, the legendary rapper and tiny investor in the New Jersey Nets) — in an attempt to “transport the customer into the Jay-Z and Rocawear lifestyle,” according to organizers.
...Some Rocawearers were eager to check out the retrofitted big rig between April 14 and May 3, when it will be parked near the footprint of the beleaguered Atlantic Yards development, but others were irked by conflicting reports on the brand’s Web site promising that the truck would arrive at “Atlantic Yard” a week earlier.
NoLandGrab: We've been unable to confirm rumors that Bruce Ratner is looking for a truck large enough to house a basketball arena.
More coverage...
Atlantic Yards Report, The Rocawear Pop Shop finally arrives
Posted by eric at 11:42 AM
Questions for Sen. Perkins: Why did ESDC punt to the city's DOT on the Carlton Avenue Bridge
Atlantic Yards Report
In Norman Oder's first installment "about issues that a State Senate committee might address when it holds a hearing on Atlantic Yards," he explores the discrepancy between the Empire State Development Corporation's assertion that the Carlton Avenue Bridge would take two years to rebuild, when developer Forest City Ratner's contract with the NYC Department of Transportation allows for three.
Posted by lumi at 6:36 AM
It came from the Blogosphere...
WebCommentary.com, Don't Blame ACORN Whistleblower Anita MonCrief for Providing Proof!
On Good Friday, Norman Oder wrote an open letter to the Public Editor of The New York Times, asking why The New York Times has ignored developer Forest City Ratner's "incredible" bailout of ACORN (the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now).
...
Hurray for Mr. Oder for raising what he described as "the complicated, vexing question of the impact on Times coverage from the parent New York Times Company’s relationship with developer Forest City Ratner (FCR), which together built the Times Tower in Midtown--a relationship that has drawn critical scrutiny from Editor & Publisher's ethics columnist."But Mr. Oder's criticism of [whistleblower] MonCrief for "decid[ing] to make public what [NY Times reporter] Strom considered confidential reporter-source communication" is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of privileged communications.
The attorney-client privilege belongs to the client, not the lawyer. A lawyer cannot conceal his or her malpractice by claiming privileged communication with the client.
Likewise with the physician-patient privilege.
NoLandGrab: To be clear, Oder said he was "uncomfortable" that a souce released a "confidential reporter-source communication."
Curbed.com, It Happened One Weekend: eBay for Apartments, Starter Studios Cheapen Up, Kosciuszko 2.0, More!
"Atlantic Yards" and Columbia University have become the NYC gold standard of eminent domain abuse:
4) The Kosciuszko Bridge, the unpronounceable worn strip of metal that connects Greenpoint and Maspeth along the BQE, is set to be replaced with a new nine-lane bridge, with construction beginning in 2013. The scrap metal dealers and wholesalers located below will lose their land via eminent domain, but don't expect another Atlantic Yards or Columbia. After all, good lord that bridge needs replacing. [The City/'Uneasily Contemplating the Arrival of a Spiffy Newcomer']
Orange Juice Blog, Do we have 21st century “pirates” operating in NJ & NY today?
The news about Bruce Ratner and his eminent domain-abusing subsidy-sucking "Atlantic Yards" megaproject is getting around:
Exactly five months ago I blogged about a major redevelopment project that I first became aware of when attending an Institute for Justice, IJ conference in the Washington, DC area two years ago.
A property rights victim from Brooklyn, NY attended the conference to share their efforts and literature as well as to gain our support in fighting to protect their homes and businesses from the corporate wrecking ball in a pending eminent domain action involving Bruce Ratner. The name of this development is “Atlantic Yards.”
Here we go again. Another professional sports team with their hands in the public trough.
Reason Online, SLAPP Silly
The online libertarian mag is NOT POSTING about the developer who is suing the author of a book about an egregious case of eminent domain abuse, the book's publisher, the professor who wrote the blurb, and two newspapers who ran reviews.
And in case you-know-who is checking, we're not saying anything either.
Noticing New York, Bloomberg Update: Fire and Ice (Part I)
A two-part -volume series outlines how Mayor Bloomberg uses his "unfathomable wealth" to collect support and promote pet projects with little consideration for impacts to the environment and surrounding communities.
Part II: If you have a problem with that, you can take it up with the ex-Blagojevich operative Bloomberg hired to run his reelection campaign.
Posted by lumi at 5:30 AM
April 13, 2009
Senator Perkins begins to gear up for Atlantic Yards oversight hearing, but it won’t be held April 24
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder is reporting that, though the NY State Senate Standing Committee on Corporations's "tentatively scheduled April 24 hearing" on Atlantic Yards has been postponed, some members are getting up to speed on the problems and challenges associated with Bruce Ratner's historic megaproject.
If a legislative oversight hearing on Atlantic Yards scheduled this month sounded too soon to be true, well, that was right.
More pressing Senate business has delayed the tentatively scheduled April 24 hearing by the Senate Standing Committee on Corporations, Authorities and Commissions regarding the performance of agencies like the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA).
It may make for a more thorough hearing, as well, since Senate Committee Chair Bill Perkins, as well as his main staff member working on the issue, are clearly still getting up to speed on Atlantic Yards.
Perkins, a Harlem Democrat who last September held an oversight hearing on eminent domain, came to Brooklyn Saturday to meet with about 15 people--mostly but not exclusively critics and opponents of AY--to be briefed on the project.
Posted by lumi at 6:15 AM
April 10, 2009
It came from the Blogosphere...
Gothamist, Stalled Atlantic Yards Project Leaves Neighborhood Blighted
Gothamist picks up on Tuesday's Daily News story:
Government officials and developer Bruce Ratner have for years tried to seize private property in Prospect Heights to build an arena, office towers and apartments, arguing that the neighborhood was the epitome of urban blight. Opponents, meanwhile, countered that the developer was swooping in just as Prospect Heights was experiencing its first revitalization in decades.
Now, after years of demolition but no construction, the project has brought about the very blighted conditions officials ostensibly sought to remedy. Ironic, huh? Sadly, it's not the fashionable Napoleon Dynamite-type irony; more like the old fashioned irony that led Oedipus to gouge his eyes out after he realized what the hell happened. And with the development foundering, residents fear an increasingly desolate future.
Joshing Politics, Atlantic Yards Exacerbates Blight Problem It Claimed To Fix
And Joshing Politics follows up on Gothamist's follow-up:
Irony is a funny thing. At some level the situation it describes is both funny and tragic. In the case of the Atlantic Yards
monstrositydevelopment, it is hard to find humor when you have been forced to sell your house and/or see your neighborhood ripped up in front of you for a greedy developer. Bruce Ratner and his partners had claimed that it was necessary to clean the area up and make it Gehry-ified but now it turns out it was Ratner that blighted the area.
Runnin' Scared, Noobs Flood the City; We Propose a Screening Process
The Village Voice blog proposes a litmus test for people wishing to relocate to New York City.
We've got things backwards, people. Henceforth we should raise the barrier to entry: prospective members must have something going for them besides big savings accounts and stars in their eyes. They should have some moxie, pep, balls, whatever name you want to give to the quality that makes someone willing to stick with New York even when it's the home of Son of Sam instead of "Top Chef." A crime wave might do it, but we would prefer some kind of application process. Maybe prospects could come to City Hall to be confronted by a board of natives who will ask them what kind of music they listen to, what they think of Atlantic Yards and "Real World Brooklyn," etc., and reject the ones who look like they might be trouble. We nominate to such a board Reverend Billy, Randy Credico, and Charles Barron, for starters.
It isn't perfect, but what we've been doing so far isn't working.
Posted by eric at 10:14 AM
April 9, 2009
ESDC CEO Lago admits the obvious: Atlantic Yards would take “decades”
Atlantic Yards Report
Every so often, watchdog Norman Oder stumbles over a fleeting moment of candor, which seems to contradict the developer and NY State's arguments in legal briefs:
When the Atlantic Yards project was approved in December 2006, it was supposed to take a decade, according to the construction schedule attached to the Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) issued by the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC)
Yesterday ESDC CEO Marisa Lago acknowledged the obvious: it could take decades.
Posted by lumi at 6:14 AM
Ratner Reported Buying Atlantic Yards Structure
Brooklyn Daily Eagle
On March 20 [Atlantic Yards developer Forest City Ratner] closed on a 10,000-square-foot building at 467 Dean St. in Prospect Heights that was the New York City headquarters of the United Union of Roofers, Waterproofers and Allied Workers. This is according to public records, The Real Deal said, which show that Ratner paid roughly $3 million for the building.
Posted by lumi at 4:44 AM
April 8, 2009
Lessons on activism for the preservation movement, and reflections on the AY example
Atlantic Yards Report
At the 15th annual Historic Districts Council (HDC) conference, Communities and Cornices: Preservation in a Political World, held March 7, Dick Dadey, executive director of the Citizens Union (CU), offered some general observations on effective advocacy.
The lesson apply not only for historic preservationists, but also, to my mind, offer context regarding the Atlantic Yards battle.
...
What is good government, Dadey asked rhetorically. He listed multiple factors: transparency, accountability, responsiveness to the people, effectiveness, acting in the public interest.“Good government cannot function unless the citizens are paying attention,” he said. Thus the importance of advocacy. (And, I’d argue, journalism.)
Dadey listed what he called “the five P’s of effective advocacy.”
Principle: you need to have a set of principles that guide your work. HDC and other preservation groups, he said, have a very strong set of principles.
Purpose: a principled organization or effort needs to know what it’s asking for.
(In the Atlantic Yards context, it’s a very big ask, in fact, impossible. Hence lawsuits.)
Pragmatic: it’s not just about being passionate, and knowing your cause, but being wise in how you speak about it.
(Atlantic Yards diehard opponents at times have made common cause with “mend-it-don’t-end-it critics like BrooklynSpeaks.)
Political: “which is not a phrase a lot of like to use,” when fighting for these principles… but being political, knowing what tactics to use and how to use them successfully.
(AY opponents have been unsucessful in getting project opponents like Assembly candidate Bill Batson and Congressional candidate Chris Owens elected, but longstanding opponent State Senator Velmanette Montgomery was reelected easily. Now City Council Member Letitia James, the leading opponent, faces a challenge.)
People: “How do the issues we care about affect the daily lives of people who live there?
(AY opponents certainly have recruited people in the immediate area of the project, but have not drawn large numbers from beyond.)
Posted by lumi at 5:42 AM
Small world: from Forest City Ratner to KnickerbockerSKD to Coney Island developer Sitt
Atlantic Yards Report
Have you noticed that developers and politicians seem to be reading from the same script?
Norman Oder just posted that a former spokesman for Atlantic Yards developer Forest City Ratner now works for a political pr consulting firm, which is also doing the pr campaign for the developer who ate Coney Island:
Wonder where former Forest City Ratner spokesman Loren Riegelhaupt wound up?
He's now at the consulting firm KnickerbockerSKD, which produced FCR's "liar fliers," and is now working for... would-be Coney Island developer Joe Sitt.
Posted by lumi at 5:30 AM
April 7, 2009
Atlantic Yards Report Two Five-fer Tuesday
Not content with three wee-hours posts, Norman Oder is back at the keyboard.
Though AY was supposed to remove blight, it's now created blight in Prospect Heights
The point of the Atlantic Yards project was to remove blight, despite the very dubious designation.
Now, the Daily News reports, there's a strong indication of developer blight (though the newspaper doesn't make the connection to the blight removal justification)....
Last week, an attorney representing residents of two buildings in the Atlantic Yards footprint, filed a motion in state court to enlarge the record for his planned appeal of a case, dismissed last September, which argued that the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) should hold another hearing because the project has changed considerably.
The evidence he proffered were an Independent Budget Office representative’s statement questioning the benefits from the current version of the project, as well as a financial document filed by Forest City Enterprises admitting new potential setbacks.
Now Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn adds another layer to the argument. DDDB points to a 1996 New York Times op-ed piece about "another billion-dollar sports venue boondoggle," written by Roger G. Noll, who noted that "Stadiums are bad investments, which is why the teams themselves are never willing to pay for them. New York City would generate more cash by putting the money in a savings account."
The Zimbalist connection
Noll then co-edited Sports, Jobs, and Taxes: The Economic Impact of Sports Teams and Stadiums, along with Andrew Zimbalist, who, paid by Forest City Ratner, concluded--despite huge flaws in his analysis--that Atlantic Yards would be a huge boon.
Posted by eric at 9:13 AM
No Ratner, just lots of rats: with Atlantic Yards on hold folks say Prospect Heights dirty & scary
NY Daily News
By Sarah R. Kaufman and Jotham Sederstrom
Atlantic Yards developer Bruce Ratner promised, "Jobs, Housing and Hoops," but so far, all we have is rats, street closures and blight:
With construction at the controversial Atlantic Yards site on hold, angry Prospect Heights residents fear their neighborhood could remain a wasteland for years to come.
A scourge of rodents, safety concerns and road closures have all cast a shadow since developer Forest City Ratner razed 28 buildings in the neighborhood in a now-stalled bid to build 16 skyscrapers and a basketball arena nearby.
“It’s creepy to walk around at night,” said Martina Fugazzotto, 26, who lives on Dean St. and Vanderbilt Ave., near where about six buildings have been knocked down in the last four years.
...
For Prospect Heights resident Joseph Medina, 29, the demolitions and vacant lots near his home on Dean St. have caused packs of rodents to scurry from the rubble of a building that housed Time Mover before it was razed in July."If I had a video camera, it would show eight rats coming out of my garbage," said Medina, moments before a rat peeked from a hole. "I consider them my new neighbors."
Posted by lumi at 6:30 AM
April 6, 2009
Brooklyn Broadside: New Promotion To Boost Downtown Brooklyn Commerce
Brooklyn Daily Eagle
by Dennis Holt
In a piece on the new Downtown Brooklyn marketing campaign, Atlantic Yards booster Dennis Holt unwittingly exposes the big lie about the project's location.
Its existence brought a question from a reporter that is worth noting. He asked, ‘what is considered downtown Brooklyn these days?’ Three parts of Chan’s answer was traditional — Cadman Plaza-Court St. on the west, Tillary to the north, Atlantic Avenue to the south — but the eastern boundary has moved. It used to be Flatbush and its extension, but now the boundary is fluid.
The creation of the BAM cultural district and the Atlantic Yards will create a new center fulcrum for the downtown area and it is risky to set up firm boundaries at this time. And there will probably be a gentle melding over time of the northern and southern areas.
NoLandGrab; If Atlantic Avenue is the southern boundary of downtown, then regardless whether Flatbush is the eastern boundary or not, the planned Atlantic Yards site is not now, nor has it ever been, in Downtown Brooklyn.
Posted by eric at 6:38 PM
April 5, 2009
Nets arena plans keep getting vaguer
Field of Schemes
Neil deMause, no slouch himself, gives props to Atlantic Yards Report.
Norman Oder of Atlantic Yards Report, the only blogger we know who goes to the trouble of digging through 10-K forms, reports that New Jersey Nets owner Bruce Ratner's Forest City Enterprises changed its description of its planned Brooklyn arena project from "an 850,000 square foot sports and entertainment arena" to "a state of the art sports and entertainment arena." That would certainly jibe with previous reports that Ratner was desperately trying to "value engineer" the project to keep it alive; original architect Frank Gehry has already said of the arena, "I don't think it's going to happen," though he could easily have meant his design, not any arena at that site.
Posted by eric at 9:59 PM
April 3, 2009
It came from the Blogosphere...
The Campaign for Community-Based Planning, Mega-Project Update: AY and Coney
It’s been a while since we’ve checked in on perpetually controversial Brooklyn projects Atlantic Yards and Coney Island. Here’s where we play catch-up with a compilation of recent news....
Curbed, Construction Watch: 'Forgotten Ratner' Shows Its Face
What, with Bruce Ratner's massive Atlantic Yards nearby, it's only understandable that the rising 34-story tower at 80 Dekalb Avenue on the Downtown Brooklyn/Fort Greene border became the "forgotten Ratner." But with Atlantic Yards looking as likely as a Nets playoff run, it's time for 80 Dekalb to get the attention it deserves. Forest City Ratner enlisted prolific architect Costas Kondylis for this building, which will have 292 rental apartments (20% of them "affordable"). When we last checked in, the structure was just beginning to rise. Now, via the photos above dropped in the Curbed Photo Pool, we see that the prefab panels are already being hoisted into place. If only all Brooklyn construction got on so quickly, eh Brucey boy?
ESPN.com, Frank on the hot seat in New Jersey
As far as ringing endorsements go, this one was about as strong as the foundation for that new arena they're building for the Nets in Brooklyn … you know, the one for which they still haven't stuck a shovel in the ground.
"All of us get graded and rated. All of us," Nets president Rod Thorn said. "And that's the time when Lawrence [Frank] will, too. We look at everything at the end of the year."
...Thorn didn't exactly put out the fire by intimating that there are no guarantees in terms of job security, even for a coach with a guaranteed $4.5 million coming to him next season. And there is a school of thought that Nets management has become a house divided between the basketball side, led by Thorn (who has one year remaining on his contract, too), and the business side, led by Brett Yormark, president and CEO of Nets Sports and Entertainment.
Of course, it wouldn't seem to make a lot of sense for a team bleeding millions to eat another $4.5 million, although if it replaced him with a coach still being paid by another team (e.g. Eddie Jordan, still owed $4 million by Washington), it could pay the new guy a pittance in the first season to minimize the financial hit to the organization.
...The coach looked right on Wednesday in the Nets' convincing 13-point victory over the Pistons, but it still wasn't enough to erase the uncertainty surrounding Frank.
That won't come until later this month, after Ratner has decided whose advice he is going to take. Hopefully, it'll be better than the advice he got at the start of this decade when his advisers were telling him the Brooklyn building would be finished by now. That day -- if it ever happens -- remains years away.
Nets Daily, Arena Critics Running Out of Cash?
Norman Oder's story today on DDDB's financials raises the hopes of the Nets-to-Brooklyn faithful.
Posted by eric at 5:38 PM
Brooklyn Daily Double Eagle
The Real Deal: Ratner Buys Atlantic Yards Property
Forest City Ratner has purchased a property in the Atlantic Yards footprint for the first time in more than two years, The Real Deal reported yesterday.
...The developer, who last purchased property in the area in February 2007, has bought and demolished many of the properties in the footprint but a number of others are still in private hands, including those of nine property owners and tenants who are challenging the developer’s intent to take control of them via eminent domain, The Real Deal said.
Brooklyn Broadside: Federal Stimulus Funds Could Start a Gov’t Building Boom
Dennis Holt takes a look at Brooklyn building projects getting stimulus money (Atlantic Yards is, thus far, not on that list), and remains supremely confident that Atlantic Yards will be built.
Planners expect that the Manhattan Bridge will clearly be the main vehicular portal into Brooklyn especially with three major projects — the overall BAM cultural district, Atlantic Yards, and the large City Point mixed-use project.
Posted by eric at 4:39 PM
Signs hint at money crunch for Atlantic Yards opponent DDDB, but reps say they're confident about fundraising
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder turns a critical eye to developments at Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn:
While Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn (DDDB) has not expressed public concern about its financial situation, a recently released Internal Revenue Service (IRS) document shows that the organization, in the year ending last June, spent nearly $118,000 more than it took in, cutting deeply into its reserves, leaving net assets of $20,757.
That raises questions about DDDB's capacity to maintain legal challenges as Forest City, bolstered by a new loan from the National Basketball Association for the Nets, limps ahead, renegotiating with unions at Beekman, and with more of a commitment to Atlantic Yards--the arena, at least--than nearly anything else in its portfolio. After all, a new arena would mean an end to losses from the Nets and an immediate increase in the value of the team.
But two DDDB representatives expressed confidence in current fundraising, noting that litigation expenses were much greater then than now.
Oder compares the massive spending on lobbying and political campaigns by developer Forest City Ratner to DDDB's scrappy grassroots fundraising campaigns and examines the soft spots for DDDB going forward.
Posted by lumi at 5:58 AM
With clock ticking from March to April, AY backers' estimates need revision
Atlantic Yards Report
In recent months, two supporters of Atlantic Yards have suggested that March stood as a deadline for legal cases to be resolved.
While the case challenging the environmental review was dismissed, the plaintiffs are trying for an appeal. The eminent domain case is still pending.
It's unclear why March represents some sort of cutoff, regarding the viability of the project, to Crain's NY Business editor Greg David. However, back in December, Nets CEO Brett Yormark mentioned March as some sort of milestone as well.
Posted by lumi at 5:54 AM
April 2, 2009
Jane Jacobs Atlantic Yards Report Card #s 14, 15 & 16
Trying to keep up with Michael D.D. White is like trying to keep up with Norman Oder.
We published Noticing New York's Jane Jacobs Atlantic Yards Report Card #17 this morning, not realizing that we skipped numbers 14, 15 and 16.
Here they are.
#14: Project Creates Population Diversity? NO
#15: Project Has Building Age Diversity with a Close-Grained Mingling? NO
#16: Will There Be a Concentrated Diversity of Use? MAYBE NOT
Posted by eric at 5:05 PM
Jane Jacobs Atlantic Yards Report Card #17: Avoidance of Harmful Parking Lots? NO
Noticing New York
Michael D.D. White continues his evaluation of the Atlantic Yards project through the prism of Jane Jacobs.
Jane Jacobs viewed parking lots as negatives for cities from two standpoints. In a neighborhood, she viewed them as dominating and disorganizing. More generally she viewed high levels of cars being a net subtraction from the benefits of city life and she viewed accommodations of cars that encouraged their use as promoting a vicious cycle which erodes the balance of pedestrian activity in favor of vehicular activity. Plans for Atlantic Yards involve a hurried rush to create parking lots, in some cases demolishing historic buildings. It can readily be alleged that the reason behind the hurry is to remove the demolished buildings from the public’s consciousness together with the possible ingredients for an alternative future. The parking lots that replace them may be in place for twenty to thirty years. If parking lots are in place long enough people will be inclined to judge the Ratner buildings by a lower standard,- - whether they are improvement over a parking lot. Twenty years of parking lot can be a long time. If one is old enough, it could be a good portion of one’s remaining life.
Posted by eric at 10:00 AM
Despite Lawsuits, Atlantic Yards Sees '11 Opening
GlobeSt.com
by Cody Lyon
Hoping to challenge an Environmental Impact Statement that further paves the way for Forest City Ratner Cos.’ proposed Atlantic Yards project in downtown Brooklyn, a community activist group has filed a motion in the appellate division of New York State’s Court of Appeals.
The motion from Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn challenges a Feb. 26 ruling that upheld the state Supreme Court’s dismissal of DDDB’s suit in January, saying the state had met its environmental review obligations regarding Atlantic Yards. The appeal is one of two pending legal actions that challenge the project that involve DDDB, the community group founded a few months after FCRC first unveiled its plans for the site.
Despite the legal actions, an FCRC spokesman tells GlobeSt that the developer hopes to see Barclays Center Coliseum open by 2011. Although FRCC expects to encounter further delays because of litigation, the developers expect to close on its deal with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and break ground on the 22-acre project.
NoLandGrab: Let's not let reality get in the way of a 2011 arena opening. The published timetable for the arena buildout is 32 months, which would put us into December, 2011, if construction were underway — which it is not.
Posted by eric at 9:54 AM
April 1, 2009
ESDC: release of Atlantic Yards cost would be "damaging" to Forest City Ratner; DDDB asks comptrollers for disclosure
Atlantic Yards Report
In pursuit of the true costs of Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards arena and highrise megaproject, Norman Oder has been denied a City, and most recently a State, freedom of information law request.
Yesterday, Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn called upon the City and State comptrollers to obtain and release that information.
Oder posted the Empire State Developer Development Corporation's response and concludes:
It's understandable, as a general matter, why FOIL would aim to protect companies from the release of damaging information.
In this case, however, the cost of the project and the arena was a public matter when the ESDC approved Atlantic Yards in December 2006.
Now the ESDC is saying it's a private matter.
If the cost is now a secret, that suggests that developers and public agencies can announce one set of numbers to the public, then turn around and keep the actual numbers secret.
I have filed an appeal with the ESDC and, as with the appeal filed with EDC, I don't expect it to be granted.
Posted by lumi at 6:09 AM
It came from the Blogosphere...
Noticing New York, Looking at Things From Another Point of View: Do We See Distinctions That Make A Difference?
Michael D. D. White ponders the figurative and real appropriation of Brooklyn's icon and what changes may be in store for the recent Rupert Murdoch conglomeration of neighborhood newspapers:
We said at the outset that with the Murdoch takeover of the Brooklyn Paper and other local papers we were worried about coverage of all Brooklyn real estate development. Truthfully, you should be able to tell from what we just said that we are worried about coverage of real estate development throughout the city by all of the media and, beyond that, we are also worried about coverage of the political process in the city as a whole.
We had our concerns. We read Mr. Oder’s interview with [Brooklyn Paper editor] Mr. Kuntzman and we think we have considered his alternative point of view. But considering that alternative point of view has brought us back to the same place. We are still concerned.
Brownstoner, Atlantic Yards: The Play-by-Play
"You can sue, sue, sue—but nothing ruins megaplans like a crashing economy." So goes the sub-head of New York Magazine's historical timeline of the Atlantic Yards saga prompted, presumably, by architect Frank Gehry's much-blogged blooper, “I don’t think [Atlantic Yards] is going to happen.”
Z.A.C., Untitled
About a year ago I attended the Brooklyn Ball as a guest of my friend’s family. It was a great stroke of luck and one of the most exciting nights of my life. I saw Linda Evangelista and ran into Anna Wintour on my way into the bathroom. After Kanye West’s set, I hocked my Murakami placemat (a gift for everyone who bought a ticket, for God knows how much) for the entire contents of some rich woman’s wallet–a cool $600.
At that time, Atlantic Yards was imminent. Bruce Ratner was one of the guests being honored, and there was a sizable group of Brooklynites (uncannily for me at the time, a group I’d consider closer to “my people”) protesting his presence across from the museum on Eastern Parkway. And today? Atlantic Yards is on hold.
Posted by lumi at 5:29 AM
March 30, 2009
Atlantic Yards, Inch by Inch
You can sue, sue, sue—but nothing ruins megaplans like a crashing economy.
NY Magazine published a timeline of Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards megaproject plan. Though it's lacking in detail, one thing is apparent: we're more than five years into a fight over a project that was supposed to take ten years to build out.
Atlantic Yards Report, New York magazine's timeline: "The Fall of the Atlantic Yards Megaplan"
Norman Oder notes that not only isn't the project dead, but:
Also, the timeline is rather arbitrary, having left out such milestones as the overhyped 6-8% scaleback (NYTimes, front page!) and the December 2006 Empire State Development Corporation and Public Authorities Control Board approvals.
Posted by lumi at 6:22 AM
THANKS, RATNER
You’ve given Brooklyn what it needs,
You and pal Frank Gehry,
A host of homes turned into holes,
A ready cemetery.
— Leon Freilich
Brooklyn's poet-at-large posted the above in the comments section of a Q&A with Simeon Bankoff, the executive director of the Historic Districts Council, on The NY Times "City Room" Blog.
Posted by lumi at 6:03 AM
March 26, 2009
Is it dead?
WBAI Radio's Wakeup Call
Is it "Taps" for the Atlantic Yards project? WBAI covered the latest developments this morning during its six o'clock hour, including a conversation with DDDB spokesperson Daniel Goldstein.
The segment begins with the playing of "Taps" at about the five-minute mark. Some browsers may not display a timer, but five minutes is roughly one-tenth of the way along the slider.
Posted by eric at 12:43 PM
Paging Lillian Hellman: on WFAN, Nets' Yormark does damage control on Gehry, reaching new depths of suspicious spin
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder dissects Brett Yormark's performance on WFAN yesterday.
New Jersey Nets CEO Brett Yormark probably isn’t a Lillian Hellman fan, but he really should become familiar with Mary McCarthy’s infamous dis of the author: "Every word she writes is a lie, including 'and' and 'the'."
Yormark isn't yet in Hellman territory, but he's getting closer. And the only reason he gets away with it is that reporters, like Joe Benigno and Evan Roberts of WFAN yesterday, fail to challenge him.
The tally
Yormark, hauled out to do damage control after architect Frank Gehry said he didn’t think Atlantic Yards would happen, yesterday reached new depths of suspicious spin, declaring that Gehry was “just venting,” promising that the Brooklyn arena would open in 2011, asserting new job numbers for the project, pronouncing New Jersey “just terrific for us,” and claiming that Atlantic Yards would bring things that the “country needs right now.”
And he even blamed the Atlantic Yards opposition on “one individual out there,” presumably Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn’s Daniel Goldstein, somehow ignoring the thousands of people who have donated money, gone to rallies, and signed petitions.
Brutally weird
Let me respond quickly to those Yormarkisms.
- Gehry has reason for his pessimism; he’s laid off his Atlantic Yards staff.
- Yormark’s confident predictions of arena openings in 2010 and 2011 have fallen by the wayside. (Here’s the audio.)
- Yormark apparently hasn’t checked the job figures on the AY web site.
- If New Jersey were so terrific, the team of course would stay.
- While the country needs jobs, the affordable housing Yormark claims Atlantic Yards would bring would not come “now,” nor, perhaps, for a