July 16, 2008
I.R.S. Could Crimp Bloomberg's Big Plans
NY Observer
by Eliot Brown
The Observer's lead real estate reporter takes an in-depth look at New York City's furious efforts to preserve tax-exempt financing for its favorite son, Bruce Ratner.
As the Bloomberg administration scrambles to get its development projects in the ground amid a slowing economy and a waning political term, two major planned initiatives the city has championed face a formidable hurdle: the Internal Revenue Service.
For the financing plan for the Atlantic Yards housing and sports arena complex in Brooklyn, and for one being considered for the planned middle-income-housing mega-complex at Hunter’s Point South in Queens, the city would need a favorable ruling from the I.R.S. or face substantially higher costs for both projects. Negative rulings from the federal agency could result in tens of millions of dollars in added costs, putting up new obstacles to major developments that have already seen ambitions scaled back.
For both projects, the city wants to use tax-exempt financing, a method that lowers costs substantially—perhaps more than 15 percent—with the bulk of the savings coming out of federal tax revenues.
And, at least in the case of Atlantic Yards, the I.R.S. is rather wary, as it has called the financing method a “loophole” that it has ordered closed.
NoLandGrab: We haven't rooted this hard for the IRS since "The Untouchables."
Posted by eric at 11:18 AM
July 15, 2008
Developer Cuts Back on Plans for Tower to House Baseball’s Cable Network
The New York Times
by Charles Bagli
A 21-story office building planned in East Harlem for Major League Baseball is shrinking.
The tower’s developer, Vornado Realty Trust, had planned to begin construction in April on what would be the home for professional baseball’s newly created cable network, which is scheduled to make its debut in January with 50 million subscribers.
But, according to real estate executives and city officials, Vornado’s inability to finance the $435 million project, known as Harlem Park, has delayed construction and is doing what critics who had complained about the tower’s size could not: reduce its height by about a third. That is in part because the developer seems to have had problems signing up other tenants for the building.
Vornado is now considering a revised plan for a 14-story building at 125th Street and Park Avenue and renegotiating its lease with Major League Baseball, the executives and officials said.
...It is the latest example of the difficulty developers have had in trying to borrow money for projects amid the national debt crisis, even projects that only a few months ago seemed to be on the fast track. After completing the excavation for his Beekman Tower project downtown, the developer Bruce Ratner had to stop work for three months while his company went from bank to bank putting together the construction financing.
NoLandGrab: Judging from the most recent developments in the financial and real estate markets, securing financing, especially for mega-projects, is going to get harder before it gets easier.
Posted by eric at 11:09 AM
HOLD 'EM ACCOUNTABLE: DEVELOPER FILING PROPOSED
A City Council bill would require those who use public subsidies to spell out a project's public impact.
CityLimits.org
by Lauren Victory
With controversy erupting around practically every major new development in New York City – the new Yankee Stadium, Ground Zero and Brooklyn's Atlantic Yards, to name a few – concerned citizens have been looking toward the public review and approval process for a stronger voice. The help they seek may have arrived recently, in the form of the introduction of City Council Bill 801, titled Community Impact Reports.
Aimed at those seeking economic development benefits such as direct project subsidies, low-interest financing, tax benefits, tax-exempt financing, and tax-exempt bonds and grants, the bill would require the developer of each project to submit a comprehensive report to City Council outlining the intended social and economic effects of the project on the surrounding communities. Organizations in contract with the city for the purpose of providing social services, or those that create affordable housing units exclusively, are exempt from the requirement.
“We need to have a way to monitor the benefits that are given to developers,” said Councilman Thomas White Jr., a Queens Democrat who chairs Council's Economic Development Committee. Around the city, such benefits are legion: In fiscal year 2006, the New York City Industrial Development Agency alone granted at least $700 million in tax breaks to individual firms.
Councilman Albert Vann, in consultation with Councilmembers White, Bill de Blasio, Letitia James and others, created the bill to "help us to understand how city funds are being used in communities, to help them directly," according to Vann’s legislative director, Dottie Conway. Introduced June 29, the bill is now being further shaped by feedback and is not yet scheduled for a hearing or a vote.
NoLandGrab: Critics question how effective this legislation might actually be, and some see it as just another spin on City- and State-mandated environmental reviews, which are produced by the developer and always seem to arrive at the same, ain't-this-great outcome.
Posted by eric at 9:39 AM
July 14, 2008
Landmarks May Stem Atlantic Yards Area Development
The NY Sun
The city's Landmarks Preservation Commission is holding a hearing tomorrow to "calendar" a proposed historic district for the Prospect Heights neighborhood, the first significant step needed for the area to receive the protected historic district status.
While none of the footprint of the current Atlantic Yards project would be affected by the proposed designation, it would create a surrounding area that could hinder further expansion.
...
The Municipal Arts Society, the group organizing the legal opposition to the Atlantic Yards project, the opposition group Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn, and the Prospect Heights Neighborhood Development Council are applauding the city's move for historic designation.
Atlantic Yards Report, Missing the point on the Prospect Heights landmarking & AY
Norman Oder thinks that The NY Sun conflated the stance of serveral community groups:
Those most supporting the landmarking process are not major opponents of Atlantic Yards; the Municipal Art Society, for example, wants to "mend it, not end it," via the BrooklynSpeaks coalition. Given the scope of the proposed district, the headline would better have read: Landmarks May Stem Prospect Heights Overdevelopment.
Posted by lumi at 4:35 AM
July 4, 2008
Learning From the WTC Rebuilding Fiasco
Culture of Congestion [NY Sun blog]
By Sanford Ikeda
Congratulations Mayor Bloomberg, you are now holding a straight flush of mismanaged overdevelopment:
As if all the havoc visited upon almost every single one of New York's recent public-private mega-projects — WTC, Hudson Yards, Moynihan Station, Atlantic Yards — hasn't been enough to caution the mayor. Mr. Bloomberg continues to push ahead with a major-redevelopment of Willets Point, Queens.
Posted by lumi at 4:24 AM
June 30, 2008
Popular Fulton Mall plans expansion
NY Daily News
In this article about plans for the Fulton Mall, reporter Allison Colter has rebranded the Atlantic Terminal Mall as "the Atlantic Yards complex."
Target is said to be considering taking space as an anchor tenant - even though it already has a megastore further along Flatbush Ave., in the Atlantic Yards complex.
NoLandGrab: Even Ratner's branding efforts haven't taken it that far.
Posted by lumi at 3:59 AM
June 26, 2008
Karl Fischer bunker beds
Restless
Bruce Ratner rates a (dis)honorable mention in a blog post about ubiquitous NYC architect Karl Fischer, complete with a humorous rendering of a Gehry-less Atlantic Yards (click image to enlarge).
Real estate magnate Bruce Ratner's problem is that he thinks too big. If he had quietly bought a block at a time and hired Karl Fischer, Atlantic Yards would be done by now (right). Instead, it's every other block of Williamsburg that gets an arbitrary eyesore from the napkin doodles of The Master.
NoLandGrab: Thanks, but we think we'll get our Prospect Heights fried chicken at Bob Law's Seafood Café.
Posted by eric at 3:23 PM
June 25, 2008
Bronx Groups Demand a Voice in a Landmark’s Revival
The New York Times
by Terry Pristin
We're not sure exactly what tangible benefits will accrue to members of the Kingsbridge Armory Redevelopment Alliance in the Bronx, but we're reasonably confident that they have lots of rallies and blockparties in their future.
Now community organizers in the area, one of the city’s poorest neighborhoods, are seeking a private contract with the Related Companies, the developer chosen by the city in April to transform the Kingsbridge Armory into a shopping mall with 575,000 square feet of retail space, including a department store, a multiscreen movie theater and restaurants.
...In recent years, a growing number of private pacts, known as community benefits agreements, or C.B.A.’s, have smoothed the way for developments around the country, including Related’s Grand Avenue project in downtown Los Angeles.
But only a few such agreements have been forged in New York. In 2005, the Bloomberg administration publicly applauded a private agreement between housing advocates and Forest City Ratner, the developer of Atlantic Yards in Brooklyn, but now it no longer supports the concept.
“When you do a C.B.A., the decision may be made in a vacuum, and that’s what we’re looking to avoid,” Seth W. Pinsky, president of the city’s Economic Development Corporation, said in an interview last week. “We’re not opposed to benefits for the community, and we’re not opposed to community involvement. But we just think it should be part of the larger process.”
NoLandGrab: "The larger process?" How about any process? It's apparent that the Bloomberg Administration now recognizes that Atlantic Yards is the blueprint for how not to do large development projects in NYC.
Posted by eric at 9:20 AM
June 23, 2008
Glass and Darkness: Harbingers of Things to Come for Brooklyn and Its Prospect Park?
Brooklyn Ron
Congratulations Bruce Ratner! After spending millions on pr, your "Atlantic Yards" project is offically a "household phrase."
This planned development has not become a household phrase, like Atlantic Yards, but it has serious implications for the park, the surrounding neighborhood of Prospect Lefferts Gardens and for Brooklyn.
Read the rest of the post to learn more about the high-rise controversy brewing on the southeast side of Prospect Park, and Saturday's protest.
Posted by lumi at 4:11 AM
June 17, 2008
Musical Chairs in Emerging BAM “Cultural District”
Gothamist
Congratulations Bruce Ratner, Atlantic Yards is now the poster project for developments that don't go forward as originally planned.
In 2004, Mayor Bloomberg agreed to set aside property in Fort Greene for the construction of a $48.5 million, 299-seat classical theater (above) designed by Frank Gehry and Hugh Hardy for Theater for a New Audience. The itinerant company has not had a permanent home since it started in 1979; the glassy new building would be built on city-owned land in Fort Greene opposite the Brooklyn Academy of Music, in a planned BAM “Cultural District.”
Well, as Atlantic Yards developer Bruce Ratner might privately admit, stuff happens: In 2006, the proposed site of the not-yet-built theater was moved to a lot across the street, on the corner of Ashland Place and Lafayette Avenue. Now the Sun reports that the theater will shuffle down the block so the city can use the site for affordable housing.
...It was also revealed yesterday that the planned public library designed by Enrique Norten that was to have risen next to BAM has been aborted due to lack of funds. Instead, Two Trees Management is finalizing a deal to buy the land from the city for $20 million and build a mixed-used facility designed by the same architect.
NoLandGrab: Heck, who needs another public library when having to forego tax-free bonds might cut into the profits of the Yankees, Mets and Nets?
Posted by eric at 9:39 PM
June 15, 2008
"Shoot Hoops Not Guns" restaurant doesn't make it to arena opening
Atlantic Yards Report
The High Stakes Cheese Steaks restaurant on Flatbush Avenue near Bergen Street, which opened in December 2006, replacing the Silver Spoon diner, has closed. The restaurant business is always a gamble--one in four restaurants fail in their first year, and three of five in three years, according to Business Week.The restaurant's "Shoot Hoops Not Guns" sign, though it may seem a reference to a teen basketball program, was put up, an owner told the New York Post, in a 12/22/06 article optimistically headlined A WINNING $HOT: BROOKLYN EATERY TO BE COURTSIDE, because "he wants his business associated with the arena." That sign was either lost or removed fairly early in the restaurant's lifespan.
The Brooklyn Paper quoted landlord Michael Pintchik as observing that such a narrow menu was difficult to pull off. That, and the fact that the arena wasn't going to open in a year--nor in three. Those were long odds.
Posted by amy at 11:51 AM
June 13, 2008
New York's Morning Handout Newspapers Cover Government Handouts
Both amNY and Metro are covering the story of increased subsidies for large projects, including the proposed Atlantic Yards Project.
Both papers carried similar versions of this story:
State assembly questions public funds for Yankee Stadium
State lawmakers and fiscal watchdog groups cried foul Thursday over the Yankees' bid for another $350 million in public financing for their new stadium, saying it could soak up funds needed for parks and transportation.
Three state Assembly members from New York City called for a public hearing to examine a proposal to provide public support for one the richest franchises in sports.
"These sports teams are private companies that appear addicted to keeping their hands in the government cookie jar," said Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries of Brooklyn.
Jeffries and Assemblymen Ruben Diaz Jr. and Jose Peralta asked for a hearing on the use of public funds for the Yankees that they said were negotiated "in secret and without the control of elected officials" while other community projects are desperate for funding.
These two additional items appeared in amNY:
The first is this opinion piece by Ellis Henican: When did NYC turn into Gimme City?
Gimme, gimme, gimme
That's all we're hearing these days. Gimme more of your money for taxes, fares and fees.
The Yankees demand another $350 million in tax-free city financing or they won't finish their new stadium.
Finally, there is this item (found only in the print edition) that includes the issue of additional subsidies for the Yankee Stadium — the same kind that Bruce Ratner will be looking for [click to enlarge]:
Posted by steve at 6:00 AM
June 12, 2008
Can Ft Greene Maintain its Cool?
The Real Fort Greene
by Carlton Banks
The Ft. Greene and Clinton Hill blog finds a ray of sunlight in the stalling of Atlantic Yards, and offers a prescription for keeping the neighborhood "cool" (and they ain't talkin' about the recent heatwave).
How can a neighborhood maintain it’s “cool” in a time of rapid gentrification/”mallification”? This post references my earlier “Has Ft. Greene Gotten Too Cool” post. I’ve been reading the Vanishing NY blog and I’m a little worried. As the prospects for Atlantic Yards dim I’m trying to keep hope alive. It’s not too late to save Ft. Greene from the “mallification of NYC”!
Posted by eric at 3:21 PM
As Cranes Fall and People Die
Economic Development for Whom?
CounterPunch.org
by Judith Levine
In an essay decrying the conventional wisdom that in a construction boom, accidents will happen, Brooklyn author Judith Levine fingers a ubiquitous bogeyman.
Developers—like Forest City Ratner, preparing for Brooklyn Atlantic Yards—demolish affordable housing to build “sub-market-rate” housing, which is unaffordable to most New Yorkers. Meanwhile, the City announces that budget cuts will force 15% rent rises in public housing and the closing of community centers and programs.
...Perhaps City Hall has always been a wholly owned subsidiary of the equivalent of Forest City Ratner. Perhaps there’s never been a time when New Yorkers didn’t wake up to the sound of jackhammers, when life here was not noisy, crowded, and chaotic. When workers did not fall to their deaths from skyscrapers and cranes.
But the question is always the same: who benefits?
The job of public officials is to ensure that the answer is the public—not just developers, but the rest of us.
NoLandGrab: Well, we know Bruce Ratner and his cronies benefit. The check for everyone else is in the mail.
Posted by eric at 2:33 PM
M&T Boss Wilmers Named New York State Economic Czar
Artvoice
By John McMahon
Bruce Ratner's controversial Atlantic Yards is mentioned in a list of stalled projects in NYC in an analysis of NY Governor Paterson's appointment of Robert G. Wilmers, "chairman of M&T Bank and prominent anti-union activist," to run the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC), the sponsoring agency for Atlantic Yards.
The failure of the Spitzer plan may be something of a red herring given the current economic climate and the state’s inability to fund many of the projects on ESDC’s docket.
A New York Times article last month outlined numerous stalled development projects in New York City and stated that “…the governor has sent conflicting messages, preaching fiscal austerity while suggesting that the state can move forward on a host of costly projects, including the Second Avenue subway, the extension of the No. 7 line, the $14 billion redevelopment of the West Side railyards, the $14 billion Penn Station project and the $4 billion Atlantic Yards basketball arena and residential complex in Brooklyn.” The article goes on to describe growing friction between New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the governor over the direction of the agency.
So why did Paterson do it? The Wilmers appointment comes on the heels of the governor’s controversial (and seemingly ill-fated) plan to put a cap on the amount of taxes a school district can impose. Is Governor Paterson veering to the right or is he just punting?
Posted by lumi at 4:29 AM
June 11, 2008
Square Feet: Squeezing Big-Box Retailing Into Small City Spaces
The New York Times
by Terry Pristin
Blumenfeld [Development Group] is developing East River Plaza with Forest City Ratner, which was also the partner of The New York Times Company in its headquarters building on Eighth Avenue.
Home Depot has been part of the East River Plaza project for about a decade. Two years ago, the retailer signed a 30-year lease for 110,000 square feet of space. But like many national retailers, Home Depot is trimming its expansion plans as a result of the weak economy, and the company is talking to two warehouse clubs — Costco and BJ’s — about subletting its space, Mr. Blumenfeld said. A Home Depot spokeswoman said the company is “re-evaluating” the site.
As it happens, Costco had counted on becoming one of the anchor stores at East River Plaza, but instead the developers cut a deal with Target in 2006, leading Jeffrey H. Brotman, Costco’s chairman, to complain publicly about being shunted aside.
NoLandGrab: OK, this story provides us with a perfect opportunity to do an Atlantic Yards hypocrisy check.
Forest City Ratner Companies (FCRC) had a deal with Costco to be one of two anchor tenants at East River Plaza. But when Target expressed interest in 2006, FCRC booted Costco for the bullseye-logoed retailer, which happens to be the main tenant of FCR's Atlantic Terminal mall.
Then in March of this year, Home Depot, the other anchor tenant, announced that it was rethinking its commitment, due to the double-whammy of a slowing economy and the global credit crunch. But Costco-kicker-outter FCRC got all legal on Home Depot; FCRC VP Loren Riegelhaupt told Crain's NY Business, "we have a lease with them, and we expect them to live up to that.” Yup, they're all about honoring commitments.
Speaking of honoring commitments, Forest City Ratner lobbyist Richard Lipsky is best known for heading the Neighborhood Retail Alliance, which purports to fight "the danger presented by big box stores. These stores... pose a dire threat to all of the city’s neighborhood businesses and the communities they serve." Lipsky also represents West Harlem businessman Nick Sprayregen, whose properties face the threat of eminent domain for Columbia University's expansion plan. But Lipsky apparently loves money more than he hates eminent domain, since he's happy to do Bruce Ratner's bidding on Atlantic Yards.
Posted by eric at 5:23 PM
June 6, 2008
M & T Bank Chief Named Development Agency Head
NY Sun
by Peter Kiefer
Robert Wilmers, chairman and CEO of Buffalo-based M&T Bank Corp., has been appointed by Governor Paterson as the new head of the Empire State Development Corporation.
Mr. Wilmers has his work cut out for him at the development agency. He will be assuming the chairmanship under a governor who wasn't elected and who may be out of office in two and a half years. The state is also facing a smaller pool of public capital and private investment for costly development projects, a number of which have been either been stalled or scrapped altogether.
The agency recently scrapped plans for a $1.8 billion expansion of the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center and has been unable to breathe life into plans for renovating Pennsylvania Station and for the construction of an Atlantic Yards basketball arena and residential complex in Brooklyn.
...The chairman of the Assembly's Committee on Corporations, Authorities and Commissions, Richard Brodsky, said the appointment was secondary to what he says is a necessary restructuring of the agency.
"I don't think it matters much who it is, but whether he is willing to come in and immediately restructure from the ground up what is a dysfunctional organization," he said.
Posted by eric at 9:50 AM
June 5, 2008
Gov. Paterson names new chief of ESDC
Robert Wilmers (on the right) will replace recently resigned Dan Gundersen and Patrick Foye; he will search for two individuals to run downstate and upstate ESDC divisions.
AP via Crain's NY Business
After some difficulty finding someone to take the job, it looks like the public corporation spearheading Bruce Ratner's controversial Atlantic Yards plan will finally have a new chief.
Gov. David Paterson on Thursday appointed Robert Wilmers as head of the Empire State Development Corporation. Mr. Wilmers will be the sole head of the agency and, in a shift, he will be based in Buffalo.
Chairman and chief executive of M&T Bank Corp., Mr. Wilmers has been critical of Albany dating back to the Pataki administration, chastising the state government for regularly spending at twice the inflation rate.
He replaces replace Dan Gundersen and Patrick Foye, both appointed by former governor Eliot Spitzer to run economic development upstate and in New York City, respectively. Mr. Gunderson stepped down Thursday, two months after the departure of Mr. Foye.
Mr. Wilmers will participate in a search for two individuals to run downstate and upstate ESDC divisions, both of whom will report to him.
..."Whoever takes the job has to be ready to make fundamental change," said Assemblyman Richard Brodsky, a Westchester Democrat critical of economic development during the Pataki administration. "The programs have become enormous giveaways to powerful interests unrelated to any public benefit."
NoLandGrab: Not surprisingly, H. Carl McCall did not get the job.
Posted by eric at 10:36 PM
June 3, 2008
Elected officials sign development pledge, but the question is money
Atlantic Yards Report
On Saturday, the highlight of the Peoples’ Accountable Development Summit--part of the Fifth Avenue Committee’s South Brooklyn Accountable Development Initiative--was a pledge from elected officials to uphold a list of Accountable Development Principles, listed at right.
Those signing the pledge included City Council Members Letitia James and David Yassky, Rep. Yvette Clarke, Assemblymen Hakeem Jeffries and Jim Brennan, State Senators Velmanette Montgomery and Eric Adams, and City Council candidate (and 52nd A.D. Democratic District Leader) JoAnne Simon. Rep. Nydia Velazquez and Borough President Marty Markowitz sent representatives to sign the pledge. The principles are honorable; while some, such as the goal of accountable process, do not require more money, others do depend on a commitment of funds.
The main component is a redefinition of affordable housing, calling for making units "truly affordable to people in the neighborhood"--a dig at projects like Atlantic Yards, which contains a significant slice of subsidized units--2250 of 4500 planned rentals, plus 200 of 1930 onsite condos--but which are not necessarily affordable to average Brooklynites. While there's a 50/50 pledge regarding the AY rentals, when that pledge was announced, it applied to the project as a whole; now it would be 38%. Note that "truly affordable" is not defined.
Posted by eric at 10:12 AM
June 1, 2008
Sunday Comix - Courtesy of the People's Accountable Development Summit
The Fifth Avenue Committee's "People's Accountable Development Summit" took place yesterday at P.S. 282 in Park Slope.
Included in a folder provided to every attendee, was a comic book titled "Our Community Our Future - A Guide to Accountable Development Principles" (right).
There is one page dedicated to the problems associated with the proposed Atlantic Development. (Click on the below image for a larger version.)
Posted by steve at 8:59 AM
May 31, 2008
The (relative) silence about the long-delayed Ingersoll Community Center and the breadth of blogs
Atlantic Yards Report
When, earlier this month, I covered (for the Brooklyn Downtown Star) the annual convention of FUREE (Families United for Racial and Economic Equality), which advocates for low-income women of color, many in the housing projects of Fort Greene, I was surprised to learn that the Ingersoll Community Center, under construction for more than six years, still isn't open, in stark contrast to the steadily rising condos nearby. The New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA), whose web site says not-so-clearly that the center has been "rebuilt," now promises it will open in the fall.(Photo from New York Daily News.)
...
Given the paucity of press coverage of Brooklyn in general, I've said publicly that I'm less disturbed by the disproportionate number of bloggers--some good, some not--in Brownstone Brooklyn than by the fact that the Brooklyn bureaus of the city's dailies each have only a handful of people.
article
NoLandGrab: For full video coverage of the FUREE rally, Episode 1 of Freddy's Brooklyn Roundhouse's coverage of the
FUREE convention will air on BCAT at 8pm Tuesday, June 3rd and in Manhattan Thursday, June 5th, at 8:30pm on MNN. You can also view it on YouTube now.
Posted by amy at 9:29 AM
May 30, 2008
Pol sour on Domino Sugar plant proposal
The Brooklyn Paper
by Ben Muessig
Another example of how there's one set of rules for Bruce Ratner, and another set of rules for everyone else.
A local lawmaker has opened a new front against the proposed Domino Sugar mega-project, demanding that the developers behind the glassy waterfront high-rises open their books so that he can independently assess the project’s finances.
Assemblyman Joe Lentol (D–Williamsburg) told The Brooklyn Paper that he can not support the $1.2-billion, 2,200-unit project until the developer justifies the need for two 30-story and two 40-story towers.
“If we’re going to have a project of that magnitude, I really want to see the facts and the figures that require them to build that high and that dense,” Lentol said.
...But Lentol — who supported the much-larger Atlantic Yards project in low-rise Prospect Heights, despite its less-generous affordable housing component — won’t back Domino until he can eye the dollars.
“If they want us to continue to give them the benefit of the doubt, they need to make the financials transparent,” said Amy Cleary, a spokeswoman for Lentol. “They keep saying, ‘We’re making very little money,’ but they’re not showing us that.”
NoLandGrab: Yeah, make those financials transparent. Just the way Bruce Ratner has, Joe.
Posted by eric at 1:40 PM
May 29, 2008
State Races To Attract an Economic Tsar
At Least Eight Decline To Take Development Post
The NY Sun
By Jacob Gershman
Hey, how about an ad on Craig's List?
Governor Paterson is struggling to lure a top-tier talent to take over the state's most important economic development agency, as pressure is building on him to settle for a candidate from within his political circle.
A growing list of heavyweights in the business and real estate world has turned down the offer to become the sole chairman of the Empire State Development Corp., which has been left in a state of limbo since Mr. Paterson assumed office more than two months ago.
...The erstwhile prospects privately offered the administration a variety of reasons for not wanting the job. Some were unwilling to accept a public-sector salary or had business dealings that would be disrupted by their departure. Others are said to have been wary of the intense public scrutiny that accompanies such a high-level government position.
...Compounding the concerns is the state's financial turmoil, which means a smaller pool of public capital and private investment in costly development projects. The development agency is already mired in setbacks. It recently scrapped plans for a $1,8 billion expansion of the Javits Center and has been unable to breathe life into plans for renovating Penn Station and for the construction of an Atlantic Yards basketball arena and residential complex in Brooklyn.
NoLandGrab: Could it be that prospective "development czars" aren't jazzed about overseeing the dismantling of the ill-conceived Atlantic Yards project?
Posted by eric at 8:56 AM
May 27, 2008
Tax breaks, even redesign to lure NYC corporate tenants
AP via Newsday
by Amy Westfeldt
This article discusses how far government will go to subsidize large developments. The proposed Atlantic Yards development isn't mentioned, but it's hard not to think about it when it is also an example of development that would not happen except for massive subsidies.
Across the city, big development projects are slowing down or falling apart because of uncertain financing, making an anchor tenant's commitment a potential make-or-break factor, experts say.
Posted by steve at 5:40 AM
May 23, 2008
Bay Ridge’s Atlantic Yards?
The Brooklyn Paper
by Ben Muessig
Congratulations Bruce Ratner, Atlantic Yards is now the poster project for stalled over-a-railyard development!
A developer’s controversial plan to build a Home Depot above a railyard on the border of Sunset Park and Bay Ridge has been abandoned until the economy rebounds.
...Kohen’s development joins a number of higher-profile projects that have stalled in the aftermath of the sub-prime mortgage crisis.
Bruce Ratner has struggled to save his ailing Atlantic Yards project near Downtown Brooklyn. The cost of the basketball arena has more than doubled to $950 million, an anchor tenant has not come forward for the iconic Miss Brooklyn tower, and the developer now says only one of his original 16 skyscrapers remains in the once $4-billion plan.
And this week, developer and mayoral candidate John Catsimatidis announced that he had eliminated affordable units in his 660-unit project on Myrtle Avenue in Fort Greene because of the credit crisis.
Posted by eric at 2:28 PM
May 22, 2008
At MAS, AY as an example of a neighborhood planning struggle
Atlantic Yards Report
When it comes to discussions of “David vs. Goliath,” the subject of a Municipal Art Society (MAS) Planning Center Forum on May 14, Atlantic Yards is an inevitable subject, though--as I’ll note below--the politics of AY means that more than one set of parties might consider themselves “Davids.”
The panel addressed the issue of “neighborhood planning in the face of large-scale development,” and planner/architect Stuart Pertz, in his introduction, noted that some projects are inherently large, and only work if built on a large scale. “Unfortunately, it often gets out of hand,” he said, suggesting that “Goliath in development has extraordinary leverage, using powerful lawyers, contractors, planners, and unions.” Then again, he said, “there are many Davids.”
A fair amount of the discussion revolved around the Atlantic Yards-alternative UNITY Plan.
Architect Marshall Brown (right), a developer of the UNITY plan for the Metropolitian Transportation Authority’s Vanderbilt Yard (and beyond), said, with perhaps some retrospective bravado, “Four years ago we realized we needed to have something in place for the probable occurrence of Forest City Ratner’s plans running aground.” He suggested that Atlantic Yards exemplified a “willful ignorance of limits,” including the physical limit of an eight-acre railyard, the legal limit of eminent domain, the democratic limit of ULURP (the city’s Uniform Land Use Review Procedure, bypassed in this case for a fast-track state review), and “finally, the all too evident limit of the talents of a single architect.”
He noted that he wasn’t dissing Frank Gehry, just pointing out--as have others, and even Gehry himself--that megaprojects require multiple architects.
Brown suggested that questions of sustainability and the “looming environmental apocalypse” meant that the Bloomberg administration should prioritize quality ahead of quantity: “I’d say it’s a city of limits.”
Lawyer Candace Carponter (right), a co-chair of the Council of Brooklyn Neighborhoods (CBN), described how the coalition, formed to respond to the Atlantic Yards environmental review, moved from officially agnostic to ultimately oppositional, joining a lawsuit challenging the review, and becoming a supporter of the UNITY plan. She suggested that the combination of a new governor, “detrimental economics,” and the Newark option for the Nets might provide an opening for the UNITY plan--though of course, that remains to be seen.
Posted by eric at 10:45 AM
May 21, 2008
Top development official to quit
AP, via Albany Times Union
By Amy Westfeldt
Avi Schick, the state's leading development official who oversaw projects from Brooklyn's Atlantic Yards to ground zero, said Tuesday he'll leave his post at the agency in September for the private sector.
This article also ran on CNNMoney.com.
Posted by lumi at 4:40 AM
Jeff Strabone — Bringing New Blood to Cobble Hill’s Leadership
Takes Helm at Cobble Hill Association
Brooklyn Daily Eagle
By Amy Crawford
Congratulations Bruce Ratner, your controversial Atlantic Yards plan is now the poster project for "iffy" development.
Jeff Strabone, the new president of the Cobble Hill Association, compares the controversy over the Brooklyn Bridge Park development plan to that surrounding the Ratner project:
“I don’t want Brooklyn Bridge Park to become another Atlantic Yards,” Strabone said. “With Atlantic Yards there are so many things that turned out to be iffy, that turned out to be not what people thought they were. It’s not clear to me who will hold title to the parkland once the park is built.”
NoLandGrab: What we don't get is why Brooklyn Bridge Park has to be "self-sustaining," while Atlantic Yards is on track to suck up billions in direct and indirect subsidies.
Posted by lumi at 4:28 AM
May 20, 2008
Calif. parks, NYC neighborhood on most-endangered sites list
USA Today
by Jayne Clark
No, Prospect Heights didn't make the National Trust's 2008 list of America's 11 Most Endangered Historic Places, but the Lower East Side did. Why? The threat of overdevelopment.
The entire California State Parks system, New York's Lower East Side, and a Topeka, Kan., elementary school that help foment the Civil Rights Movement are on the 2008 list of "America's 11 Most Endangered Historic Places," issued today by the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
...The 2008 list includes a number of neighborhoods, including the New York's Lower East Side, where buildings that figure significantly into the country's immigration history are in danger of yielding to development. They include former tenements, which the trust says, "had an impact on more Americans than any other form of urban housing."
NoLandGrab: Tenements once may "have had an impact on more Americans than any other form of urban housing," but their effect has been rapidly surpassed by that of the luxury condo.
Visit PreservationNation.org for the full list of endangered sites.
Posted by eric at 1:42 PM
How build big in NYC? Not via the AY example, panelists suggest
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder files an in-depth report on last night's "Can NYC Build BIG Anymore" panel discussion, and offers plenty of reasons why opponents of Atlantic Yards won't miss Empire State Development Corporation President Avi Schick when he leaves at the end of the summer.
What are the right ways to build big projects in a growing city? Although panelists who spoke Monday night didn’t make the point explicitly, the answers they offered--public planning, realistic timetables, public ownership, infrastructure first, and media skepticism toward overhyped renderings--generally point to the opposite of the process behind Atlantic Yards.
The panel, titled Can NYC Build BIG Anymore?, was sponsored by Democratic Leadership for the 21st Century and held at Iguana Restaurant in Midtown. Notably, the acting head of the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) also offered a hearty defense of Atlantic Yards, adopting some of developer Forest City Ratner's talking points.
The question, panelists agreed, was not “can” but “how.” “One of the problems we have to confront is that people want to build big too fast,” observed Avi Schick, acting president of the ESDC, which approved and is overseeing Atlantic Yards. “Sometimes they bit off a little too much when they tried to push an entire plan forward at once.”
Posted by eric at 9:09 AM
Development Agency Is Losing Its President
The NY Times
By Charles V. Bagli
Bruce Ratner's best friend at the Empire State Development Corporation will be stepping down in September.
Avi Schick, president of the state’s economic development agency, which is in the midst of a political overhaul, will step down in September.
...
After Mr. Spitzer was elected governor, Mr. Schick moved to the Empire State Development Corporation, becoming its president. He was responsible for the state’s role in rebuilding Lower Manhattan, as well as Governors Island, and the Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn, Columbia University’s expansion plan for Manhattanville and the Brooklyn Bridge project.
Posted by lumi at 5:14 AM
May 15, 2008
JPMorgan sees Bear's Midtown NY site saving $3 bln
Reuters
In an article about JP Morgan's savings on real estate after the acquisition of Bear Stearns, Bruce Ratner's controversial Atlantic Yards project is cited as an example of the effects of the commercial real estate downturn:
New York City's real estate market is slowing as financial companies lay off tens of thousands of workers and developers find bank loans harder to get and more costly. The withering credit has already delayed mega-projects including Brooklyn's Atlantic Yards and Midtown Manhattan's Hudson Yards.
Posted by lumi at 5:33 AM
May 14, 2008
The 100 Most Powerful People in New York Real Estate
Bloomberg, Trump, Ratner, De Niro, the Guy Behind Craigslist! They’re All Among Our 100 Most Powerful People in New York Real Estate
NY Observer
It's noteworthy that the three highest-ranked developers on the Observer's list — #1 Jerry Speyer, #3 Stephen Ross, and #8 Bruce Ratner — are all having a heap of trouble closing their marquee deals: Hudson Yards, Moynihan Station/Madison Square Garden and Atlantic Yards, respectively.
Power. Webster’s Dictionary defines power as … No, no, no, never mind that: Power in New York City real estate means money—its acquisition, spending and creation—especially now, as the market enters a tremulous sunset after several bright, shiny years.
Our list of the 100 Most Powerful People in New York Real Estate was assembled with this finance-centric criterion at the forefront. The list, especially higher up, contains those who animate the deals and the trends. They are the deciders and the money providers. They make the real estate world the rest of us live in; or cover, as the case may be.
...#8 Bruce Ratner
Chairman of Forest City Ratner Companies
The leader of what is perhaps New York’s most high-profile development, the controversy magnet Atlantic Yards, Bruce Ratner is one of the most active developers in the city, often pursuing large, publicly administered projects. He’s recently taken a liking to famous architects, ensuring that his developments leave a notable impression on the skyline.
NoLandGrab: Bruce Ratner only #8 while Amanda Burden is #5? Anyone familiar with the phony 8% Atlantic Yards "scaleback" knows that when Bruce Ratner says "scaleback," Amanda Burden asks "how much?"
Posted by eric at 10:40 AM
May 12, 2008
AYR briefly on BCAT tonight
Atlantic Yards Report
For those of you who can't get enough of Atlantic Yards Report, you can see Norman Oder tonight on BCAT:
I will make a very brief appearance on BCAT's Brooklyn Review show tonight, in the second segment mentioned below. (Online clips will be available later.) The blurb:
Brooklyn Review (Brooklyn's Only News Magazine)
Premiere: Monday, May 12 at at 9pm (Time Warner 56/Cablevision 69)
Encore Presentations: Thursday, May 15 at 1pm & 9pm; Friday, May 16 at 3pm & 11pmOn this episode, Brooklyn Review’s team of reporters explores tension between the African American and Jewish communities in Crown Heights; looks at the role real estate and watchdog blogs are playing in Brooklyn development; visits a Bensonhurst high school where students are examining the ethics of war through live interviews with survivors; checks out the Sakura Matsuri cherry blossom festival at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden; and samples the borough’s tastiest foods at the Chamber of Commerce’s annual Brooklyn Eats event.
Posted by eric at 12:20 PM
May 10, 2008
Last call at Mooney’s
The Brooklyn Paper
Mooney’s pub has lost its fight to stay in its Flatbush Avenue home and will close for good by the end of June.
...
Now that Mooney’s has been priced out, and there’s a wrecking ball destined to demolish Freddy’s on Dean Street to make way for Atlantic Yards, it’s getting tougher and tougher to find a decent boozing environment.
article
NoLandGrab: That's okay, we can all hang out in the public space on the arena's green roof, or in the urban room. Oh, wait...guess not.
Posted by amy at 12:42 PM
May 9, 2008
A Tale of Two Cities, Only One With Sewers
The New York Times
by Susan Dominus
When Gordhandas Soni, the owner of an Indian food company, agreed to relocate his warehouse and factory to Willets Point, Queens, back in 1990, it never occurred to him to ask about some of the more basic amenities — the sewage system, for example. “You never ask, ‘You have sewers here?’ ” said Mr. Soni, whose business is called House of Spices. “In America, right here, in the heart of New York City? No! It never occurred to me to ask. It would be silly to ask.”
...Now Mr. Soni has banded together with 11 other businesses in Willets Point, filing a suit charging that the city has neglected to repair potholes and provide basic services like sewers and snow plowing, in an effort to devalue the property and ease the path to redevelopment.
Put in the sewers, and fix the potholes, he and his allies contend, and Willets Point will redevelop itself. The city, in reply, concedes that might be true — but because the area is on a flood plain, the city couldn’t provide sewers without removing the businesses, creating an unfortunate but intractable chicken-and-egg situation.
...Even if the city could make him whole, Mr. Soni wonders, why shouldn’t he get some additional compensation for the inconvenience of losing his property? As he put it, why should the city “take away from the small guy like me and give to a billion dollar company just so he can make another billion dollars?”
...Although it’s never easy for American manufacturers to compete with their counterparts in India — especially when it comes to something like an Indian food product — Mr. Soni says that he would be thrilled with his prospects were it not for this major uncertainty hanging over his head, and the threat that the city could invoke eminent domain to take the property.
“I always thought India would be my competition, that India would run me out of business,” he said, watching a machine fill jars with a dark, rich tamarind paste. “I didn’t think it would be New York City.”
Posted by eric at 12:45 PM
May 8, 2008
As Residents Gear Up for Fight, Economy Slows Projects
NewYorksSixth.com
Jersey City blog New York's Sixth draws some parallels between Atlantic Yards and development battles in that city's Powerhouse District.
While residents of the Powerhouse District are lawyering up to fend off the Toll Brother's development, preservation efforts across the river are getting some added help from the economic downtown. Sort of.
One victim of the recent economy downtown might very well be the ailing Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn. That redevelopment plan lead by Forest City Ratner called for constructing massive towers in a mixed use development centered around a new basketball arena. Area residents fought the plan in court, delaying construction on the project during the real estate boom. Now the economy is collapsing, credit is drying up, and the project may never be fully realized.
...As the lawsuits began tipping in Forest City Ratner's favor, the developer seized on the opportunities to begin leveling properties owned by the company, ostensibly in preparation for construction. However, Ratner's early demolition may actually be a scorched earth tactic in the war between new development and preservationists.
NoLandGrab: The blogger, and the commenters, warn that opponents of large developments, by delaying projects via lawsuits, have helped (no pun intended) pave the way for the creation of parking lots that blight the landscape. However, if courts granted the injunctions against unnecessary demolitions sought by project opponents, the landscape would still be populated by many perfectly usable buildings, rather than developer-created empty lots.
Posted by eric at 9:25 PM
Second Development-Related Rally in May Expects Hundreds
Brownstoner.com
by Sarah Ryley
Brooklyn is expected to see its second massive development-related rally this month on May 17, when hundreds are expected to march to Albee Square protesting the "lack of community involvement in upcoming development plans," according to a press release from Families United for Racial and Economic Equality (FUREE). Last Saturday, hundreds of Brooklynites clashed in a protest and counter-protest over Atlantic Yards. This rally addresses a myriad of other, less publicized effects of Downtown Brooklyn's development boom that have perhaps been overshadowed (pun intended) by the massive arena and high-rise project, or at least its opponents' more forceful media efforts.
Posted by eric at 6:48 PM
Defying an Uncertain Market
The Cooperator
By Raanan Geberer
Build it, and they will come:
All over the country, one hears about “the real estate bubble bursting,” but that metaphor doesn’t seem to have reached New York yet.
Whether looking at online or print listings, one sees hundreds of pages of new condos for sale in Williamsburg, Harlem, Tribeca, Bushwick, Prospect Heights and other areas. Prices can range from about $270,000 to tens of millions of dollars, and the names associated with new projects in the city read like a who’s who of real estate investment and development. Developers with projects on-deck for occupancy this year and 2009 include Gary Barnett (Extell), Richard Meier, Mario Percedo, Steven Ross (Related), Jeff Levine (Douglaston Development), Ron Moelis (L&M Equities), Toll Brothers, Veronica Hackett (The Clarett Group), Bruce Ratner (Forest City Ratner), Joe Moinan (the Moinan Group), Ed Minskoff (Minskoff Equities), The Albanese Organization, The Sheldrake Organization, LCOR, SJP Properties, Alchemy Properties, Boymelgreen, Don Capoccia (BFC Partners) and ARC Development.
“It’s not like anyone has stopped [building],” says Frank Percesepe, vice president of residential sales for The Corcoran Group in Brooklyn, and some companies have multiple projects in the works, or recently completed and ready for buyers.
Posted by lumi at 5:37 AM
May 3, 2008
Feasting On Harlem
Black Star News
Michael Henry Adams
By now you’ve heard about how the river-to-river rezoning was approved by the City Council--- 47-to-2. Members Avella and Charles Barron, were the heroes of the day. So were a fiery group 50 Harlemites. Young, old, Black, White, Latino, straight, gay---- they angrily and loudly jeered as a pre-selected cheering section applauded the sealing of Harlem’s fate.Doing her best to sound like Angela Davis, Council Member Inez Dickens, tried to spin the dirty deed as fulfillment of her promise to deliver jobs and greater opportunity to her district. Robert Jackson, stung to be lustily dismissed by the protesters as “an Uncle Tom sell-out, ” demanded that a visibly shaken Speaker, Christine Quinn, “ clear the balcony!” Routinely, the media have highlighted how crucial their support was. Without it, the zoning would have failed.
What’s gone unreported mostly, is how, as with people, area-wide, this issue is related to every other similar issue. For all the talk of compromises and new “affordable housing,” as outlined by Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Planning Commissioner Amanda Burden, the city government’s zoning policies, amount to little more than social engineering, meant to benefit the rich and resettle the poor.
Whether at Atlantic Yards, on the Lower East Side or the Hunt’s Point waterfront, such displacement is immoral. Paris without Parisians, Chinatown without Chinese, New Orleans or Harlem without Blacks, both culturally and economically are absurd and unsustainable. Whenever it happens, wherever it occurs, the concept that people with more money better deserve to live where you or I live, is nothing short of a kind of terrorism of the establishment.
Posted by amy at 10:14 AM
May 2, 2008
Thompson says other developers might join AY; “I’m not sure what that project is any longer”
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder attended a panel discussion at the New School’s Center for New York City Affairs and found that Atlantic Yards came up quite often.
Atlantic Yards was the most contentious element of a panel discussion Wednesday at the New School’s Center for New York City Affairs titled Maintaining Momentum: Can New York’s Ambitious Development Agenda Survive an Economic Downturn?
Moderator Greg David, editor of Crain’s New York Business, and City Comptroller (and mayoral candidate) William Thompson urged that the project proceed, while Julia Vitullo-Martin of the Manhattan Institute (who called the project "corporate socialism") and Brad Lander of the Pratt Center for Community Development endorsed a rethink, albeit for somewhat different reasons.
Still, Thompson acknowledged, “I’m not sure what that project is any longer” and even dangled the hint that it might be revived by bringing in additional developers, as the city comes to the belated realization that single-developer projects pose certain dangers. He also agreed that most projects should go through ULURP, the city’s Uniform Land Use Review Procedure, rather than state review.
In other words, Thompson gave AY critics and opponents an opportunity for a “told-you-so,” to quote the New York Times’s recent coverage, just as David pressed his own “told-you-so,” nearly taunting Lander for opposing a project that has steadily survived court challenges.
Later in the discussion, Thompson includes Atlantic Yards in his discussion of development issues with David:
He said the market was affecting projects. “The greatest example is Atlantic Yards. You are going to see a rethinking of that in one form or another, only because that project--a project that I supported--I’m not sure what that project is any longer. That is a problem. It has morphed and changed, gone through ups and downs. Right now, the financing side of that--they’re not going to be able to move forward right now. I still think that--it was a good idea two years ago, it will be a good idea in five years and in ten years.”
Of course, he was ignoring the fact that the good idea was premised on a certain timetable and a certain amount of public funding.
“It may be a slightly different project," he continued, "and we may need to bring additional developers--and that’s one of the things I think you’ll see also, it’s no longer relying on one developer on megaprojects, you will look at multiple developers in different stages, so it all doesn’t fall on one person’s shoulders.”
(The alternative UNITY plan is premised on dividing the railyards into parcels for multiple developers.)
David asked “the fundamental, immediate question”: would Thompson proceed with the arena, as Bruce Ratner intends?
Yes, Thompson said.
(Keep in mind that, in 2001, his campaign received $22,500 from five people associated with developer Bruce Ratner. Still, as readers point out, there are other reasons for him to support the project, just as there are other reasons to be critical of Thompson.)
Afterwards, Oder from asks for clarification from Thompson :
I caught up with Thompson afterward. Given that the project was approved under the assumption that the benefits would arrive in ten years, rather than two or three decades, I asked whether he thought it deserved a new review, as some in Brooklyn contend.
“The first thing, we’d like to define it and fully understand it,” he replied. “What is the project going to be over the next two, three, five, ten years? I think that’s the course that we’d like to do. People would like to go back and re-trigger things and look at it again--I don’t know that we should do that.”
So what’s the process to define it, I asked.
“Government has an obligation,” he said "to fully make sure” what the short- and long-term goals of the project are and make them public.
That, I pointed out, might be complicated by the news I’d reported that morning that the developer had the city’s permission to build a much smaller Phase 1 than previously anticipated, and over 12 years.
Yesterday, Bruce Ratner said in a statement denying rumors about talks with New Jersey investors, "We are focused on breaking ground on the Barclays Center in Brooklyn later this year and building all of Atlantic Yards, nothing else."
Expect him to be asked to define what "all of Atlantic Yards" actually means.
Posted by steve at 6:36 AM
April 29, 2008
Development Watch: Atlantic Terrace
Brownstoner.com
Here's one development near the Vanderbilt Railyard, featuring a lot of affordable housing, that's actually going forward as scheduled.
While the future of affordable housing at Atlantic Yards is unclear, there's been some progress on Atlantic Terrace, the mixed-income development a stone's throw from the AY footprint. There was a ceremonial groundbreaking for the project back (rendered at right) in October, and workers have dug the big hole that'll eventually get filled with 80 co-ops, 50 percent of which will be affordable to low-income families and 20 percent of which will be affordable moderate-income earners. Last year there were stories in the Observer and Post about how plans for solar panels on the building's roof had to be scrapped because the looming shadows of AY high-rises would interfere with harnessing sunshine. Perhaps dark days for AY help that design facet see the light of day.
Posted by eric at 12:34 PM
NYC building boom won't peak for 2-3 yrs -panel
The Guardian
By Joan Gralla
New York City's building boom will not top out until 2010 or 2011 despite the ailing economy because so many billion-dollar public and private projects are under way, a panel said on Monday.
Wall Street is the sun around which the city's economy revolves, but private developers and public agencies have planned $51 billion of projects over the next four years, according to the blue-ribbon panel's report for New York state's Metropolitan Transportation Authority.
With contractors and skilled workmen in short supply and the prices of steel, concrete, copper and other materials spiraling higher, the state agency convened the panel to find ways to cut costs to avoid having to delay or reduce projects.
...
So far, Brooklyn's Atlantic Yards development, which includes a new basketball stadium for the Nets, is the only project that has said it probably will take longer to finish than first thought because of the sagging economy.
Posted by lumi at 5:01 AM
L.A.'s Grand Avenue project snags on loans
LA Times
By Cara Mia DiMassa
The other Frank Gehry-designed megaproject is also stalling out:
The developer of the Grand Avenue project in downtown Los Angeles said Monday that completion of the $3-billion redevelopment effort will be delayed until 2012 because of difficulty in obtaining construction loans amid the real estate downturn.
The Frank Gehry-designed high-rise project is seen as a linchpin in downtown's revitalization, and the delay is the latest sign that the loft and condo craze in the city center is cooling off.
...
Grand Avenue is one of several mega-developments around the nation that are in trouble because of the credit crunch. In Seattle, developers recently shelved plans for a $7-billion development downtown, citing the poor economy. Huge projects in Las Vegas, Phoenix and New York have also been scaled back or delayed, including part of the Gehry-designed Atlantic Yards in Brooklyn and a $14-billion development of the area around Penn Station.
Posted by lumi at 4:56 AM
April 28, 2008
Real Estate Slump Hits New York
Gotham Gazette
By Steven Josselson
Congratulations Bruce Ratner, your Atlantic Yards scheme is now the poster-project for the local real estate slowdown:
In recent years, few issues have divided residents of Downtown Brooklyn more than the $4 billion, 22-acre Atlantic Yards project being developed by New Jersey Nets' owner Bruce Ratner. Ratner's company Forest City Ratner is in a deal with the city and state to develop a high-rise commercial office tower, affordable housing units and a basketball stadium, the Barclays Center, in the heart of Downtown Brooklyn in just a few years.
Local community groups and residents, concerned that such a large-scale development in a partially residential area could harm their quality of life and change the neighborhood's character forever, have been attempting to stop the project in its tracks through litigation, seeking to influence public opinion and pressure decision-makers in City Hall and Albany to reconsider the project's risks.
While these concerted efforts have proven unsuccessful, integral components of the development have now been put on hold for an indeterminate period of time -- not because of public outrage, but rather due to increasing construction costs, a slowing economy sliding toward a recession and a tightening credit market.
To different degrees, the very same economic challenges facing Atlantic Yards are impacting real estate projects both big and small throughout the five boroughs.
NoLandGrab: Though Daily News columnist Errol Louis derides those of us who spend our free time pointing out anything that locates Atlantic Yards in "Downtown Brooklyn," as developer Bruce Ratner would have you believe, instead of "Prospect Heights," where it is actually located, we can't seem to stop. It's a no-brainer and thus, just about our speed.
Seriously, the tip-off to the author should have been the description of the neighborhood as a "partially residential area."
Posted by lumi at 4:36 AM
City forcing its will upon Coney Island
MetroNY
By Neil deMause
NY City revised the plan for Coney Island in the hopes of “getting something done,” which is a good thing, right?
Worse yet, focusing on “getting things done” doesn’t even always get things done. Too often, it’s meant putting all the city’s eggs in one basket — witness Bruce Ratner’s maybe-on-hiatus Atlantic Yards project, where the city’s hopes for a sweeping remaking of the Brooklyn railyards could instead end up leading to 20 years of empty lots. It’s important to remember that historically, there are plenty of districts that developed because the city didn’t get things done — say, SoHo, which was colonized by artists after Robert Moses’ Lower Manhattan Expressway scheme collapsed — achieving more gradual, organic change. Sometimes, slow and steady wins the race.
Posted by lumi at 4:20 AM
April 27, 2008
Putting the "Community" back into CBA
After Atlantic Yards developer Bruce Ratner took the first steps towards perverting the concept of the "Community Benefits Agreement" (CBA), things have gone from bad to worse in NYC. Now a group from the Bronx is hoping to negotiate a real CBA with Related Companies for the Kingbridge Armory project.
From The Eminent Domain:
Now KARA [Kingbrige Armory Redevelopment Alliance] is doing something extremely gutsy: It is trying to wrest the whole concept of a community benefits agreement back from the jaws of elected officials who have perverted it beyond recognition, so much so that New Yorkers who pay attention to development simply assume that a CBA is one step removed from a shakedown. (Check out the comments on blogs and news sites if you’d like to think that’s not true.) And you can’t exactly fault that perception, given “CBAs” like the Yankee Stadium deal that basically gives Bronx officials a pile of money they can spend in any way they want, plus an ample supply of free sports equipment.
The question now is: how is KARA going to change the script here?
...
But the situation highlights a glaring reality: New York City is suffering from its lack of a citywide framework for how economic development projects like this happen. All over the city we’re seeing citizens wage campaigns to make development more responsive to its host communities — in West Harlem, Willets Point, downtown Brooklyn, Coney Island, and those are only the big ones — but they each fight their own lonely battles, often pitted against their own elected officials.
Posted by lumi at 6:33 AM
April 26, 2008
Brooklyn Bridge Park goes forward
The Brooklyn Paper
By Mike McLaughlin
Brooklyn Bridge Park cleared another hurdle this week, as the State Supreme Court ruled against opponents of the open space and luxury housing development, unanimously upholding the state’s inclusion of private housing inside the park’s footprint.The Brooklyn Bridge Park Defense Fund had filed the lawsuit to force the state to revise its plans for the 85-acre parkland and commercial development along the DUMBO and Brooklyn Heights waterfront by eliminating the controversial condominiums and hotel slated for the park.
...
The Defense Fund also argued that the development’s Environmental Impact Statement — a document that examines the effect of the project on everything from air quality to traffic flows — was flawed because it underestimated the impact of traffic from the proposed Atlantic Yards mega-project just over a mile away.
...
The court also concluded that the effects of Atlantic Yards-related traffic was sufficiently studied.
Posted by amy at 10:50 AM
April 18, 2008
"HOT HOT HOT"
Not to dampen a landlord's prospects to make a buck, but this listing from Prudential Douglas Elliman needs a little clarification (and a new photo after someone takes ten minutes to move the stuff to the other side of the room):
Vanderbilt Avenue
Prospect Heights
cross street: Dean StreetStyle: Commercial
Rent:$4,700 per monthCommercial space in HOT HOT HOT Prospect Heights! Highly visible CORNER LOCATION on Vanderbilt Avenue, near the upcoming development in Atlantic Yards.
NoLandGrab: This property is across the street from Phase 2 of Bruce Ratner's controversial Atlantic Yards project. PHASE 2 HAS NO OFFICIAL TIMETABLE for construction, making "upcoming" accurate, like, in a geological timeframe.
Much of the property in Phase 2 is being flattened by Bruce Ratner and is sure to be plagued by demolition blight for years to come, which would definitely make nearly anything that moves into the corner space "highly visible" and a welcome improvement to the neighborhood.
Posted by lumi at 5:36 AM
In Harlem and Coney Island, major compromises before zoning approval
Atlantic Yards Report
Yesterday the New York Times reported that the Bloomberg administration has revised its redevelopment plan for Coney Island to get current landowners and elected officials onboard.
On Wednesday, the Times reported that Harlem's three City Council members had agreed to a compromise plan that would lower the height of new buildings allowed under a rezoning, increased the amount of affordable housing, and provide some help to displaced businesses.
Fair deals? I can't be sure. (The Brooklyn Paper praised the Coney compromise.) But it's notable that the political process--the need to get a rezoning through City Council--forced changes, in both cases much larger compromises than, say, the 6-8% scaleback proffered (and overplayed by the New York Times) before the Atlantic Yards project received state approval.
Norman Oder imagines what if... link
Posted by lumi at 5:05 AM
Defining ULURP
The Brooklyn Paper's cautiously positive editorial on the new plans for Coney Island includes this noteworthy definition of NYC's Uniform Land Use Review Procedure (ULURP):
...the city’s rigorous land-use review process — where the public, elected officials and bona-fide city planners could hack away at it until it was honed to perfection.
It’s this very public-review process that the borough’s other mega-project, Atlantic Yards, was allowed to skirt — to that project’s, and the public’s, great disservice.
Posted by lumi at 4:59 AM
April 14, 2008
The Prospect Heights Historic District nudges forward
Atlantic Yards Report
The City's Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) held a public meeting last Wednesday in Prospect Heights (the neighborhood in which the proposed Atlantic Yards is located), as part of the process to establish a Prospect Heights Historic District.
Norman Oder covered the meeting, which was called by the Prospect Heights Neighborhood Development Council (PHNDC). The threat of Atlantic Yards influenced some of the discussion that meeting attendees had with Kate Daly, the LPC’s executive director.
Some residents wondered, essentially, why now. “You didn’t stop Ratner,” one said. “You didn’t stop the [Richard Meier] glass building on Grand Army Plaza.”
“It’s not to stop development,” Daly replied. “It’s to preserve a sense of place.”
...Later, the issue recurred, when an audience member said, “I don’t see anything in this process that helps protect” against a development like Atlantic Yards.
An audience member responded that, as of now, someone could knock down five contiguous buildings and construct something quite out of scale.
Still, some were concerned that the process couldn’t protect, for example, against shadows caused by giant buildings on the border of the district, buildings that sounded a lot like Atlantic Yard.
“We’re not able to stop development outside the boundaries,” Daly acknowledged. “But this would be a tremendous accomplishment.”
Posted by steve at 8:27 AM
New Bloomberg Job Rumor Is Followed by a Denial
The New York Times
By Fernanda Santos
The Times probes rumors about Mayor Bloomberg trying for a third term (which would require changes to term-limit rules). Political consultant George Arzt mentions one possible advantage to Bloomberg of a third term:
The prospect of a third term would give Mr. Bloomberg more control over his legacy, Mr. Arzt said. It could allow him to recover from recent setbacks like the defeat of the congestion pricing plan in Albany and delays in projects like the Atlantic Yards in Brooklyn because of the economic downturn.
NoLandGrab: The real setback for Bloomberg over Atlantic Yards began when he ceded control of the project to the state, along with any input into sensible design for the lumbering, over-subsidized project.
Posted by steve at 5:59 AM
April 10, 2008
PRESS RELEASE: Willets Point Industry and Realty Association Filing Lawsuit in U.S. Federal District Court against Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg & City of New York
NEW YORK — The Willets Point Industry and Realty Association (WPIRA), a group of the 10 largest business and land owners in Willets Point, Queens, are today filing a lawsuit against the City of New York seeking a court order requiring the City to provide basic vital infrastructure including repairs to streets and storm sewers, installation of sanitary sewers, street lights, street signs and other services that WPIRA maintains the City has withheld for over 40 years. The suit also requests unspecified damages for past neglect. The suit was filed in U.S. Federal District Court, in the Eastern District of New York. WPIRA will hold a rally and press conference at New York City Hall at 11 A.M. today.
The suit is filed against Michael Bloomberg, as Mayor of the City of New York, Emily Lloyd, as Commissioner of the New York City Department of Environmental Protection, Janette Sadik-Khan as Commissioner of the New York City Department of Transportation and John Doherty as Commissioner of the New York City Department of Sanitation.
At the heart of the complaint is the alleged purposeful refusal of New York City to provide these basic services and an allegation that the City intended to depress property values. This would pave the way for NYC to condemn Willets Point, evicting its businesses and deliver this choice piece of real estate to the hands of private developers. In addition to the lawsuit, members of WPIRA fear this development plan will follow the current trend of stalled or failed developments throughout the City.
WPIRA says that The City of New York is proposing to rezone Willets Point, condemn it and evict the existing businesses through the use of eminent domain and replace them with 1.7 million feet of retail space, 500,000 square feet of office space, a hotel, 5,500 residential housing units and a convention center in the neighborhood that is currently zoned for heavy industry. To make this proposal a reality, the City must first acquire the 60 acres of privately owned land at Willets Point. The suit alleges that the City of New York has planned to rezone and redevelop for many years and has been waging a campaign of intentional neglect to create and perpetuate an eyesore for the eventual justification of the use of Eminent Domain.
“The city’s negligent, reckless and willful refusal to provide this infrastructure creates not only an offensive nuisance but it also creates hazards that threaten the health, safety and livelihood of those who work in Willets Point,” said Michael Gerrard, Attorney for WPIRA. The suit claims the City’s failure to address the deplorable conditions of the Willets Point infrastructure has caused extensive and predictable damage to the businesses. This damage includes depressed property values, difficulty recruiting and retaining employees, difficulty obtaining credit, higher interest rates for business loans, diminished business revenues, equipment and property damage, higher delivery costs and business interruption costs. Additionally, the looming threat of Eminent Domain and resulting loss of jobs has taken a toll on morale in all area businesses.
According to WPIRA, Willets Point employs an estimated 3,000 highly skilled workers in ironworking, construction, solid waste management, sewer parts, auto repair and service, and the manufacture of bakery and food ingredients that includes the largest distributor of Indian foods in the US. Yet the city continues to misrepresent the area as a haven for crime comprised mostly of junkyards and chop shops. The area’s workforce is mostly blue-collar and for almost 80 years has provided a valuable opportunity for local residents to start up their own businesses and live the American dream. Willets Point businesses provide billions of dollars of economic activity and millions of dollars of tax revenue to the City of New York.
The members of WPIRA believe that the area would be revitalized if the City spent a fraction of the capital required for redevelopment and invested in infrastructure for the area. The New York City Economic Development Corporation (EDC) conducted a study of the area in 1991 that suggested exactly that. “If the City provided the infrastructure and services that we are entitled to and in fact, are paying for, the area would be revitalized,” said Dan Feinstein, President of Feinstein Iron Works, Inc., one of the Plaintiffs. According to WPIRA, the estimated cost of redeveloping the area is upwards of three billion dollars. That estimate is expected to skyrocket given the credit crisis and increasing construction costs. “Our schools and emergency first responders are facing more budget cuts and the Mayor wants to hand a blank check of New York City’s hard earned taxpayers dollars to a private developer?” said Feinstein. “That is outrageous, unacceptable and we’re not going to stand for it.”
WPIRA members point out that the project’s price tag is just one of the many obstacles the EDC faces as the City moves forward to prepare to certify the ULURP (Uniform Land Use Review Procedure) to rezone Willets Point. The City issued an RFP in November 2004 but has not released results of their environmental impact analysis of the area in question nor has it presented a detailed plan for the redevelopment of the area and/or identified a developer. These usually precede the ULURP process so that the City Council can maintain control over the final outcome. WPIRA charges EDC wants a free hand to negotiate with a developer, unencumbered by the City Council.
“Despite the numerous and obvious obstacles, it appears that the EDC believes it doesn’t have to follow any rules and it can muscle its way through the City Council and the ULURP; and the Union and Housing advocates can be appeased by promises that future administrations will have to fulfill,” said Thomas Mina, Vice President of T. Mina Supply Inc., one of the Plaintiffs. “We have received feedback from City Council members and seen the false statements in the news by the EDC that prove our fear that the EDC is attempting to portray us as uncooperative and “money hungry” so they can justify the use of eminent domain at the end of the ULURP process,” said Mina.
“The EDC is not being truthful with the City Council, the businesses at Willets Point or the public. If the City wanted to deal openly and fairly, they would have released the results of property appraisals that were completed last year by Cushman and Wakefield,” said Anthony Fodera, President of Fodera Foods Inc., one of the Plaintiffs. Not one of the 10 business and land owners of WPIRA have been provided with viable options for relocation of their businesses, despite numerous public statements to the contrary by the EDC and Queens Borough President Helen M. Marshall.
The WPIRA points out the EDC’s abysmal track record of completing re-development projects and abusive threats of Eminent Domain. “The EDC has yet to prove that it can coordinate between the community and developers to bring a project to successful completion,” said Anthony Fodera. “Just look at Municipal Lot 1 project in Flushing, Queens. That project has been stalled for years due to the developer’s inability to fulfill the community benefits package it once promised. Why should we think the EDC can do any better in Willets Point?”
The Willets Point Industry and Realty Association (WPIRA)
The Willets Point Industry and Realty Association (WPIRA) is dedicated to the development, improvement and growth of the Willets Point area by the businesses that reside there, and not by development schemes in which eminent domain is used to forcibly evict and raze those businesses. The WPIRA consists of the following businesses: A. Fodera & Son, Inc., Bono Sawdust Supply Co., Inc., Crown Container Co., Inc., Feinstein Iron Works, Inc., House of Spices (India), Inc., Parts Authority, Inc., QC Iron Works Inc., Sambucci Bros. Inc, T. Mina Supply, Inc., Tully Environmental, Inc., Tully Construction Co., Inc. www.WPIRA.com
Posted by eric at 3:50 PM
Building a better economic outlook
NY Daily News
by Errol Louis
The Daily News columnist praises ESDC honcho Avi Schick and Rebuild! president Darnell Canada for their efforts to keep economic growth on track.
As New York slides into an economic rough patch, hopes for a speedy and robust recovery will lie with the unsung heroes who keep the machinery of growth humming in good times and bad.
I'm talking about people like Avi Schick, acting CEO of the Empire State Development Corp., the state's main economic development agency. Schick is battling to keep complex, high-profile mega-projects alive around the city, including the rebuilding of Ground Zero, the Atlantic Yards development in Brooklyn, the creation of a new midtown train terminal to replace Penn Station and Columbia University's expansion into west Harlem.
Each of these big projects has been slowed or halted of late, for reasons ranging from political squabbling to a credit crunch as investment banks battered by the slowing economy tighten up on loans to developers.
NoLandGrab: This column is a departure for Louis — he passes up the opportunity to blame Atlantic Yards' delays on opponents, instead citing the "souring economy."
Posted by eric at 11:26 AM
April 9, 2008
Willets Point protesters sue to block $3B city plan
Protesters say the city hasn't t provided sewers, sidewalks, paved roads or storm drains for the last 40 years. New development is like throwing out the baby before changing the bathwater.
Crain's NY Business
by Hilary Potkewitz
Willets Point property owners have filed a federal eminent domain suit against New York City in an effort to keep their businesses from falling prey to "redevelopment."
A group of businesses facing eviction by the city from their homes in Willets Point, Queens filed a federal lawsuit against the City of New York and several public officials Wednesday. It is the companies’ latest effort to forestall plans for a city-backed $3 billion mixed-use project on their land.
The case, filed in the Eastern District federal court, seeks to force the city to provide sanitary sewers, sidewalks, paved roads and storm drains in a commercial area that has had none for more than 40 years. The suit also seeks unspecified damages, charging city officials with a “waging a campaign of intentional neglect to create and perpetuate an eyesore for eventual justification of the use of eminent domain,” according to the filing.
The businesses say they’ve been thrown out with the bathwater.
“The city has intentionally driven down the value of these properties by withholding services,” says Michael Gerrard, a partner in the environmental law practice at Arnold & Porter, which is representing the business owners. “It is impermissible for the city to try and take advantage of that [lack of services] to acquire properties at fire-sale prices.”
NoLandGrab: While a spokesperson for the City's Economic Development Corporation called the area "blighted and seriously contaminated," she didn't comment on the City's failure to provide the neighborhood with sewers, sidewalks, paved roads or storm drains for the past 40 years. But now that fancy new Citi Field is set to open across the street next April, the area's problems need to be addressed — through eminent domain, if necessary (but only, of course, as a last resort).
Posted by eric at 5:09 PM
April 7, 2008
Hidden law could undo Willets Point rezone plans
Queens Times Ledger
By Stephen Stirling
Even though a recent discovery in the City Charter has nothing to do with Atlantic Yards, many NoLandGrab readers following other development controversies around the city may find this to be very interesting:
While pouring through the City Charter recently in an effort to find a way to ward off a rezoning of the area around Harlem's 125th Street, first year CUNY law school students Giselle Schuetz and Kathleen Meyers, along with two others at Vote People, a legal services group, came across a 110-year-old clause that has given hope to those opposed to the Manhattan rezoning.
The clause, outlined in Section 200 of the City Charter, states that if a petition is signed by more than 20 percent of the landowners in and directly adjacent to a proposed rezoning area approved by the City Planning Commission, the City Council would need a 75 percent majority to approve the measure rather than a simple majority.
This discovery could have implications for property owners in Willets Point who are fighting eminent domain:
Schuetz's and Meyers's discovery has also piqued the interest of business owners at Willets Point, who are currently fighting the city's plan to remake the 60-acre swath of land into a sprawling mixed-use development with more than 1 million square feet of office and retail space and 5,500 housing units.
When word of the century-old clause reached members of the Willets Point Industry and Real Estate Association, a group of 11 property owners united against the city's plan and lawyers for the group immediately began pouring over the language of the City Charter.
"Everybody's looking at it," said Rick Wynn, general counsel for Tully Construction Co., one of the largest businesses in Willets Point. "It's certainly interesting from our point of view - let's put it that way."
NoLandGrab: Since Bruce Ratner's controversial Atlantic Yards is the result of a NY State takeover, which supercedes all local zoning, and the NY City Council never had an official vote on the plan, this discovery doesn't apply here.
More locally, however, this could affect the Toll Brothers project along the Gowanus. Toll Brothers is seeking a special rezoning through the City's Uniform Land Use Review Procedure, even while future rezoning plans are being contemplated for the rest of the Gowanus basin.
Posted by lumi at 4:57 AM
April 6, 2008
On Wednesday, a landmarking meeting for Prospect Heights
Atlantic Yards Report
From the Prospect Heights Neighborhood Development Council (PHNDC): Following PHNDC's request to the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission for an evaluation of a Prospect Heights Historic District, LPC will present its proposed boundaries for the district at a community forum on Wednesday, April 9 beginning at 7:00 PM. The forum will be held at P.S. 9, 80 Underhill Avenue (between St. Marks Avenue and Bergen Street). Representatives from LPC will also answer questions from residents and business owners.
Note that the Ward Bakery, under demolition, and the rest of the Atlantic Yards footprint are not included in the boundaries.
Posted by steve at 8:50 AM
April 2, 2008
ATLANTIC CURRENT
BROOKLYN BREAKS OUT IN A BIG WAY
New York Post
by Max Gross
While Atlantic Yards may be stalling, development along Atlantic Avenue is not.
Back in 1968, a brownstone off Atlantic Avenue could be procured for about $40,000 - and in some cases, for significantly less. (One of Wood's neighbors bought a brownstone four years earlier for $14,000.) Then, the avenue consisted mostly of empty parking lots, gas stations and antique dealers.
The area began changing gradually over the past 20 years, but gentrification has truly picked up recently (even with the uncertainty and controversy surrounding Atlantic Yards).
"It's changed a lot just in the last three years," says Rachel Horlick, who moved to the Smith last month after spending the previous three years on nearby Dean Street. "There's boutique clothing stores, coffee places, ice-cream shops."
Posted by eric at 11:56 AM
April 1, 2008
Shadows on the Hudson
Among the tottering cranes, panicky condo marketers, and derailed megadevelopments, envisioning tomorrow’s boom today.
New York Magazine
By Justin Davidson
Real estate is supposed to be real, but these days it’s the province of fabulists. Boom-time dreams for Coney Island, Pier 40, and a new Madison Square Garden got bad news last week. After years of spinning fantasies of a Brooklyn Oz designed by that purveyor of fairy-tale architecture, Frank Gehry, Bruce Ratner has finally admitted that his Atlantic Yards ambitions have vaporized—or, in builders’ parlance, that the credit crunch “may hold up” most of the project. But fantasies have consequences: The condemned buildings will keep coming down, and the basketball arena will go up, leaving that part of Brooklyn ravaged, not improved. Now the parcel might be sold off and developed piecemeal, one mediocre tower at a time.
Ratner has called off his party, but elsewhere the city still plows ahead. Unfinished towers sprinkle debris on passersby, producing tomorrow’s glut of vacant penthouse pleasure domes.
Posted by lumi at 7:01 PM
Over $20 Billion New York Development May Be Canceled Due To Weak Economy
All Headline News
By Vittorio Hernandez
A rewrite of this weekend's NY Daily News story:
As the Big Apple's economy seemingly turn from bad to worse, over $20 billion worth of development projects are at risk of being canceled. A number of the projects were designed by renowned architects.
Among the ambitious projects now with dubious futures are the Atlantic Yards towers in Brooklyn designed by Frank Gehry and the Manhattan Moynihan rail center in midtown. The developer of Atlantic Yards, Bruce Ratner, said the $4 billion project may be delayed because of funding problems.
Posted by lumi at 6:56 PM
March 31, 2008
More than $20B in developments dead or at risk of never seeing light of day
NY Daily News
by Jonathan Lemire
The boom is going bust.
More than $20 billion worth of high-profile developments across the city - many designed by world-renowned architects and touted by top officials - are dead or at risk of never getting off the drawing board.
The crumbling economy has forced developers to scale back their grand visions and has endangered projects that range from architectural marvels like Frank Gehry's Atlantic Yards towers in Brooklyn to crucial pieces of the city's infrastructure, like Manhattan's Moynihan rail hub in midtown.
"It really was an amazing run for cities and particularly for New York," said Elliott Sclar, an urban planning professor at Columbia University. "But it appears that itmay be over now.
...Some urban planners say projects like Moynihan Station, Atlantic Yards and another mega-proposal to redevelop Willets Point, Queens, are struggling to get off the ground because plans have grown too bloated.
"All of these projects have been driven by a form of planning called fiscal planning, where the city is not concerned with the physical structure of spaces but only maximizing real estate values or tax revenues," Sclar said. "That's not the right way to promote healthy development."
Posted by eric at 9:58 PM
Sunday in NYC: Avella denounces overdevelopment; Luxury Living showcase draws throng
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder attended the kick-off event for Tony Avella's mayoral campaign, and then took a gander at the condomania playing a central role in the Queens councilman's platform.
Longshot mayoral candidate Tony Avella, a maverick City Council Member from Northeast Queens, officially launched his candidacy yesterday afternoon at a City Hall press conference. Seeking to distinguish himself from the highly-scripted typical politicians, Avella declared that he hadn't written a speech but instead would speak about three main issues.
Indeed, two of Avella's issues barely registered with the crowd of supporters behind him: lowered taxes and a revamped education system. Rather, they applauded heartily when he condemned overdevelopment, asserting that the real estate industry has too much power and "the city has done very little to preserve quality of life."
"Overdevelopment," he said, "is destroying the character of every community. That absolutely must stop."
...After leaving Avella's press conference, where some supporters carried signs asserting "The revolution starts... now!", it took just three stops uptown along the #6 subway line to visit the New York Observer's Luxury Living: New York Condo Showcase at the Puck Building at Lafayette and Houston streets.
Compared to the crowd at City Hall, this group was less gritty and better-dressed. There was a bar, musical entertainment, and other festive accoutrements. And all these projects, and their buyers, gain benefits from the belatedly-reformed 421-a tax break, which has fueled development all over the city, including the Queens districts that constitute Avella's base.
Posted by eric at 3:37 PM
The Community Boards face cuts, but the system needs a boost
Atlantic Yards Report
It was a relatively small article on page 5 of the City section of the New York Times, sandwiched in between pieces on the closing of a beloved laundry in Cobble Hill and after-school life at a coffee/tea/spice shop in Park Slope, but it touched on a very important issue: New Yorkers have way too few resources to pursue democracy at the neighborhood level. What it didn't explain is why the Community Board (CB) system needs reform, and may well become an issue in the next mayoral race.
The article, headlined Not Quite Passing the Hat, but Already Feeling the Pain, concerns cuts of 5%-8% at the CBs, which may not sound like much, but cut into already limited resources.
...City Council Member Gale Brewer, who represents the Upper West Side, lamented that CBs often don't have the resources to be proactive, to say "This alternative works." The Atlas is an attempt to change that, to show what community planners have been doing.
Support from the Borough President and others, Brewer said, can be key to empowering the CBs. Most don't have the staff to keep up with all the changes in their community and put all documents online. "Maybe Craig Hammerman"--District Manager of Brooklyn CB 6, which has an extensive web site--"because he's a nut," Brewer said affectionately, but few others manage similarly.
NoLandGrab: Brooklyn CB 6 — largely thanks to the tireless Hammerman — has long advocated for a much greater community role in the Atlantic Yards project.
Posted by eric at 3:28 PM
March 28, 2008
Home Depot may back out of Harlem site
Home Depot said it is rethinking its long-anticipated East River Plaza location, even though it has already signed a lease.
Crain's NY Business
by Elisabeth Butler Cordova
We're starting to think that there's a permanent rain cloud hovering over Atlantic Yards and East River Plaza developer Forest City Ratner's MetroTech headquarters.
Real estate sources say that The Home Depot Inc. is close to abandoning its long-anticipated store at the East River Plaza in Harlem, a major new retail development from Forest City Ratner and Blumenfeld Development group.
Home Depot confirmed that it is rethinking the location, even though it has already signed a lease.
...“We have a lease with them, and we expect them to live up to that,” says Loren Riegelhaupt, vice president of government and public affairs at Forest City Ratner Cos., which partnered with Blumenfeld Development Group to create the project.
NoLandGrab: Does Forest City's Mr. Riegelhaupt mean "we expect them to live up to that" in the same way that Forest City Ratner is failing miserably in living up to its Atlantic Yards promises of 10,000 new permanent jobs, 2,250 units of affordable housing and $5.6 billion in new tax revenues, with all the construction wrapped up in 10 years? Just wondering.
Posted by eric at 3:11 PM
Yard Work
The Brian Lehrer Show
WNYC Radio
A 17-minute segment from yesterday's Brian Lehrer Show, featuring Crain's New York editor Greg David and WNYC's Matthew Schuerman comparing and contrasting the Yards Atlantic and Hudson.
Posted by eric at 10:51 AM
March 27, 2008
News analysis: The Times gives the ESDC a bye
Atlantic Yards Report
When will The New York Times learn?
A New York Times News Analysis today of the West Side Yards deal, headlined For Railyards, the Hard Part Is Still Ahead, leaves out some important Atlantic Yards context.
Posted by eric at 1:39 PM
March 26, 2008
Tishman Speyer wins Hudson Yards bid
Tishman bid $1.004 billion for rights to the plot, $112 million higher than the offer from The Durst Organization and Vornado Realty Trust.
Crain's NY Business
by Theresa Agovino
In a reversal of its own sullied tradition, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority today awarded the Hudson Rail Yards to the highest bidder, real estate developer Tishman Speyer.
Tishman Speyer edged out three other development teams to win the fierce competition to develop the Hudson Rail Yards, the 26-acre site on Manhattan’s far West side that is envisioned as an extension of midtown’s business district.
Tishman Speyer bid $1.004 billion for the rights to the plot, where it plans to build 10 million square feet of office space and 3 million square feet of housing while leaving 13 acres of open space. Its offer was $112 million higher than a competing offer from a joint venture of The Durst Organization and Vornado Realty Trust. That group had lined up Condé Naste Publications as a tenant and its proposed 6.4 million square feet of residential space was the most offered by any developer.
It is expected to cost $1.5 billion to build a platform over the train tracks so construction can begin.
NoLandGrab: How is this railyard deal different from Bruce Ratner's railyard deal? Let's see: high bidder chosen rather than low bidder; $1 billion in midst of failing real estate market vs. $100 million in midst of real estate bubble; city rezoning vs. state override; no eminent domain vs. eminent domain abuse.... Need we go on?
More coverage:
City Room (The New York Times), M.T.A. Votes to Sell West Side Land Rights to Tishman Speyer
The project still faces several prospective hurdles. The $1,004,000,000 deal requires the completion of an agreement over the next 14 days specifying terms and conditions of the deal, and the signing of a formal contract. The slowing economy has prompted some developers, like Bruce C. Ratner, to consider delay the schedule for major developments like the Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn. And a portion of the rail yards of the Far West Side that would be controlled by Tishman still must undergo a rezoning process that could take up to 18 months.