September 28, 2012
Post: many more food and beverage spots moving near arena
Atlantic Yards Report
Anyone walking around and near the Barclays Center, especially on the Flatbush Avenue side, can see there are empty retail spaces--or non-consumer ones--that are surely to be transformed. The New York Post reports, in Eateries in mad dash to Barclays ’hood:
With rap mogul/Nets co-owner Jay-Z christening the venue with an eight-night concert run starting tonight, Danny Meyer burgers-and-fries joint Shake Shack plans to soon move into prime Flatbush Avenue real estate across the street from the 18,200-seat arena, sources said.
Landlord Michael Pintchik refused to comment on the deal but confirmed two other restaurants were coming to nearby Flatbush Avenue property he owns by Dean Street that should also have foodies salivating.
The owners of super-trendy Delicatessen and Macbar in Manhattan are opening an offshoot eatery called Elbow Room a block away on Flatbush Avenue that also specializes in gourmet mac-and-cheese dishes.
Moving in next door will be a Texas-style barbecue joint “featuring a top pitmaster from Austin, Texas,” Pintchik said.
More than a dozen other new eateries are also in the works within three square blocks of the arena.
That's a little confusing, because there's a place called Elbow Room in the arena, on Atlantic Avenue.
See the Post for more, including reports of a tripling of retail rents.
Related content...
NY Post, Eateries in mad dash to Barclays ’hood
Yearly leasing rates on commercial space near Barclays Center ran about $55 to $65 a square foot when the arena broke ground in 2010, but now runs roughly $160 to $200, local brokers and property owners said.
“Every landlord was of the firm belief that the Messiah was coming and [Barclays Center] would drive up property values,” recalled Timothy King, a managing partner at CPEX Real Estate Services.
NoLandGrab: They were expecting the Messiah and all we got was Bruce Ratner?
Posted by eric at 11:03 AM
"Prime Brooklyn Retail" still available on Flatbush Avenue side of Barclays Center
Atlantic Yards Report
Is the arena finished? Well, on the day the Barclays Center opens, they're still looking for a tenant on Flatbush Avenue, toward Dean Street below the Nets Shop.
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NoLandGrab: Perhaps the rent is too damn high?
Photo: AYInfoNYC
Posted by eric at 10:53 AM
September 20, 2012
Three-pointer! Triangle Sports building sold
The Brooklyn Paper
by Eli Rosenberg
Bruce Ratner's gentrification machine is kicking into high gear.
Two young real estate titans snatched up the prized Triangle Sports building steps from the soon-to-open Barclays Center — adding a crown jewel to their already impressive collection of upmarket Brooklyn properties and kicking off in earnest a real estate gold rush around the arena.
Redsky Capital LLC, helmed by recent Cornell graduates Benjamin Bernstein and Benjamin Stokes, purchased the three-sided structure on Flatbush Avenue for $4.1 million — a whopping $900 per square foot that sets a new record among comparable retail buildings in the borough, insiders say.
The young real estate barons would not comment on their plans or divulge anything about potential tenants for the site, which McDonald’s eyed earlier this year.
Posted by eric at 10:42 AM
September 19, 2012
Barclays Center Boasts Stacked Concert Lineup
Dean Street
It's a safe bet that NoLandGrab won't be giving this place its holiday party business.
Need dinner before a show? A drink afterward? Stop by and we will treat you right.
We can hardly wait until the 28th, and it seems like most of the city feels the same way. Having another venue for events and entertainment is incredibly exciting, especially since this one is in our back yard. We hope to see you soon, and remember Dean Street next time you are headed to Barclays.
Posted by eric at 11:34 AM
September 18, 2012
Brooklyn Holds Court: Barclays Center To Impact Surrounding Traffic And Businesses
NY1
by Tara Lynn Wagner
While business owners hope to turn sports fans and concert-goers at the new Barclays Center into customers, local residents are concerned about overcongestion. NY1's Tara Lynn Wagner filed the following report.
Selling out the Barclays Center is good news for Jay-Z but not necessarily for local Brooklynites. They say crossing the intersection of Atlantic Avenue and Flatbush Avenue is already dangerous on foot and can take 20 minutes in a car.
"It's just going to be a nightmare because cars are going to be bottled up," says resident Julia Pacetti. "There are no really good sidewalks in that area to speak of. They are very narrow. I just don't think the roads and the sidewalks are going to be able to accommodate the cars and the people."
Greg Yerman, on the other hand, says he's happy to accommodate the new crowds. As the owner of two restaurants on Flatbush Avenue, he expects that an influx of 18,000 people will spice up business.
"If we can get even a small percentage of those butts in our seats, it would be a significant coup for us," he said.
...While restaurant and bar owners prepare to cash in, other small business owners fear the new economic climate could force them to move out.
Their problem is that as the arena went up, so have the rental rates.
"Rental rates just about a year ago were in the $75, $80-a-foot range and we're now seeing rents approach $200 a foot in the immediate vicinity to the stadium," [commercial realtor Geoffrey] Bailey says.
article [with video]
Related coverage...
Atlantic Yards Report, NY1: residents may worry, but businesses mixed/optimistic about arena opening
Norman Oder sums up the story...
The gist:
- a resident worries about traffic
- a restaurant owner is hopeful
- a commercial real estate broker says rents have gone up and more food-related businesses are coming
- a barber thinks he'll be priced out
- the Chamber of Commerce CEO promises cross-promotion with local businesses (though that hasn't been announced)
Missing: the reason this is a strain for neighbors is that the state overrode city zoning to place an arena within 200 feet of a residential district.
NoLandGrab: If only Oder could be that succinct with his own stories!
Posted by eric at 1:23 PM
September 17, 2012
What's the Deal
Triangle Building Sold
The Wall Street Journal
by Laura Kusisto
Just a couple of weeks before the opening of Brooklyn's new Barclays Center, the Triangle Building, a 96-year-old neighborhood mainstay across the street from the new arena, has sold to a Brooklyn-based investment firm.
RedSky Capital LLC paid $4.1 million, or $900 a square foot, for the building at the intersection of Flatbush and Fifth avenues that's housed Triangle Sports a retailer of shoes and sporting goods.
Officials with RedSky declined to comment. But Ofer Cohen, a broker at TerraCRG, which arranged the sale, said the new owner is "exploring unique retail uses that can take advantage of the visibility and exposure of the property."
...Some neighborhood residents have objected that nightlife establishments are taking the place of neighborhood spots, but Mr. Cohen, of TerraCRG, insists that won't be the case here. "Part of [the new owners'] vision is to make it a very Brooklyn-type use, to stay true to the Brooklyn authenticity," Mr. Cohen says.
Related coverage...
Atlantic Yards Report, Triangle Building sells for $4.1 million; ad-supported free ATMs at Barclays
Just enough authenticity, I'd bet, to make sure they earn back their investment.
There was no timetable announced for an opening, but the new retail outlet obviously won't be open when the Barclays Center opens across the street on Sept. 28.
Posted by eric at 11:30 AM
How Brooklyn Businesses REALLY Feel About The Barclays Center
Business Insider
by Shlomo Sprung
As Brooklyn braces for the long-awaited opening of the $1 billion Barclays Center on September 28, the area around the new arena is quickly changing.
New businesses are coming in, rents are going up and many of the old businesses are being forced to close their doors.
While many outsiders view the arena opening as positive, there is a lot of worry among local business owners, who are concerned they may not be able to withstand downtown Brooklyn's shift from a bustling residential area to a super-busy urban hub with an arena that will draw millions of visitors.
We recently walked around the neighborhood and spoke with local business owners to see how they're being impacted by the new arena.
Posted by eric at 10:45 AM
September 10, 2012
Former Markowitz deputy Scissura: arena can be convention center and Marty can "do whatever he wants to do" after he leaves office
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder picks out the relevant pieces from a City & State interview with Marty Markowitz's former right-hand man.
From City & State, An Interview with Carlo Scissura, the Brooklyn Chamber’s New Leader (and former Chief of Staff to Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz):
Q. Are you going to work with the Brooklyn Nets?
A. It’s the greatest thing happening in Brooklyn right now. In less than two months, the Nets will be playing in Brooklyn. We’re thinking about partnerships with the Nets and the Barclays Arena. One of the first things out of my mouth when I travel to tourism trade shows is we have the Nets and we have the Barclays Arena. Let’s do some conventions there. It’s time Brooklyn become convention central for smaller conventions. The Barclays Arena should become a beacon for conventions across America.
That's interesting--the arena has never been promoted as a convention center, nor are arenas generally that flexible. It would help to have more delivery space and parking, and a connected hotel or two.
Related content...
City & State, An Interview with Carlo Scissura, the Brooklyn Chamber’s New Leader
Q. How do you replace Marty Markowitz when he leaves office?
A. There is only one Marty Markowitz in the world. He currently is the best borough president Brooklyn has ever had. It will take 20 of us to replace him. He will always be the borough president.
Q. What’s he going to do next?
A. He can do whatever he wants to do. Any organization in the city would be lucky to have him.
Posted by eric at 11:26 AM
August 30, 2012
NYC’s Oldest Sports Retailer & Newest Team Play Off Each Other
Metro Focus [Thirteen.org]
by Christina Knight
Brooklyn’s new team, the Brooklyn Nets, unveiled their Jay-Z designed logo and merchandise not at the NBA Store on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, but at a true New York retailer on an avenue better known as a traffic artery than a shopping strip. The roots of Modell’s Sporting Goods store at 140 Flatbush Avenue go back to 1889, when the family-owned sporting goods retailer was founded on Cortlandt Street in Lower Manhattan. The profile of this particular location has skyrocketed with the building of the Nets’ new home — the Barclays Center — directly across Flatbush Avenue.
...Since that day, business has boomed for the Park Slope retailer. According to store manager Nick Chang, the store sold out of 80 percent of its Brooklyn Nets stock that day and scrambled to receive more merchandise from its other Brooklyn and Manhattan locations.
Sales have been good ever since.
Related coverage...
Atlantic Yards Report, "Blighted" Modell's store is doing just fine, thanks to arena proximity
Would you believe that a "blighted" property is now doing well, as the Modell's across from the Barclays Center is getting renovated rather than razed?
...According to the July Atlantic Yards 2006 Blight Study conducted for the Empire State Development Corporation, both the Modell's store and its neighbor, P.C. Richard, are blighted because they're too small and occupy a block long designated for redevelopment as part of the Atlantic Terminal Urban Renewal Area (ATURA).
...Now that the market is different, presumably a rezoning could have done the trick, as well. Instead, the state overrode zoning so Forest City Ratner can build a tower--once 40 stories, now 25 stories--at the site. There's no plan yet to build it.
Metro Focus [Thirteen.org], Wearing Brooklyn Pride: A New Look in Town: Brooklyn Nets
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Justin, 13, Manhattan resident [right]
Q:Why are you wearing that shirt?
A: ‘Cause it’s cool and I like the colors.
Q: Do you like the team?
A: (Shrugs). I’m a Knicks fan.
Q: How would you rate Brooklyn on a scale of 1 to 10?
A: (Another shrug). I don’t go there a lot.
Photo: MetroFocus/Christina Knight
Posted by eric at 10:20 AM
August 25, 2012
From Ratner's Times Square role to Atlantic Yards: corporate dominance of public space and a noncompetitive insider deal
Atlantic Yards Report
In James Traub's 2004 book, The Devil's Playground: A Century of Pleasure and Profit in Times Square, the author describes (on p. 189) a memorable interview with Bruce Ratner, "the developer responsible for Madame Tussaud's and Applebee's."
Ratner, Traub suggests, "is not a native New Yorker with a New Yorker's possessiveness over the city's past," and observes his subject justifying his decisions.
What's America today? Chains
Traub begins by quoting Ratner:
"Applebee's and Chevys--they're what America is today. I'm not saying that's good or bad, any more than Bond Clothes was." Bond, on Broadway and 44th, was Times Square's biggest retailer in the forties and fifties...
Ratner's implicit point was that 42nd Street was being true to its own past precisely by virtue of being dominated by McDonald's and the ESPN Zone. Forth-second Street was the home of popular entertainment, and in our own time mass culture is produced by giant companies. The elite can afford the local and the particular; ordinary folks consume less expensive, franchised products. And so a "corporate" 42nd Street was a democratic 42nd Street. Ratner's aides were now chuckling with some embarrassment at the boss's swelling oratory, but he plunged on, the bit between his teeth. "It's always been a place to go out for the lower-middle-income New Yorker. You go out on a Saturday night, and it's basically people of low-middle-income means, from the boroughs, from New Jersey, from Long Island, out for a date. If you think about all the great streets in the world, it's about seeing people from that culture. And it does that. And you know what? Maybe, at the end of the day, that's what a successful street is. Should it be Applebee's or should it be someplace else? Who knows? It's a great place."
The scene is quite plausible, as Ratner, in interviews, can start to babble.
Posted by eric at 9:57 AM
Meet the Owner: Calvin Clark of Mo's Fort Greene
Talking about the bar's first year in business and the opening of Barclays Center.
Fort Greene-Clinton Hill Patch
by Paul Leonard
After a more than a year in business and with the potentially game changing opening of Barclays Center only weeks away, Patch decided to check back in with Clark—who also owns the Brooklyn club Langston's—to get a sense of the year that was and the year yet to come.
...Patch: Barclays Center is opening on Sept. 28 with Jay-Z's first concert. What are you expecting to happen as far as your business' bottom line after the arena opens?
Clark: [Laughing] I'm hoping to get at least 30 or 40 people from that stadium every time they have an event. It's kind of up in the air—I'm not sure how it's going to affect the community. Barclays Center—rightfully so—they are trying to keep as many dollars inside the stadium as possible with bars and clubs. And I don't know how much of that is going to spill out into the community. Fort Greene has the advantage of being one of the hot new neighborhoods—not new, but it's hot and it's happening. And that might give us an advantage. I'm just hoping that we get 30-40 people spilling from the stadium every time they have an event. It would be great. I talked to the owner of 67 Burger and he was saying pretty much the same thing—Scopello's as well. We're three blocks away from the stadium and it could make all the difference. People might not want to walk that extra block.
Patch: In terms of parking, crowds and that kind of stuff, do you have any trepidations about the opening of the arena?
Clark: Parking is going to be a nightmare. We already have traffic snarling along Atlantic and Flatbush Avenue. They haven't even finished the parking. I've heard that they are going to be bussing people down from the end of Atlantic Avenue by the river. It's going to be a nightmare. I don't care which way they spin that.
Posted by eric at 9:52 AM
August 22, 2012
The arena effect or the "Brooklyn" effect? Top broker suggests the latter is more important
Atlantic Yards Report
From the Commercial Observer: The Eight Percenter: In 2012, Massey Knakal’s Stephen Palmese Closed 8% Of All Brooklyn Sales Deals. How?:
The draw for Brooklyn is the borough itself, he says, and not the so-called residual value that will be created by the impending debut of Ohio-based developer Forest City Ratner’s Atlantic Yards Development, which other brokers and developers have been boasting about ever since the Barclays Center broke ground in 2010.
“I think that’s hogwash,” he said of the shared benefits of the Atlantic Yards development on residential real estate. “I don’t think it’s going to affect residential rates at all. You can argue that it could decrease rents.”
“It has sort of insulated and propped up the retail in the surrounding corridors that were trying to find their identity,” Mr. Palmese said. “So yes, it has had a positive effect for retail, but I think it has a negative effect on residential.”
I agree that "Brooklyn" itself is the draw; after all, that's why the arena's here.
The arena impact: mixed
But I suspect that the arena's impact in both categories is a bit more mixed. "Positive effect" means increasing retail rents in the orbit of the arena, though that likely means that the retail mix will become skewed toward bars and restaurants and stores that can cater somewhat, if not mostly, to an arena crowd.
Already there's a plethora of bars and restaurants likely aiming for cross-over success. That already means that more workaday businesses, like laundromats and stationary stores, get nudged out, and local residents who depended on them feel a loss.
Related content...
The Commercial Observer, The Eight Percenter: In 2012, Massey Knakal’s Stephen Palmese Closed 8% Of All Brooklyn Sales Deals. How?
Posted by eric at 10:52 AM
August 16, 2012
Prospect Heights Lot Bought up for $5.75M
Brownstoner
Public records show the the awkwardly sized, 31,000-square-foot parking lot on St. Marks Avenue, between Washington Avenue and Underhill, sold for $5.75 million. Here are details from the old listing: “It has been operated as a public parking lot and can continue as such since the immediate area has very limited parking. The site is also ripe for residential development, being close to Flatbush Avenue, public transportation, [and] Atlantic Yards…”
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Posted by eric at 4:56 PM
August 14, 2012
Brooklyn rebounds as the new bohemia
USA Today
by Rick Hampson
The trendspotters at USA Today set their time machine to 2005 and discover that Brooklyn is heating up.
At the end of another disappointing season, Brooklyn Dodgers fans would console themselves with the refrain, "Wait 'til next year!" The team is long gone, but for Brooklyn, next year is here.
The arrival of the NBA Nets gives Brooklyn its first major league team since the Dodgers' departure for Los Angeles in 1957, and something else: more evidence that, as its denizens claim, the borough that was once a punch line is now the coolest place in America, a land of rooftop farms and pop-up art galleries, of haircuts, eyeglasses, hats and body piercings so chic that even Parisians utter, "Très Brooklyn!"
"People I know from London don't want to go to Manhattan," says Kari Browne, 33, a former broadcast news producer who last month opened a cafe in the up-and-coming Victorian neighborhood of Ditmas Park. "They want to come to Brooklyn."
Related coverage...
Atlantic Yards Report, Behind "Brooklyn rebounds as the new bohemia": does arena mean "Brooklyn is back" or something more complicated?
The article describes the project thusly:
The New Jersey Nets' relocation to the new Barclays Center in downtown Brooklyn is a big reason why guard Deron Williams re-signed with the team and why the league's best center, the Orlando Magic's Dwight Howard, once tried to join him.
When the arena opens this fall with concerts by Jay-Z and Barbra Streisand and the first Nets' game, it will cap one of the more remarkable reversals of fortune in U.S. urban history.
Barclays is part of a planned $5 billion high-rise residential-commercial complex that community groups have criticized for abusing the power of eminent domain, uprooting residents and ripping up the neighborhood fabric.
But to Fred Siegel, a New York writer and political activist, the project says: "Brooklyn is back."
It's interesting to hear Fred Siegel quoted as saying that the Barclays Center indicates that "Brooklyn is back." I bet he said more, or would have, if they asked. Siegel also has called arena developer Bruce Ratner a "master of subsidy" and questioned whether there was any reason to provide public subsidies for the arena.
Posted by eric at 10:19 AM
August 10, 2012
Black-owned Businesses, Which Helped Fulton Street Survive, Fall Victim to its Revival
The Brooklyn Ink
by Shayna Estulin
Although there was widespread public and private disinvestment from Fort Greene in the 1980’s and early 1990’s, Sutton said that black entrepreneurs saw the potential to change a black ghetto into an enclave of business and culture that would attract customers who wanted to patronize black establishments.
Those businesses– clothing shops, bistros, and art stores– gave Fort Greene its unique character, bolstering real estate values, bringing in tourists and new residents and eventually attracting outside developers and businesses. In 2000, the city announced a multi-million dollar cultural redistricting around the neighboring Brooklyn Academy of Music. Six years later, the Atlantic Yards project – including luxury housing, high-end retail and arena for the Nets basketball team — broke ground.
Since then, rents have risen exponentially. Small storefronts along Fulton Street that were being leased for only $2,000 or $3,000 a few years ago now go for $6,000 to $8,000.
NoLandGrab: Surely that exponential increase in rents has nothing to do with Bruce Ratner's giant gentrification machine.
Posted by eric at 12:31 PM
August 6, 2012
Bars Around Barclays Tread Fine Line Between Locals and Arena Visitors
WNYC
by Janet Babin
The area around the new Barclays Center Arena in Brooklyn has become a new bar and restaurant hotspot.
Entrepreneurs are trying to capitalize on potential new business that could come from the 675,000-square-foot venue at Flatbush and Atlantic Avenues.
But there are concerns that the hoards of fans from Brooklyn Nets games or concert goers looking for an after party could clash with locals at these new neighborhood watering holes.
That’s why many bar and restaurant owners are trying to appeal to both regulars and arena clientele.
...The neighborhood surrounding Barclays has not opened its arms to the arena and the potential headaches that will come with it. Residents are concerned about rowdy crowds spilling out of the 19,000 seat venue, could rattle regular diners, and may even keep them away – at least on game day.
...According to local Community Board 8, just over two dozen new bar and restaurants have requested liquor licenses in the past 12 months in the area between Atlantic Avenue and Eastern Parkway, from Flatbush to Washington Avenues.
That compares with eight requests in the same time period in 2010 and 2011.
Posted by eric at 10:06 AM
August 1, 2012
Kemistry Lounge Files Application with SLA and Plans to Open in Sept.
Co-owner James Brown said the future for his upscale restaurant/lounge is clear and construction is continuing.
Park Slope Patch
by Will Yakowicz
Like Bruce Ratner's phantasmagorical Brooklyn Islander's dreams, Kemistry Lounge keeps coming back — but this nightmare may be real.
Despite staunch opposition from its neighbors, local politicians, having their liquor license application rejected by Community Board 6 and even getting sued by their landlord, Kemistry Lounge is forging ahead and plans to open in the end of Sept.
The owners of Kemistry Lounge, the upscale restaurant/lounge being built on Flatbush Ave., between Prospect Place and St. Marks Avenue, filed their liquor license application with the State Liquor Authority this week and told Patch that they plan to open their 245-person capacity space as planned.
...Their application to the SLA is requesting a license for bottle service, but Brown said that they may be serving the bottles a little differently to make for a safer atmosphere.
“In light of the incident in the Manhattan night club we may still serve the full amount of what’s in a bottle but may serve it in a different container,” Brown told Patch on Tuesday, referencing the recent brawl between singer Chris Brown (no relation) and rapper Drake where multiple people were injured by bottles thrown at the club W.iP. “But again, you typically don’t have issues in bar/restaurant/lounge settings. Bottle service type issues tend to happen in club settings.”
Actually, bottle service-type issues tend to happen in places with bottle service. And nearby residents are much more concerned with the effect the contents of those bottles will have on the people drinking them than they are with what those people might do to each other with the bottles inside Kemistry Lounge.
Peter Adelman, Prospect Place Neighbor’s lawyer, said that they are ready to take measures to protect their community’s quality of life if Kemistry ignores their requests for compromise.
“We are dismayed at Kemistry’s refusal to cooperate with area residents and we are ready to fight this,” Adelman said. “I am prepared to respond appropriately and vigorously to their application to the SLA."
Posted by eric at 7:52 PM
July 31, 2012
More Undercover Park Slope: 439 Bergen Street
BK to the Fullest
A post about local real estate weighs the "arena factor."
While proximity to the new stadium has been a deal breaker for many at places this close like 414 Dean, we think that ultimately the pro's of this location outweigh the con's. We've got calls in to the urban planner at the City Council's local office for the district that Barclays Center is in, regarding the pedestrian overpasses (covered here) that we think will be necessary to allow automobiles and pedestrians to flow somewhat civilly around the stadium. Why even the new signage for Barclays Center in the Atlantic subway points people to exit at one of the furthest intersections from the stadium also disappoints and confuses us.
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That feeling of disappointment and confusion is also known as "naming rights." But don't worry, it quickly goes away in the presence of, er, greatness.
However, for all our stadium worries and angst, it somehow melts away when we ran into Jay-Z last night on 15th Street and started gushing to him about his upcoming concerts at the stadium and his Nets. We're sure someone equally as star-struck by Park Slope won't mind having the stadium around the corner from them at this house.
Posted by eric at 11:42 AM
July 30, 2012
Zigun wants Shore Theater taken away from owner through eminent domain
The Brooklyn Paper
by Will Bredderman
The city should use its power of eminent domain to seize the Shore Theater from its disgraceful owner — who has sat on the property for nearly two decades without doing anything to it — and turn it into the palace it once was, the unofficial mayor of Coney Island decreed on Thursday.
Coney Island USA founder Dick Zigun said Horace Bullard has allowed the building where Jerry Lewis once performed to crumble, and doesn’t deserve the choice property at Surf and Stillwell avenues.
“Whether it’s through the Landmarks Commission or eminent domain, this must be done by any means necessary,” Zigun said during annual State of Coney Island Address. “The Shore Theater must be occupied.”
NoLandGrab: Since the city was seduced by the dark side of the power of eminent domain, it's highly unlikely that they'd use it for good.
Posted by eric at 12:04 PM
July 27, 2012
Downtown Brooklyn hailed for growth in jobs, income; rezoning lost to history; Barclays Center seen as opportunity; DBP portrays itself as nonpartisan
Atlantic Yards Report
Downtown Brooklyn is booming--sort of. Yesterday, a press conference at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, Borough President Marty Markowitz, and the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership (DBP) unveiled reports about job growth, a residential boom, and the area's future.
While two publications (Patch and the Epoch Times) did check with FUREE (Families United for Racial and Economic Equality), which expressed dismay at the lack of affordable housing, nobody pointed out that the rezoning passed in 2004 was aimed to increase office jobs for Wall Street and other large firms, which didn't happen at all.
Instead, there's been little increase in office space; the boom has been in health care/social assistance, education, leisure hospitality and tech. From 2003 to 2010, there was a growth of nearly 12,000 jobs, or 18.3%, in the Comptroller's broadly designated Downtown Brooklyn, which includes several adjacent neighborhoods, from Boerum Hill to Clinton Hill, but not Prospect Heights (though the arena gets listed).
Why's that important? Because neither legislators nor advocates focused on ensuring that property owners, newly gifted with the opportunity to build large residential towers or hotels, had reciprocal obligations. Thus the median income has boomed, but the benefits have not been broadly shared.
The DBP's report also includes a curious evasion, in which the organization claims not to be partisan.
Posted by eric at 12:02 PM
Closing Bell: Brooklyn Film Series Explores Gentrification
Brownstoner
Yesterday Film Wax kicked off a monthly film series called “Brooklyn Reconstructed.” It explores “gentrification, eminent domain, public subsidies for luxury developments, political corruption, rising rents and neighborhood revitalization [as] underlying themes in most Brooklynites’ day-to-day lives.” The first film in the series was My Brooklyn, which will be followed by The Domino Effect, Battle for Brooklyn, The Vanishing City, Made in Brooklyn, Gut Renovation, and Last Summer in Coney Island. All films are screened at The Brooklyn Society for Ethical Culture at 53 Prospect Park West. See the full schedule of events here.
NoLandGrab: If you missed Wednesday's screening of My Brooklyn, it's being shown again locally on Tuesday, July 31st, at 6:30 p.m., at Park Slope United Methodist Church, 410 6th Avenue at 8th Street.
Posted by eric at 10:51 AM
July 25, 2012
Downtown evictees: The city is booting us from Brooklyn
The Brooklyn Paper
by Natalie O'Neill
Tenants at one of Downtown’s last rent-stabilized buildings say they aren’t just getting evicted — they’re getting kicked out of Brooklyn.
Low-income residents of a brick tenement on Albee Square between Willoughby and Fulton streets claim they received city-stamped letters reneging on a promise to provide nearby housing after the city made plans to demolish their home and build a small park and a parking lot in its place.
Dozens of tenants found out the city will place them into far-away areas of the Bronx and Manhattan — even though the Department of Housing Preservation and Development agreed to give them “comparable housing,” after it acquired the five-story building using eminent domain, activists and residents say.
The agency has not provided any living options in the neighborhood, let alone the borough, said Carlos Barrera, who has lived there for decades.
Posted by eric at 2:47 PM
July 24, 2012
Brooklyn Reconstructed
Battle for Brooklyn via Kickstarter
Update #88
Battle continues to roll across the country and we are gearing up for dozens of screenings timed to the opening of the Arena. Mayor Bloomberg says at the end of the film, "No one's gonna care how long it took. They are just going to look and see that it was done." We think that the film is helping to disprove this idea, and we are working robustly to make it less true everyday.
I am also writing to let you know about a series that starts tomorrow at the ethical culture society in Brooklyn with My Brooklyn. It's called Brooklyn Reconstructed and it features at least 7 films (one a month). Battle for Brooklyn plays on Sept 26th - 2 days before the arena opens. There's a nice article in the L magazine about the series. All of the films are extremely thoughtful and well made. Before Isabel Hill made Brooklyn Matters she made "Made in Brooklyn". You'll laugh, you'll cry, you punch a politician in the eye.
Posted by eric at 10:05 PM
The Brooklyn Gentrification Film Series
The L Magazine
by Henry Stewart
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Tomorrow night, with My Brooklyn, Filmwax kicks off its documentary screening series Brooklyn Reconstructed, featuring seven films about development and gentrification that will be screened one a month through January at the Brooklyn Society for Ethical Culture in Park Slope. We spoke to Filmwax's Adam Schartoff about development in Brooklyn, and why there are so many documentaries about our borough.
Why put on a series like this now?
The films are all movies that were made over many years, and documented a changing city in ways that the "media" has been unable to. In large part I think they were inspired by a wave of "development without representation." In each case the filmmakers observed a government/business effort to push through zoning changes that brought massive revenue to developers in ways that denied any real input to those citizens most affected by the plans. Gentrification and development are nothing new. But what's taken place in neighborhoods like Williamsburg and Downtown Brooklyn, to name just two, are the results of a very different phenomena. While being floated as normal change, in fact what we've seen in the past decade is not organic gentrification, but a remarkably calculated land grab designed by our mayor, the City Planning Committee and a few greedy developers. These folks are owning both sides of the argument. It's rather impressive, really.
Posted by eric at 7:41 PM
The little economic engine that could? Once Atlantic Yards was called an "economic engine." Now it's the arena.
Atlantic Yards Report
The Summer 2012 issue of Brooklyn!!, Borough President Marty Markowitz's promotional publication, offers an enthusiastic coverage of the new arena, with a curious claim:
Along with pumping up Brooklyn’s reputation as the place for sporting and entertainment events, Barclays Center is its own economic engine, providing 2,000 full and part-time jobs, plus a shot in the arm to the ancillary businesses around the arena.
Forest City Ratner says those 2,000 jobs add up to 1,240 FTE (full-time equivalent), but I think that's very doubtful.
Either way, it's hard to call the arena "its own economic engine," given the significant subsidies and tax breaks, and the fact that the New York City Independent Budget Office calls it a net loss to the city.
After all, sports economist Andrew Zimbalist, at least before he delivered a report for his client, Forest City Ratner, told the 2/16/04, Courier-Life, "One would not say, 'Let's move the Nets to Brooklyn to help the local economy.'"
Now one would, at least if the one is Markowitz.
Posted by eric at 10:25 AM
July 18, 2012
The Brains Behind Brooklyn’s Boom
Next American City
by Brian Browdie
When Jay-Z takes the stage to open the Barclays Center in downtown Brooklyn this September, the show will be more than a homecoming for the hip-hop superstar from the borough’s Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood.
The christening of the arena, part of the Atlantic Yards complex under construction between Atlantic and Flatbush Avenues, will mark a milestone in a transformation of downtown that began eight years ago, when the Bloomberg administration instituted a series of zoning changes with the goal of spurring development. The city also invested nearly $300 million in local streetscapes and other improvements, including teaming with the state to build Brooklyn Bridge Park, a necklace of green along the East River that opened two years ago.
...But while Brooklyn’s boom has everything to do with national trends (including those pertaining to a certain h-word that will not be used here) and changing economic realities, there is another less-visible force that for the past nearly seven years has helped guide everything from which stores get new awnings to how many gleaming new towers rise in the once-desolate area surrounding the Manhattan Bridge.
Its name? The Downtown Brooklyn Partnership.
NoLandGrab: That praise seems a bit overstated, no?
Posted by eric at 10:59 AM
Daffy’s Failure Means a Vacancy at Atlantic Terminal Mall
Brownstoner
The news that discount retailer Daffy’s is closing its doors after more than five decades may not bring a tear to many readers’ eyes but it does mean something for the Downtown Brooklyn real estate market: One of the the Secaucus, N.J.-based chain’s 19 locations is at the Atlantic Terminal Mall. While that might seem like bad news for landlord Forest City Ratner at first blush, given rising rental rates for retail in recent months in the area around Barclays Center, it might actually be a boon to the developer. After all, it’s 20,000 square feet right across the street from the arena.
NoLandGrab: Given the mall's persistent crime problem and Bruce Ratner's propensity for attracting public entities as tenants, may they can put a police precinct in the Daffy's space, or better yet, a Department of Corrections facility.
Posted by eric at 10:26 AM
July 16, 2012
New Nets Arena Proves a Magnet
The Wall Street Journal
by Laura Kusisto and Alexander Heffner
When the Nets win a game at the new Barclays Center, where will the after-party be held?
That's a question on the minds of numerous bar and restaurant owners as they invest in locations around the arena that's scheduled to open this fall in Brooklyn. New places are opening and old ones are expanding with the expectation that basketball fans and others attending events at the up-to-19,000-seat arena will be hungry and thirsty and looking for a good time afterward.
But the arena's neighbors—many of whom have greeted the project skeptically all along—are pushing back, saying the new establishments threaten to transform charming side streets into destinations for late-night revelers. They're concerned that big sports bars will create nuisances and change the character of an area that was already becoming upscale when the arena broke ground.
...Some residents fear that bars, which pay higher rents, are coming at the expense of services for residents. "I'm concerned that it's becoming booze alley. I'm concerned that other corridors are becoming burger heaven," says Letitia James, the city councilwoman for the area. "Once the arena is dark, you have a community that remains, and a community with a lot of children and young families."
Retail rents are skyrocketing, driving out retailers who pre-dated gentrification. Mr. King, of CPEX, some landlords are charging as much as $100 a square foot, up from about $60 a few years ago. A space at Fourth and Atlantic avenues could fetch "a nosebleed number north of $180 a foot," he says.
Related coverage...
Atlantic Yards Report, Wall Street Journal reports on arena-area changes, with some curious omissions about Kemistry and the arena liquor license
In New Nets Arena Proves a Magnet, the Wall Street Journal reports on the efforts by bar/restaurant owners to serve both transient and local crowds, and on the tension between good ol' businesspeople and stuffy people who live there:
This opposition has been slowing leasing efforts for a big space kitty-corner to Barclays Center on Atlantic Avenue, according to Bob Hebron, a principal of Ingram & Hebron Realty that has the brokerage assignment. The community is "beginning to dig in its heels" to prevent sports bars or "Hooters-type places" from opening there, he says, referring to the restaurant chain known for its scantily clad waitresses.
Nearby on Flatbush Avenue, a restaurant entrepreneur's attempts to open a bar named Kemistry that would operate until 3:30 a.m. on Fridays and Saturdays ran afoul of the local community board. In May, the board voted overwhelmingly to oppose its liquor license application, though the resolution doesn't block Kemistry from trying to get a license.
While the article lower down delicately mentions that Kemistry "was planning to offer customers the ability to buy bottles of hard liquor and make drinks at tables," some context is missing.
Kemisty would be only the second club in Brooklyn with bottle service, and would be far closer to a residential district than most (all?) bottle service clubs.
And while Kemistry operator James Brown says he's moving ahead, the article doesn't mention that the business is being sued by its landlord for nonpayment of rent.
Posted by eric at 11:25 AM
July 11, 2012
Landlord Suing Kemistry Lounge for Four Months Back Rent and Eviction
The future of Kemistry Lounge is unknown as the lawsuit against them demands over $65,000 and requests a “warrant to remove” tenant at 260 Flatbush Avenue.
Park Slope Patch
by Will Yakowicz
Kemistry, we hardly knew ye.
The battle of Kemistry Lounge is now in the hands of the Kings County Civil Court of the City of New York.
On June 25, a petition was filed by the landlord of the 245-person capacity space on Flatbush Avenue, between Prospect Place and St. Marks Avenue, under the name of 260 Flatbush Realty LLC against Kemistry Lounge Entertainment Group LLC demanding four months of unpaid rent, a total of $60,000, plus property taxes, $6,078.81, for a total of $66,078.81.
The petition, submitted by 260 Flatbush Avenue Realty’s attorney Jess Berkowitz, also states that three days before the proceeding that “the rent due or possession of the premises has been demanded personally from respondent tenant.”
Now, the landlord is seeking the “removal” of Kemistry Lounge.
NoLandGrab: This is what happens when you spell "Kemistry" with a K. Neighbors will find it perfectly O-Ch if the bottle-service wannabe never opens its doors.
Posted by eric at 12:55 PM
July 6, 2012
Is Schneiderman Giving a Pass on Possible Illegal Lobbying on Redevelopment Effort Favored by a Major Donor?
naked capitalism
by Yves Smith
An alert reader pointed to a new post by Norman Oder, who has been following the so-called Atlantic Yards project, a $4.9 billion proposed “redevelopment” for part of Brooklyn proposed by Bruce Ratner of Forest City Development.
What caught his eye was that Schneiderman had secured a settlement from three groups, one New York City’s “economic development agency” and two local development corporations. This triumverate was pushing local legislators to support development projects in Willets Point in Queens and Coney Island in Brooklyn.
...But Oder raises the question: why didn’t Schneiderman also pursue the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership, which operates in pretty much the same manner? Might it have something to do with the $12,500 that Ratner gave to Schneiderman’s 2010 campaign?
Posted by eric at 10:25 AM
July 4, 2012
Missing from the AG's settlement with NYC EDC: a mention of the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership and Atlantic Yards
Atlantic Yards Report
There was something curious about an announcement yesterday by state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, first reported by the Wall Street Journal in City Agency Admits Illegal Lobby Effort:
New York City's economic-development agency and two related organizations admitted in a settlement Monday that they illegally lobbied the City Council on behalf of projects at the heart of Mayor Michael Bloomberg's redevelopment agenda.
The concessions came after a three-year probe by the state attorney general's office. Investigators found that the Economic Development Corp. worked behind the scenes with the groups—called local development corporations—to nudge lawmakers to support projects in Willets Point in Queens and Coney Island in Brooklyn.
"These local development corporations flouted the law and lobbied elected officials, both directly and through third parties," Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said in a statement.
Where's the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership?
But there was no mention of seemingly similar activities by the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership, which lobbied the city for the Downtown Brooklyn rezoning and the state for approval of Atlantic Yards.
...I queried the Attorney General's office yesterday about whether the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership had been given a clean bill of health (and, if so, why), or whether an investigation was continuing. I didn't get an answer.
Posted by eric at 10:35 AM
After 3 Days of Blackouts, Con Edison Promises Infrastructure Upgrades
On-and-off blackout at Bergen Street and Flatbush Avenue were due to overburdened equipment, a spokesman said.
Park Slope Patch
by Amy Sara Clark and Will Yakowicz
Following 72 hours of intermittent power failure for at least 122 businesses and homes near Bergen Street and Flatbush, a Con Edison spokesman said the problem is due to increased “usage in the area.”
The explanation came after two manhole fires over three days caused power disruptions to the subway, nearby apartment buildings, restaurants and even the NYPD's 78th Precinct.
The on-and-off blackouts caused residents and merchants alike to suffer.
“This is ridiculous, I can’t tell you how exhausted I am,” said Eyal Hen, who owns the nearby Fish and Sip and Chickpea. “Three days in a row and we’re losing business, losing thousands and thousands of dollars. I can’t even talk about it anymore.”
For those wondering, the growth in demand is not due to the soon-to-open Barclays Center. “We already have engineered for that, separately from the surrounding community,” said Chris Olert, the electric company's assistant director of media relations.
Sure they have.
Posted by eric at 10:24 AM
Hoteliers hopping on Brooklyn brandwagon
HotelNewsNow.com
by Harvey Chipkin
The “Brooklyn brand,” which has drawn a new generation of the hip and artistic, is now attracting hotels—everything from the just-announced revival of Barry Sternlicht’s “1” brand to a music-oriented hotel being developed by a well-known DJ.
...Hoteliers also are looking to the imminent debut of the massive Atlantic Yards mixed-use project, which will include the Barclays Center, future home of the NBA’s Nets. The project is scheduled to open in phases starting this fall. The Fulton Street Mall is another major mixed-use project that will draw visitors to the borough.
Posted by eric at 9:55 AM
Brooklyn Residents Less Than Thrilled About Atlantic Yards Congestion
NY Observer
by Sarah Grothjan
The residents in the neighborhoods bordering Barclays Arena will almost certainly be stuck with congestion and beer-swilling visitors, but at least they may be spared a multi-level nightclub.
The landlord is evicting Kemistry Lounge’s owners for non-payment of rent, putting a halt (if only a temporary one) to their clubbing brainchild, Brownstoner reports. That’s good news for those nearby the lounge’s would-be home at 260 Flatbush Avenue.
The prospect of the nightspot drawing a loud, young intoxicated crowd to an area that is likely to already be highly-trafficked by loud, young and intoxicated people left many in Community Board 6 unenthusiastic about its arrival.
Related coverage...
Bronwstoner, Kemistry Lounge’s Future in Question
Posted by eric at 9:39 AM
July 3, 2012
City Agency Admits Illegal Lobby Effort
The Wall Street Journal
by Michael Howard Saul
Is there anyone or anything associated with the Atlantic Yards project that isn't crooked or corrupt? Anything?
New York City's economic-development agency and two related organizations admitted in a settlement Monday that they illegally lobbied the City Council on behalf of projects at the heart of Mayor Michael Bloomberg's redevelopment agenda.
The concessions came after a three-year probe by the state attorney general's office. Investigators found that the Economic Development Corp. worked behind the scenes with the groups—called local development corporations—to nudge lawmakers to support projects in Willets Point in Queens and Coney Island in Brooklyn.
Let's not forget their knowingly dishonest Atlantic Yards boosterism.
"These local development corporations flouted the law and lobbied elected officials, both directly and through third parties," Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said in a statement.
...The findings seemed to give ammunition to critics of the Bloomberg administration and its economic-development arm, which has been accused of pushing through large-scale projects over community objections.
Where've we seen this phony astroturf act before?
In pushing the Council for zoning and other land-use changes, city officials "took steps to foster the appearance of independent 'grass-roots' support for the projects in the local community," said the agreement signed Monday by the EDC and the other groups.
For example, the agreement said the EDC directed the Queens group to use its fax machine to send a letter drafted by city officials about the Willets Point project to Council members because, in the words of one city official, "we felt this letter coming from our fax machine would have been lobbying."
Other lobbying activities included ghostwriting op-eds and preparing testimony, according to the agreement.
Heads will roll, though, right?
The finding carries no fine or harsher penalty.
NoLandGrab: Let us be the first to call publicly for EDC President Seth Pinsky to join Barclays' "Diamond" Bob Diamond in tendering his resignation.
Posted by eric at 2:02 PM
Planned Kemistry Lounge hits big hurdle: landlord seeks eviction and judgment
Atlantic Yards Report
Well, maybe the second information passed on ten days ago by the North Flatbush BID wasn't too far off: despite statements then by principals in the planned Kemistry Lounge on Flatbush Avenue near Prospect Place that the establishment was moving ahead, it's just hit a significant roadblock.
According to legal papers affixed to the exterior of the building, the landlord, 260 Flatbush Avenue Realty, has gone to court to evict the Kemistry Entertainment Group for nonpayment of rent (of the to-be-renovated space), requesting $66,078.81, with interest from June 1, 2012.
I queried Kemistry last night but haven't heard back; I will update this when I learn more.
The planned lounge has been quite controversial because its principals planned bottle service, which has been associated with rowdy behavior and is usually not offered in residential districts. Kemistry's main entrance would be on busy Flatbush Avenue, albeit quite close to a day care center, and have a back exit on residential Prospect Place. It has not yet applied for a liquor license, after failing to gain support of Community Board 6.
Posted by eric at 12:44 PM
June 29, 2012
As Hooters stalks Brownstone Brooklyn, 'breastaurants' spread across America
Brooklyn Daily Eagle
by Candice Cholap
If there's a spread between the sensibilities of Brownstone Brooklynites and the rest of America, it might be found in the "breastaurants."
While a growing number of Americans are chomping down at a new breed of restaurants that feature family-style food in addition to lust-provoking scantity-clad waitresses, alert neighbors of the new Barclays Center are determined to fight a bid by the original "breastuarant" — Hooters — to open an outlet in their midst.
“I don’t know whether it’s a cultural clash or a clash in values, but it’s not the kind of establishment people would expect to find in Brownstone Brooklyn,” said Craig Hammerman, district manager of Community Board 6, which includes Park Slope, as quoted by the Daily News.
Related (un)coverage...
mcbrooklyn, No One Laughing At the Hooter Jokes in Brooklyn Anymore
One of the longest-running jokes on Brooklyn blogs is the old "a Hooters is opening in our neighborhood" gag. Everyone has a good laugh, wipes their eyes and moves on.
Now the Brooklyn Eagle and NY Daily News report that neighbors of the soon-to-open Barclays Center are trying to fend off an actual Hooters from opening in their neighborhood, but no one's laughing. (Not even at the category name "breastaurant.")
Posted by eric at 9:52 AM
June 27, 2012
Commercial Klutch: June Edition
Brownstoner
This month our masked commercial crusader peers into his crystal ball.
This column is dedicated to our dedicated reader & commenter, Trolley Dodger. Whereas a request was made for insider information, said shall be provided. Much of what is stated is future or near future, yet it will come to pass my friend.
Forest City will tear down the first Atlantic Center Mall property and make a bigger and better one. They will also demolish Mo’s and PC Richards and replace it with a huge building, with Apple Computer at the base. The arena’s huge effect on both the psyche of Brooklyn and the surrounding real estate will bring us tourist and B & T folks, turning the immediate area into a party. Watch for a fun venue in 604 Pacific. 750 Pacific won’t be torn down but will become a fancy tech tenant property, for one tenant.
NoLandGrab: That crystal ball could use some Windex. For one thing, the Atlantic Center Mall was designed so that additional towers could be constructed on top of the existing building; it won't be torn down. For another, Forest City doesn't have the financial wherewithal to take on something like that. You're better off relying on the Magic 8 Ball.
Posted by eric at 12:20 PM
June 23, 2012
A kerfuffle over Kemistry: no, they haven't abandoned plans for space
Atlantic Yards Report
Though they've gotten the thumbs-down from Community Board Six (coverage) regarding plans for bottle service, and seen significant opposition from neighbors, local elected officials, and a church, operators of the proposed Kemistry Lounge on Flatbush Avenue near Prospect Place say they are still pursuing plans for a restaurant, bar, and lounge.
They have apparently not yet applied for a liquor license from the State Liquor Authority. Today, the North Flatbush Business Improvement District, which had helped mediate discussions between the operators and neighbors, tweeted, "Kemistry lounge folks asked to leave space and break lease after not paying rent since March."
That information, however, was secondhand and incorrect. "Kemistry is moving forward with our project," stated project manager Damali L'Elie. "I recently saw a tweet from Flatbush BID stating that we have asked to be released from our lease, this is incorrect. We fully intend to complete construction of Kemistry and have a grand opening shortly after."
("We are still working on our time line," she added, in response to my query.)
The space at 260 Flatbush Avenue would have an exit on residential Prospect Place between Flatbush Avenue and Sixth Avenue. The lounge, which would hold up to 225 people, would be only the second bottle-service establishment in Brooklyn, and closer to a quiet residential neighborhood than most such clubs in the city.
The proprietors have said bottle service is integral to their plans. Alarm over such service has increased in recent weeks, after a brawl at a club in SoHo. While the Barclays Center will feature a branch of Jay-Z's 40/40 Club, it will not feature bottle service, as at its other locations.
Posted by steve at 5:27 PM
June 22, 2012
Department of City Planning announces plan to streamline agency review of land use applications; said to save developers money and create jobs faster
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder reports on New York City's efforts to streamline the land-use review process — which seems to us just one more step toward making the city an enclave for the wealthy.
Note that this all will happen before the process of seeking community input under ULURP. Also note that Atlantic Yards notably bypassed ULURP, since it proceeded under a state review process.
The benefits
Steel estimated the new program "will save applicants up to $100 million per year in soft costs and carrying costs," and thus "[m]ore development means more jobs for New Yorkers."
City Planning Director Amanda Burden said. “We have spearheaded zoning initiatives to create affordable housing, green the city, facilitate economic development and transportation options as well as new public open spaces throughout the five boroughs, and BluePRint will enable all these projects to be realized faster, without sacrificing high standards and careful review."
...And I'd add that, while it's surely wise to eliminate unwieldy process, this still focuses on facilitating individual projects and the Department of City Planning has focused on zoning, rather than comprehensive planning.
NoLandGrab: What we really need is better, smarter development, not just more development.
Posted by eric at 12:26 PM
ATLANTIC CENTER: FIFTH AVENUE OF THE BOROUGHS?
Retail Traffic
Actually, our own Fifth Avenue used to terminate at the Atlantic Center mall — until Bruce Ratner wiped it off the map.
If Forest City Enterprises decides to go ahead with the redevelopment/remerchandising of its Atlantic Center Mall and Atlantic Terminal Mall properties in Brooklyn it might be able to remake the surrounding area into an outer borough Fifth Avenue, retail industry insiders say.
Retail industry insiders who clearly have never been in Bruce Ratner's malls, that is.
Forest City, the commercial real estate developer behind the soon-to-open Barclays Center arena and entertainment venue, revealed that it’s now reviewing the possibility of upgrading its nearby retail properties. A spokesperson for the company said there are no definite plans as of yet; Forest City executives are “just thinking out loud.”
If the company decides to go ahead with the project, demographics in the surrounding area certainly offer a lot of potential.
...“Brooklyn is getting multi-million dollar condos, but there is not a lot of upscale shopping,” [retail consultant Howard] Dadivowitz says. “I would say it’s a void and a possibility. A Whole Foods [makes sense there], a Bloomingdale’s definitely would make sense. Why wouldn’t Tiffany’s build a nice store there? I think they would.”
NoLandGrab: Bruce Ratner currently bans groups of four or more teens from hanging out in his malls. When Bloomie's and Tiffany move in, that ban will surely be expanded to groups of zero or more teens. Can't have the "tough kids" from "the projects" scaring off the customers!
Posted by eric at 11:14 AM
June 20, 2012
Brooklyn Nets a Mega Mall: Forest City Mulls What’s Next for Atlantic Terminal and Atlantic Center
NY Observer
by Matt Chaban
It could be the biggest thing to come to Atlantic Yards since Barbara Streisand and Justin Beiber announced they would be playing concerts at the Barclays Center this fall. While everyone (but the neighbors and former neighbors) is looking forward to the opening of the new arena, Forest City Ratner now has its eyes trained across the street, to the two malls it owns there.
Once work on the arena is complete, the difficult task of moving forward with the adjoining apartment buildings lies ahead. But as interest in the area’s retail has boomed in anticipation of the new 18,000-seat venue, Forest City Ratner has also accelerated plans to redevelop the Atlantic Center and Atlantic Terminal malls.
“It’s an obvious opportunity,” MaryAnne Gilmartin, Forest City’s executive vice president, told The Observer. “One of the many things we think about is the impact the arena will have, and how we can help create a holistic neighborhood at Atlantic Yards from there.”
The impact the arena will have is pretty much the only thing nearby residents are thinking about.
One piece in the possible architectural transformation of the two malls is more than a million square feet of development rights Forest City still holds on the property. Together, the two malls equal a little less than 800,000 square feet, meaning an expansion could more than double the space.
This does not necessarily have to be retail development, as the Atlantic Terminal building already has an office tower on top, known as 2 Hanson Place. As Norman Oder pointed out back in 2006, preliminary designs for the Atlantic Yards project revealed three towers atop the mall, tucked away in the background and unmentioned in discussions of the project.
Related coverage...
Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn, Whodathunk It! Ratner's Arena Benefits Ratner's Malls!
In case there was still any lingering doubt about who benefits from Atlantic Yards—the developer Forest City Ratner or the loser, the public—this article should end all of those doubts. (Perhaps the judicial system that thought eminent domain for the project was legitimate because the public was the intentioned beneficiary of the Atlantic Yards project might now agree that that was just a load of, we'll be polite here, hogwash)....
Atlantic Yards Report, Forest City Ratner's ambitious plans for its Atlantic Terminal and (blighted) Atlantic Center malls; new towers not yet on the table, but new retail surely in sight
In Brooklyn Nets a Mega Mall: Forest City Mulls What’s Next for Atlantic Terminal and Atlantic Center, the Observer's Matt Chaban writes:
While everyone (but the neighbors and former neighbors) is looking forward to the opening of the new arena, Forest City Ratner now has its eyes trained across the street, to the two malls it owns there.
Everyone? Really?
But it surely is worth pointing out, to use Michael D.D. White's "mega-monopoly" term, that Forest City Ratner's Atlantic Yards project was sure to rain benefits on the developer's adjacent malls, and that should have reflected in the public negotiations.
 |
Brownstoner, Atlantic Mall Might Get Re-skinned and Repositioned
While discussing the balancing act of broadening the mall’s demographic appeal without alienating its core constituency, Ms. Gilmartin said that “everything [short of razing the building] is on the table,” including making over the dreary, uninviting brick facade.
Posted by eric at 11:14 AM
June 18, 2012
WILLETS POINT BRINGS RETAIL REVELRY, PUTS HOUSING ON BACK BURNER
A/N Blog
by Tom Stoelker
Mayor Bloomberg evoked Fitzgerald today when he announced the deal between Sterling Equities and Related Companies to revamp Willets Point. “Today the ‘valley of ashes’ is well on its way to becoming the site of historic private investment,” the mayor said in a statement, referring to the gritty midpoint between Gatsby’s West Egg manse and Manhattan. The plan pegs its success to a mega entertainment/retail hub just west of the stadium, that sounds very much a part of a trend in projects that used to be called malls, but are now called retail/entertainment attractions.
More like distractions.
That the housing comes so late in the game has got more than few politians up up in arms. The Daily News reported early this week that City Coucilmember Karen Koslowitz was not pleased. It’s a pretty sensitive topic that was initially raises in The Wall Street Journal last month, which cited Willets Point and Atlantic Yards as examples of where housing was used to win favor with the locals but ends up being the last component of the project scheduled for completion.
Posted by eric at 10:20 AM
June 15, 2012
Catching up: optimism about arena-area retail rents, unmet promises in Williamsburg, auditions for Brooklyn Nets dance team
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder rounds up some stories that we missed, too. Here are some shortcut links:
The Wall Street Journal, Brooklyn Waits on Promise of a Park
It has become a familiar scenario across the city, as large developments such as Atlantic Yards in Brooklyn and Willets Point in Queens move forward: The promises made by the city and developers to overcome opposition change over time or are delayed long into the future.
The Real Deal, How the Barclays Center will transform Brooklyn retail leasing
NY Observer, Nets Debut Dance Team (Containing Only One Native Brooklynite) and Its Cheeky Moniker: The Brooklynettes
Posted by eric at 11:07 AM
June 14, 2012
Kelly Anderson, 'My Brooklyn' Director, Discusses Brooklyn Gentrification
The Huffington Post
by Christopher Mathias
According to The Fordham Institute's Michael J. Petrilli, Brooklyn has four of the nation's top 25 most gentrifying zip codes. They are, in order of whiteningness, 11205 and 11206 (parts of Ft. Greene, Clinton Hill, and Williamsburg) 1237, ("East" Williamsburg and Bushwick) and 11238 (Prospect Heights, Crown Heights and Bed Stuy).
...But Brooklynites don't really need charts and graphs to know gentrification is creeping further and further into the borough.
Three recent documentaries have focused on the issue. "Battle For Brooklyn" documents the process by which a chunk of Prospect Heights was displaced to make room for Atlantic Yards and Barclays Center, "Gut Renovation" focuses on the rezoning of Williamsburg, and "My Brooklyn: The Battle For The Soul Of A City" concentrates on Downtown Brooklyn, and vanishing Fulton Mall.
"My Brooklyn" (which, along with "Gut Renovation," received the Audience Award at the Brooklyn Film Festival) features footage of Mayor Bloomberg and real estate developers salivating over the Brooklyn market while longtime residents are brought to tears in intimate interviews about having to move their families or close their businesses.
The film, by Kelly Anderson and Allison Lirish Dean, shows concrete evidence that gentrification, namely in New York, doesn't just happen, but is rather fueled by public policy.
NoLandGrab: Battle for Brooklyn, for those of you with short memories, won top honors at the 2011 Brooklyn Film Festival.
Posted by eric at 11:56 AM
May 17, 2012
Building the Next New York: the RPA's recommendations for mega-projects implies avoidance of Atlantic Yards pattern, though report suggests no verdict yet on project
Atlantic Yards Report
With "advocacy" groups like RPA, who needs developers?
The Regional Plan Association has just issued Building the Next New York: Recommendations for Large Real Estate Projects, which offers some sober criticisms of Atlantic Yards while analyzing a range of large development initiatives in order to propose some recommendations.
The business-oriented, rational RPA--self-described as "America's oldest and most distinguished independent urban research and advocacy group"--says it's too soon to come to a verdict on Atlantic Yards, a project it offered support mixed with suggestions for reform.
However careful in not making such a judgment, the RPA surely learned some lessons from Atlantic Yards. "These projects are enormously complex and can take a generation or more to build," said RPA President Robert Yaro. "This makes it essential to maintain both flexibility and a public stake throughout the life of the project."
That sounds like an acknowledgment that the significant changes in Atlantic Yards should not have been surprising--but that the government agencies approving those changes should have done more to represent the public interest.
Posted by eric at 11:51 AM
Small Arts Venue Casts a Weary, Yet Hopeful, Eye On Barclays Center
Both pitfalls and positives seen from opening of mega-arena in September.
Fort Greene-Clinton Hill Patch
by Paul Leonard
As a resident, Terry Greiss is one of many neighborhood voices that have been critical of Atlantic Yards redevelopment, including the still-rising Barclays Center.
But as executive director of Fort Greene's Irondale Center, Greiss' feelings about the mega-project are decidedly more mixed—a sign of the many challenges and opportunities awaiting small local cultural venues as the September opening date for the 18,000-seat arena draws closer.
"The jury is out about whether it’s going to be a good thing or a bad thing," Greiss said of Barclays' imminent arrival.
NoLandGrab: The jury is out, but they've only been out for five minutes, and they just sent the judge a note asking if they can award higher damages than those outlined in the instructions to the jury.
Posted by eric at 11:21 AM
May 14, 2012
More than 1,000 Brooklynites call on Governor Cuomo and the State Liquor Authority to end liquor sales at Barclays Center by 10:00 PM
Local elected officials join call for policies to limit impact of arena crowds on residential neighborhoods
BrooklynSpeaks
The BrooklynSpeaks sponsors announced today that more than 1,000 Brooklynites have signed an online petition calling on the State to limit the hours of liquor sales at the Barclays Center arena, with a final cut-off time of 10:00 PM. The petition was first posted on BrooklynSpeaks’ web site on Monday, May 7.
“The response to BrooklynSpeaks’ petition says volumes about public concern for safety and neighborhood quality of life following the opening of the Barclays Center,” said Jo Anne Simon, Democratic Leader of the 52nd Assembly District. “The arena operators and concessionaires have an obligation to do what is reasonable and responsible to ensure that crowds leaving events late in the evening don’t disrupt residential life.”
Said City Council Member Stephen Levin, whose district includes the neighborhoods of Boerum Hill and Park Slope adjacent to the arena, “Residents don’t understand why Barclays should be reluctant to accept a 10:00 PM limit on liquor sales, when the same concession operator has a 9:30 PM curfew at Wrigley Field in Chicago. Barclays has a responsibility to ensure that rowdy crowds will not be spilling into our residential communities late at night, causing problems for the families who live here.”
“The only reason Barclays Center is being built at the corner of Flatbush and Atlantic Avenues is because the State allowed overrides of City zoning regulations that would have prevented an arena being sited next to homes,” said Council Member Letitia James, who represents the adjoining neighborhoods of Prospect Heights and Fort Greene. “We now need the Governor and the State Liquor Authority to ensure we don’t end up with an all-night bar, too.”
Posted by eric at 4:48 PM
May 13, 2012
Kemistry update: more pols, CB6 pile on opposition; owner vows to move forward with some level of compromise
Atlantic Yards Report
Park Slope Patch has an update on the planned Kemistry Lounge, a "club" (at least in neighbors' eyes) with bottle service on Flatbush Avenue near the Barclays Center.
Not only has Assemblywoman Joan Millman sent a letter to the State Liquor Authority (SLA) opposing a liquor license for the establishment, so too have Council Member Steve Levin and state Senator Velmanette Montgomery. And the full Community Board 6 has backed the opposition stated by its permits and licenses committee.
The sticking points include hours of operation, bottle service, and the nature of the back entrance on residential Prospect Place. Co-owner James Brown told Patch he'd compromise in part on hours and the entrance, but there was no word on bottle service, which neighbors fear would fuel unruly behavior.
Posted by steve at 9:57 PM
May 9, 2012
New real estate firm has nothing to do with Barclays Center — except name
The Brooklyn Paper
by Natalie O'Neill
He’s not Bruce Ratner, but this Prospect Heights real estate player is selling the Barclays Center.
Broker Greg D’avola dubbed his new Bergen Street firm Arena Properties — an Atlantic Yards-influenced name he hopes will help snag customers searching online for land near the soon-to-open basketball arena.
D’avola has no stake in the controversial mega-project, but he claims gaining web traffic from Nets-related Google searches was the main reason he named his three-man residential and commercial enterprise after the arena — a development that has sparked a real estate gold rush and protests from neighbors who say it will harm the community’s quality of life and charming ma-and-pa spirit when it opens this fall.
...“I understand a lot of people have bitter taste in their mouth about the arena — but you can’t deny it’s coming,” said D’avola.
Posted by eric at 1:15 PM
May 8, 2012
Putting the Tech in Metrotech
Start-Up MakerBot Industries to Move to Downtown Brooklyn; Engineers Mixing With Office Workers
The Wall Street Journal
by Laura Kusisto
Metrotech is getting its first actual tech tenant in its 20-year existence.
The MakerBot lease is also good news for Forest City Ratner Cos., which owns One Metrotech and a large chunk of Downtown Brooklyn's office space.
In recent years, the landlord tried to attract more media, nonprofit and technology companies to the area, especially given that demand for back-office space has shrunk.
"We've had creative, media and not-for-profit tenants. This is our first technology company. We hope it's the first of many," said MaryAnne Gilmartin, executive vice president of commercial and residential development for Forest City.
Related coverage...
The RED Wrap [CrainsNewYork.com], Forest City’s neighbors hold key
When the young co-founder of a hot, fast-growing maker of 3-D printers talked about why he recently decided to become the first tech tenant at downtown Brooklyn’s MetroTech complex, which was built 20 years ago to house back offices for Wall Street firms, he had some surprising reasons. Sure, MakerBot Industries’ Bre Pettis mentioned the area’s excellent transportation links and views of the Brooklyn and Manhattan bridges. But he also threw into the proximity to Shake Shack and Five Guys....
Posted by eric at 12:29 PM
May 4, 2012
Brooklynites sound off on Hooters’ efforts to open near Barclays Center
Residents split on whether chain should come to borough
NY Daily News
by Joseph Tepper, Lore Croghan and Erin Durkin
The Daily Hooters News can't get enough of running this photo.
 |
Hooters’ march on Brooklyn may have been rebuffed by some property owners near the new Nets arena, but the busty chain is reportedly scouting other spots in the neighborhood. And while Hooters’ interest drew howls of protest from many in the area, others say critics should relax and enjoy Hooters’ wings and good clean fun. Here’s a sampling of opinions from around the borough:
City Councilwoman Letitia James (D-Prospect Heights):
“I think Hooters is offensive to women, and I think Hooters is an affront to the women’s movement, and I think we have enough hamburger restaurants that have located on Flatbush Ave. and Vanderbilt Ave. in the last year. I think we have enough establishments that are serving alcohol. Flatbush Ave. is often referred to as booze ally, and do we don’t need booze and boobs on Flatbush Ave.”
Steve Edmilao, 41, Barclays Center construction worker:
“You just got to be open minded. I go there for beer, wings, and the whole nine yards. Just let the business flow in and uplift the Brooklyn area."
Jessica Greer Morris, Executive Director of Project Girl Performance Collective, based in Brooklyn Heights:
“Hooters claims to be giving opportunity to college age women in need of work. We have a girl who is valedictorian of her class in Brooklyn who cannot afford college. Does she have to have large breasts and wear a tight shirt to be able to afford college? Is this the best we can offer our children? Every day, we work with young girls and see how institutions like Hooters contributes to their low self-esteem. Hooters is not about empowering girls, it is about objectifying them.”
NoLandGrab: We think it's "the whole nine yards" that some people find objectionable. And really, anyone who claims Hooters wings are "the best" has never been anywhere near Bonnie's Grill.
Photo: ISI/Business Wire
Posted by eric at 11:06 AM
May 3, 2012
Retail coming to 470 Vanderbilt: could it include a Hooters? (Denis Hamill would be fine with that)
Atlantic Yards Report
From the 5/2/12 Real Estate Weekly, GFI brings Atlantic Yards retail corner to market:
GFI Development Company is offering corner and street-front retail space at 470 Vanderbilt Avenue in Brooklyn.
The ten-story, 660,000 s/f mixed-use property is four blocks from Atlantic Center and Atlantic Terminal Mall, a major destination shopping thoroughfare for Brooklyn.
More importantly, it's two blocks--albeit across broad Atlantic Avenue from the Barclays Center surface parking lot and within walking distance of the arena.
There will be 3,000 employees at the building alone, from the Human Resources Administration, and location is near dense residential districts. It's a former tire factory turned telecom center, soon to include more housing.
What kind of retail?
So, will the retail be aimed at neighborhood residents, building employees/visitors, or arena-related traffic--or a bit of all? There will be up to 21,500 square feet of ground-floor retail, including 7,100 square feet at the corner of Atlantic and Vanderbilt Avenues.
That's big enough for a Hooters, and a real estate guy told The Local that Hooters scouts would be looking there.
Related content...
Real Estate Weekly, GFI brings Atlantic Yards retail corner to market
The building, located at the crossroads of Fort Greene, Prospect Heights and Clinton Hill, is also walking distance from the Atlantic Yards development. 470 Vanderbilt Avenue is steps from the 20,000 seat Barclays Center, home to the NBA’s Brooklyn Nets, and minutes away from the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Pratt Institute and the Brooklyn Campus of Long Island University.
The Local [Fort Greene/Clinton Hill], Owner Seeking ‘Slam Dunk’ for Dour Building Near Atlantic Yards
Mr. Havens said that Hooters real estate hunters would certainly be looking at 470 Vanderbilt as a location for their food-serving pinup calendar, which company officials say is named in homage to the owl, not the slang term for a female body part (or, more accurately, parts).
“It’s sexist and I would never go there, but anyone has a right to open any store,” Mr. Havens said. “And people like to forget, but people who go to sporting events go to Hooters.”
NY Daily News, Who gives a hoot about pretty girls as waitresses? It’s no reason to block Hooters from Brooklyn
Denis Hamill would go there, though — to research his hatred for Park Slopers.
Hooters is being unfairly targeted.
This is the new politically correct Brooklyn that is fast endorsing an oppressive Puritanism.
Hamill makes his case by claiming we haven't complained enough about some other Bruce Ratner fine-dining establishments.
Across the street from the new arena there's a Dunkin Donuts, Baskin Robbins, McDonald’s and Buffalo Wild Wings.
NoLandGrab: Exactly, Denis.
Posted by eric at 11:26 AM
May 1, 2012
BOUNCED! Brooklyn folks around Nets' new home say bra humbug to Hooters
Prospect Heights and Park Slope locals upset that curvy-server chain is hunting for digs, pleased they've been getting the brush
NY Daily News
by Kerry Burke, Lore Croghan and Joe Kemp
The Snooze needs three — yes, three — reporters to get the handle on Hooters.
A move by Hooters to open near the new Nets arena has gone bust so far — but brownstone Brooklyn is melting down at the very thought of the risque restaurant invading their neighborhood.
Hooters reps have been trolling through the stroller-friendly neighborhoods of Prospect Heights and Park Slope for a possible storefront — but local moms say they are ready for battle.
“It’s a disgusting national chain with bad beer and bad food,” said Lee Skaife, mother of a 13-year-old girl and a 9-year-old boy.
“It’s just not a family place.”
Hooters — which already has two locations in midtown and in Queens — is looking to cash in by luring Nets fans from the new Barclays Center at Atlantic Yards, which opens in September.
Posted by eric at 11:08 AM
April 30, 2012
Hooters Reportedly "Desperate" To Bring Boobs To Park Slope
Gothamist
by Garth Johnston
According to reports the chain has made unsuccessful plays for multiple properties in the area.
"I think they [Hooters] desperately want to open in the neighborhood, but I don’t think they’re going to on North Flatbush," Sharon Davidson, director of the North Flatbush BID, told Prospect Heights Patch when she confirmed that the restaurant had tried to get in at both the Triangle Sports building (across from the Atlantic Yards) and the Pintchik Paint and Hardware building a little further over.
We've contacted Hooters regarding their interest in the area, but have yet to hear back. Considering the upcoming arrival of the Nets—not to mention those Canz waitress poachers—we understand why they'd want to expand their foothold in the city beyond Midtown. They do have good wings.
Posted by eric at 10:38 AM
April 27, 2012
Community Board 6 committee urges restrictions on variance request for apartment building planned for Bergen Tile site across from arena
Atlantic Yards Report
Not so fast, a Community Board 6 committee said last night to those planning an apartment building at the Bergen Tile site across from the Barclays Center arena, mainly on busy Flatbush Avenue but also extending around to lower-scale--and quiet, for now--Dean Street.
The Landmarks/Land Use Committee urged restrictions on a developer's request for a variance to add density and eliminate parking from a six-story apartment building with nearly 55 units.
...While Atlantic Yards was brought up only a few times, it remains a context. Reprising remarks he made at another committee meeting earlier this week, board member Lou Sones observed, "A lot of people in this neighborhood have been basically screwed."
Either they were kicked out by eminent domain or are inundated by bars, he said, adding, "It was a lose-lose for everybody in the area."
Posted by eric at 12:15 PM
Triangle Sports Sold, ‘Neighborhood-Friendly’ Restaurant Coming In
The 97-year-old business across from Atlantic Yards will be closing its doors within weeks.
Park Slope Patch
by Amy Sara Clark
After just three months on the market, the iconic Triangle Sports building across from Atlantic Yards has been sold.
Owner Henry Rosa declined to name the buyer until the contract is completed, but confirmed that the new business will be “neighborhood friendly.”
...According to Sharon Davidson, director of the North Flatbush BID, there was a bidding war and the top five bidders were all restaurants. She said one of them was Hooters, but Rosa confirmed that Hooters is not the buyer.
Hooters also approached the nearby Pintchik Paint and Hardware about selling, but the hardware store turned them down, Davidson said, adding, "I think they (Hooters) desperately want to open in the neighborhood, but I don’t think they’re going to on North Flatbush."
Posted by eric at 12:08 PM
April 26, 2012
Regarding Kemistry liquor license application, Millman sends SLA letter urging recognition of concerns about bottle service and closing times
Atlantic Yards Report
Assemblywoman Joan Millman has backed Prospect Place residents' concerns about the pending state liquor license application from Kemistry Lounge, which on April 23 received a thumbs-down advisory vote from a committee of Community Board Six.
According to her April 24 letter to the State Liquor Authority (below), Millman is concerned about:
1) Bottle service: Kemistry Lounge wishes to be the second establishment in Brooklyn to offer bottle service. Bottle service drastically increases patrons’ incentive to drink and promotes dangerous levels of drunkenness.
2) Closing times: This establishment abuts a quiet residential block and is located near two day-care centers. A set of reasonable closing times must be established.
The proprietors and neighbors are far apart on the issue of closing times; for example, the former have requested a 3:30 am cutoff on weekends, while residents, as well as the North Flatbush Business Improvement District, asked for 2 am.
Posted by eric at 10:47 AM
April 25, 2012
Public hearing tomorrow on plan for Bergen Tile site at Flatbush and Dean
Atlantic Yards Report
A committee of Brooklyn Community Board 6 will hold a public hearing tomorrow at 6 pm regarding the application for an apartment building at the Bergen Tile site, at the corner of the north side of Flatbush Avenue and Dean Street opposite the Barclays Center (which is referred to as the southeast corner).
The applicant wants to waive required parking, which has caused community pushback, given the expected arena-related parking crunch, with no provision for residential permit parking. Then again, as surely will be argued, the site is very close to public transit, and parking requirements are increasingly seen as antiquated.
Posted by eric at 11:36 AM
The Barclays Center and Local Businesses
Journographica Class Blogs
by Adrian Szkolar
A Stony Brook University journalism student looks at small business hopes for a positive arena effect.
With the New Jersey Nets set to relocate to Brooklyn this upcoming September, local businesses have a sense of hope that with fans flocking to the games, there will be more potential customers.
...“I’m positive there is some impact,” said Asandoh Jones, an instructor at New York Chess and Games, a local chess shop on Flatbrush Avenue which mainly relies on revenue from chess lessons. “The question is, we’re wondering how good it will be for business, it certainly can’t hurt.”
NoLandGrab: Jobs, Housing & Chess!
Posted by eric at 11:15 AM
No ‘Kemistry’ — Slope group votes no on club’s liquor license
The Brooklyn Paper
by Natalie O'Neill
A proposed nightclub called Kemistry Lounge features some bad elements, according to a civic group representing Brownstone Brooklyn.
A Community Board 6 committee voted unanimously on Monday to reject a liquor license request for a sprawling Flatbush Avenue venue near the soon-to-open Barclays Center after neighbors complained it would bring noise and nuisance to the community.
The proposed live music venue — which wants to offer bottle service and dancing — would keep nearby residents awake at all hours and bombard a neighborhood that’s already oversaturated with boozy nightlife establishments, committee members said.
“People in the area feel more and more put upon — there’s been a cumulative element when it comes to liquor license applications,” said CB6’s Gary Reilly.
NoLandGrab: No doubt the Empire State Development Corporation believes that liquor license applications near the Barclays Center are at "acceptable levels."
Posted by eric at 11:06 AM
April 24, 2012
Community Board 6 committee disapproves Kemistry Lounge liquor license application; would be second bottle-service club in the borough (video)
Atlantic Yards Report
After hearing passionate criticism about the planned Kemistry Lounge on Flatbush Avenue near Prospect Place, the Community Board 6 Public Safety/Environmental Protection/Permits/Licenses committee voted to disapprove a liquor license application, agreeing with concerns expressed about late night hours and what would be only the second bottle-service club in the borough--and the first one particularly close to residences.
Here's a summary of concerns from Prospect Place Neighbors, a new organization formed in response to the application, which points out that the location is within 500 feet of eight establishments with full liquor licenses and on a block with six storefronts of preschool facilities. (Here's their press kit.)
The lounge would be a few short blocks from the Barclays Center, clearly a generator of patrons.
The committee's vote is only advisory, and the State Liquor Authority (SLA) has the final call.
Related coverage...
Park Slope Patch, Community Board 6 Rejects Kemistry Lounge’s Liquor License Application
On Monday night, Community Board 6’s liquor license committee voted to reject Kemistry Lounge’s liquor license application, with a final vote of 12 in favor to reject, zero opposed and 2 abstentions.
Kemistry Lounge at 260 Flatbush Avenue, which is not open and still under construction, is located between Prospect Place and St Marks Avenue and plans to be a 225-person upscale lounge with bottle service at tables, a private party room with a dance floor in the basement and live music and DJs.
But the aspect that disturbed the residents of Prospect Place the most was the fact that the establishment runs from Flatbush Avenue to Prospect Place and has three large plate glass windows and an exit on to the residential street.
...“There is going to be a lot less thump, thump, thumping than you guys think,” [Kemistry co-owner James] Brown said. “We are not a nightclub.”
But with bottle service, a 225-person capacity, live music and DJs, Lou Somes, a member of CB6, said it is hard to believe that Kemistry won’t at least be “like a club.”
“The bottom line is that it looks like a nightclub, it smells like a nightclub and I have a problem with having something like a nightclub in this area,” Somes said.
Posted by eric at 12:13 PM
NYU, NYC, MTA reach deal for 370 Jay Street
2nd Ave. Sagas
by Benjamin Kabak
The MTA’s headquarters at 370 Jay Street will be a blight no more upon Downtown Brooklyn. After a decade of wrangling, political proclamations and unfunded plans to renovate the building, the MTA has agreed to surrender its lease on the building to the city, and in return, the city will provide NYU with the opportunity to turn the building into an applied sciences center in the heart of a rapidly growing neighborhood.
...According to the Mayor’s Office, NYU will pay the MTA $50 million relocation expenses. The NYPD, another tenant, will receive $10 million. The university will then pay $1 per year in rent while receiving a series of tax breaks as well. That’s quite the deal for the city.
...When NYU first announced its plans to open a science center in Brooklyn, the university originally offered the MTA $20 million to vacate its premises. The authority, no longer willing to roll over and die as it did with the Atlantic Yards air rights, dug in and asked for $50 million. With prodding from the Mayor, NYU gave in, and the MTA will begin to move out later this year.
Related coverage...
Atlantic Yards Report, Learning from the Vanderbilt Yard: MTA does not "roll over and die" when it makes Brooklyn deal with NYU
So, it looks like (too late) the Metropolitan Transportation Authority is doing better at negotiating than it did with Forest City Ratner.
...I commented on Second Avenue Sagas to clarify that the MTA sold air rights to its Vanderbilt Yard, which were air rights for (part of) the Atlantic Yards project. Some people reading “the Atlantic Yards air rights” might think that the MTA property (8.5 acres) represented the entire 22-acre project.
Posted by eric at 11:28 AM
April 23, 2012
Community Board 6 committee tonight hears presentations on liquor license applications for Kemistry Lounge and Barclays Center
Atlantic Yards Report
The last two items on the long agenda for a Community Board 6 Public Safety/Environmental Protection/Permits/Licenses committee meeting tonight involve a controversial venue near the Barclays Center and the arena itself, about which the committee postponed a vote, requesting further community outreach:
Continued presentation and review of an on-premises liquor license application submitted to the State Liquor Authority on behalf of Kemistry Entertainment Group dba Kemistry Lounge at 260 Flatbush Avenue (between St. Mark's / Prospect Places).
Continued presentation and review of an on-premises liquor license application submitted to the State Liquor Authority on behalf of Levy Premium Foodservice, LP and Brooklyn Events Center, LLC at the Barclays Center, 620 Atlantic Avenue (between Flatbush/5th Avenues).
The meeting starts at 6:30 pm. The location:
Prospect Park YMCA
357 9th Street, 7th floor
(between 5th & 6th Avenues)
Posted by eric at 12:13 PM
April 19, 2012
Impact of Atlantic Yards arena, actually, will be felt a lot more when new/empty spaces get filled
Atlantic Yards Report
Has the advent of the Barclays Center really changed retail in the blocks around it?
That was the theme of a misguided Times article Tuesday, which focused significantly on gentrification-led change (see the map below, highlighting small establishments), while missing the fact that such change had nothing to do with reclaiming the enduring "scar" of the Vanderbilt Yard.
The map even missed the burger boom outlined by the Brooklyn Paper, which, that article suggests, is partly driven by the arena for Five Guys, but not for 67 Burger.
Meanwhile, the Times scanted the opportunity to address issues of accountability, such as the five-month delay in the Transportation Demand Management plan or the Appellate Division's smackdown of the Empire State Development Corporation. And that raises questions about whether local officials are prepared to address arena impacts on the residential blocks.
What's coming
While the area around the Barclays Center is changing, and there's significant retail demand for open spaces, what struck me last night as I walked Flatbush Avenue is how much more change there will be.
There are several major spaces empty, or not yet open, unmentioned in the Times's oddly-focused map....
Posted by eric at 11:52 AM
April 18, 2012
Love-Hating Brooklyn and the Atlantic Yards
Curbed NY
by Dave Hogarty
The half-assed New York Times piece on the arena effect spawns more, since it's The Times.
For all of its winking fun, however, the Times does point out that the neighborhood around the Atlantic Yards is walking a tightrope between bemoaning rapid change and getting caught in the doldrums of protracted development. Massive plans that were meant to utterly transform the Atlantic Yards over 10 years are now projected to take 25 years, forcing residents to "tolerate vacant lots, above-ground arena parking and Phase II construction staging for decades."
Related coverage...
Planetizen, Nowhere Near Completion, Brooklyn's Mega-Development is Already Changing the Neighborhood
Brownstoner, Atlantic Yards Effect: Is it Changing Retail For the Worse?
Crain's Cleveland Business, Forest City's Atlantic Yards project brings change to Brooklyn
Posted by eric at 10:32 AM
Will A Bigger, Taller, Rezoned Midtown Be Bloomberg's Legacy?
Gothamist
by Garth Johnston
Mayor Bloomberg has made many plays over his two-and-a-half terms at leaving a lasting physical legacy, but none really worked out. The maybe-too-short One World Trade isn't really his, the Jets stadium never happened (and neither did the Olympics), Atlantic Yards is enriching a few while alienating many of the locals—and don't even get us started on CityTime. So what's a billionaire from Boston to do? Well, according to the Daily News, try and rush through rezoning to rebuild the area around Grand Central taller! Sleeker! With less soul! Yup, views of the Chrysler Building could soon be but a memory.
Posted by eric at 10:26 AM
April 17, 2012
Atlantic Yards Changed Brooklyn Long Ago, Says NYT [POLL]
The transformation of Brooklyn has already been felt in the Atlantic Yards project – and the first phase, the Barclays Center, hasn't even been completed.
Park Slope Patch
by Jamie Schuh
...the Times says that the changes are evidence that the project has accomplished its goal of transforming the Long Island Rail Road’s dreary rail yards and surrounding industrial buildings, described by Forest City Ratner spokesman Joe DePlasco as “a scar that divided the neighborhood.”
But would these changes have happened on their own, anyway? Other Brooklyn neighborhoods, like Williamsburg and DUMBO, blossomed with high-rise condos and artisanal cocktail bars long ago. Vote in our poll below, or let us know your thoughts in the comments.
NoLandGrab: The guy who mostly pays DePlasco's salary, Bruce Ratner, could himself be described as a "scar that divided the neighborhood" — except that with probably 9 out of every 10 residents loathing him, that hardly counts as "divided."
Posted by eric at 11:06 PM
April 10, 2012
Slope battles another bar near Barclays
The Brooklyn Paper
by Natalie O'Neill
Park Slope residents say a planned music venue just blocks from the soon-to-open Barclays Center gives new meaning to the term “bad chemistry.”
Neighbors of the proposed Kemistry Lounge on Flatbush Avenue say a venue with live performances, DJs, a full bar, dancing, and an exit on a residential block of Prospect Place will bring noise and ruckus to their quiet community.
“It’s disruptive; it turns the street into liquor lane,” said neighbor Harold Gruber. “It’s going to make it impossible to sleep.
NoLandGrab: Speaking of liquor lane, don't forget the Barclays Center liquor-license hearing tonight at the 78th Precinct, 65 Sixth Avenue, at 6:30 p.m.
Posted by eric at 11:51 AM
April 6, 2012
Brooklyn Broadside: What Will Downtown Brooklyn Look Like in the Year 2012?
Brooklyn Daily Eagle
by Dennis Holt
The veteran Eagle columnist swallows a handful of mushrooms and predicts the future of Brooklyn development.
With all the development underway again in Downtown Brooklyn, Williamsburg and elsewhere, maybe it’s time for some crystal ball gazing. I’ve picked 2022, 10 years away, because it is safer than picking five years hence.
Andrew Cuomo will be in his second term as president, having been renominated at the 2020 Democratic convention held at Barclays Center. Christine Quinn will have just completed her second term as mayor, and Marilyn Gelber will be in her second term as Brooklyn borough president.
God help us on those first two. Marilyn would be a giant upgrade over the current situation, however.
Can you guess the one topic on which the great prognosticator's Magic 8-Ball keeps returning a "Reply Hazy - Try Again?"
But even I cannot predict how the building of the full Atlantic Yards project will proceed — or when.
Posted by eric at 11:02 AM
April 5, 2012
If Downtown Brooklyn office space has a "staggering 26.8% availability" (as per The Real Deal), what does that say about the projected Atlantic Yards office space?
Atlantic Yards Report
Remember how the four Atlantic Yards office towers were a slam dunk, according to Forest City Ratner's paid consultant, sports economist Andrew Zimbalist, because office space as of 2004 was supposed to be doing fine?
Well, The Real Deal reports on Brooklyn’s Class A woes: Borough’s Downtown market sees highest availability in office space in more than a decade. The article does leave out some important context:
- that the demand for office space drove the Downtown Brooklyn rezoning, which instead enabled residential towers and hotels
- that the promised Atlantic Yards office space was crucial to the count of permanent jobs and the total tax revenue
The number of planned office towers at the AY site was cut from four to one, but that one building hasn't been developed, without an anchor tenant.
So, the article suggests that Bruce Ratner's snappy comment to Crain's New York Business in November 2009--"Can you tell me when we are going to need a new office tower?"--remains very much valid.
Perhaps the only true words Bruce has ever uttered.
As I wrote in March 2006, Zimbalist, while predicting Atlantic Yards would eventually create 1.9 million square feet of first-class office space, made no mention of a study of Downtown Brooklyn redevelopment issued a month earlier, which estimated a glut of office space.
In their June 2004 critique, Gustav Peebles and Jung Kim pointed out that Zimbalist didn't point out how so much of the then-well-occupied Class A office space in Brooklyn is at Forest City Ratner's MetroTech development, which has relied heavily on subsidies and government tenants to fill the space.
Posted by eric at 11:06 AM
Brooklyn’s Class A woes
Borough’s Downtown market sees highest availability in office space in more than a decade
The Real Deal
by Adam Pincus
The Atlantic Yards office tower(s), and its bogus 10,000 permanent jobs, coming never.
The office market in Downtown Brooklyn was once going strong with a full slate of long-term leases, and a roster of financial firms like Bear Stearns & Company, which were locating back offices there to flee expensive Manhattan rents.
But today its high 90 percent occupancy rate masks a staggering 26.8 percent availability rate — from downsizing tenants and expiring leases in its 8 million square feet of modern, Class A office buildings. That’s according to fourth-quarter 2011 figures, the most recent available from commercial firm Jones Lang LaSalle.
The growth of vacant and available space has been a long time in the making, as financial firms reduced head counts, moved staff overseas, or decamped to New Jersey.
...The availability rate — measuring space vacant now or available over the next 12 months — in Downtown Brooklyn’s modern office space is among the highest in the nation.
Developer and landlord Forest City Ratner controls most of the market, with about 5.2 million square feet in six buildings. Most of those buildings are in the Metro Tech Center complex, as well as three additional buildings, including 1 Pierrepont Plaza.
Forest City has just 3 percent vacancy in its portfolio, data from CoStar Group shows. But it acknowledged that about 18 percent of the portfolio is available, either directly through Forest City or indirectly through existing companies in the form of a sublease.
NoLandGrab: There's a shocker — Forest City Ratner officially claiming a low vacancy rate, while reality begs to differ.
Posted by eric at 10:56 AM
Vacant Lot and Warehouse Snatched Up for Millions in Prospect Heights
Could developers be moving to turn a Prospect Place warehouse and an Atlantic Yards-area vacant lot into new residential buildings?
Prospect Heights Patch
by Jamie Schuh
Vulnerable Prospect Heights residents who weren't removed by Bruce Ratner's bulldozers will likely be finished off by the Atlantic Yards gentrification wave.
Prospect Heights recently saw two big real estate transactions, though with uncertain plans, it’s difficult to tell whether or not the neighborhood will see new residential units, or possibly a large commercial space.
A warehouse at 363-371 Prospect Place, between Underhill and Washington avenues, sold to a Manhattan-based developer for $4.2 million, says Brownstoner. The building is 30,000 square feet, with frontage on both Prospect Place and St. Marks Avenue, says the blog. Last December, the Department of Buildings shut down plans for a residential conversion and two-story addition (for 44 proposed units), but since the building has been under contract since June 2011, “those plans may still be in the cards,” says Brownstoner.
Borough Builders, Inc. bought the vacant residential land just a block from Atlantic Yards at 650-654 Bergen Street (between Vanderbilt and Underhill Avenues) for $2.7 million in an all-cash transaction, a record for 22,270 square feet of buildable area, says CoStar Group. The post says that there were no approved plans, no foundation in place and no tax abatement on the parcel.
Posted by eric at 10:19 AM
April 4, 2012
Let’s Make a Deal! How Mike’s Mild-Mannered Closer Seth Pinsky Got the City Building Again
Dan Doctoroff's protégée picks up the mantle for PlaNYC.
The New York Observer
by Nitasha Tiku
If picking up the mantle for PlaNYC means building lots of parking lots, then Seth Pinsky is right on track.
“There are no permanent obstacles with Seth,” said Mr. Doctoroff. Mr. Lieber put it more bluntly: “He wears the other guy out.”
Some blame that stance for the chaotic denouement of the tech campus competition. “There’s a line that Stanford left because Seth was too difficult to deal with,” the source said. Those privy to negotiations say Stanford was taken aback by the binding legal penalties involving factors outside of their control.
“I’m not sure anyone really knows what happened there,” Mr. Pinsky said. “I think developers are used to dealing with cities that just write a check and say, ‘Will you just swear on a Bible that you’ll do this?’”
Bruce Ratner is used to dealing that way, anyway.
Meanwhile, community advocates and urban planners decry the EDC’s corporate structure and lack of transparency. “They pass for being a government agency, and in fact they have more power than many of the line agencies under the mayor,” said Tom Angotti, director of the Center for Community Planning and Development at Hunter College and the author of New York for Sale, who noted that by the time neighborhoods are consulted, the EDC has typically already made up its mind.
“If [closing deals] is the only criterion, he’s been a success. But for me that’s not the only criteria, nor should it be for the public. The question is what’s the quality of the deals,” added Mr. Angotti, a technical advisor to the alternative plans for the arena at Atlantic Yards. He cited the Brooklyn stadium as an example of selecting a more suburbanized approach over a plan that would benefit locals. “It divides three neighborhoods instead of uniting them and it just creates another giant super block in the middle of Brooklyn.”
Posted by eric at 11:50 AM
April 2, 2012
Another planned bar/lounge on Flatbush Avenue, Kemistry, provokes concern over exit on residential street, "nightclub" plans
Atlantic Yards Report
We'd missed this story last week, and planned to post it today, but Norman Oder beat us to the punch — as per usual.
Not surprisingly, there's another controversy over a lounge/nightclub planned near the Barclays Center arena at a location that fronts on busy Flatbush Avenue but had a rear exist on a residential street.
In this case, as described by Park Slope Patch and Brownstoner last week, it's The Kemistry Lounge International, which has a placeholder website, but a Facebook page, now offline (but cached), alarmed some neighbors.
(The name, as pointed out by a Brownstoner commenter, is apparently a nod to Kem Owens. The location is 260 Flatbush Avenue, noted on the map.)
The concerns
The main concerns seem to be:
- whether there will be an exit onto Prospect Place
- whether the 245-person capacity space will be a nightclub with rowdy people out late
The first issue seems relatively straightforward: bar owners told Brownstoner that the back exit would be used only as an emergency exit. Surely that can be negotiated.
The second issue may be tougher to pin down. If the lounge will have dancing only for private events, as Patch reported, how often would they be? If, in the words of co-owner James Brown, "It won't be a nightclub," what does that mean?
Related coverage...
Park Slope Patch, Nabes Don’t Want Upscale Lounge on Flatbush Ave.
Prospect Place is a quaint and quiet residential block—and most of the neighborhood wants to keep it that way.
Last night, at the Community Board 6's permits and licenses committee, twenty or so residents of the tree-lined street voiced serious concerns about the proposed 245-person capacity restaurant and bar/lounge called Kemistry Lounge, which is on Flatbush between Sixth Avenue and Prospect Place.
...Joe Marvel, who has been living on Prospect Place since 1975 and lives right next to the new development’s plate glass exit on Prospect Place, is worried about his quality of life.
“The whole neighborhood will be affected by this place’s throbbing music at all hours of the night and there will be an uptick of loitering and urinating,” Marvel said. “In no way are we opposed to business, but we are opposed to clubs.”
...After the meeting, Kemistry's James Brown said he wasn’t discouraged, but rather that a negative reaction was “par for the course.”
“I think it is good and the community’s concerns are legitimate,” Brown said. “We want to make changes and adapt our environment to their concerns so we can work and live together.”
Brownstoner, Slope Residents Worry About Another Arena-Area Club
Posted by eric at 10:43 AM
March 31, 2012
After Atlantic Terrace sells out condos, a search for a restaurant or gastropub close to arena for ground-floor space
Atlantic Yards Report
Brownstoner reported March 29:
Atlantic Terrace, the co-op on Atlantic Avenue with both market- and affordable-rates units, has sold out. The buildings hits the milestone about one-and-a-half years after hitting the market. Heather Gershen, the director of the Fifth Avenue Committee, said “we’re very pleased from both the timing and the pricing perspective” and that all units are expected to close within the year.
It obviously took longest to sell the market-rate units; I pointed out last October that the pricing was way less than Forest City once expected, though if Forest City's modular plan comes to fruition, its costs will be lower, and the prices also will fall.
Related coverage...
Brownstoner, All 80 Units Have Sold at the Atlantic Terrace Co-op
Atlantic Terrace, the co-op on Atlantic Avenue with both market- and affordable-rates units, has sold out. The buildings hits the milestone about one-and-a-half years after hitting the market.
NoLandGrab: The affordable-housing score — Atlantic Terrace 60, Atlantic Yards 0... despite the latter being announced four years before Atlantic Terrace even broke ground.
Posted by eric at 11:21 PM
March 28, 2012
Sweet charity: Domino builder gave $100,000 to pro-development W’burg groups
The Brooklyn Paper
by Aaron Short
Whoda thunk it? A developer buying off community groups? In Brooklyn?
The developer behind a plan to build apartments at the former Domino Sugar factory spent at least $100,000 courting Williamsburg community groups that later supported controversial plans to allow residential construction at the industrial site, The Brooklyn Paper has learned.
Community Preservation Corporation Resources — which is fighting to avoid foreclosing on the massive waterfront plot where it hopes to build 2,200 apartments and retail space — doled out donations of between $9,000 and $30,000 to organizations that subsequently backed the Domino project from February 2008 to December 2009, months before its campaign to rezone the site, court filings reveal.
The currently cash-strapped developer says the donations, which it calls “public reputation” money, simply prove that it is invested in the neighborhood. But attorney and civic watchdog Norman Siegel said the donations suggest an instance of quid pro quo.
...The money went to groups including Southside United Housing, a Williamsburg housing developer; Catholic Charities, a Diocese-affiliated social services organization; El Puente, a Williamsburg youth and activism institution; Churches United, a defunct religious social services outfit; and Keren Ezer, an Orthodox nonprofit. The developers also donated money to the Brooklyn Philharmonic, an orchestra based in DUMBO.
Each group collected a $10,000 check except Catholic Charities, which received $9,000, and Churches United, which brought in $30,000.
NoLandGrab: Well, at least all the groups were extant before the project was announced — which is not the case with all big Brooklyn real estate projects.
Posted by eric at 11:01 PM
March 27, 2012
The NYU expansion plan provokes debate, as well as support for expansion in Downtown Brooklyn; NYU urged to set up a community advisory committee
Atlantic Yards Report
There's another big land use plan/dispute out there: the expansion of New York University, with the main controversy regarding its plans for Greenwich Village, where 2.5 million square feet (of 6 million total in the city) are projected by 2031.
The Leonard Lopate Show yesterday featured a mostly critical (with no NYU rep) assessment of the plan. New York Times architecture critic Michael Kimmelman on March 25 gave it a thumbs up-and-down treatment.
...On the Lopate Show, two critics, NYU faculty member [Mark Crispin] Miller and Community Board 2 Chairman Brad Hoylman were joined by Municipal Art Society President Vin Cipolla, whose organization takes a mixed view on the expansion.
Lopate twice mentioned the MAS's criticisms of the Atlantic Yards plan, as if not recognizing that the organization is no longer in the fray, as I commented.
But there is a lesson for the area...
Posted by eric at 11:42 AM
March 24, 2012
Looking at development around the arena site: new "center of gravity" for Brooklyn?
Atlantic Yards Report
So, I'm catching up on the March 21 Times Real Estate section article In Barclays Center’s Shadow, Awaiting What’s Next:
Indeed, among real estate professionals, the mood around the Barclays Center — the only part of the controversial Atlantic Yards project that has come to fruition — could best be described as optimistic uncertainty....
...Instead, stores are on year-to-year leases, or even month-to-month, as landlords wait to see what changes the behemoth brings. That has given the neighborhood a somewhat ragtag quality, even as other thoroughfares in and around downtown Brooklyn have flourished.
But that is likely to change. Cyril Aouizerate, the owner of Mama Shelter, a stylish boutique hotel in the outlying 20th Arrondissement of Paris, said he was “90 percent sure” he would be opening a Mama Shelter at a site near the arena. Mr. Aouizerate said he had rejected neighborhoods like Williamsburg as “too bourgeois-bohème,” in favor of the less established Boerum Hill area, where he is negotiating with property owners.
Though he is aware that the building is named for a bank and will house a basketball team, he said, "I’m more interested in the fact that Jay-Z is involved."
“That’s a name,” he said, “that we can sell to customers around the world.”
Let's see how they market that one--maybe along with "Brooklynized" water?
Posted by steve at 6:45 PM
March 23, 2012
Collapse Kills Worker
Two Others Injured While Razing Warehouse for Columbia University Expansion
The Wall Street Journal
by Pervaiz Shallwani
It's never the Lee Bollingers or the Bruce Ratners who are victimized by their own dirty work — it's the poor working stiffs who have to carry it out.
A nearly century-old warehouse that was being demolished to make way for Columbia University's expansion into Harlem collapsed on Thursday, killing a construction worker and injuring two others, the city's top buildings official said.
A preliminary city investigation found that workers cut a structural beam supporting the remains of what had been a two-story warehouse on West 131st Street. The section crumpled, burying the men in a cascade of steel beams, bricks and reinforced concrete.
...The warehouse, built in 1915, was being razed for Columbia University's expansion into a 17-acre site just north of the main campus. The extension will include classrooms, research facilities and administrative offices. The City Council approved the project in 2007.
The project has riled some neighborhood residents and local business owners, who have been especially critical of the decision to seize private property for the expansion. Coincidentally, a protest against the project had been scheduled for Thursday night.
...Juan Ruiz, 69 years old, was one of the first men to be rescued but later died at St. Luke's Hospital.
The two injured workers, King Range, 50, and Sakim Kirby, 30, were in serious condition at the hospital. All three had been conscious when they were taken from the site.
NoLandGrab: Our condolences to Mr. Ruiz's family and friends, and hopes for speedy and full recovery for Mr. Range and Mr. Kirby.
Posted by eric at 11:40 AM
March 21, 2012
New Domino project embroiled in lawsuit
Atlantic Yards Report
This is what happens when, unlike Forest City Ratner, you're not sufficiently creative in finding new financing.
From Crain's New York Business, Domino sugar plans on verge of meltdown:
Relations between the two firms redeveloping the Domino sugar factory site along the Williamsburg, Brooklyn, waterfront began to sour almost from the start, according to a lawsuit filed earlier this month. Now, they are on the verge of a total meltdown that could scuttle the entire project.
NoLandGrab: It saves neighborhood activists money when the developers just sue each other.
Posted by eric at 7:16 PM
Views From the Market Top
The Wall Street Journal
by Laura Kusisto
Bruce Ratner has yet to break ground for a single one of his promised 2,250 units of Atlantic Yards affordable housing. Meanwhile, at "Nouveau Riche by Gehry"...
In the next six to eight weeks, the three penthouses at New York by Gehry, a Manhattan rental tower twisting 76 stories into the sky, will hit the market at a price that would make most apartment-hunters blanch: $40,000 to $60,000 a month.
Haha! I think we can see the little people way down there!
Above the 52nd floor at New York by Gehry, 50% of tenants earn more than $500,000 a year and 20% earn more than $1 million, Mr. Finn said. The concierge has entertained—and fulfilled—requests for everything from hiring Cirque du Soleil performers for a private dinner party to chartering a private plane for a lobster-tasting.
Posted by eric at 10:11 AM
March 19, 2012
Sweet movie: Domino doc explores controversial project
The Brooklyn Paper
by Aaron Short
An interview with the filmmakers behind the new documentary The Domino Effect.
Who’s ultimately to blame for the rezoning of the site and the stalled project?
Daniel Phelps: Mayor Bloomberg’s policies. The mayor gave up all hope for manufacturing.
Brian Paul: They would not have broken ground on the waterfront without real estate interests in the city. The mayor measures economic development by Frank Gehry buildings.
Posted by eric at 11:01 AM
March 15, 2012
Behind the sale of New Domino: an overextended developer (without Ratner's survival skills)
Atlantic Yards Report
It turns out that the proposed sale of the stalled New Domino project is just the tip of the iceberg. Last month, the developer defaulted on its $125 million New Domino loan, according to a blockbuster story by the New York Times's Charles Bagli.
The article explains how the Community Preservation Corporation, which historically used bank loans to build or rehab rent-regulated apartments, put way too much money into it condo projects, through its nonprofit arm, CPC Resources.
And personal ambition/greed seemed to be a spur:
The investments were spearheaded by Community Preservation’s longtime leader, Michael D. Lappin, whose salary and bonuses rose to $1.1 million as he pushed the group into riskier ventures. Some were financed by Community Preservation, others by its for-profit spinoff, which paid part of Mr. Lappin’s salary.
No wonder the developer went into business on New Domino with Isaac Katan, a developer whose track record generated significant criticism.
Bagli writes that nearly two-thirds of the condo loans were delinquent, and Lappin was forced into retirement. The organization has closed office, cut senior executives' salaries nearly in half, and fired 40 percent of its staff.
So, what didn't New Domino do that Bruce Ratner did? Get a low-interest loan from immigrant investors via the EB-5 program. And that--I speculate--is because there was no construction going on and thus no way to claim economic activity and job creation.
Related content...
The New York Times, Lured by Visions of Real Estate Profits, Nonprofit Group Stumbled
Posted by eric at 12:37 PM
March 13, 2012
Stalled New Domino project said to be for sale. As with Atlantic Yards, there's a documentary. And the city stonewalled on affordable housing.
Atlantic Yards Report
Um, remember the New Domino plan, the second-biggest project in Brooklyn, a special rezoning for the Williamsburg waterfront that allowed more density for the developer in exchange for--of course--affordable housing?
The project that relied on a celebrity architect and churches that could organize their members to press for the project? 2200 apartments, with 660 of them subsidized? The carrot of new waterfront open space? A historic structure preserved and transformed?
Well, in a not-completely surprising echo of Atlantic Yards, the project is A) stalled for 18 months after approval, though not without promise, and B) inspiring a documentary. (I wrote in July 2007 about the initial echoes.)
But now, according to the Commercial Observer, the site's for sale:
“We are pursuing various options that will achieve our goals: to realize value for ourselves and our partners, and to insure that development is consistent with all project entitlements,” a statement from a company spokesman read in response to The Commercial Observer.
Note that the project, when built, may be worth $2 billion, but the sales tag surely isn't that number.
The Domino Effect
The Domino Effect, by Daniel Phelps, Megan Sperry, and Brian Paul, is in its finishing stages, but the trailer tells a story that is not unfamiliar.
What's especially sobering--and I don't know how much is in the film--how activists in Williamsburg tried to learn from Atlantic Yards but still got shot down. As I describe below, they could not get guarantees of the promised affordable housing or get clear answers on why the rezoning was justified.
Related coverage...
The Commercial Observer, Domino Sugar Factory Site Up For Sale
Posted by eric at 1:19 PM
Retail ripples from Atlantic Yards
Nearby eateries see a temporary uptick in business, but not everyone is happy
The Real Deal
by Lana Bortolot
Workers from the under-construction Barclays Center are taking a bite out of the surrounding Brooklyn neighborhood.
Every weekday around noon, the streets around the Prospect Heights site are awash with construction workers heading to their favorite nearby lunch spots. Take-out joints and bodegas, like Gino’s Pizzeria at 218 Flatbush Avenue and AR Coffee Shop on Fifth Avenue and Dean Street, are seeing a steady stream of construction workers come in. At Bergen Bagels, on the corner of Bergen Street and Flatbush Avenue, lines spill out the door each morning, as workers pick up bagels and coffee on their way to the rising arena, which is slated to open in September.
But local business owners have mixed feelings about the temporary uptick in traffic.
Bergen Bagels owner Raj Nandy said the current rush of construction workers isn’t necessarily good for business in the long term, since neighborhood residents may be deterred by the long lines and start patronizing his competitors instead.
“It’s good and it’s bad,” Nandy said. “I’m losing a lot of regular customers.”
...But retail stores aren’t seeing the same boost in traffic — at least not yet. And some say the construction is actually hurting business. Joy Demesa, who works at 21-year-old Furniture House at 170 Flatbush Avenue, said customers have trouble parking near the store as a result of construction. “Parking was always a problem, and now it’s even worse,” she said.
Posted by eric at 12:40 PM
March 12, 2012
Report on Meier's On Prospect Park condo building again confirms KPMG lies in Atlantic Yards market study
Atlantic Yards Report
Speaking of "see no evil, hear no evil..."
A New York Times Real Estate section article yesterday, Boldface Buildings in the Cold Light of Now describes sales at what they call Richard Meier's "1 Grand Army Plaza" but was once marketed as "On Prospect Park" and is marketed now as "Richard Meier on Prospect Park.":
Brown Harris has lowered prices on many units, and the glass tower is now nearly 80 percent sold, with an average sale price of about $900 per square foot, respectable for Prospect Heights. “It’s not as successful as originally planned,” Mr. [Stephen] Kliegerman [of Terra Development Marketing] said. “But that might have been overzealous.”
(The website, btw, says "over 80% sold.")
The KPMG report
Why is this all important? Because the KPMG Atlantic Yards Market study done for Empire State Development, some 2.5 years old, claimed that the building was already 75% sold. Actually, as I reported, the figure was somewhere between 25% and 50%.
The report, suggesting a robust market for luxury condos, was key to the state agency concluding that Atlantic Yards could be built in a decade--now highly unlikely.
NoLandGrab: KPMG is to Forest City Ratner as Arthur Andersen is was to Enron.
Posted by eric at 11:05 AM
February 27, 2012
Commercial Rents Rise Near Barclays Site
All About Fifth
According to the Park Slope Patch, commercial rents near the Barclays Center have doubled over the past few months and vacant spaces are filling up fast.
This certainly seems like good news for properties near Flatbush Avenue and there is plenty of evidence that the arena is attracting businesses to vacant spaces on the northern end of Fifth Avenue.
The question is, will these rent increases make their way south along Fifth, towards Union Street and, if so, can stores, bars and restaurants make money under these circumstances?
NoLandGrab: Sure, if they're artisanal mom 'n' pops like McDonald's and Pizza Hut..
Posted by eric at 9:18 AM
February 24, 2012
Before a Dribble, Real Estate Scores Points
The Wall Street Journal
by Kavita Mokha
For Sharon Davidson, whose job includes encouraging businesses to set up shop in downtown Brooklyn, there is no difficulty in pinpointing the biggest change in her work.
"Five years ago, it was difficult to get anyone to rent in this district," said Ms. Davidson, executive director of the North Flatbush Business Improvement District. "Now with the arena, the rents have doubled and I get calls from people who want to move to this area."
The arena, of course, is Barclays Center, the future home of the New Jersey Nets that is scheduled to open in September. But the complex, part of a larger planned business and residential development, has already touched off a significant spurt in commercial and residential real-estate activity spreading out from the junction of Atlantic and Flatbush avenues.
"On every corridor and street that leads to the arena, there is a rush for retail space," said Paul Zumoff, an agent with Corcoran Group and an area resident.
Not everyone is happy about the gentrification bonanza, however.
"It's great for the landlord—it's like they found oil," said Sury Mukherjee, owner of Mondini Fashion, a clothing store that has been on Pacific Street for 33 years. "The arena will bring more business here, but some of us will be outta here by then."
Mr. Mukherjee added that he didn't have a long-term lease and has been told to expect a four-month termination notice from his landlord.
...And while some local area residents welcome the changes in the pipeline, others remain skeptical.
"I moved here five years ago because it had a family vibe to it," said 35-year-old Marta Betancourt, a graphic designer who lives on Flatbush Avenue with her husband and two children. "I'm not sure how the neighborhood will absorb a Madison Square Garden-type complex smack in the middle of it."
NoLandGrab: Actually, the North Flatbush Avenue BID covers the stretch from Atlantic Avenue to Plaza Street, not "downtown Brooklyn," which begins north of Atlantic.
Related coverage...
Crain's NY Business, Barclays Center is a slam dunk for real estate
Posted by eric at 11:15 AM
February 23, 2012
Planned parking-free apartments near Barclays Center stoke fear
The Brooklyn Paper
by Daniel Bush
A developer promises he’s doing the community a favor by not including parking at his planned 55-unit apartment building across the street from the Barclays Center, but Prospect Heights residents say he’s only making things worse.
Martin Domansky claims he wants to do away with required on-site parking at his proposed apartment building on Flatbush Avenue and Dean Street to discourage car owners from moving to the traffic-clogged streets near the soon-to-be-finished home of the Brooklyn Nets.
“We want to make it a better neighborhood,” said Domansky, who is planning a $20-million five-story luxury rental complex that will replace the blue, triangle-shaped Bergen Tile factory, which closed in 2008.
NoLandGrab: Domansky is exactly right. A parking-free building will attract people who don't have or want to own cars. Build parking, and the cars — and congestion — will follow.
Posted by eric at 11:12 AM
February 22, 2012
Brooklyn Broadside: Downtown Building Boom Could Be a Planning Nightmare
Brooklyn Daily Eagle
by Dennis Holt
Look who's just catching on — sort of.
The Steiner brothers’ announcement last week of their plans to build a large apartment building in Downtown Brooklyn has prompted a review of what’s been built, what is being constructed and what is being planned.
The result is astonishing. Within a 2-square-mile area that includes the Downtown core and part of Fort Greene down to Atlantic Avenue, 7,362 new residential units will soon be going up. As we show later, many additional potential and intended units are excluded from that number.
...Take out a map and walk around this general area. Look at the narrow sidewalks and narrow streets and imagine the infrastructure — telephone lines, gas mains, water mains — that was designed for a much smaller population.
Look and you won’t find the number of schools that probably will be needed for all the newcomers. Think of all the retail services that aren’t there now but will be needed. Check out bus routes and schedules, traffic patterns, and so much else.
There is an obvious conclusion. A heck of a lot more needs to be done than to just build 50-story buildings.
Oh, really? That kind of talk sounds an awful lot like what critics of Atlantic Yards — a project Holt can't get enough of — have been saying for years.
I have excluded the Atlantic Yards project, whose plan originally called for 6,400 housing units, both because most of the project is outside the 2-square-mile area and because there is no real estimate of how many residential units will in fact be built.
Um, Bruce Ratner's plan still calls for 6,400 housing units.
We are creating a whole new core city. Have city planners thought through all this? Somebody better do so before we find a mess on our hands.
NoLandgrab: You can't make this stuff up.
Posted by eric at 12:23 PM
February 17, 2012
Bigger Slope historic district could curb development near arena
The Brooklyn Paper
by Natalie O'Neill
Preservationists and elected officials are pushing to expand Park Slope’s historic district — a move that could protect the neighborhood’s charm amidst a predicted wave of development sparked by the soon-to-open Barclays Center.
Councilmen Steve Levin (D–Park Slope) and Brad Lander (D–Park Slope) are throwing their weight behind a longstanding Park Slope Civic Council effort to extend the community’s already substantial landmark district to include 12 blocks of buildings between Fifth and Sixth avenues bounded by Flatbush Avenue and President Street — effectively barring non-contextual construction in the neighborhood anywhere near the arena.
“For people who live nearby, this is a pretty important thing,” said Park Slope historian Francis Morrone, noting that stadiums rarely rise so close to buildings with so much history and unique style. “Without protection, there’s every reason to think [future development] would be inconsistent with the historic character.”
...[Park Slope Civic Council Historic District Committee Chair Peter] Bray claims the landmarking push isn’t a direct response to scheduled opening of the Barclays Center, as the proposal has been in the works for years. But he says the historic zone would help if an arena-influenced wave of development hits Park Slope.
“It’s a tool for preserving architecture integrity, the character of the streetscape and quality of life — and Atlantic Yards has some bearing on that,” said Bray.
Image: Brooklyn Paper
Posted by eric at 10:53 AM
February 15, 2012
Betting on slow eminent domain and instant retail potential, investor buys Atlantic Avenue building destined for second phase of Atlantic Yards
Atlantic Yards Report
This is a bit of a head-scratcher: real estate investors apparently believe the second phase of Atlantic Yards--notably the element that involves construction over the Vanderbilt Yard and adjacent properties that bump into the railyard--is so far off that they're buying property slated for eventual condemnation.
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In an article today headlined Brooklyn Arena Pulls More Retail, the Wall Street Journal reports:
A real-estate investment company has closed on the purchase of a 105-year-old industrial building near the site of the new Barclays Center sports arena in Brooklyn.
Waterbridge Capital is considering turning the 40,000-square-foot facility at 700 Atlantic Ave. into a retail center, a person familiar with the matter said. Waterbridge bought the property for about $7 million, this person said.
Retail rents in the area may double from the current $50-$60/sf when the arena opens.
...The building is in the area indicated in blue on the map (from DDDB) above right.
Related content...
The Wall Street Journal, Brooklyn Arena Pulls More Retail
The site is located within the second phase of Forest City Ratner Cos.' master plan for its larger Atlantic Yards development, which will include residential towers. Forest City eventually plans to build three apartment buildings on the block that includes 700 Atlantic Ave.
But Forest City hasn't begun any residential construction because of the financial downturn. The company expects residential work to begin on the first phase of the project by the end of the year. The second phase of construction, however, is still years away.
The Real Deal, Waterbridge Capital bets on Barclays Arena
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“Up until a year ago, people didn’t know if they could finish” the arena, said Ofer Cohen, president of TerraCRG, who was not familiar with the Waterbridge transaction. “It’s going to unfold in the next couple of years… and people want to take advantage of it.”
Posted by eric at 4:14 PM
February 14, 2012
New Building Will Replace Bergen Tile Near Arena
Brownstoner
PRD Realty, a Manhattan-based firm, filed for permits with the city last week to construct a mixed-use development where the old Bergen Tile building stands, on the corner of Flatbush Avenue and Dean Street. The location is directly across the street from where Forest City Ratner is supposed to eventually build the first Atlantic Yards residential tower and also very close to Barclays Center. The permit request says it was “filed in order to obtain denial and referral to Board of Standards & Appeals,” and developer Martin Domansky says that this is because PRD can’t feasibly construct the number of parking spaces the project would be required to have. Domansky says the project, which will have 50-some-odd rental units in addition to commercial space, would be required to have 26 parking spaces by law.
Related coverage...
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Atlantic Yards Report, Brownstoner: six-story building planned for old Bergen Tile site on Flatbush at Dean opposite arena
Well, some people thought it might be a hotel, but Brownstoner reports that a permit application has been filed for a six-story rental apartment building, with some 50 units and ground-floor commercial space (quick serve food, anyone?), at the Bergen Tile site at Flatbush Avenue and Dean Street.
The developer has to get a variance to get out of parking requirements, another sign of their ridiculousness.
Way back in 2008 the site was being promoted as a potential retail site.
Photo: Tracy Collins
Posted by eric at 1:14 PM
Brooklyn's Shifting Center
The Wall Street Journal
by Joseph De Avila
New York's Steiner family is planning a 52-story rental apartment tower on a gritty block in downtown Brooklyn in what would be the latest expansion of residential development in the borough beyond its traditional boundaries.
The family, which is best known for developing a Hollywood-scale studio in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, is moving forward with a building that would include about 720 units and 50,000 square feet of store space. The Steiners acquired the bulk of the site, at the intersection of Schermerhorn and Flatbush avenues, for $30 million in November, and plan to break ground early next year at the latest.
...The Steiners are betting that demand for housing will overflow from popular Brooklyn neighborhoods like Park Slope and Fort Greene. The area also will benefit after the Barclays Center makes its debut this fall just two blocks away on Flatbush, bringing in thousands of visitors for basketball games and concerts, Mr. Steiner said.
NoLandGrab: "Benefit" is not quite the word we had in mind.
Related coverage...
Atlantic Yards Report, A 52-story tower planned for Flatbush Avenue, near BAM and just north of the Williamsburgh bank building, extends skyline south toward AY site
The Brooklyn Paper, High-end high-rise planned on Flatbush
Posted by eric at 12:09 PM
February 9, 2012
Is this the start of a Barclays Center gold rush?
The Brooklyn Paper
by Eli Rosenberg
The oddly shaped sporting goods store has already gotten the attention of McDonald’s, which eyed the triangular lot bounded by Flatbush Avenue, Fifth Avenue, and Dean Street, a spokesperson from the burger purveryors said.
TerraCRG, the real estate company marketing the Triangle Sports property, has been using the site’s location just steps from the entrance of the Barclays Center — where the Nets are scheduled to take the court this fall after concerts by rap mogul Jay-Z — as one of its main selling points.
“The Barclays Center and Atlantic Yards development will add exponentially to this demand, causing rents in the already scarce available retail space to surge based on proximity to the stadium,” the firm wrote in a glossy pamphlet marketing the property.
NoLandGrab: But don't worry, surely Atlantic Yards won't cause residential rents to go up, displacing lower-income residents. Right?
Posted by eric at 10:07 AM
February 5, 2012
Signs of the times: Franklin Avenue, House of D, Southpaw transition
Atlantic Yards Report
So, while some were waiting around for Atlantic Yards, Brooklyn continued to change:
- Franklin Avenue in Crown Heights becomes "the next subway stop on Brooklyn’s gentrification express"
- While the Brooklyn House of Detention was being renovated, six high-rise apartment buildings were built nearby, and a boutique hotel is across the street
- After eleven years, Park Slope music club Southpaw will close and the space, like others on Fifth Avenue, will become a business serving kids
Bonus: Southpaw co-owner Mikey Palms told the Brooklyn Paper how he got the Fifth Avenue building:
“A crackhead and a prostitute were living above the venue and the owner told me, ‘If you can get ’em out, you can have the space,’” he said.
Posted by steve at 1:13 PM
February 2, 2012
Barclays Center provoking real estate boom? If so, why can't Ratner get housing off the ground
Atlantic Yards Report
I can't say I completely buy the amNY article headlined Brooklyn nabes expect real estate boom with Barclays Center. After all, the neighborhoods described are already changing--and they're not exactly adjacent to the arena.
The article begins:
When you think about Brooklyn real estate, Williamsburg, Park Slope and the downtown district - the borough's hottest and priciest areas - are probably the first neighborhoods that come to mind.
But with the opening of a new arena in seven months, other nabes may be rising to the top - even if it comes at a price.
The buzz surrounding Barclays Center in Prospect Heights is expected to attract an onslaught of investment to the area and turn the nearby neighborhoods into some of the most sought-after ZIP codes in the city, real estate experts said.
"Crown Heights, Bed-Stuy, Bushwick and Sunset Park are on the verge of exploding," said Jamella Swift, senior associate broker at Citi Habitats. "Once the stadium opens, the domino effect from Fort Greene, Park Slope and Prospect Heights will carry over to the adjacent neighborhoods."
What? A domino effect from the corner of Atlantic and Flatbush all the way down to Sunset Park? Crown Heights began changing a while ago, as we were reminded this morning. Bed-Stuy began to boom before the 421-a law expired. Bushwick has been experiencing a domino effect from Williamsburg, not the arena.
NoLandGrab: Right. Same way the Upper West Side was cow pastures until Madison Square Garden was built.
Related content...
amNY, Brooklyn nabes expect real estate boom with Barclays Center
Posted by eric at 12:58 PM
February 1, 2012
FOR SALE: A CENTURY’S WORTH OF SWEAT AND SNEAKERS
F'd in Park Slope
Mom-and-pop store TRIANGLE SPORTS has sat at 182 Flatbush Avenue since 1916. For nearly 100 years it has bravely survived amid the growing monstrosity of its now-neighborhood, much like the last chip in the otherwise empty plastic party bowl.
...The rise of Atlantic Yards and the controversial Barclays sports arena has changed the smaller-scaled Brooklyn landscape forever. Growing numbers of big-box chain stores and eateries are following the big money and pushing out local businesses that can’t compete.
...Christie’s Jamaican Patties, another long-time and much beloved business further up Flatbush, is also closing, a result of skyrocketing rents sought by landlords for any property that falls within the long shadow cast by development corporation Forest City Ratner. They are, by the way, the Godzilla of Greed, responsible for the nightmarishly unnavigable MetroTech and the “crime-ridden” Atlantic Center mall, as it is often referred to in the local papers.
Meanwhile, workers in the independent stores that are displaced don’t have much to look forward to. In a federal lawsuit filed in November of 2011, seven would-be Atlantic Yards workers claimed that construction jobs and union cards that were promised to them by various Ratner-affiliated agencies never materialized. The lies were so numerous and so little was actually accomplished that City Council member Letitia James called the promise of jobs for the workers, some of whom ended up working at McDonalds, “the greatest bait-and-switch in the history of Brooklyn.”
Posted by eric at 12:29 PM
January 31, 2012
Goodbye, Triangle Sports: in 2005, Atlantic Yards sounded like a boon; now it's a reason to close
Atlantic Yards Report
From a 7/6/05 New York Times article headlined Brooklynites Take In a Big Development Plan, and Speak Up:
Henry Rosa, 55, the co-owner of a sporting goods store at Flatbush Avenue and Dean Street, said: "I suspect it will be great for us. Once the project is complete, with new residents here, it will bring us more traffic." But he said that if he lived in the area, he would probably be angry.
From today's Wall Street Journal, Bowing to Change: Brooklyn's Triangle Sports Feels the Pressure From All Sides:
A family-owned sporting-goods and apparel store on Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn is calling it quits after 96 years in business, another sign of changes sparked by the coming of the nearby Barclays Center arena complex.
Feeling the pressure from big-box stores and the weak economy, Triangle Sports has put its building up for sale in hopes of finding a store or restaurant itching to be close to the multiuse sports, retail and residential project rising across the street.
"It's getting harder and harder for a smaller, independent retailer to survive," said an emotional Henry Rosa, one of the partners behind Triangle Sports, who started working in the shop as a teenager in the 1960s.
...National retailers and Manhattan restaurateurs have been quietly scoping out properties around the arena, real-estate brokers and property owners said.
Related coverage...
Brownstoner, Triangle Sports Building for Sale
Posted by eric at 11:06 AM
January 30, 2012
Bowing to Change
Brooklyn's Triangle Sports Feels the Pressure From All Sides
The Wall Street Journal
by Joseph De Avila
There goes the neighborhood — courtesy of Bruce C. Ratner.
A family-owned sporting-goods and apparel store on Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn is calling it quits after 96 years in business, another sign of changes sparked by the coming of the nearby Barclays Center arena complex.
Feeling the pressure from big-box stores and the weak economy, Triangle Sports has put its building up for sale in hopes of finding a store or restaurant itching to be close to the multiuse sports, retail and residential project rising across the street.
"It's getting harder and harder for a smaller, independent retailer to survive," said an emotional Henry Rosa, one of the partners behind Triangle Sports, who started working in the shop as a teenager in the 1960s.
...More change is on the way for the area around Barclays Center as it prepares to open this fall. National retailers and Manhattan restaurateurs have been quietly scoping out properties around the arena, real-estate brokers and property owners said.
"Is it going to look like Madison Square Garden?" said Geoffrey Bailey of real-estate service firm TerraCRG, which is marketing the Triangle Sports building. "It's going to look like Brooklyn's interpretation."
..."This trend is going to accelerate in a monumental way as we get closer to the arena opening," said Timothy King, managing partner with CPEX Real Estate.
...But longtime Triangle Sports shoppers said they were sorry about the news that the business was closing.
"It's a symbol of things that have been here a long time," said Liz Fader, 75 years old, from Boerum Hill. "This is just another example of this loss of community."
Related coverage...
Here's Park Slope, Triangle Sporting Goods Up For Sale
This sadly seemed inevitable: After 96 years occupying the prime corner of Fifth Avenue, Flatbush Avenue, and Dean Street, Triangle Sporting Goods has put itself, and the building it calls home, up for sale.
Posted by eric at 5:12 PM
January 23, 2012
Building New York: NYU 2031 Returns Controversy to Silver Towers
International Business Times
by Roland Li
NYU's Greenwich Village-eating development scheme has at least one thing going for it — it's not Atlantic Yards.
The opposition has been fierce. Local residents and preservation groups have long battled NYU's various development projects, which have involved demolition of existing buildings, including the former Palladium nightclub and St. Ann's Church. These new buildings, they argue, will overwhelm the neighborhood, first with noisy construction, and then by their sheer mass. They point out that the proposed 3 million square feet in new construction would be more mass than the Empire State Building. They call for the school to seek space in Lower Manhattan or elsewhere -- anywhere but the Village.
NYU has said that the plans will require no tenant displacement or eminent domain--in contrast to its northern neighbor Columbia's growth or the controversial genesis of Atlantic Yards, both of which led to various lawsuits.
Posted by eric at 12:16 PM
January 20, 2012
"Brooklyn Is Set for a Building Boom," as per WSJ? Maybe if you count the delayed Atlantic Yards towers.
Atlantic Yards Report
The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday, Brooklyn Is Set for a Building Boom:
Developers are rapidly running out of space to build new projects in Manhattan, but brownstone-dotted Brooklyn could be poised for a building boom, according to a new report.
Brooklyn has in the early planning stages as many as 14,000 new residential units in the coming years, compared with Manhattan, where just 5,000 new units are in the early planning phase, according to a new report by Nancy Packes, a consultant to some of the city's largest developers.
That's primarily because Manhattan is running out of new sites that are zoned for residential use, according to Ms. Packes.
Developers, such as AvalonBay Communities Inc., Stahl Real Estate and Douglaston Development already have large new projects planned for downtown Brooklyn and the Williamsburg waterfront in the next few year.
Oh, really? No breakdown of that 14,000 figure was given and, as Brownstoner observed, "we’re guessing that the vast majority of those are supposed to be delivered via Atlantic Yards and Domino, so the 'boom' has been imminent for quite some time."
And, I'd add, the apartments towers have been delayed for a while.
NoLandGrab: OK, Wall Street Journal, hit the snooze button and go back to sleep for a couple more years.
Posted by eric at 10:59 AM
January 19, 2012
Barclays Center May Already be Attracting New Retail Potential
Industrial building on Dean St. is on the market, with listing suggesting realtor wants to turn it into a retail hub.
Carroll Gardens Patch
by Jamie Schuh
An industrial building on Dean Street, between Carlton and Vanderbilt Avenues, is on the market and its listing suggests it may host retail businesses catering to Barclays Center arena-goers, according to Atlantic Yards Report.
AYR says that the former headquarters of a stencil-making company is now being promoted by realtor Winick as soon to have an "all glass front” and parking for 90 cars, while also touting its proximity to the arena.
Posted by eric at 4:30 PM
January 17, 2012
An industrial site for sale on Dean Street across from the planned arena parking lot promises change
Atlantic Yards Report
An industrial building on the south side of Dean Street a bit east of Carlton Avenue--across from the future surface parking lot for the Atlantic Yards arena--is for sale, and the broker suggests it could be high-density residential, while offering a rendering [right] that suggests, at minimum, ground floor retail serving arena-goers.
The site offers a substantial 65,000 square feet, which would support not just a restaurant but a small multi-store complex.
The 1951 building, which offers two stories above ground and one story below ground, is zoned M-1, aimed for light manufacturing, but in which "[o]ffices, hotels and most retail uses are also permitted." Residential is more iffy.
It offers a 140-foot frontage and a significant potential footprint, according to the advertisement from Winick Realty Group:
- 16,500 Square Feet Ground Floor (ceiling 11½ -12 feet)
- 21,370 Square Feet Second Floor (ceiling 11½ –12 Feet)
- 26,722 Square Feet Lower Level (12-14 Feet Lower Level)
No price is listed, but a previous sales effort, via another broker, priced the building at $5 million.
Winick also promotes an "all glass front," parking for 90 cars, and cites, as neighbors, "Nets Arena, Barclays Arena, Atlantic Terminal, Atlantic Yards, Atlantic Center."
Related coverage...
Daily Heights, 594 Dean Street is for Sale
While the broker is saying that it’s a good site for high-density residential development, it’s got 140 linear feat of frontage that looks like it would support retail geared toward arena-goers, as this rendering of 594 Dean Street suggests. They even helpfully suggest an upscale name for the development: “The Warehouse at Dean.”
Posted by eric at 12:12 PM
January 16, 2012
Lavazza Coffee Opening Near Arena
Brownstoner
 |
Thanks to the tipster who pointed out that a Lavazza Coffee outpost is moving into the Atlantic Yards vicinity, on 6th Avenue between Bergen and Dean streets. A graphic design office occupied the space previously. Our tipster wonders, “Maybe the owner has been renegotiating in anticipation of AY?” Do you think a cafe will do well in this spot?
NoLandGrab: Do well? With the Nets putting fans to sleep with their woeful play, this place should be selling espressos by the bucketload.
Posted by eric at 11:52 AM
January 12, 2012
Controversial Slope sports bar to open as farm-to-table eatery
The Brooklyn Paper
by Natalie O'Neill
A once-embattled Park Slope sports bar will open with a new name and a strikingly different business model in hopes of becoming a slam-dunk for community foodies — not arena crowds.
Woodland, a farm-to-table eatery with an outdoorsy motif, will start serving food on Feb. 1 in the storefront at Flatbush and Sixth avenues that was slated to become Prime 6, a music venue and watering hole that sparked neighborhood controversy without ever opening amid concerns it would draw rowdy basketball fans and a hip hop scene.
Owner Akiva Ofshtein said he has altered his business’ vision and will now open “a nice cozy restaurant” with a 46-seat patio that closes by midnight on weekends in an attempt to better mesh with the community.
...“I’ll be among his first customers,” said neighbor Steve Ettinger, who bashed Prime 6 at a Community Board 6 meeting last year. “I’m grateful he changed his mind.”
Posted by eric at 11:06 AM
Whose Mall Is It Anyway: Will Brooklyn Flock to Fulton Street’s New Chain Stores?
Isn't That Why We Left Pittsburgh Behind to Begin With?
NY Observer
by Matt Chaban
H&M is scheduled for a new glass building on the corner of Hoyt Street being built by Mr. Laboz, below which will be a TJ Maxx. Aeropostale opened across the street in the fall of 2010, around the same time the new Shake Shack was announced, which opened in December, a month after the Gap announced plans to take space on the mall. Express is coming, too. The gleaming new first phase of CityPoint will open in the first half of next year, quite possibly with a Target inside, so successful is the one half-a-mile away at Bruce Ratner’s Atlantic Center Mall.
Yet, venture inside that mall, and it is largely devoid—except for the aisles of Target—of the kind of clientele Mr. Laboz and his cohort talk of attracting. It remains to be seen whether the brownstone babies and their cousins in the condo towers will ever migrate to the mall, giving up on Bird, Greenlight Books or the newly arrived Barney’s Co-op.
“The hard part is, black people will shop where white people shop, they don’t have a choice,” one veteran Brooklyn broker said. “It doesn’t work the other way around.”
...The borough president has been a huge champion of the strip’s transformation, disputing charges of its Manhattanification. “Nobody wants that less than me, I campaigned against that when I ran for office,” Mr. Markowitz said.
NoLandGrab: Oh, really? Atlantic Yards — which, if built, would be the densest residential tract in North America — says you're a liar.
Posted by eric at 10:47 AM
January 11, 2012
Slope’s Prime 6 is Now ‘Woodland,’ Opening Sunday
Brownstoner
Before it has even opened, Prime 6 gets a name change, and perhaps a change of heart.
Prime 6, the controversial bar/restaurant opening on the corner of Flatbush and 6th avenues in Park Slope, is changing its name and finally has an opening date. According to the Flatbush Avenue BID, the establishment will now be known as Woodland and will have a soft opening this Sunday, January 15th. Apparently the business has toned down the club atmosphere so many Slopers were nervous about and is instead striving to be a “go-to spot for farm to table food, super steaks, fresh fish, venison, bison burgers, etc.” No bottle service, then?
Related coverage...
Park Slope Patch, Prime 6 is Now Woodland, Opens Sunday
In April, owner Akiva Ofshtein agreed to compromise with the community by closing the backyard seating area by 11 p.m. on weekdays and 12 a.m. on weekends. Ofshtein also ditched plans for a backyard bar, nixed any possibility of bottle service and promised to meet with Community Board 6 after one year to discuss any recurring problems.
Here's Park Slope, Opening Sunday: Prime Six, Now Re-Named "Woodland"
According to Brownstoner, they've gone in a completely opposite direction from the "nightclub" theme that they were originally shooting for, largely because of pressure from the neighborhood.
Posted by eric at 4:45 PM
January 1, 2012
"How Brooklyn Got Its Groove Back": an analysis of the borough's rise, and those left behind (and, I'd suggest, why that helped bring us AY)
Atlantic Yards Report
In the Autumn 2011 issue of the Manhattan Institute's City Journal, Kay S. Hymowitz offers How Brooklyn Got Its Groove Back: New York’s biggest borough has reinvented itself as a postindustrial hot spot.
And, while not about Atlantic Yards (except for one mention), it presents a useful framework, based on personal experience and reportage, for some of the changes that brought us here, while offering more background on the enduring economic divide sketched this week in Crain's.
(It's on the Atlantic Cities' list of ten best CityReads of 2011.)
...An AY mention
In the section under rezonings, Hymowitz writes:
Brooklyn also benefited from the Giuliani and Bloomberg administrations’ rezoning of fallow industrial neighborhoods for “mixed” uses, so that residential, commercial, and light-industry buildings could occupy the same area. These decisions have met with fierce resistance, with Brooklyn’s gentrifiers—ironically, given their historical role in changing the borough—among the most vociferous in arguing that grabby real-estate interests and their friends in government are driving out an indigenous population. Bruce Ratner’s much-reviled Atlantic Yards project, which took advantage of the government’s bullying eminent-domain powers, lends some credence to the charge. But mostly, Brooklyn’s transformation has come from the ground up. In the beginning, as Osman observes, gentrification spread because “a few families decided to cross” Atlantic Avenue, the southern boundary of Brooklyn Heights. The rezoning that finally took place decades later was simply bowing to reality: large factories were gone for good, and young singles and families wanted in.
For Atlantic Yards, it must be pointed out, there was no rezoning, just an override of zoning.
Posted by eric at 6:33 PM
December 28, 2011
5 trends in NYC's booming real estate market in 2012
am New York
by Graham Wood
The kingdom of Queens
The Atlantic Yards' 15 minutes are up; when it comes to new developments, the next big locale is fit for Queens.
NoLandGrab: Lucky Queens!
Posted by eric at 10:42 AM
December 21, 2011
Downtown Remains Contested Territory
City Limits: The Brooklyn Bureau
by Neil deMause
The Field of Schemes author takes an in-depth look at the Downtown Brooklyn rezoning.
Whether this is success depends on who you ask.
“We’re all very happy with how downtown Brooklyn has progressed over the years,” says Michael Burke, who has served as interim president of the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership since Chan left to take a job with the state-run Empire State Development Corporation last summer. “Particularly given the economic dynamics of the past few years, where it has continued to thrive and continued to grow even with the significant economic downturn.”
Yaakov “Jack” Fuzailov, meanwhile, takes a more jaundiced view. The former owner of a barbershop that was twice evicted from storefronts along downtown’s Willoughby Street — the first to make way for a new office tower that never arrived, the second because of rising rents — he now cuts hair as an employee of another barbershop across the street from his old storefront. Fuzailov, like many longtime residents and shopkeepers in the area, sees the battle of downtown Brooklyn as one of condo owners against tenants, and visions of high-end retail against those of the unflashy stores that were there before the rezoning hit.
“There is no middle class,” he says. “Either you live in the Brooklyner, or you’re out of here. The middle class like myself is a worker now. I downgraded - I’m poor.”
A long-sought transformation
The current push to revive downtown Brooklyn began in the 1980s, when Polytechnic University (now City Tech) was selected by the city to lead the charge to turn the area into the next Silicon Valley. School officials soon tapped former city consumer affairs commissioner and real estate scion Bruce Ratner to put together a deal for Brooklyn’s largest development ever. Metrotech, as the project soon became known, would replace several blocks of apartment buildings and small business with mammoth office towers that would become home to back-office operations for the likes of Chase Manhattan and Bear Stearns — helped along by $300 million in city rent subsidies to Ratner’s new tenants.
Posted by eric at 11:21 AM
December 16, 2011
Did Bloomberg's Olympic legacy really pay off? Some dissent to the new narrative, and an odd attempt to shoehorn in Atlantic Yards
Atlantic Yards Report
A new report, How New York City Won the Olympics (also embedded below), argues that most of the benefits of the city's 2012 Olympics bid have been achieved, and without the crushing costs of the event.
It has drawn supportive coverage from the New York Times (though see this cautionary comment) and an enthusiastic New York Daily News editorial, plus coverage in The Bond Buyer.
But it should be taken with significant skepticism. The report is authored by the much-quoted Mitchell L. Moss, Director, Rudin Center for Transportation Policy and Management, Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, New York University.
Moss, an advisor to Mayor Mike Bloomberg's 2001 mayoral campaign, has often defended Bloomberg and the Olympic Plan's chief architect, former Deputy Mayor Dan Doctoroff, so--despite failure to mention that connection in press coverage--that connection must be layered on his academic credentials.
Also, the report includes some strained attempts to attach the Atlantic Yards arena and plan to the Olympics legacy, though that's not backed up by evidence.
Posted by eric at 11:24 AM
December 13, 2011
Downtown Brooklyn Partnership names Tucker Reed new president, formerly headed DUMBO Improvement District
Atlantic Yards Report
Crain's Insider reports today that the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership has finally found a successor to Joe Chan, who left for Empire State Development (though he doesn't oversee Atlantic Yards):
Downtown Brooklyn's Next President
The Downtown Brooklyn Partnership has named 31-year-old Tucker Reed the next president of the local development corporation. A former head of the DUMBO Improvement District and policy adviser at the Department of Small Business Services, Reed begins Jan. 9. He succeeds Joe Chan, who left in September.
...As I've written, the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership, presumably influenced by Mayor Mike Bloomberg and member Forest City Ratner, has been a reliable cheerleader for Atlantic Yards, and once was (and perhaps still is) under investigation by the state Attorney General's office for improper lobbying.
Posted by eric at 11:43 PM
December 12, 2011
Reasons to ♥ N.Y. 2011: #22. Because the Skyline Is Soaring Again
New York Magazine
by Justin Davidson
When Lehman Brothers collapsed, the cranes fell silent. Building went into a state of suspended animation, and New Yorkers had a chance to consider what the boom had wrought. But a living city can’t hibernate for long, and New York is waking to the crackle of construction.
And the crackle of eminent domain abuse, apparently...
All through the quiet years, an assortment of megadevelopments kept trudging closer to reality, and seemingly all at once, the hard hats are ready. Willets Point, Queens’s pothole-and-chop-shop capital, is finally getting connected to the sewage system, which portends a new $3 billion neighborhood, complete with convention center and hotel, hard by Citi Field. At Atlantic Yards, attention is turning to the first in a projected series of huge apartment buildings, beginning with the world’s tallest modular tower.
NoLandGrab: We'll believe "the world’s tallest modular tower," or any Atlantic Yards building not housing lousy basketball, when we see it.
Meanwhile, New York Magazine had it a bit more right in 2008.
Posted by eric at 9:35 AM
December 9, 2011
The only game in town
Crain's NY Business
by Erik Ipsen
The fact is that the vacancy rate for commercial space in northern New Jersey is a whopping 18%, more than twice that of Manhattan, and with new towers rising at the World Trade Center site and financial firms around the city (and globe) shrinking, this is no time to be throwing good money after bad on the Hudson’s western shore. No less an authority on Jersey real estate than Jamie LeFrak, whose family is a major landlord on both sides of the river, called using land in Jersey City for housing “the highest and best use of the property now,” according to The Journal.
Curiously, landowners in that other great Manhattan overflow market, downtown Brooklyn, have all drawn that same conclusion in recent years. Remember Miss Brooklyn, the office tower that was to be the tallest building in that borough and the centerpiece of Forest City Ratner’s vast commercial/residential Atlantic Yards complex? Neither does Forest City Ratner, which is pressing ahead with what now looks like an all-residential complex, with the exception of the Barclays Center sports stadium. Now, all we need is jobs for all the people who will occupy these lovely new apartments in New Jersey and Brooklyn.
NoLandGrab: Those jobs shouldn't be a problem, since Bruce Ratner promised 10,000 of them in Miss Brooklyn and the other Atlantic Yards office buildings... DOH!
Posted by eric at 11:13 AM
December 7, 2011
Is Downtown Brooklyn The Next Foodster Hotspot?
Gothamist
Downtown Brooklyn doesn't exactly have the best reputation for dining out ("this is a vast wasteland when it comes to good food," writes one hungry Chowhounder), but that could be changing in the next year, if a handful of new restaurateurs play their cards right.
...Whether or not the neighborhood will ever actually shake its reputation as a food wasteland involves some non-food related factors, too—something tells us that "rat tsunami" from nearby Atlantic Yards is causing some diners to lose their lunch instead.
Posted by eric at 10:57 AM
December 2, 2011
Sewer Project Expected To Launch Willets Point Redevelopment
NY1
by Josh Robin
Willets Point's beleaguered property owners are finally getting storm sewers — but only as a prelude to getting kicked out.
Whether with a shovel or a real pile driver, the redevelopment of Willets Point is moving forward.
The plan is to turn its pothole-covered streets and excess of auto body shops into a neighborhood of apartments, businesses and a convention center.
New sewer lines come first, however.
"We must reclaim these 62 acres and take the first steps towards installing the infrastructure that will keep Willets Point clean and sustainable for generations to come," said Bloomberg.
By "reclaim," the Mayor means "seize."
Business owners point out that it's not their fault the streets look rough. They paid taxes for years, and now they're the ones bearing the brunt of the city's neglect.
Jerry Antonacci's family has run a carting business for 35 years.
"It's gotta be over a million dollars over 30 years in taxes, and what do we get for it? We're getting kicked out. I mean, we didn't get no streets, we didn't get no sewers, we didn't get no sidewalks, no street signs, no stop signs, no snow plowing, nothing," said Antonacci.
...The city can look with optimism at court approval of the Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn, which allowed the seizure of private property for a largely private development.
NoLandGrab: "Largely private?" Which parts aren't private?
Related content...
Willets Point United, Bloomberg Sneaks into Willets Point Sewer
Willets Point property owners have a slightly more sober take.
Earlier today Mayor Bloomberg snuck into Willets Point in order to do a photo op at the site of the sewer construction project-that has yet to be permitted by the DEC! He was so proud of this opportunity that there was no notice of the event last night on his official schedule-and the event took place close to the Flushing River where Willets Point businesses were not likely to take notice.
Posted by eric at 9:42 AM
November 22, 2011
Patty wake, patty wake! Christie’s to close on Flatbush Avenue
The Brooklyn Paper
by Natalie O'Neill
Bruce Ratner 1, Black-owned Mom-n-Pop restaurant, 0.
A 45-year-old, critically acclaimed, beloved neighborhood eatery is falling victim to arena-spurred gentrification.
The owner of a cheap neighborhood favorite will close his restaurant after 45 years in Park Slope and Prospect Heights, citing a landlord-tenant dispute fueled by a nearby sports arena.
Paul Haye, who runs Christie’s Jamaican Patties on Flatbush Avenue and Sterling Place, says he’ll close by January, claiming his landlord — who last spring welcomed embattled sports bar Prime 6 to the neighborhood — gave him the boot in order to collect higher rent from a new tenant, now that Barclays Center is closer to completion.
The dispute is the latest evidence that small businesses may have trouble staying open near the arena, where the Nets will play basketball next season (if there is a season).
Businesses owners in Fort Greene and north Park Slope also report that landlords have doubled rent, citing proximity to the arena in new real-estate ads.
Posted by eric at 1:07 PM
November 17, 2011
Affordable housing moves ahead... at Hunter's Point South
Atlantic Yards Report
Crain's New York Business yesterday reported: Queens housing project to be all 'affordable': Originally pegged at 75% subsidized housing for the middle class, Hunter's Point South will be 100% affordable, a city official announced Wednesday:
The first phase of the huge Hunter’s Point South project on a 30-acre waterfront parcel in Long Island City, Queens, will be 100% affordable housing, Deputy Mayor Robert Steel announced Wednesday afternoon.
...How exactly they calculated they could make this project work as all affordable--more subsidies?-- remains unclear, but a Related spokesman said the team was "thinking creatively and working collaboratively."
What's the biggest project?
Crain's noted:
When completed, Hunter's Point South will be the city’s largest affordable housing complex built since Co-Op City opened in the Bronx in the 1970s.
By contrast, Forest City Ratner's MaryAnne Gilmartin has claimed Atlantic Yards "is the most ambitious middle-income housing project ever undertaken in this city, because of its commitment to produce 2250 units of housing."
Forest City is supposed to announce plans for the long-delayed first tower by the end of the year.
Posted by eric at 11:51 AM
November 14, 2011
FUREE, elected officials ask Downtown Brooklyn Partnership to allow community input on search for new president
Atlantic Yards Report
FUREE (Families United for Racial & Economic Equality), along with State Senators Velmanette Montgomery and Joe Lentol, Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries, and City Council Member Letitia James (but not Steve Levin), has sent a cordial letter requesting community input in the search for the new president of the private-public Downtown Brooklyn Partnership (DBP)...
Posted by eric at 10:22 AM
November 10, 2011
"Prospect Heights Is Happening!" (thanks to arena), Corcoran claims, using photo of building which (unmentioned) is across from arena parking lot
Atlantic Yards Report
Prospect Heights residents have been getting the below postcard from mega-brokerage Corcoran encouraging them to choose that firm to sell their home. (Postcard via Prospect Heights activist Patti Hagan.)
The text, as stated on the back:
Prospect Heights is Happening!
Your neighborhood is transforming. With the Barclays Center arena nearing completion, Propsect Heights and the surrounding area are being redefined.Then follows the Corcoran pitch.
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The unmentioned irony
The "Just Sold" building pictured is 618 Dean Street, directly across the street from the planned interim surface parking lot for the arena, which could last a decade and might impinge ever so slightly on residents' lives.
...And did Corcoran, in its ad, mention the parking lot? Nope.
NoLandGrab: Irony? Norman Oder's never worked in real estate. They're probably kicking themselves for not adding "adjacent to AMPLE parking!"
Posted by eric at 11:20 AM
November 3, 2011
Park Slope, Brooklyn: A Neighborhood Growing and Changing at Each End
Urban Edge, The Blog
by Scott Lynch
Park Slope apartments sit within what New York Magazine called "the most livable neighborhood in New York City" a couple of years ago. Of course, residents of Park Slope, Brooklyn didn't need anyone to tell them that.
The people of this community have long enjoyed a near-ideal combination of easy access to the great Prospect Park; lots of dining, nightlife, and shopping options; an active, diverse population; beautiful, historic architecture, especially the grand brownstones that line the leafy streets; good public schools; and plenty of public transportation options.
The question today is: how are the changes on the neighborhood's edges, at both the northern and southern borders, going to effect residents of Park Slope rental apartments?
To the north of Park Slope, right across the neighborhood's border of Flatbush Avenue, is the biggest (and most controversial) construction project this part of town has seen in years, the Barclays Center....
Posted by eric at 11:37 AM
November 2, 2011
Mill Basin big-box is killed
Brooklyn Daily
by Thomas Tracy
Brooklyn’s biggest developer has pulled out of a controversial plan to build a shopping center that would include a Walmart-sized store on city owned land near Kings Plaza, killing the Flatbush Avenue project that was connect to Carl Kruger.
Forest City Ratner Companies is walking away from it’s plan to build a big-box retail outlet on the city-owned Four Sparrows Marsh next to the Toys ’R’ Us on Flatbush Avenue between Avenue U and the Gil Hodges Bridge, which the scandal-scarred state senator had been pushing the company to get done.
Insiders say Forest City Ratner Companies owner Bruce Ratner, who is currently building the controversial Atlantic Yards, the biggest development project in the borough, canned his plans for the Four Sparrows Marsh when he couldn’t find a suitable tenant.
...Other sources said Ratner didn’t want to deal with possible lawsuits from environmentalists who threatened to sue if he broke ground on the marshlands.
But there’s also the Kruger (D–Brighton Beach) connection...
NoLandGrab: The better headline, of course, would have been "Bruce: 'F**k the Shopping Center.'"
Posted by eric at 10:09 AM
October 31, 2011
Plans Killed for Project Tied to Probe
The Wall Street Journal
by Joseph De Avila and Eliot Brown
One of New York City's largest developers has quietly scrapped a deal to build a shopping center on city-owned land in Brooklyn, a site that drew scrutiny during a federal investigation of state Sen. Carl Kruger.
The city had tapped developer Forest City Ratner Cos. to take the lead on the project, located on a 15-acre plot of land in Mill Basin, that was to include a shopping center and auto mall. Construction was expected to begin by 2014.
But in recent months, the developer switched course. Last month, officials issued a largely unnoticed one-line statement on the website of an obscure city office that said the "project has been withdrawn as of September 2011."
The shopping center had ties to a corruption case involving Mr. Kruger, a Brooklyn Democrat, but Forest City officials said that case had no connection to their decision to drop the project.
..."Forest City's part of this project was small, and they are right now concentrating on a number of larger ones," spokesman Joe DePlasco said in a statement.
NoLandGrab: Funny, but Forest City sang a different tune to The Wall Street Journal just 10 months ago:
"This area has not only some of the best demographics in the country, but is extremely under-retailed as well," Andrew Silberfein, executive vice president and director of finance and retail development at Forest City Ratner, said in a statement.
Posted by eric at 12:10 PM
October 28, 2011
Forest City Ratner project in Mill Basin, touched by corruption indictment, "has been withdrawn;" indicted developer had role in City Point, whose lead developer didn't pay bribes but made gifts to Markowitz charities
Atlantic Yards Report
The mayor's office has quietly indicated (as per Queens Crap) the demise of Forest City Ratner's Four Sparrows project, once touted as housing a Wal-Mart:
The Four Sparrow Marsh Retail Center at Mill Basin project has been withdrawn as of September 2011.
It's unclear why, but the project has been tainted by corruption charges.
About 15 acres were to be retail, including an existing Toys 'R' Us, and 46 acres formally mapped as parkland. This fit into Forest City's m.o.: getting the inside track on potentially valuable public property and then getting the zoning changed.
...Does "withdrawn" mean "dead"? Unclear.
Yesterday I queried the NYC Economic Development Corporation, source of the map, but didn't hear back. Their Four Sparrows web page has not been updated, as it says "Construction expected to begin in 2014.
But if the project comes back, there will have to be some new players.
Consider that state Senator Carl Kruger and developer Aaron Malinsky in March were both indicted on corruption charges that included, among several counts, the Mill Basin project. Malinsky was charged with bribing Kruger. Forest City was not charged, though it was enmeshed in an effort to wangle state funds from Kruger.
Related coverage...
Queens Crap, Ratner project dies silent death
Glory, glory, hallelujah!!!
A Walk in the Park, EDC Cancels Controversial Bruce Ratner Plan To Develop Nature Preserve Into Shopping Mall
New York City claimed that because Four Sparrow Marsh was never officially "mapped" as parkland it can be disposed of and therefore, DPR is not required to protect it. However there are many playgrounds, parklands and natural areas throughout New York City that have never been mapped, yet these sites are recognized and protected as parkland. Mapping is only one factor that is used to determine whether land can be legally protected under the Public Trust Doctrine, use is another factor. Since the entire site has always been used as parkland, it therefore should be protected under Public Trust Doctrine. The new, proposed retail use is clearly a non-park use.
The Real Deal, Ratner's Mill Basin retail project withdrawn
The Bloomberg administration has withdrawn its controversial plans to permit developer Bruce Ratner to transform public parkland in the Mill Basin part of Brooklyn into a shopping mall, A Walk in the Park blog reported, announcing the withdrawal on the Office of Environmental Coordination's website.
Posted by eric at 2:13 PM
October 27, 2011
785 Dean S 785 Dean Street #4
The New York Times
Real Estate Listings
CENTRALLY LOCATED TO ALL.
APT is 15mins from Prime Atlantic Yards Stadium. Walk to live shows and games throughout the year.
Posted by eric at 11:04 AM
October 25, 2011
The Multifamily Guy
NY Observer
by Daniel Edward Rosen
Bruce Ratner's basketball arena appears to be having a pronounced gentrifying effect on the surrounding neighborhoods, while his allegedly "affordable" housing remains nothing more than a promise.
To look at the buildings neighboring it, 567 Vanderbilt Avenue is a typical four-story, mixed-use apartment building in Brooklyn. From the bricks it was built with to the upwardly mobile professionals and strollers it presumably houses, the structure is nearly identical to the other assets in that corner of Prospect Heights.
With a recent shift on the ground—characterized by relatively new restaurants like James, Cornelius and, inevitably, the Vanderbilt—sales prices in the neighborhood are rising.
But over on Vanderbilt Avenue in particular, where trendy bars and cafés pop up each week, prices are absolutely surging, in part because of Nostradamus-like predictions of basketball fans flooding the zone once the Nets start playing inside the proposed Atlantic Yards arena and, ultimately, exiting en masse from doors leading directly to the street.
Posted by eric at 11:57 AM
In Brooklyn, a Quaint Block and a Symbol of Blight
The New York Times
by Diane Cardwell
Warren Street between Bond and Nevins offers many of the things well-off buyers seek in Brownstone Brooklyn: a pastoral, leafy feel; long rows of 19th-century town houses; proximity to transportation and charming little restaurants; young families on the block.
But the block also has something that those buyers have traditionally seemed to avoid: two large public housing projects that stand tall at either end, to many New Yorkers enduring symbols of danger, social dysfunction and blight.
How is it, then, that prices on the block are relatively high?
Joan Joseph-Alexander, who is marketing the town house through her company Ambassador Realty, said she arrived at the price after looking at sales in the ZIP code and factoring in the appeal of living within walking distance of the Barclays Center, the arena under construction at Atlantic Yards, but shielded from the traffic and noise it is expected to bring.
Posted by eric at 11:50 AM
October 24, 2011
Dean Street: once “the worst block in Brooklyn”
Ephemeral New York
Today, Dean Street between Carlton and Sixth Avenues appears to be a pretty decent stretch of Prospect Heights, mostly lined with restored row houses and brownstones.
Could it really have been so horrible in February 1947, when a priest charged that it was “probably the worst block in Brooklyn” in terms of its concentration of “juvenile delinquents”?
The New York Times articles chronicling the charge don’t provide a lot of details, mainly noting that police say they’ve “tried to interest the 350 children and youths living on the block in a wide variety of sports programs” to no avail.
Apparently not all the residents of the block thought the kids were so bad. According to the Times, “some [residents] believed it was no better and no worse than other slum streets.”
That “slum street” has some awfully pricey real estate, even with Atlantic Yards going up at the other end.
NoLandGrab: We're kind of surprised that the ESDC didn't cite the 64-year-old quote in attempting to justify Bruce Ratner's modern-day "sports program."
Posted by eric at 11:30 AM
October 20, 2011
Billion dollar business back in New York
Real Estate Weekly
by Liana Grey
In Brooklyn, on the other hand, walkup apartment buildings are leading the way. “We’re seeing a lot of investors coming into Brooklyn, particularly smaller firms,” said Michael Amirkhanian of Massey Knakal’s Brooklyn team. “This is going to be our first billion dollar year since 2008.”
Multifamily properties within a four or five avenue radius of Atlantic Yards are particularly prized, as equity groups expect the area to become hot once the new Nets arena opens.
NoLandGrab: 'Cause the neighborhoods within a four or five avenue radius of Atlantic Yards — Prospect Heights, Park Slope, Fort Greene, Boerum Hill — have been ice-cold for years, right?
Posted by eric at 12:16 PM
October 19, 2011
NY property sales soar, but no cigar
Citywide sales on track to reach $25 billion, quadruple 2009's lows but still 60% below 2007 peaks. Gains seen in all boroughs as number of sales also shows big gains.
Crain's NY Business
by Erik Ipsen
Bruce Ratner, gentrifier.
Property sales across New York City hit $19.2 billion in the first three quarters of the year and are on pace to end the year at $25 billion, despite a slowdown in the turbulent third quarter, according to a report released Tuesday by Massey Knakal Realty Services.
...The area around Atlantic Yards, in Brooklyn, has also seen a lot of buying. There, sales volumes and prices are rising in anticipation of further progress on the massive redevelopment of the former rail yards.
NoLandGrab: Not to mention the 60%+ of the site that used to be people's homes and businesses — not railyards.
Posted by eric at 12:36 PM
October 18, 2011
Over 3,300 New Daily Visitors to Our Neighborhood?
My Little O [Fort Greene/Clinton Hill]
The New York City Human Resources Administration (HRA) is in the process of negotiating a 20-year lease to occupy six floors (400,000-square-feet) of the telecom building at 470 Vanderbilt Avenue. If approved, HRA will consolidate over 1,700 employees from two current locations (210 Livingston Street in Brooklyn, and 330 W. 34th Street in Manhattan).
...In addition to the 1,700 staff, the two agencies will service about 1,600 clients each day. This will bring over 3,300 new daily visitors to the area. A presentation by representatives of HRA at last night’s Community Board 2 general meeting was not received well by both members of the board and the community. The primary concern is that the neighborhood’s infrastructure (parking and public transportation) is not equipped to handle the influx of that many daily visitors. CB2 board member, Mr. Andrew Lastowecky said, "The Clinton/Washington A and C subway stop cannot handle an additional 3,000 people each day during peak hours." If employees and clients do drive there are no parking facilities or roadside parking in the area to accommodate them either. Board members also expressed concerns about the potential traffic congestion that will occur if there's a significant increase in cars during the development of Atlantic Yards.
Posted by eric at 9:37 AM
A proposed school of science and engineering vs. Atlantic Yards: competitive bidding and subsidies well below the city's payoff
Atlantic Yards Report
Would you believe that New York City's "game changer"--a proposed science and engineering grad school aimed at helping New York compete with Silicon Valley--looks like a much bigger bargain than Atlantic Yards--and emerging from a fairer playing field?
...In a 10/17/11 article headlined Two Top Suitors Are Emerging for New Graduate School of Engineering, the New York Times reported:
With less than two weeks left to apply in the competition for $400 million in land and subsidies to build a science and engineering graduate school in New York City, some of the world’s great universities continue to change plans and jockey for position, and there is a growing view among them that Cornell and Stanford have emerged as the favorites.
...People briefed on the universities’ plans, whose cost estimates exceed $1 billion in some cases, speculate that one or more of the contenders will try to improve their standing by forgoing the city’s offer of up to $100 million to upgrade roads, water and power supplies, offering to pay those costs themselves.
By contrast, Atlantic Yards was embraced by city officials as a package deal, and there was never any competition to build a mixed-use arena complex, only a belated RFP, 18 months later, for a key piece of property, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's Vanderbilt Yard.
The MTA never took seriously the one competitive bid, $150 million cash from Extell, since it chose to negotiate solely with Forest City Ratner, which bid $50 million. Yes, Forest City argued that the overall value of its bid was higher, but Extell was never asked to develop its bid further, or to bolster it.
Who knows--perhaps if the bidding had gotten competitive, as with the new graduate school, a bidder might have proposed forgoing some of the city's proposed subsidies.
Posted by eric at 9:30 AM
NYCHA Chairman: Parking Minimums “Working Against Us”
Streetsblog
by Noah Kazis
The New York CIty Housing Authority is aiming to undo the kind of failed urban development that Bruce Ratner plans to do with Atlantic Yards.
Leaders in New York City’s public housing community are interested in transforming city-owned superblocks into mixed-use, mixed-income communities that engage with the pedestrian realm. There are of course many obstacles to this kind of ambitious project, but only one was identified specifically in a Municipal Art Society panel on the topic last Friday: the city’s own parking requirements.
Developing existing NYCHA land could bring a wide variety of benefits to both public housing residents and the surrounding communities, said John Rhea, the chairman of NYCHA, and his fellow panel members.
...Infill development, said Rhea, means “we can do a lot more to ensure that the income diversity is stronger.”
Infill development also would allow the city to undo some of the design drawbacks of the tower-in-a-park style housing project, common in many parts of the city. A plan put forward by Rosanne Haggerty, the president of the homelessness prevention organization Community Solutions, for four adjacent housing projects in Brownsville would build between 700 and 1,000 units without displacing a single resident, she said. Her organization’s design would break up the existing superblock by restoring the original streets back through the housing project and put new buildings facing the sidewalk, recreating the traditional pedestrian environment. “Those blocks can reknit into the surrounding street grid,” said Haggerty. Surface parking lots would be replaced with new housing, retail, schools and green space under Haggerty’s plan.
Standing in the way of this kind of revitalization, however, are the city’s antiquated parking requirements.
NoLandGrab: As Norman Oder has written, Atlantic Yards is PlaNYC1950.
Posted by eric at 9:20 AM
October 15, 2011
From 1990 to 2003: Ratner gets the gumption to build beyond the height of the Williamsburgh Bank Tower
Atlantic Yards Report
How times change. A 3/18/90 New York Times Real Estate section article, headlined COMMERCIAL PROPERTY: Downtown Brooklyn; Two Tall Office Towers Planned on a Single Block, described plans for Forest City Ratner's MetroTech:
AS originally designed, 330 Jay Street was 505 feet tall, only seven feet shy of the Williamsburgh building. [Developer] Mr. [Bruce] Ratner was asked whether he ever considered proposing the tallest tower in Brooklyn.
"'We're not into that,'' he answered. ''We don't have to be the tallest, as long as it gets up and built.''
Bolder plans
By 2003, however, Ratner had achieved many more successes, and Brooklyn was booming. Hence the plan, when Atlantic Yards was announced, to build a flagship tower (dubbed "Miss Brooklyn" by architect Frank Gehry), that would rise 620 feet, 108 feet taller than the iconic bank tower.
No one pointed out Ratner's 1990 pledge.
However, "Miss Brooklyn" was still not supposed to block views of the tower's famous clock. As it turned out, Forest City Ratner at project approval in 2006 did agree to cut the height of the building to 511 feet, one foot shorter than the bank tower.
At the same time, however, that 2003 promise was abandoned, as the tower would still block the view of the clock.
For now, the issue of blocking the clock is subdued, because there's no market for an office tower. Meanwhile, another building in Downtown Brooklyn, the Brooklyner, became the tallest in the borough. It's not near the bank building, though, so it doesn't block the clock.
Posted by steve at 11:59 PM
October 14, 2011
The Mysterious Property Values of Atlantic Yards
NY Observer
by Matt Chaban
Like all NIMBY battles, the fight against Atlantic Yards ultimately comes down to a matter of property values. One of the justifications for the project was that this corner of Brooklyn was blighted. The neighbors already living there certainly took issue with such characterizations—hello, Dan Goldstein!—but now the Post takes a close look at exactly how the new arena and still-born apartments are affecting property values.
Since the fight against Atlantic Yards was principally about eminent domain abuse, cronyism and misuse of subsidies, we guess that means it was a fight about principle rather than a NIMBY battle.
Still, there are stories of real estate speculators, as well, trying to buy up swathes of apartments, counting on a rising tide. Norman Oder points out that prices are still desperately below those Forest City Ratner’s numbers crunchers predicted when they boosted for the project, so the de-blighting has yet to take place. Still, crowds may be nasty, but they’re less noisy than an open construction site.
Posted by eric at 9:31 AM
Who's Getting Foreclosed on in Brooklyn Today? The Voice Finds Out
Runnin Scared
by Michelle D. Anderson
Without a shovel in the ground for housing, is Atlantic Yards already driving gentrification through foreclosures?
Yesterday, the Voice wrote about a protest happening today at Brooklyn Supreme Court. Led by Occupy Wall Street and the group Organizing for Occupation (which led a successful eviction blockade of 82-year-old Mary Ward's home in August), the afternoon event will protest the foreclosure of three more properties in Brooklyn.
...Much like the owners of New Bombay Masala, the tenants we spoke to at 964 Dean Street, David Stoller and Kenny Lloyd, were unaware of today's protest.
However, the two musicians and audio engineering professionals say they were aware that the four-floor commercial building where they live and work will be put up for sale today. They fear that both their businesses and apartments are at stake.
...Lloyd says there is a group that wants to turn the building into a condominium. "It's an historical kind of building. It can be a much better place than turning it into a condo," he thinks. He said companies are purchasing buildings nearby left and right, and he attributes this trend to the construction of the new Brooklyn Nets arena in Atlantic Yards in Prospect Heights.
Stoller wonders if the auction is even legal and he says his business and livelihood are on the line.
"I'm really getting screwed on this," Stoller said.
Posted by eric at 9:18 AM
October 13, 2011
Court vision
With opening of Nets’ new arena actually on horizon, Brooklyn residents brace themselves for whatever happens next
NY Post
by Katherine Dykstra
As the stadium, which will seat 18,000 during basketball games and 19,000 for concerts and contain eight clubs and restaurants, makes its bold way into Brooklyn, the neighborhoods that surround it -- Park Slope, Fort Greene, Clinton Hill, Prospect Heights, Boerum Hill -- are busy figuring out how to react.
...“No one knows exactly what will change yet,” says Ofer Cohen, president of TerraCRG, a commercial realty group whose office is in the shadow of the arena. “The one aspect of development that will come earlier will be in terms of retail on Atlantic and Flatbush surrounding the arena.”
According to Cohen, landlords in the area have been patiently awaiting the opening of the stadium, allowing leases to lapse and their spaces to sit vacant in anticipation of attaining higher rents. Asking retail rents on Flatbush across from the stadium go from $85 per square foot up to $175 per square foot, the high end of Brooklyn pricing, notes Geoffrey Bailey, vice president of retail services at TerraCRG.
“Now that it’s clear that [the stadium] will be finished and finished soon, you’re going to start seeing these spaces fill up,” Cohen says.
Even on the eastern edge of the Atlantic Yards footprint, where nothing but 1,100 parking spaces are slated for the short term, there is interest.
...But while retailers salivate, the state of residential development in the area is more uncertain.
“I haven’t seen developers trying to buy close to the stadium,” says Brendan Aguayo, an agent at the Aguayo and Huebener residential firm.
...At Atlantic Terrace, a new mixed-income co-op building directly across the street from Barclays Center, the 59 affordable units have all been purchased, as have nine of the 20 market-rate apartments. The one-, two- and three-bedrooms are around $550 per square foot.
“We’re seeing more construction-specific fears as opposed to arena-specific fears,” says Heather Gershen, director of housing development at Fifth Avenue Committee, which developed the project. “It is a major construction project, but construction is a reality of living in New York.”
...“The big question is, what will the real community benefits be? We were promised affordable housing and construction jobs. They’ve announced modular construction,” Gershen says. “Jay-Z is not an amenity.”
Related coverage...
Atlantic Yards Report, NY Post on real estate around AY: retail enthusiasm, residential wariness--and vast gap between Atlantic Terrace pricing and KPMG's AY predictions
The New York Post today publishes a real estate article headlined Court vision: With opening of Nets’ new arena actually on horizon, Brooklyn residents brace themselves for whatever happens next.
So, while the article does take in some diverse voices, it's focused on the real estate market, not the "whatever happens next" of daily construction noise and dust faced by some project neighbors, as documented on Atlantic Yards Watch, or the burdens expected from pedestrians and drivers congesting narrow streets on their way to and from interim surface parking.
Brownstoner, Questions About Atlantic Yards and Real Estate Values
Meanwhile, the story also touches on sales at Atlantic Terrace, where the developer says prices are going for around $550 a foot. Atlantic Yards Report notes that in a 2009 report by the consulting firm KPMG to the Empire State Development Corporation, the company determined that only a “modest inflation factor” would be needed for Forest City Ratner to achieve its goal of selling units for $1,217 a foot by 2015. That means, as Atlantic Yards Report notes, that “the Atlantic Terrace price of $550/sf would have to more than double across the street” in just a few years.
The Real Deal, Atlantic Yards construction boosts nearby retail, slows development
...no one is quite sure how the construction will impact local residents, and by extension property values, let alone when Brooklynites can expect the construction to be complete.
"They haven't decided whether the [first residential tower at the site] is going to be prefab or not," said Daniel Goldstein, one of the founders of Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn. "If they don't know [that] today, how can they break ground in the next few months?"
Posted by eric at 11:27 AM
October 12, 2011
470 Vanderbilt moves toward renovation; did the state really consider impact of workers and visitors to new offices?
Atlantic Yards Report
A New York Times article today on 470 Vanderbilt, Unconventional Financing Helps Deal for Brooklyn Space, casts new attention on the former tire factory and telecom space--circled in the Empire State Development Corporation map at right; click to enlarge--that is being renovated across broad Atlantic Avenue from the northeast section of the Atlantic Yards site:
But late last month, the New York City Human Resources Administration signed a 20-year, 400,000- square-foot lease for six floors of the 10-story building — the largest deal in Brooklyn this year and the culmination of more than two years of negotiations. Along with a second, smaller deal, 470 Vanderbilt is now 85 percent leased. In conjunction with a residential tower that the developers hope to build on an adjacent parking lot, it could speed the transformation of the area, which lies between Fort Greene and Clinton Hill.
Any impact on AY traffic or pedestrians?
The Empire State Development Corporation has claimed that the change in use would have no new significant adverse impact, in a document summarizing the 6/14/11 public meeting on traffic issues, posted and also embedded below. However, as I explain below, there are reasons for doubt.
NoLandGrab: We've obtained an exclusive photo of the AKRF team that compiled the Atlantic Yards Environmental Impact Statement.
Related coverage...
The New York Times, Unconventional Financing Helps Deal for Brooklyn Space
Posted by eric at 12:33 PM
Need a job? Become Downtown’s chief executive (prior experience needed)
The Brooklyn Paper
by Kate Briquelet
If having left your previous two jobs under mysterious circumstances isn't a barrier, then Jim Stuckey, we have the job for you!
Looking for work? Want to make $200,000? The Downtown Brooklyn Partnership has a job for you!
The quasi-governmental Downtown-boosting group is on the hunt for a new president and even sent out an announcement last Thursday in hopes of attracting resumes.
Posted by eric at 12:04 PM
Room for One and Occasionally More
The New York Times
by Joyce Cohen
We linked Curbed's coverage of this story on Monday, but it's deserving of stand-alone status.
The apartment is across the street from Barclays Center, the arena that is to be the centerpiece of the huge Atlantic Yards development and the home of the recently renamed Brooklyn Nets once the team moves from New Jersey. The location “is problematic for some buyers,” Mr. Stanard said. “But Sab is into sports and thought it was so cool architecturally. He had been following the whole process and was kind of into it.”
Mr. Singh, with help from his brother and his parents, paid $565,000 for the apartment, and closed last summer. Maintenance is a bit over $1,100 a month.
He knows that Atlantic Yards is controversial — criticized for its scale, among other things. “I think of the arena as a case study every time I look outside my window,” he said. “I am surprised they are not changing the name of the Nets. I would completely rebrand the team.”
NoLandGrab: A real "case study" would be checking back with Mr. Singh in a couple of decades to see how he's enjoying living next to what will be either a perpetual construction project or a sea of surface parking.
Posted by eric at 11:48 AM
October 10, 2011
Brooklyn, borough of snobs
NY Daily News
by Snowden Wright
The curators of what's trendy are, unsurprisingly, also its creators. In that way, members of the creative class, by choosing Brooklyn as their home, made others want to do the same. Many of my friends who, years ago, claimed they would never leave Manhattan now live in Brooklyn, not out of economic necessity, but rather, as Truman Capote once put it, by choice.
...Ironically, many of the qualities that made Brooklyn desirable have been diminished by the influx of new residents. Apartments aren't very cheap anymore, and commercialization is getting pervasive. Jay-Z, for example, recently joked he can no longer afford Brooklyn. Added to which, the New Jersey Nets, a team the musician partly owns, will soon be playing at the Barclays Center, a project that exemplifies the Manhattanization of the borough.
NoLandGrab: Ha ha, good one, Hov. You got 99 problems, but a wit ain't one.
Related coverage...
Atlantic Yards Report, The Brooklyn backlash, in full swing
Of course, that depends on the definition of "Brooklyn." Those who can't afford neighborhoods mentioned in the essay like Fort Greene, Red Hook, Greenpoint, and Park Slope may indeed move to places like Washington Heights. They also may move to neighborhoods mentioned in the essay like Bushwick and Bed-Stuy. Or they may move to even less-heralded zones.
So I think Wright overgeneralizes by claiming, "These days everyone seems to be subject to Brooklyn elitism."
Posted by eric at 11:12 AM
Times-O-Matic Real Estate Radar: In Which the Commute Out of the City Demands The Attention
Curbed
by Bilal Khan
If reading The Hunt stokes your deepest hopes that someday everything in life could work out, then you, too, are obsessed with the New York Times Sunday Real Estate section. Join us as we venture into the depths of this weekend's installment.
So, Sarbjit Singh had kind of a weird dilemma. He got a job in Long Island, but was totally resistant to signing his life away and moving to the suburbs. So, keeping in mind his family who'd be visiting, he set to find an apartment with access to the LIRR. Looking in the $600,000 range, he decided that somewhere close to the Atlantic Terminal in Brooklyn was his best bet. Well, he browsed around and certainly had options for his budget in the area. After a couple of duds he found an Atlantic Yards facing apartment at the Atlantic Terrace in Fort Greene. The price? $565,000 for a slice of soon-to-be arena madness!
NoLandGrab: Let's not forget that Mr. Singh's building would have solar panels on the roof, too, had they not been scrapped for fear of being in perpetual Atlantic Yards shadow.
Posted by eric at 10:21 AM
October 9, 2011
Freddy's in the South Slope seen as part of a resurgence, but... it ain't Prospect Heights
Atlantic Yards Report
Crain's reports, in Low-key Brooklyn neighborhood makes some noise: South Slope area suddenly hot spot for bars, restaurants., that the reincarnation of Freddy's is going well:
Patrons were crestfallen last year when Freddy's, in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn, poured its final shots. While the boisterous tavern—a hangout for artists, cops and others since Prohibition—was razed to make way for Atlantic Yards, one of its owners had an epiphany. “We could reinvent ourselves,” said Donald O'Finn. “We could start again.”
In February, Freddy's was reincarnated near the corner of 17th Street and Fifth Avenue. The area, south of the Prospect Expressway and between Fourth Avenue and Green-Wood Cemetery, has had a surge in bars and restaurants in recent months.
...After looking in Park Slope and Gowanus for a new location, Mr. O'Finn knew that the 15-year lease for 2,300 square feet in South Slope was a bargain. He would not disclose the exact price but said that “it would easily be double or triple elsewhere.”
Timothy King of CPEX Realty Services said he was not surprised. He noted that many businesses priced out of Park Slope find sweet deals just south of the expressway. Rents there are usually between $30 and $35 a square foot, versus $75 to $100 a square foot in Park Slope.
There's at least one big difference, however, between this location and Prospect Heights: the subway is more than ten minutes away.
In other words, these days, to be on the cutting edge, you must go ever farther toward the periphery.
Posted by steve at 11:26 PM
October 4, 2011
Downtown Brooklyn booster's tenure gets mixed reviews
Downtown Brooklyn Partnership President Joseph Chan oversaw retail, residential growth, but was a polarizing presence.
Crain's NY Business
by Shane Dixon Kavanaugh
Joseph Chan's arrival five years ago as president of the new Downtown Brooklyn Partnership was heralded as the start of something big for the city's third-largest—yet underachieving—business district. With backing from the Bloomberg administration and the borough's biggest corporations, Mr. Chan was expected to unify the local business groups, boost commerce on government-dominated blocks and attract buzz-worthy tenants.
Mr. Chan largely achieved these goals, though his tenure, which ended last week, was marked by controversy, budget woes and turf battles.
...“None of us had a big enough stake in [downtown Brooklyn],” said Bruce Ratner, whose MetroTech complex was built with a fortress-like design during the high-crime 1980s. But Mr. Chan rallied stakeholders and “suddenly, we were all speaking with one voice.”
But for some, Mr. Chan, a protégé of former Deputy Mayor Daniel Doctoroff, was a polarizing presence who favored big developers over small businesses. They believed he sometimes did the mayor's bidding.
...“It was another example of the Bloomberg administration blurring the lines between private industry and government,” said Councilwoman Letitia James.
article [trial subscription may be required]
Posted by eric at 10:28 AM
October 3, 2011
Bidders emerge for Willets Point megaproject
Two major developers, as well as the real estate firm of the New York Mets' owners, have submitted proposals to turn the Queens property into a modern venue of entertainment, retail, hospitality and housing.
Crain's NY Business
by Daniel Massey
Two major developers and the Mets' owners' real estate firm are among the firms that submitted proposals for the right to redevelop Willets Point, sources said.
The Related Companies has teamed up with Sterling Equities, which is controlled by Mets owners Fred Wilpon and Saul Katz, to submit a proposal to redevelop the 12.75 acres included in the Queens project's first phase, the sources said. Silverstein Properties, which is building three towers at the World Trade Center site, also threw its hat into the ring.
...City officials would not say how many proposals they received by last month's deadline, but indicated they were satisfied with the quantity and quality of the submissions.
...The city controls about 90% of the land in the phase one area, and has not ruled out using eminent domain to obtain the rest.
NoLandGrab: No word as to whether cash-strapped Forest City, or any Russian billionaire oligarchs, submitted a bid.
Posted by eric at 4:08 PM
September 24, 2011
Cumberland Street Fort Greene, Brooklyn, NY 11238
The New York Times, Real Estate Listings
$1,995
1 Bedroom
1 Full BathroomAmenities
ElevatorThis LARGE 1 BR apartment features a WONDERFUL Kitchen with GRANITE counter tops and STAINLESS STEEL appliances. The building even has an ELEVATOR and LAUNDRY! Located just 2 blocks from FT. GREENE PARK, 1 block to the subway, 5 mins to Atlantic Yards and a short distance from the many cafes and shops that line Fulton St. makes this a MUST SEE apartment! Come take a look! Contact ME for ALL your real estate needs. A SERIOUS consumer deserves PROFESSIONAL attention!
NoLandGrab: We're not sure if "5 mins to Atlantic Yards" means only 5 mins from Atlantic Yards or, don't worry, it's a good 5 mins to Atlantic Yards.
Posted by eric at 9:56 AM
September 21, 2011
Hotels Near Barclays Center
The Real Places
Planning your next trip to a Brooklyn Nets game, or a Hasidic wedding? The Real Places has a listing of nearby lodging.
Barclays Center is an entertainment and sports venue planned to open in September 2012. The NBA's New Jersey Nets are scheduled to play their home games there starting with the 2012-2013 season (when they'll presumably be known as the Brooklyn Nets). The arena will seat 18,000 for basketball, 14,500 for hockey and up to 19,000 for concerts. Barclays Center is part of the Atlantic Yards commercial and retail project in Brooklyn's Prospect Heights neighborhood.
For a more visual method of finding nearby hotels, try our full page map of hotels around Barclays Center containing the 50 closest hotels.
Related content...
The Real Places, Hotels Near Barclays Center in Brooklyn
At the moment there are no places to stay in the immediate neighborhood, but TheRealPlaces.com does have a guide to the hotels closest to Barclays Center in Brooklyn – future home of the Nets.
Posted by eric at 11:16 AM
September 16, 2011
Anticipation and Worries Greet New Downtown Venue to Open Tonight
The Local [Fort Greene/Clinton Hill]
by Brenna Walton
As Lillian Wood left Wednesday night’s Community Board 2 discussion of the opening of a new performance venue at 509 Atlantic Avenue, she turned to her friend.
“Where is 509 Atlantic?” asked Wood, who has lived in Clinton Hill for 52 years.
Then it dawned on her. She looked alarmed.
“That’s right across the street from the stadium.”
Roulette Intermedium, a non-profit arts organization, will open an experimental music venue at that address tonight, just steps away from the planned Barclays Center. On Wednesday, Community Board 2 voted to support Roulette’s application for a liquor license from the State Liquor Authority, with a strict set of stipulations attached.
...But noise, traffic and trash are the concerns of residents who oppose bars and clubs opening in the shadow of the arena. Ms. Wood said the area is already more congested than it was before its construction began.
NoLandGrab: "Right across the street from the stadium" is a bit of a stretch — at the corner of 3rd and Atlantic Avenues, it's more than a city block and about 1000 feet from the arena. Still, per capita alcohol consumption in the area will likely increase significantly thanks to Bruce Ratner's basketball palace.
Posted by eric at 11:37 AM
September 15, 2011
CB2 Recap: Bollards, Roulette, Red Apple
Brownstoner
Roulette, the new experimental music venue at 509 Atlantic Avenue, got the OK from the board for a liquor license, but it came with a list of stipulations. As part of its approval, the board said the venue couldn’t act as a bar or nightclub, or have outdoor space; it also asked for soundproofing and time constraints on loud music. The grand opening of the venue is this Sunday, September 18th.
Posted by eric at 12:29 PM
September 8, 2011
Roulette Calms Neighborhood Fears, Wins CB Support for Liquor License
Community Board 2 Health, Environment and Social Services Committee approved Roulette's Liquor License.
Carroll Gardens Patch
by Gwen Ruelle
By being responsive to community concerns, Roulette, the new not-for-profit avant garde performing arts space on Atlantic Avenue, has won approval from Community Board 2 for its liquor license application.
At the Health, Environment and Social Services committee meeting Wednesday night, the committee approved the liquor license without question or comment.
At the end of July, the venue, which has been operating in Manhattan for 33 years but moved into the YWCA over the summer, was denied its liquor license, and several community members said they feared potential rowdy, drunken parties held at the space, which is set to open September 15.
Many of these fears stemmed from concerns about the forthcoming Barclay’s Center at Atlantic Yards, with residents worried the large stadium crowds would inevitably bring loud sports bars and clubs to the now peaceful neighborhood.
...Since then, Roulette has been working with the community board to create a list of stipulations to ensure that these out-of-control parties will not take place.
Posted by eric at 10:45 AM
September 7, 2011
Liberty Bonds, 9/11, and Forest City Ratner: the first subsidy for a commercial tower (the only one in Brooklyn) and the largest subsidy for a residential tower
Atlantic Yards Report
While Forest City Ratner was not the largest beneficiary of post-9/11 federal recovery funds, it was among the savviest, gaining the first triple tax-exempt bonds for commercial projects, the Bank of New York Tower at Atlantic Terminal, which was the only project outside of Manhattan.
Beyond that, FCR garnered the single largest share of the relatively small amount of tax-exempt bonds designed for housing, aiding construction of the Beekman Tower (aka 8 Spruce Street aka New York by Gehry) in Lower Manhattan.
Thus, in gaining nearly $300 million in tax-exempt (federal, state, city) bonds, the developer saved tens of millions of dollars by paying a lower interest rate. It's more evidence for scholar/writer Fred Siegel's characterization of Bruce Ratner in the 11/30/05 Cleveland Plain Dealer: "He's the master of subsidy."
Yesterday, in a New York Post op-ed headlined Liberty misspent: Political use of rebuild bonds, Nicole Gelinas of the free-market Manhattan Institute suggested that, given that so much of the aid, including up to $8 billion in Liberty Bonds for real estate, went outside of Ground Zero, "New York squandered time and money doling out favors."
Beyond Gelinas's argument, there's evidence, described below, that the Bank of New York is not now meeting the requirements for job retention that justified another chunk of subsidies it gained.
Posted by eric at 11:24 AM
This shameless profiteering rakes over the ashes of 9/11
Belfast Telegraph
by Eamonn McCann
Meanwhile, major corporations have been gifted billions to stay or move into the area around Ground Zero and the bonanza is by no means over.
The current edition of Village Voice cites a couple of startling figures: $1bn to Goldman Sachs for its plush building across from the site, $764m for a Durst Tower in midtown Manhattan and a Bruce Ratner office tower in Brooklyn.
In other words, some of the biggest and most profitable companies in the US are being paid vast sums of public money to operate in districts vaguely relevant to 9/11 in which they'd very likely have chosen to operate anyway. Who would have thought it - that Goldman Sachs would make $1bn from al-Qaida murdering 3,000 New Yorkers? Apart from Goldman Sachs, that is.
"When we were eating and sleeping post-9/11 stuff, the powers-that-be insisted that these subsidies would rescue lower Manhattan", Village Voice quotes Bettina Damiani of watchdog group Good Jobs New York. "Ten years and billions of dollars later ... we need to do some rethinking."
Posted by eric at 10:55 AM
September 6, 2011
How the Twin Towers Transformed New York
The Indypendent
by John Tarleton
As New Yorkers mark the 10th anniversary of 9/11, it’s hard to imagine that the 16 acres in Lower Manhattan that were once home to the Twin Towers ever served another purpose. Fortunately, we have Eric Darton, a locally born and bred historian and novelist to remind us of the origins of the World Trade Center in his recently re-released history of the towers, Divided We Stand.
In his book, Darton reaches back to the beginning of the 20th century to explore the intellectual and aesthetic ideas as well as the political and economic forces that eventually produced the 110-story behemoths that dominated the New York City skyline for almost three decades. In doing so, he reminds us that while the World Trade Center eventually became “sacred ground” to millions of Americans, it was originally conceived as a power play by local elites. Darton recently spoke with The Indypendent about the World Trade Center’s past and present impact on New York, the joys of writing history and why another set of skyscrapers at Ground Zero is exactly what we don’t need.
...JT: What is the relationship between the World Trade Center and other mega-developments that have followed here in New York?
ED: Eminent domain was used in 1966 to erase Radio Row, a perfectly viable commercial neighborhood that had scores of small businesses located in the footprint of the future World Trade Center site. This moved a bunch of legal goalposts and certainly moved people’s expectations. Once the powers that be get away with something like that, it’s tempting to keep on going. This can be seen in the Atlantic Yards project in downtown Brooklyn, in which eminent domain has been used to advance a massive, undemocratic and useless project.
Posted by eric at 9:46 AM
August 18, 2011
Mixed Reactions to New Sports Bar Near Planned Arena
The Local [Fort Greene/Clinton Hill]
by Kyle Thomas McGovern
The Barclays Center is not scheduled to open until next September, but just a block away, at 602 Pacific Street, there’s another sports-related establishment sparking debate.
When Machavelle Sports Bar & Lounge — a softly lit two-level drinkery with a wooden bar and plush couches — started serving pints in May, some residents shared their concerns with Park Slope Patch that the area would soon resemble 42nd Street or New Orleans’ Bourbon Street. Others have accused the owners of capitalizing on the planned arena, which many of the bar’s neighbors oppose.
Jon Crow, the coordinator of the Brooklyn Bears Community Garden on Pacific Street, just across from Machavelle, said the bar marks the first of many negative changes to the neighborhood’s landscape as it prepares for the Barclays Center to open.
“You’re going to have a rash of bars like this that want to open up and capitalize on all the crowds they see coming for the games and performances at the ‘urina,’” Mr. Crow said. “We call it the ‘urina’ because when they’re leaving the ‘urina’ they’re going to be urinating all over the neighborhood.”
The owners of the bar, stung by the criticism, point out that that they’re Brooklynites themselves. They say they’ve been unfairly accused of favoring profit over their Pacific Street neighbors.
“We’re not trying to infiltrate,” said Carolyne Monereau-St. Louis, the wife of one of the bar’s owners, Eddie St. Louis. “We just want to be a part of the community, of the neighborhood.”
...“I don’t have a problem with sports bars,” said Daniel Goldstein of Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn, a non-profit that has been critical of the Atlantic Yards project. “I do obviously have a problem with the arena that attracts businesses that are not about the community, they’re about serving patrons of the arena.”
Still, Mr. Goldstein said he does not bear any ill will toward the owners of Machavelle Sports Bar & Lounge. “As Brooklynites, I hope they do well with their business,” he said.
Posted by eric at 1:15 PM
August 16, 2011
Marty Markowitz wants to know why Apple won’t open a store in Brooklyn
NY Post
by Rich Calder
Brooklyn certainly isn’t the Apple of Steve Jobs’ eye, and his latest snub has the borough’s biggest booster seeing red.
"I seriously just don’t get it," Borough President Marty Markowitz said today, after officials announced that an upscale restaurant would anchor new retail coming to the Municipal Building in Downtown Brooklyn -- instead of the Apple store he had been seeking.
He said the computer giant and its CEO "won’t reach the big-time until Apple finally opens a store" in Brooklyn.
Yeah, Apple, which for a spell last week became the world's most valuable company, and which has more cash-on-hand than the Federal government, won't hit the big time until it makes Brooklyn's Blowhard happy. Right.
The Beep said "almost every big-time" Brooklyn developer building new retail space has reached out to Apple – only to be shunned.
Others interested included developers for the Atlantic Yards in Prospect Heights, a few sites in Williamsburg and a city-owned office tower at 345 Adams St. Downtown, sources said.
NoLandGrab: Gee, could it be that Steve Jobs would rather eat tacks than have to deal with the likes of Markowitz and Ratner?
Posted by eric at 9:44 AM
August 11, 2011
Startups Seeking Capital > Sports Bar in Brooklyn - Needs Funding
The Merchant Processing Resource
If you're going to be kept awake all night by the noise, you might as well lie there knowing you've got a piece of the action! Who wouldn't want to invest with someone named Sparkle?
This sports bar is located near the Barclays Stadium in Brooklyn, New York. It is going to be the home of the Brooklyn Nets Basketball team.
Proposal Summary: My cousin and I have been thinking about opening up a sports bar for a while now and since they are building the stadium for the basketball team, we thought that this would be an awesome opportunity. Our business plan is written up and we have the location set.
Management Team: Myself Johnelle Degannes and my cousin Sparkle Johnson
Return On Investment: We know this is going to be a success. We have so many ideas. It would be a great help if we can get the funding for this.
NoLandGrab: Johnelle and Sparkle are also raising funds to help a Nigerian prince move a large sum of money overseas and to travel to Lithuania to collect on a large lotto jackpot.
Posted by eric at 10:33 AM
August 9, 2011
Atlantic Yards Concerns Block the Approval of Arts Space Liquor License
Roulette promises to address residents' issues.
Carroll Gardens Patch
by Gwen Ruelle
Roulette, a new experimental arts and avant-garde music space located in the ground floor of the YWCA on Atlantic and Third avenues, is dealing with community concerns before its doors have even officially opened.
The Barclays Center, opening soon just a few short blocks away at Atlantic Yards, has made residents extremely cautious about what new businesses and establishments open nearby.
“Because of the coming arena there is a lot of sensitivity about the rise of commercial businesses in terms of bars and clubs,” said Howard Kolins, President of the Boerum Hill Association. “The community wants to make sure it has a large voice in terms of what gets approved and under what conditions.”
And to that end, Community Board 2 recently voted down a liquor license application for the new branch of the formerly Manhattan based not-for-profit arts venue, which is slated to open on September 15.
“I am not against alcohol,” said Eric Albert, a resident. “I am, however, against the kind of behaviors that seem to aggregate around sporting venues.”
...Supporters of Roulette insist that the institution has no connection with the sports scene surrounding Atlantic Yards.
“I think certain people are trying to set a precedent, which I understand, but they have to look at this as an individual request,” said Karen Zebulon, board member of the Atlantic Avenue Local Development Corporation. “It’s not going to be a club, it is somebody having a glass of wine at intermission.”
NoLandGrab: Wait, they're denying a liquor license to an arts organization housed under the roof of the Young Women's Christian Association while sports bars and clubs like Player's and Prime Six are sprouting like mushrooms after a rainstorm? Barkeep, pour us another one of those NIMBYades.
Posted by eric at 10:51 AM
July 28, 2011
Can Fourth Avenue Really Be Grand?
Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz thinks so.
Park Slope Patch
by Will Yackowicz
A news report featuring the name "Markowitz" usually means another ethics violation and attendant fine, but this one's actually about the future of Brooklyn's Fourth Avenue.
Between Bergen Street and St. Marks Place there are almost ten vacant storefronts, but there are also three bars, a pizzeria, a two-week old wine shop and two trees. Two business owners on the strip believe there is hope for the Avenue.
Juan Carlos Aguilera, the general manager of the bar Cherry Tree, believes in Fourth Avenue’s transformation. He moved from Argentina two and a half years ago and in that time said the block changed “drastically.” With the new Nets arena coming, he said, there is no stopping Fourth Avenue.
“This will be the principle street in two years. New businesses are sprouting up everyday,” Aguilera said. “In two years it will be completely changed.” He also explained that Cherry Tree, which owns the vacant building next door and the pizzeria on the other side, is going to help the transformation by putting two more bars on each side and a recording studio in the basement.
NoLandGrab: 'Cause God knows there aren't nearly enough bars planned for the area surrounding the Barclays Center. What better to improve neighborhood quality of life than more bars?
Posted by eric at 10:55 PM
July 21, 2011
Budget watchdog: big projects "generally do not end up generating jobs or investment that was promised when subsidies were provided"
Atlantic Yards Report
The news from the July 19 conference on the Future of New York City, sponsored by Crain's New York Business, concerned the city's revival after 9/11, and the city's effort to recruit an engineering campus.
(The city's offering up to $100 million in subsidies and low-cost land. Didn't the Atlantic Yards project get nearly $300 million in direct subsidies and discount land?)
There was no mention of Atlantic Yards, at least at the panels I attended, but there was some unease about city policies that have led to such projects, and when I buttonholed Public Advocate Bill de Blasio to ask about Atlantic Yards, his answers, not surprisingly, were vague.
...Carol Kellermann, president of the Citizens Budget Commission, stressed investments in education and transit, as well as the impact on services of "embeddedness, debt service, and fringe benefit costs."
"The more I learn about economic development efforts, and subsidies and tax exemptions, the less confident I am that they do produce the value they promise," she warned.
"There's a lot of focus on big projects, but they generally do not end up generating jobs or investment that was promised when subsidies were provided," she said. "There needs to be much more cost-benefit analysis and rigor in analyzing these projects before we get into them."
(I've argued that city and state agencies analyzing such project should, along with the typical best-case scenarios, present worst-case scenarios. Heck, why not a range.)
Posted by eric at 11:34 AM
July 20, 2011
Brooklyn Broadside: Tobacco Warehouse: Opportunity Destroyed
Brooklyn Daily Eagle
by Dennis Holt
The cranky Eagle columnist has found something that makes him even crankier than Atlantic Yards opponents do — and he may have good reason.
Here is the perplexity: does the judge’s decision mean that the federal government cannot ever negotiate with the city or state of New York about transfer of ownership of both the Tobacco warehouse and the Empire Stores?
If this is true, it means that a ruin of a building and the bulk of the Empire Stores can never be efficiently re-used. This is so preposterous as to be unbelievable.
...The long delays in the Atlantic Yards development have already cost Brooklyn a watershed building designed by Frank Gehry. We will never get that unique chance again. Loss of the St. Ann’s group is so lamentable as to raise new hackles. And there is no sensible reason for this loss.
Let's not get carried away their, Dennis. You know and we know that no Frank Gehry building was ever really going to get built on the Atlantic Yards site. Can you say Trojan Horse?
But Dennis comes to his senses, just a wee bit.
One can make a case for all the fuss about Atlantic Yards, even if one doesn’t believe the time lost and money spent was worth it. But one cannot find an intellectual argument of merit for crippling a well-thought out plan for the Tobacco Warehouse and the needed reuse of the Empire Stores, and the potential loss of a stellar performance group founded in Brooklyn.
NoLandGrab: There, now. That wasn't too hard to admit, was it? Bet you even feel better getting it off your chest.
Posted by eric at 5:41 PM
July 8, 2011
Area Residents Will Not Get Priority For Red Apple Supermarket Jobs
Company representatives say laid-off workers elsewhere in the city to get first dibs at 100 positions at the long-promised Myrtle Avenue grocer.
Fort Greene-Clinton Hill Patch
by Paul Leonard
For residents eagerly awaiting the arrival of badly-needed fruit and vegetables—not to mention jobs—it was an important first step.
Beginning this week, the office of Councilwoman Letitia James, D-Brooklyn, will be accepting applications on behalf of the Red Apple supermarket slated to open this September in The Andrea building at the corner of Myrtle Avenue and Ashland Place.
That's the good news.
Now make room for the not-so-good: according to representatives of the Red Apple Group, laid-off workers elsewhere in city, many of whom are members of UFCW Local 1500, will get first dibs on the approximately 100 positions created at the new market.
While those union rules provide important protections for existing workers, that means there could be significantly less jobs to go around for residents, particularly those in nearby Whitman, Ingersoll and Kingsview Houses—areas where the need for quality employment with benefits are the greatest.
...Longtime borough residents may remember that promises of the positive net impact in terms of jobs as a result of new development have been made in the past—namely by Forest City Ratner at Atlantic Yards. However, very few of those construction positions so far have gone to Brooklyn workers, again partly due to union rules.
NoLandGrab: But mostly due to Forest City Ratner's "promises" being a load of b.s.
Posted by eric at 10:45 AM
July 7, 2011
Sunnyside Yards Redevelopment
Pedestrian Observations
by Alon Levy
Sunnyside Yards, lying along the LIRR Main Line immediately adjacent to the site of my proposed Sunnyside Junction, span about half a square mile (1.3 km2) of mostly vacant land, with some big box retail with ample parking at its eastern margin. The short distance to Manhattan has already made Western Queens increasingly desirable (538′s Nate Silver called Sunnyside the third best neighborhood to live in in New York); the new rail junction would make this vacant land into prime real estate, making it feasible to sell air rights above the yards in a similar manner to how much of East Midtown was developed with air rights over the Grand Central tracks.
...The best way to combine the two goals – retaining existing neighborhood context and allowing high-intensity commercial development near the station – is for the city to have progressively higher-intensity zoning proceeding from the margins to the station itself. Away from the immediate station area, medium-rise buildings such as those of Upper Manhattan (excluding projects) should suffice, and the city should not try to ram high-rise buildings against neighborhood opposition. This would also be friendly to small developers, turning this into the anti-Atlantic Yards. Needless to say, there should be no parking minimums, since the area would be dense and well-served by mass transit.
Posted by eric at 11:00 AM
June 29, 2011
The Good News About the Bad Construction News
NY Observer
by Tom Acitelli
The Building Congress yesterday came out with an understandably bleak construction report showing sluggish growth during the Great Recession in new office space, among other things, and not holding out too much hope for the rest of 2011. This year, in fact, will mark the first since 2000 with no new office tower opening.
...It could have been worse, much worse.
One of the reasons it was not: New York City did not overbuild commercially during the boom.
...Had that not been the case–had the last decade been one of barn-burner construction–vacancy rates could have been a lot higher, rents a lot lower, and, eventually, construction financing and jobs that much harder to come by. Why build more when there are empty towers everywhere? (Ever been to downtown Detroit?)
The city may as yet get its chance to have overbuilt, with the World Trade Center construction and the proposed Hudson Yards; and lesser commercial undertakings like Columbia’s West Harlem expansion and whatever finally, maybe, comes up commercial-wise with Atlantic Yards.
Posted by eric at 9:38 AM
June 28, 2011
After 41 Years, David's Laundry Closing Today
Here's Park Slope
The "arenafication" of the North Slope has officially begun.
David's Laundry, the 41-year old dry cleaners on Fifth Avenue between Bergen and St. Marks, will be closing for good today. The shop, which closed for several months last year due a landlord dispute but re-opened with a new lease on life in January, will shutter for good this afternoon, and all clothes not picked up by then will be donated to charity.
Susan, the shop's friendly proprietor for all 41 years of its existence, was in the process of cleaning the space out when I dropped in yesterday to discuss the closure.
"The landlord sold the building," she told me, her accented voice heavy with disbelief and resignation. "They're forcing me out. We're closing forever tomorrow."
...It's these small, fairly anonymous businesses, run by hard working folks, that give life to neighborhoods. Once they're gone, what will replace them? In this case, it will most likely be a chain that can afford the rents rising in anticipation of the arena going up across the street. I have a feeling that in this part of the neighborhood, there's plenty more where this came from.
Posted by eric at 10:38 PM
A foolish proposition
Queens Crapper
 |
From Backyard and Beyond:
The marsh itself was mosquito-free. And tranquil-looking… but don’t let looks deceive you. Salt-marshes are one of the most productive of ecosystems, nursing fish and many invertebrates, filtering water and absorbing storm surges, pumping blessed oxygen into the air, providing food for everything from bacteria to mammals.
Green with two species of spartina, ringed by phragmites, studded with the keystone ribbed mussels, soft and hard shell clams, mud snails, fiddler crabs, and plentiful little fish in the rising tide. Is this Brooklyn? Yes, it is. A Forever Wild remnant of the salt-marshes that once ringed Jamaica Bay and much of the city. (JFK, LGA, EWR and TEB were all built on salt marshes). But “Forever Wild,” a Parks Department designation without much legal pull, doesn’t mean all that much unless we fight for it.
The EDC wants to give part of this land to Bruce Ratner so he can build a strip mall and large parking lot. The attitude is: "Who needs nature? This is NYC, damn it!"
Photo: Backyard and Beyond
Posted by eric at 10:15 AM
June 21, 2011
More Four Sparrow Marsh Documentation
Save Ridgewood Reservoir
Here's an item about Bruce Ratner's wetlands-destroying, WalMart-building plan for Mill Basin marshland.
Two justifications that the parks department has been using to justify destroying part of an important wetland that is owned by the city are:
- Four Sparrow Marsh is not parkland
- The acreage that they want to give to developers is not part of Four Sparrow Marsh
Fortunately there is plenty of public documentation that contradicts their public statements. Below is a list of links to New York City Department of Parks and Recreation webpages and downloads with information relevant to Four Sparrow Marsh. The list also includes a few links from other city agencies. If the any of those links mysteriously disappear, let us know as we've saved all the downloads and created PDF files of the webpages...
Posted by eric at 9:38 AM
June 12, 2011
The changing face of retail: Park Heights Stationers spot to become Five Guys burger franchise
Atlantic Yards Report
Last summer, Park Heights Stationers at Flatbush Avenue and Park Place closed after 25 years, "due to the rising cost of operation," as its landlords apparently sought to get much higher rent from a retail space located in an affluent community near a subway station (B/Q).
Now, reports Patch, the new tenant will be one in the rapidly growing Five Guys burger chain.
Presumably Five Guys considers neighborhood residents its prime clientele, but I wouldn't bet against promotions aimed at arena-goers.
Posted by steve at 9:24 PM
June 3, 2011
Brooklyn Broadside: NYU’s Expansion Benefits From Downtown Space Here
Brooklyn Daily Eagle
by Dennis Holt
Triple oops! The Eagle's Dennis Holt forgets to disclose his fealty to all things Ratner.
Last week’s report on NYU-Polytechnics’s growth plan adds a new dimension and a new promise. They plan to expand by taking up space in nearby office buildings, in MetroTech space for that matter.
The plan includes Poly taking up 120,000 square feet of office space in two buildings, the ninth and 10th floors of 2 MetroTech and the sixth floor of 15 MetroTech.
...This is a win-win situation for all involved. Forest City Ratner, in this case, earns income from empty, non-paying MetroTech space. NYU pays much less to rent the 120,000 square feet than if it had to build anew. And NYU also achieves a degree of planning capability it didn’t have before.
Posted by eric at 10:31 AM
May 28, 2011
No 'Dave and Busters-Type' Bar Slated for Arena Area
Park Slope Patch
By Kristen V. Brown
Residents in the footprint of the Atlantic Yards site can put the kibosh on fears that a rowdy “Dave and Busters-type” bar will be the next thing to open near the arena.
Henry Weinstein, the owner of 604 Pacific Street, told Patch that his plans for the space include nothing of the sort, despite a recent online ad proclaiming that the 35,000 square foot property at Flatbush Avenue can host “80,000 customers” and is perfect for an adult-themed version of Chuck E. Cheese.
Weinstein, a one-time Atlantic Yards opponent, said that the ad was instead the result of an “over ambitious” consultant who put the ad up without his knowledge.
Instead, Weinstein says he plans to lease the mega space to a “high class, SoHo-type operation.”
“I could see why the ad was offensive to many of people in this neighborhood, because they’ll already be assaulted with a deluge of people once the arena opens up,” he said.
Posted by steve at 10:31 PM
May 26, 2011
A Peek Inside Prime Six
Here's Park Slope
On the heels of the news that 604 Pacific Street looks like it's going to get its own Barclays Center-themed eatery (while another sneaky little one already opened last weekend a block away- where's Jennifer McMillen when you need her?), I thought now's a good time to check in with Prime Six, that lightning rod for controversy that will be opening someday on Sixth and Flatbush.
Posted by eric at 10:37 AM
N.Y.U. expansion plan gets mixed reception at City Planning
Real Estate Weekly
by Roland Li
All we can say to our friends in Greenwich Village is be very afraid when AKRF, the go-to firm for minimizing major environmental impacts, gets involved.
Greenwich Village residents and elected officials expressed concerns over New York University’s proposed expansion, while other groups testified in support, at a public hearing at the Department of City Planning on Tuesday.
The hearing was the the first opportunity to comment on a draft scoping document, prepared by AKRF, N.Y.U.’s land use consultant, which will form the basis of a study of the potential impacts of four new buildings in Greenwich Village. (AKRF has worked on a number of high-profile land use cases, including Columbia University’s expansion, Atlantic Yards, and the World Trade Center reconstruction.)
...Numerous local residents said the proposal, which would add 2.5 million s/f of new development and require construction over a span of 20 years, was out of context with the neighborhood and would overburden the existing infrastructure.
Can you guess who showed up to endorse the project?
Supporters of the plan included the New York Building Congress, construction industry officials, local business groups, and the Real Estate Board of New York.
Posted by eric at 10:23 AM
May 25, 2011
Neighborhood around new Nets Arena bracing for sports bar blitz
NY Daily News
by Erin Durkin
As a new Nets arena rises at Atlantic and Flatbush Aves., a slew of sports bars are already popping up to serve the thirsty hordes it will bring.
At least three new bars are on tap for the immediate area - and many neighbors aren't happy about it.
Residents, including some who unsuccessfully opposed building the Barclays Center arena in the first place, are now turning their ire toward the planned bars, fearing drunken crowds will invade their neighborhood with noise, vandalism and public urination.
"We don't want the area around the arena to turn into the area around Madison Square Garden," said Harry Lipman, a lawyer who lives nearby.
...Opponents fear the glut of sports bars is only the beginning.
"People are going to be out there all night messing around and making noise and all the other stuff," said Wayne Bailey, 56. "Why do you need to be open until 4 o'clock in the morning if you're serving the neighborhood?"
Prime 6 owner Akiva Ofshtein bought himself a measure of peace by agreeing to scrap a backyard bar and close his yard by midnight on weekends, but said he was shocked by the uproar.
"I was surprised by the tone it took," he said. "[The arena] is there. You've got to move on with life. You can't hold on to grudges forever."
Oh?! Try us.
Posted by eric at 2:13 PM
Entertainment/retail round-up: new bar already open; changes agreed to by potential sports bar; Calexico bites the dust
Atlantic Yards Report
Catching up on some changes regarding expected and potential arena-related nightlife...
Park Slope Patch reports that Machavelle Sports Bar & Lounge has already opened, located in front of a residential building at the corner of Pacific Street and Flatbush Avenue. Residents say there's been no dialogue with the owner.
Park Slope Patch also reports that the operator of Players Gastro Pub and Sports Bar, planned for a warehouse-like space at Pacific and Flatbush
has agreed to soundproof the venue, hire addition security on game days, and restrict hours to 2 a.m. Sunday through Wednesday, among a host of other stipulations. There will be no dancing, and the owner has expressly specified that the space will not be a nightclub.
The only point of contention: Thursday nights, on which restaurant owner Scott Alling would like to stay open until 4 a.m. Initially, Alling proposed that the 150-seat eatery stay open until 4 a.m. every night.
Calexico goes down
Here's Park Slope reports that Calexico, a humble Mexican restaurant at 88 Fifth Avenue near Warren Place has been closed, after being seized for nonpayment of taxes:
With the Barclays Center rising just a couple blocks away I had a feeling that this two-storefront restaurant, which had been there for many years, wouldn't be able to keep up with the inevitable rising rents. Sad to see it was brought down by its own tax problems.
Posted by eric at 1:45 PM
May 24, 2011
Calexico Restaurant Seized by Taxman, Up For Rent
Here's Park Slope
Calexico, the Mexican restaurant at 88 Fifth Avenue, near Warren Street, has been seized for nonpayment of taxes. "For Rent" signs are plastered all over the gate and windows, and a call to the number on those signs confirms that the restaurant is closed for good.
...With the Barclays Center rising just a couple blocks away I had a feeling that this two-storefront restaurant, which had been there for many years, wouldn't be able to keep up with the inevitable rising rents. Sad to see it was brought down by its own tax problems.
NoLandGrab: When a small restaurant doesn't pay its taxes, it's called "illegal." If Bruce Ratner doesn't pay his taxes, it's known as a "tax break."
Posted by eric at 7:04 PM
Another Sports Bar for Atlantic Yards Area – And This One’s Already Open
Machavelle Sports Bar & Lounge stealthily opened over the weekend.
Park Slope Patch
by Kristen V. Brown
Here we go again.
A new bar and lounge has quietly opened up directly across from the Barclays Center at Fourth Avenue and Pacific Street – right next to the proposed location of Player’s Gastro Pub and Sportsbar, a new eatery that has had Slopers up in arms over concerns for noise and late hours.
Machavelle Sports Bar & Lounge soft opened over the weekend, and plans to officially open this evening, according to a man that identified himself as the owner but refused to give his name for fear of “media attention.”
...Much like the initial issue with Prime 6, another planned Barclays Center-area bar, Machavelle was somehow granted a liquor license (in a speedy one month) without Community Board 6 ever even learning that it was applying for a license in the first place. The lounge then stealthily opened over the weekend.
“It never went before Community Board 6, so there seems to be a problem with the process,” said Jim Vogel, a Pacific Street resident and representative to State Senator Velmanette Montgomery. Vogel caught wind of the situation last month, and has left several notes with the owner in hopes of opening a dialogue but heard no response.
He said that Senator Montgomery is looking at putting together legislation that would require the State Liquor Authority wait for a response from the community board before granting any liquor licenses, rather than grant a license after 30 days regardless of response.
...“Our block used to be quiet, but it’s not going to be like that anymore,” said [Pacific Street resident May] Mosleh. “It’s going to be like living on 42nd Street.”
Related coverage...
Park Slope Patch, Player’s Gastro Pub Agrees to Community Concessions
Player’s Gastro Pub and Sportsbar hasn’t even signed a lease, and already the bar and restaurant has agreed to a bevy of concessions.
The spot, planned for Pacific Street at Flatbush Avenue directly across from the quickly-rising Barclays Center, has agreed to soundproof the venue, hire addition security on game days, and restrict hours to 2 a.m. Sunday through Wednesday, among a host of other stipulations. There will be no dancing, and the owner has expressly specified that the space will not be a nightclub.
...That is – if it happens at all. Player’s has not yet signed a lease, and property owner Henry Weinstein, a one-time Atlantic Yards opponent, is still considering other tenants for the space.
An online ad boasts that the massive, 35,000 square foot property would be perfect for “’Dave and Busters’ type entertainment.”
[Player's owner Scott] Alling attempted to persuade concerned nearby residents that while they might be concerned about issues like noise and sidewalk garbage, his proposal is surely more acceptable that whatever else Weinstein might bring in.
“I guess the reason that we’re so sensitive is because this is right next to the arena,” said Elba Vasquez, a Dean Street resident.
“Since the arena has gone up, there have been many more bars that have come in,” said NFBID President Regina Cahill. “This is just the wave of what’s happening.”
Posted by eric at 11:10 AM
May 23, 2011
Project Puts Brooklyn First
The Wall Street Journal
by Dana Rubinstein
Profit is the lodestar of most building design in New York City. So it is the rare and refreshing development that is driven by something other than revenue maximization.
Take the case of 212 S. Oxford St., a 10-story red brick and aluminum cooperative development on Fort Greene's Atlantic Avenue border. From its bathroom vanities to its bamboo floors, the building is steeped in and guided by ideology: more precisely, by the desire to propagate an economically integrated society in rapidly gentrifying Brooklyn.
"We want something that fits into the Brooklyn culture," says Michelle de la Uz, executive director of the Fifth Avenue Committee, a community development and social justice organization based in Gowanus that is the co-developer of the building, named Atlantic Terrace. The building's motto is "Made in Brooklyn."
...The development sits on Atlantic Avenue and South Oxford Street, right next to the Atlantic Center and Atlantic Terminal malls developed by Forest City Ratner Companies. All fall within the Atlantic Terminal Urban Renewal Area, of which Atlantic Terrace is the final piece.
Before the Fifth Avenue Committee's involvement, the site, a former gas station, had lain fallow for more than 20 years. When the committee and Magnusson Architecture and Planning, who are co-developers on the project, won the development rights in 2003, they had a brownfield on their hands, with seven tanks leaking lead gas into the soil below. Extensive remediation followed.
Today, from the soundproof windows of 212 S. Oxford, visitors can see cranes lifting pieces of the Nets arena into place across Atlantic Avenue.
NoLandGrab: While Bruce Ratner has yet to even put a shovel in the ground for any housing, Atlantic Terrace and its nearly 75% affordable units is complete. Why is Ratner in line for any affordable-housing subsidies when other developers obviously do it better, faster and less expensively?
Related coverage...
Atlantic Yards Report, Atlantic Terrace, across from arena site, seeks "new Brooklyn retailers"
The good news, according to the sponsor Fifth Avenue Committee, is affordable housing (subsidized co-ops for households ranging from $34,970 to $115,380), LEED gold certification, locally-crafted finishings, and common amenities open to both subsidized and market-rate tenants.
Going local
The Journal reports:
Even more principled: the 11,400-square-foot ground-floor retail space is being marketed primarily to local tenants. "We've received some interest from some national chains," says Heather Gershen, the director of housing development for the Fifth Avenue Committee. "We think it's important for people to get fresh produce, milk, the morning paper. We would like to see some of the new Brooklyn retailers."
Or, as Ms. [Michelle] de la Uz puts it, "There's already a mall."
Yes, the site borders Forest City Ratner's Atlantic Center and Atlantic Terminal malls.
While the article mentions Atlantic Yards, unmentioned is that the expected size of the latter project scotched the Fifth Avenue Committee's plans for solar power on the Atlantic Terrace roof.
Posted by eric at 10:31 AM
The Tappan Zee Is Falling Down
Why is New York taking so long to replace a vital bridge?
City Limits
by Nicole Gelinas
Bruce Ratner's Brooklyn mega-project makes a cameo appearance in this in-depth look at the Tappan Zee Bridge's interesting past and perilous future.
The deeper problem behind all the delays, however, is not regulatory but political. When New York officials want to do something quickly, they don’t worry overmuch about legal niceties, public input, or possible court challenges. It took politicians little more than a year to comply with NEPA’s (National Environmental Protection Act) requirements for the Fulton Street transit center in lower Manhattan, for example—a project favored by Sheldon Silver, the powerful Speaker of the state assembly. It also took little more than a year to secure NEPA approval of extending the Number 7 subway line to the Far West Side of Manhattan, a project that Mayor Michael Bloomberg threw his political weight—and the city’s money—behind. The Atlantic Yards basketball stadium and housing project in Brooklyn doesn’t involve federal money, so officials didn’t need to deal with NEPA in that case, but they did steamroll over a similarly rigid state-environmental review process, inviting the state court cases that arose.
No politicians, though, have championed the Tappan Zee. That’s not surprising, since they wouldn’t get much out of it politically. It doesn’t offer affordable housing, as Atlantic Yards supposedly does. Nor does it open up vast new tracts of land to development and tax revenues, as the West Side extension is supposed to. And it isn’t a project funded by a pot of 9/11 money, as the Fulton Street project was (at least until costs exceeded those funds). All the pols will get for building a new Tappan Zee is complaints for years on end about construction and money—so that some future politician won’t have to watch a bridge collapse.
NoLandGrab: Unmentioned by Gelinas is the fact that we might have more dollars for bridges if we didn't squander boatloads of them on unnecessary arena boondoggles.
Posted by eric at 10:15 AM
'Dave and Busters-Type' Bar May Open Near Atlantic Yards
Park Slope Patch
By Kristen V. Brown
Prime 6 was just the beginning.
Not even after a month after news broke that a second bar will open at Flatbush Avenue and Pacific Street catering to sports fans heading to Brooklyn Nets games, the bar’s property owner has posted an online ad boasting that the massive, 35,000 square foot property is perfect for “’Dave and Busters’ type entertainment.”
...
A massive amount of businesses catering to arena crowds – and increased neighborhood traffic because of them – has long been one of the chief concerns of those opposing the arena. Residents have recently raised major concerns over both Prime 6 and Player’s Gastro Pub and Sportsbar.
“I think this is the tip of the iceberg for what the future holds for the block nearest the arena,” said Eric McClure, co-founder of Park Slope Neighbors. “I think something like this does have the potential to overwhelm the surrounding blocks. I also think that the community can have some influence by sticking together and pointing out the problems.”
“I think this really points out why the city had a prohibition against placing arenas withing 200 feet of a residential neighborhood, and how foolish the state was to override it. This all is just not compatible with residential neighborhood,” McClure added.
Posted by steve at 4:39 AM
May 20, 2011
There Goes The Neighborhood: Neighbors Hate on Dave and Busters Copycat Near Barclays Center
Curbed
by Michael Gross
More news and blues on the arenafication of the streets around the coming Barclays Center. Local landlord Henry Weinstein, who was an early opponent and plaintiff in the Atlantic Yards eminent domain cases, is seeking to cash in by seeking more lowest common denominator tenants for his property across Flatbush Avenue from the complex, reports Brooklyn Paper.
Related coverage...
 |
Gothamist, Is Downtown Brooklyn Getting A Dave & Busters?
Beer-soaked Dance Dance Revolution junkies, rejoice! You might not have to go all the way to Times Square to get your sweat on anymore! A giant "Dave & Busters"-style "entertainment mecca" might be coming to downtown Brooklyn soon, right across the street from the Barclays Center. After reading the very excited online ad the property's owner posted today today, what "Chuck E. Cheese with beer"-style chain wouldn't want to move in?
...While it's all very speculative right now as to who will ultimately move in, one interesting twist to the story is that the property's owner, Henry Weinstein, was an early opponent of Atlantic Yards project. Now, he seems to have changed his tune, saying "There’s no stopping progress." And there's no stopping those sexy neon lights, either—bring on the DDR!
Eater NY, Landlord Seeks 'Dave and Busters' Type for Brooklyn Complex
The Brooklyn Paper uncovers a pretty spectacular ad for a new tenant for an entertainment complex across from the Barclays Center.
Photo: Edopeno via flickr
Posted by eric at 11:16 AM
May 19, 2011
Luxury penthouse condos at One Hanson Place sell at auction for $465-$625/sf; FCR, according to KPMG, was expecting $1217/sf for AY condos in 2015
Atlantic Yards Report
Uh oh. Better redo the calculations, Bruce.
In October 2009, as I wrote, the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) released the Atlantic Yards market study by KPMG, which stated, in the words of an ESDC lawyer, that it was "not unreasonable" for the 14 residential buildings (sans Site 5 and Building 1) to be absorbed in the officially announced decade.
The upshot: Forest City Ratner was counting on sales prices of $1217/sf in 2015 up to $1369/sf in 2019.
Well, we're four years away, and the luxury housing market isn't getting too close.
At One Hanson
A 5/17/11 New York Times article headlined A Perch Above Brooklyn, Going Once, Going Twice... described the bidding for penthouse condos in One Hanson Place, the former Williamsburgh Savings Bank building.
A two bedroom duplex with 2,120 square feet inside and 1,948 square feet of terraces sold for $1.325 million. That's $625/sf, without counting the terraces.
Three 3,243-square-foot four-bedroom, three-and-a-half-bath apartments without terraces were originally listed for close to $5 million ($1542/sf) sold for around $1.7 million, or $524/sf.
A 2,848-square-foot, three-bedroom, two-and-a-half-bath, went for $1.325 million, or $465/sf.
The prices aren't quite firm, as two of the sales could be rejected, and the buyers must pay a 10 percent premium on top of their bid. And, of course, an auction can't be expected to bring top dollar.
...
And yet...
...consider that the KPMG report described more generic Atlantic Yards condos, not penthouse apartments in a vintage building.
Posted by eric at 11:07 AM
Mega-party space to rise across from Barclays Center
The Brooklyn Paper
by Gary Buiso
A boozy entertainment Mecca is taking shape across the street from the Barclays Center — and the chief beneficiary is one of the early opponents of the Atlantic Yards mega-project.
The nearly football field-sized property, on Pacific Street just across Flatbush Avenue from the rising basketball arena, is already the proposed home of a sports bar/gastropub, but property owner Henry Weinstein continues to market the massive property in a breathless online ad touting it as “perfect for ‘Dave and Busters’ type” entertainment, a reference to the frenetic Texas-based chain that’s been described as a Chuck E. Cheese with beer.
“How about neon or digital behind glass, aimed at the crowds streaming into the Barclays Arena?” the ad crows. “Our architect calls it a ‘sexy space’ — we call it a freakin’ GOLDMINE for the right user!”
The ad dangles the prospect of “80,000 customers a night,” though the $1-billion arena seats roughly 18,000.
Whatever the numbers are, one-time project foe Weinstein said he’s not going to kick a gift horse in the mouth.
“There will be an arena across the street and this will be a big entertainment destination. Like it or not, this is an upcoming area,” he said. “There’s no stopping progress.”
Progress?
Residents said the transformation of the neighborhood into a neon-lit nightlife destination is exactly what they feared since the inception of the Atlantic Yards project, which overrode city zoning to allow for an arena and up to 16 skyscrapers in an otherwise low-rise, quiet residential area.
NoLandGrab: "Freakin'" will surely be on the lips of nearby residents, too, followed not by "goldmine" but by "nightmare," "disaster," "travesty" — you get the idea. Thanks, Henry.
Related coverage...
Atlantic Yards Report, Beyond Prime 6 and the sports bar/gastropub, a 35,000 square foot entertainment center planned for Pacific at Flatbush
Turns out the gastropub and sports bar, coupled with a pizzeria and falafel joint, planned for the corner of Pacific Street and Flatbush Avenue may be far more demure than what's planned for the rest of the space, some 35,000 square feet.
...As with previous public battles over Prime Six and the abovementioned establishments, the concern from neighbors emanates from the very tight fit of arena and neighborhood. As the Brooklyn Paper reports:
“Go to Madison Square Garden and see what kinds of businesses are around it,” said Eric McClure, co-founder of Park Slope Neighbors, a civic group. “I definitely think this changes the nature of the neighborhood.
“This is what people feared when the state overrode zoning laws that ban the construction of an arena within 200-feet of a residential neighborhood,” McClure added.
The property has neighbors’ attention, as the proposed bar/gastropub is already causing indigestion among those fearful of the radical change that’s anticipated.
But Weinstein dismissed local concerns.
“We want something that is community board friendly,” he said.
I don't think that necessarily dismisses local concerns; Weinstein is a longtime member of the North Flatbush Business Improvement District, which has tried to mediate between businesses and neighbors.
But anything that large, right around the corner from a residential block, won't exactly be easy to live with.
Posted by eric at 10:53 AM
May 10, 2011
Jeffries gets Corcoran to revise listings from Prospect Heights to Crown Heights; why not challenge FCR's claim AY would be in "downtown Brooklyn"?
Atlantic Yards Report
What was that we were saying earlier about a whole heap of nothing?
Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries, who's drawn attention, praise, and skepticism (I Love Franklin Ave., Brownstoner) for his announced plan to "punish real estate agents for inventing neighborhood names and for falsely stretching their boundaries," can report some success with the latter part of his effort.
(Perhaps not coincidentally, Jeffries just opened an exploratory committee for a possible race for the Congressional seat now occupied by longtime Rep. Ed Towns, who may retire.)
He announced yesterday (full press release below) that, in response to his request, the Corcoran Group, a major real estate company, agreed to move "the eastern boundary of the Prospect Heights community back to its proper border, and correct[ed] several listings that had improperly marketed Crown Heights properties as located in Prospect Heights."
...What about AY?
Given that Jeffries is apparently a stickler for Prospect Heights' boundaries, citing Flatbush Avenue as its western border, it's notable that the Assemblyman has not taken on a bigger target, challenging Forest City Ratner's ongoing claim, since 2003, that Atlantic Yards would be in "downtown Brooklyn."
But Jeffries has often been on the fence regarding Atlantic Yards. And his constituents likely are more divided on Atlantic Yards than on real estate brokers claiming that Franklin Avenue = Prospect Heights, or even the emerging ProCro coinage to describe the zone just east of the recognized Prospect Heights border.
Posted by eric at 12:35 PM
Packaging Public Land, The City’s Role in Private Development
Urban Magazine
by Claudia Huerta
It’s hard not to notice all the construction going on in New York City. Yet where the average passerby sees only cranes and the hands of private developers reshaping the city, planners, policy-makers and political insiders see the increasingly powerful role of the city’s arms-length organization, the Economic Development Corporation (EDC).
...EDC is different from other city agencies in some important ways. For instance, when city-owned properties are sold, the names of the bidders and their projects are not revealed to the public. It is only after EDC selects a developer that the community is informed of the developer’s plans. Unsurprisingly, this process has raised the ire of many New York City communities and made it the target of a public backlash, as was the case in the recent Willets Point and Atlantic Yards development proposals pushed by EDC.
Having many different funding sources gives EDC a lot of power. Add to that its unique semi-public, semi-private status and it is a recipe reminiscent of Robert Moses’ Triborough Bridge Authority, which built countless bridges, tunnels and highways throughout the city with impunity from the 1940s to the 1960s despite much public disapproval.
Posted by eric at 12:19 PM
Xanadu- Governor Christie’s Ode-ious “Yes We Khan” Moment
Noticing New York
(Above: “Xanadu” from “Citizen Kane” - “cost: no man can say”- and “Xanadu” the mega-project in New Jersey, - more costs now being assumed by the New Jersey taxpayers- both from wikipedia.)
Suppose the New York Times proposed a contest for readers to write a poetic ode about a huge, over scale, garishly designed and questionably subsidized mixed-use project critically integrated with a sports complex: Do you think the readers might respond with lacerating lyricism questioning the judgement, priorities and profligacy of public officials?
Well, the New York Times did, and its readers did, only the contest was not held with respect to the Brooklyn Atlantic Yards mega-monopoly handed out to Bruce Ratner (the Times business partner in building the new Times building). The contest was held with respect to New Jersey’s stalled Xanadu project recently rescued from financial insolvency by Governor Chris Christie.
...May 3, 2011, the Times declared a winner: Prevailing Poet Is Decreed in Meadowlands Ode Contest.
Here for reference is the opening stanza of the original Samuel Taylor Coleridge poem:
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.The declared winner was Steve Schoenwiesner of Montclair, N.J., for his two-stanza entry, one stanza of which is reproduced below:
For Xanadu did Christie-Khan
A stately subsidy decree.
While tracks below a river, planned,
Were scuttled, fundless, by this man
A blight revives tax-free.
Posted by eric at 11:51 AM
City seeks developers for Willets Point revamp
Grand plans inch forward for 62-acre Queens that's been the subject of a lengthy legal battle between the city and some of the local businesses that would be displaced.
Crain's NY Business
by Amanda Fung
The city moved another step forward Monday with its hotly contested plans to redevelop Willets Point, Queens. The city's Economic Development Corp. issued a request for proposal seeking a developer to build out the first portion of the 62-acre site, a parcel of land located next to Citi Field.
With Atlantic Yards, by contrast, the developer was selected before the project was announced. In fact, it was the developer who selected the project.
“We think this is premature,” said Michael Gerrard, senior counsel of Arnold & Porter, who represents 10 businesses that have been fighting for years to halt the Willets Point redevelopment. Some of Mr. Gerrard's clients are actually located in the first phase, he noted. “The project is still in legal limbo due to continuing uncertainty over whether the city will receive approval for the Van Wyck ramps that are essential to the project, which was approved as a whole, not something that could be broken into chunks or phases.”
Posted by eric at 11:07 AM
May 6, 2011
Good Grief! More Stories (Involving Computers and Schools) Deflating The Bloomberg Management Expertise Myth
Noticing New York
When you are questioning the reliability Bloomberg’s management expertise and the extent to which his statistics reflect a real world versus Bloomberg’s desire for an exulting edifice-complex oriented headline, the statement the in the Times about Bloomberg’s “big push” for an applied sciences school (“envisioned as one of the largest development projects in the city’s history” - What? Bigger than the Atlantic Yards mega-monoploy handed to Bruce Ratner?) has more ominous resonance:
William A. Zajc, chairman of Columbia’s* physics department, said the idea for an applied sciences school was a “field of dreams venture.”
(* Is this gripe just because Columbia doesn’t want competition for its takeover of West Harlem?)
(See: Bloomberg’s Big Push for an Applied Sciences School, by Javier C. Hernnandez, April 26, 2011.)
...The Times story also includes criticism that the mayor should, instead, be thinking in terms of deploying the city capital (“the city has pledged to offer capital [$100 million or more] and public land”) to build upon and expand existing resources and programs rather than these grandiose plans to “start from scratch” which NYU’s proposal to the mayor dares to criticize:
“A ‘start from scratch’ approach that parachutes a new player into New York without the requisite ingredients that lead to success has the potential to be a waste of resources.”
Willlets Point, Atlantic Yards, Coney Island, even the Columbia expansion into West Harlem (potentially competing with the mayor's applied sciences school vision): Where else have we been hearing about the mayor’s intoxication with wiping the slate clean in order to “start from scratch” before building anything?
Posted by eric at 10:32 AM
May 5, 2011
Like, OMG, NJ, a mall is not public infrastructure!!!!!!!!!!!
The Torch
by Nicole Gelinas
This blog focuses on New York. But the new managers of the Xanadu-cum- “American-Dream@Meadowlands” mall project over in Jersey noted helpfully yesterday that “Manhattan can see us.”
OK, then. What Manhattan sees today is an unwise leadership decision on the part of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.
Yesterday, Christie officially threw state support behind the resurrection of this long-failed project to build a mega-mall in northern New Jersey.
Having called the unfinished building “the ugliest damn building in New Jersey and perhaps America,” Christie pledged to see the supposedly private-sector project through under new ownership.
To that end, the state will offer $200 million in new financial help.
...If the dozens of other political vanity projects — from sports stadiums to Atlantic Yards to Destiny USA — that came before this one are an indication, the mall will continue to be a boondoggle.
NoLandGrab: This is the same Chris Christie who wouldn't spend NJ taxpayers' money on the badly needed ARC tunnel project. We guess an indoor ski slope is more important than good commuter-rail access.
Posted by eric at 10:14 AM
Marty eyeing Ringling site for Coney concert series
The Brooklyn Paper
by Alex Rush
The new greatest show on Earth may be Borough President Markowitz’s Coney Island summer music series.
The Beep is reportedly hoping to relocate his “Seaside Concerts” to the W. 21st street parking lot that Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus abandoned after a two-year run. The planned relocation, first reported by NY1, was expected after the city formally booted the controversial weekly shows from Asser Levy Park last month after noise complaints — and a lawsuit — from neighbors.
...Last year’s shows were funded by several companies, including Forest City Ratner and the soon-to-be Brooklyn Nets, but The Beep still found ways to cut costs, using Rikers Island prisoners — paid just $1 an hour — to set up and remove the 2,000 seats for the series’ audiences.
...Just weeks after the suit was filed, the city temporarily overturned the decades-old ban so that the shows could go for the 2010 season. But the 500-foot rule is back in effect and the city moved the concerts out of Asser Levy Park even before there is a ruling in the suit.
NoLandGrab: No judge has thought it a problem, however, that the State of New York overrode local zoning rules preventing a basketball arena from being sited within 200 feet of several residential neighborhoods.
Posted by eric at 10:07 AM
May 4, 2011
WALMART WATCH
Curbed
by Joey Arak
Though there's no sign of Walmart being interested in the neighborhood (yet!), foes of the corporate giant hit up a Lower East Side community board meeting to give a "scathing presentation" about the retailer. Some are worried the SPURA megaplan, which in theory will one day be built, may provide an LES opening for Walmart. "These people are predatory retailers," said Walmart Free NYC's Bertha Lewis, who way back when was so excited about Atlantic Yards she smooched Bruce Ratner.
NoLandGrab: Is there no one with more credibility than Bertha Lewis for Walmart opponents to trot out to Community Board meetings? She'd kiss Sam Walton's bones, too, if there was a grant and low-interest loan in the offing.
Posted by eric at 10:01 PM
May 2, 2011
Hey, taxi! Marty hails Turkish cab maker — and the jobs it will bring
The Brooklyn Paper
by Gary Buiso
Boondoggle alert!
Borough officials spent Sunday morning cheering Turkish automaker Karsan, a politically connected company promising hundreds of Brooklyn jobs if its design is chosen as the city’s next yellow cab.
“I hope that city officials will seriously consider taking a ride with Karsan — we owe it to everyone in the city that seeks gainful employment,” said Borough President Markowitz who organized the automotive love fest at Borough Hall.
...Karsan USA’s president is William Wachtel, one of the founding partners of the powerful law and lobbying firm Wachtel & Masyr, whose client list includes Forest City Ratner and IKEA.
[Karsan advisor Jay] Kriegel is also a longtime city insider, currently a senior adviser to the Related Companies, which is developing land in East New York that could be home to another borough first: Walmart.
But he said politics have not fueled the effusive support Karsan is receiving from local pols.
“That has nothing to do with anything,” Kriegel said. “This is about a decision on the merits.”
NoLandGrab: Call us skeptics, but when they say "this is about a decision on the merits," why do we think the merits have "nothing to do with anything?"
Posted by eric at 11:57 AM
April 28, 2011
Nets’ Brooklyn Neighbors : We Don’t Want Your Glorified Wing Stop (Or The Indie Rock)
Can't Stop The Bleeding
“We do not need a bar on Pacific Street,” argued Brooklyn resident Syble Henderson at last night’s Community Board 6 subcommittee meeting to consider plans to open Players Gastro Pub & Sports Bar adjacent to Bruce Ratner’s under-construction Barclays Arena. “Historically that block has been impacted with all kinds of anti-social activities,” claimed Henderson, who surely realizes that serving a postgame microbrew to Brook Lopez would mean a new low for the neighborhood.
NoLandGrab: Serving a beer to a Nets player after a game would be one thing (as if you find Knicks players at Mustang Sally's after a game at the Garden). Having a bunch of drunks making a racket at 3 a.m. on a weeknight in a residential neighborhood is altogether something else.
Posted by eric at 9:56 PM
Another arena-related bar coming to Pacific Street, between Players and residences
Atlantic Yards Report
As a commenter pointed out on Park Slope Patch, another bar, Machavelle, is destined for 602 Pacific Street, what appears to be a residential building (with, apparently, mixed-use zoning) next to the furniture store that would be the home of Players, a gastropub and sports bar, which generated much concern at a Community Board 6 committee meeting Monday night.
A liquor license application for Machavelle was filed April 12, so the plans have apparently not yet been before the Community Board.
Related coverage...
NetsAreScorching, Daily Link: More Atlantic Yards Dispute?
Recently, the debate over the space surrounding the Barclays Center has escalated. Most recently, a club called “Players” is looking to open its doors near the center and local residents are worried about this likely post-game venue becoming a distraction to their daily lives.
The Atlantic Yards project has trudged through many legal disputes just like this one. This shouldn’t do anything to halt progress on Bruce Ratner’s brainchild and the Barclays Center will probably be built in due time. That being said, hearing stories about the project causing trouble for local residents is certainly disheartening.
NoLandGrab: Not nearly as disheartening as what is sure to become a torrent of new bars will be for residents near the arena. Here's a preview:
Posted by eric at 10:17 AM
April 27, 2011
Another Sports Bar Showdown Near Barclays
On Monday locals bashed a bar on Pacific Street that would cater to crowds bound for Brooklyn Nets games.
Park Slope Patch
by Stephen Brown
Thanks to the geniuses who thought it was a good idea to override city zoning and allow an arena to be built in the midst of residential neighborhoods, residents of Park Slope, Prospect Heights and Fort Greene are going to get plenty of practice fighting liquor license applications.
Prime 6 was only the tip of the iceberg.
Hot off the heels of a fight over one sports bar near the Barclays Center, a new showdown is brewing between locals and the owner of a second bar that will cater to sports fans going to Brooklyn Nets games.
The owners of a Manhattan restaurant want to open Player’s Gastro Pub and Sportsbar on Pacific Street at Flatbush Avenue, which would seat 150 people and be open until 4 a.m. every night.
But on Monday residents at a meeting of Community Board 6 scoffed at the notion of the sports bar on their block.
“To have five or six bars in one area, you get to a tipping point and suddenly you have Bourbon Street in Brooklyn,” said Harry Lipman, a lawyer who was instrumental in the previous sports bar battle in Park Slope. “You have people coming out of a game at 10 p.m. or so — they already had a couple of beers, then they get more drunk, then they’re fumbling for car keys — it’s potentially loud and boisterous.”
Related coverage...
The Brooklyn Paper, Slopers fight Barclays bar war on second front
A fiery group of neighbors stormed a Community Board 6 meeting on Monday night to rage against the proposed “Players Gastropub and Sports Bar,” which seeks to serve alcohol until 4 am across the street from the rising arena on Pacific Street at Flatbush Avenue.
It would be the closest drinking establishment to a venue that is expected to draw 19,000 sports fans per night.
“I don’t want fans coming out and pissing on our neighborhood,” said Jon Crow, a longtime advocate of nightlife limits in Park Slope. “People looking to drink until three or four in the morning are already three sheets to the wind.”
Residents of the once-hardscabble, “Fortress of Solitude”-esque block said they don’t want to go back to the bad old days.
“We’ve fought long and hard to bring stability to the block,” said Syble Henderson, of the East Pacific Street Block Association. “We don’t want a business that’s potentially disruptive.”
Posted by eric at 9:24 AM
April 26, 2011
A gastropub and sports bar coming to Pacific & Flatbush: another incursion on residents or the best alternative near the arena? CB calls for caution
Atlantic Yards Report
Residents of northwest Park Slope, already wary of seemingly under-the-radar efforts to install new arena-related bars near the under-construction Barclays Center, had some harsh words last night for entrepreneurs aiming to put Players Gastro Pub and Sportsbar, plus a pizza/falafel quick serve combo, in a building on Pacific Street at Flatbush Avenue now home to a furniture store.
(Above left, photo from Google Maps; note that the building at left has been demolished and is the site of arena construction. The view is looking south along Flatbush.)
“We do not need a bar on Pacific Street,” commented resident Syble Henderson, who helped found the Brooklyn Bear’s community garden at the northwest corner of Pacific and Flatbush, speaking at at a Community Board 6 subcommittee meeting concerning permits and licenses.
“Historically that block has been impacted with all kinds of anti-social activities,” Henderson said at the meeting held at the 78th Precinct at Bergen Street and Sixth Avenue, referring to drugs and prostitution residents fought 30 years ago. “We have fought long and hard to bring stability to that block... This is an attraction for all kinds of misuse.”
About 15 other residents nearby joined Henderson in her sentiments, while no resident spoke in favor of the plans, and the committee agreed to postpone any recommendation to the State Liquor Authority until its meeting next month and further discussion about the new facilities’ operating plans and procedures. (The Community Board’s vote is advisory, but can push parties to negotiate.)
One issue, reminiscent of the recent tensions over the Prime 6 bar/restaurant planned at Flatbush and Sixth Avenue, was how much notice residents got. Signs were posted on Thursday in the 500-foot radius of the planned new facilities, but several residents said they never saw them.
...While the sentiments might be portrayed as NIMBY, it might be more accurate to call them the tensions arising from putting an arena so close to a residential neighborhood. (The state is overriding city zoning that requires a 200-foot barrier between sports facilities and residents.)
For their part, the entrepreneurs insisted that their plan was the best alternative for a newly-coveted spot and that their landlord, Henry Weinstein--a mainstay of the North Flatbush Business Improvement District (BID) and, while an owner of land in the Atlantic Yards footprint, a prominent opponent of the arena plan--recognized that.
Players would operate 11 am to 4 am daily, occupying 3500 square feet, with seating for 150 and two bars, one with 15 seats, the other with six seats.
NoLandGrab: Et tu, Henry?
Posted by eric at 11:02 AM
April 18, 2011
When it comes to Wal-Mart plans, Lewis (ex-ACORN) decries linkage between store and affordable housing; what about the arena linkage?
Atlantic Yards Report
From an article in City Hall News headlined Critics Accuse Developers Of Obfuscating Plans To Bring Wal-Mart To NYC:
In a letter addressed to Related Companies CEO Stephen Ross, Wal-Mart critics accused the real estate developer and their allies of knowingly spreading falsehoods about the benefit of siting the big box store. Related is the organization widely believed to be in negotiations to bring Wal-Mart to East New York in Brooklyn.
The charge stems from a recent Housing Preservation and Development hearing, which dealt with the transfer of city-owned Gateway Commercial land to Related. According to Bertha Lewis, former head of the now-defunct ACORN who co-authored the letter, a lawyer representing Related conflated the transfer of land for mall construction with affordable housing.
...“Good people can disagree, but be transparent and honest,” said Ms. Lewis in reference to Related. “If you are negotiating to bring a Wal-Mart to Gateway II, say that. Don’t say that it’s about housing.”
Well, a not dissimilar kind of conflation occurred 3/11/10, when Mayor Mike Bloomberg and Forest City Ratner/Barclays issued press releases touting the ceremonial arena groundbreaking, promising it would bring affordable housing in its wake.
It hasn't. It's been delayed, as Forest City Ratner considers the radical, cost-cutting step of modular construction.
Posted by eric at 10:59 AM
April 15, 2011
Tucked Between Past and Future in Brooklyn
LIVING IN | PROSPECT HEIGHTS, BROOKLYN
The New York Times
by Joseph Plambeck
On the north side of Prospect Heights in northwestern Brooklyn, construction workers are busy building the Barclays Center, the future home of the New Jersey Nets.
On the neighborhood’s south side sit several of the borough’s most venerable cultural institutions and attractions.
And in between is an evolving neighborhood that is also a blend of the old and the young, the established and the newcomers.
When Honey Moon Ubarde and her husband were moving to New York from San Francisco in 2007, they knew they needed space. They had lived in Manhattan before, but now with two young girls and several pets, they set their sights on Brooklyn. They ended up in Prospect Heights, buying a town house for about $1.3 million.
Some friends questioned the location, Ms. Ubarde, 34, said, but she had no doubts. “We were surprised that more people hadn’t moved here,” she said, “that more people didn’t see everything that’s around this location.”
Her home is just a few blocks from some of Brooklyn’s most heavily trafficked destinations, including the Brooklyn Museum, the Brooklyn Public Library, the Brooklyn Botanic Garden and Prospect Park.
Brokers and residents say that in the last decade there have been many families of new arrivals sharing Ms. Ubarde’s response to the area.
As Michael Ettelson, an agent for Prudential Douglas Elliman Real Estate, put it, Prospect Heights “went from a neighborhood many people hadn’t heard of to a place that a lot of people want to be.”
NoLandGrab: But didn't Bruce Ratner and the Empire State Development Corporation claim the neighborhood was blighted?
Related coverage...
Atlantic Yards Report, Times Real Estate section returns to Prospect Heights, finds not blight but "a place that a lot of people want to be"
The latest Living In/Prospect Heights, Brooklyn article for the New York Times Real Estate section, online now and destined for the Sunday paper April 17, is headlined Tucked Between Past and Future in Brooklyn, and should be read in concert with the four previous "Living In" articles published from 1985 through 2005, which I cataloged in October 2006.
In 1999, the headline was A Diverse Neighborhood Spruces Up in a Turnaround, while in 2005 it was A Neighborhood Comes Into Its Own.
While Prospect Heights is more economically diverse than, say, neighboring Park Slope, thanks to a larger number of rent-regulated buildings, you wouldn't get that from the latest article. (It does quote a resident as saying the drug dealers are long gone.)
...The Times reports:
Another big change is the Atlantic Yards development, Bruce C. Ratner’s 22-acre residential and commercial project, which includes the Barclays Center and has many vocal critics. So far, several brokers said, the project has not substantially affected real estate prices. The arena is scheduled to open in September 2012.
Atlantic Yards, Mr. Ettelson said, was a bigger concern among prospective buyers four or five years ago, when all people had to go on about the development was drawings and the like. Now, he said, “they see a stadium going up, and people are not necessarily positive about it, but they feel more confident.”
Well, there's likely a tension between wanting a scarce and valuable resource--a row house in a desirable neighborhood near transit--and coping with the increase in traffic on select streets.
I'd suggest that "prospective buyers" should not be chosen as the primary constituency for judging the impact of Atlantic Yards. What about the people who live there?
Posted by eric at 11:19 AM
April 13, 2011
After mediation, Prime 6 owner agrees to give up backyard bar, close backyard seating area by midnight on weekends
Atlantic Yards Report
Thanks in part to mediation by the North Flatbush Business Improvement District, there's Finally, A Compromise Over Prime 6, as Park Slope Patch reports.
...There's a vote tonight at Community Board 6, which is expected to ask the State Liquor Authority to enumerate the agreement in Prime 6's liquor license.
Posted by eric at 8:43 AM
April 12, 2011
Finally, A Compromise Over Prime 6
After over a month of arguments between community members and a restaurant owner, a deal was negotiated.
Park Slope Patch
by Kristen V. Brown
The owner of a controversial Park Slope bar and restaurant has agreed to a bevy of demands, including closing his backyard seating area by 11 p.m. on weekdays and 12 a.m. on weekends.
Akiva Ofshtein, owner of Prime 6, the restaurant under construction at Flatbush and Sixth avenues, agreed to the laundry list of stipulations after a group of irate local residents insisted that the eatery change its hours, backyard setup and even requested a new liquor license hearing.
Ofshtein also ditched plans for a backyard bar, nixed any possibility of bottle service and promised to meet with Community Board 6 after one year to discuss any recurring problems.
“I feel like both sides had to do a little compromising in order to make everybody feel comfortable,” said Ofshtein, adding, “I still think they’re upset with me a little prematurely.”
The compromise comes after over a month of discussions between Ofshtein and a group of residents who live near the eatery, which is slated to open next month. Throngs of fuming residents stormed a March CB6 meeting, furious over rumors that the locale would be a nightlife hotspot catering to the Barclay’s arena crowd and even angrier that the restaurant had already been granted a liquor license without appearing before the community board.
Posted by eric at 10:09 PM
April 10, 2011
Catering Hall’s Plan for a Hotel Upsets the Neighbors
The New York Times
By Joseph Berger
This article is about an attempt by the owner of the catering establishment Grand Prospect Hall to gain a zoning exemption so that he may build a hotel next door to his establishment. Oddly, Atlantic Yards figures into his justification for the zoning variance.
But to Mr. Halkias, obtaining a zoning exception from the city is a matter of economic survival. The New York Marriott at the Brooklyn Bridge, with a 2,000-guest ballroom, is siphoning off some of his wedding business, he said, and hotels that may be built as part of the Atlantic Yards development or in Coney Island would steal away even more.
NoLandGrab: The Times should know that, since the ESDC has given developer Bruce Ratner 25 years to build his project, Mr. Halkias, who's about 70, will be over 90 by the time a hotel is built in the Atlantic Yards project, if ever.
Posted by steve at 12:07 AM
April 5, 2011
Atlantic Yards Arena Question
Brownstoner
We just looked at an open house at 57 St. Marks, between 5th and 6th. I was wondering how the Atlantic Yards Arena will likely affect this block. If anybody has any insights into how living in this neighborhood may be impacted by arena, I would be appreciative.
NoLandGrab: That's what we call Prime (6) real estate, as some commenters point out.
Posted by eric at 12:15 AM
April 4, 2011
Bad comparison alert: The Yonkers waterfront, 112 acres, is like Atlantic Yards?
Atlantic Yards Report
From the Journal News/LoHud.com:
The Yonkers waterfront is the kind of real estate that makes developers drool and tax assessors rub their palms in anticipation. Minutes from Manhattan and offering the most dramatic Hudson River views this side of the Palisades, the Alexander Street waterfront is 112 acres of blank slate just waiting to be molded into the next Battery Park City, or Atlantic Yards, or White Plains.
Um, White Plains is a city, Battery Park City covers 92 acres, and Atlantic Yards would be 22 acres. And a blank slate--not quite.
Posted by eric at 10:21 AM
March 30, 2011
Park Slope Restaurant Met With Resistance
NY1
by Jeanine Ramirez
Prime 6 restaurant is opening at the corner of 6th and Flatbush Avenues, the site of a former video store. It can hold 230 people on the ground floor, the basement and the backyard. But many who live nearby say the restaurant's size and outdoor space will ruin their quality of life.
...Along the corridor is the Atlantic Yards project which Ofshtein hopes will bring in business when the basketball arena opens. However, some residents worry about the growing congestion.
"We are concerned about saturation. And woe unto the next restaurant, bar that wants to open up on our corner," [nearby homeowner Harry] Lipman said.
Posted by eric at 12:03 PM
Out of the City's Domain
Willets Point United
As we commented yesterday, Judge Joan Madden has thrown the city a curve ball by issuing her order to show cause against that effort to segment the Willets Point project and avoid proper review of the Van Wyck ramps. In doing so, Madden explicitly rejected the city's argument that this entire dispute could be rolled into the eminent domain challenge.
We anticipate that EDC will try to make this case when they submit papers to the judge in response to her order. We know exactly why the city is trying to use the ED gambit-they are on stronger legal ground-given how the NY State courts have ruled on condemnation challenges-in this arena then in the environmental arena where its case is much weaker.
Posted by eric at 11:59 AM
Where Wal-Mart Failed, Aldi Succeeds
The New York Times
by Stephanie Clifford
While Wal-Mart revives its plans to get into New York City, a giant German retailer has slipped in relatively unnoticed.
In February, with virtually no opposition — a Queens politician even showed up at the grand opening in Rego Park, Queens — a discount retailer called Aldi opened its first store in the city, and plans to open a second one, in the Bronx, later this year.
...Even though Aldi, like Wal-Mart, is nonunion, it has faced little resistance, compared with the heated opposition often headed by unions and politicians that Wal-Marts have encountered in larger markets.
Why so little push back? Here's why.
“There’s no reason to oppose an Aldi — it’s a small format, and they usually get space from an existing landowner or landlord, a small guy who’s plugged into the community, not a big guy like a Forest City Ratner,” Mr. Johnson said.
Posted by eric at 11:34 AM
March 29, 2011
City's Willets Point plans hit legal pothole
Judge asks authorities why she shouldn't reverse her earlier dismissal of lawsuit to block the redevelopment after city skirts restrictions.
Crain's NY Business
by Erik Engquist
Joan Madden didn't do Atlantic Yards opponents any favors, but she's at least threatening to toss a wrench in the city's Willets Point land grab.
The city's bid to redevelop Willets Point, Queens, hit a pothole Tuesday when a judge ordered the Bloomberg administration to show why she shouldn't revoke the go-ahead she granted last summer.
State Supreme Court Judge Joan Madden had ruled that the project could proceed because the city promised not to condemn any land until it had approval for new Van Wyck Expressway ramps, which it had deemed essential to the project. But when state and federal approval of the ramps proved elusive, the city split the project into two phases and moved ahead with condemnations, arguing that the ramps were not required for Phase I.
But the administration failed to make that argument to the judge.
According to Michael Gerrard, the attorney for Willets Point property owners who object to the city's plan, the judge signed an order directing the city to explain why her order dismissing his lawsuit should not be vacated.
City lawyers will prepare a brief, the property owners will write a response, and the judge will hear oral argument in open court July 20.
Related coverage...
An interesting look at the legal strategy of Willets Point property owners.
By next summer, the dilapidated jumble of auto shops in Willets Point should be starting to transform into a slick new development featuring mixed-income housing, a hotel and a convention center.
But first the city must take on a small band of business owners trying to hold onto their property in the Queens neighborhood, and while recent experience shows that the city has the upper hand in securing the land for the project, the group is eager to learn from recent economic development fights.
Two other redevelopment projects in the city, Atlantic Yards in Brooklyn and Columbia University's expansion in Manhattan, recently reaffirmed the right of government to take private property in New York and turn it over to private developers.
As the city takes its first step toward using eminent domain in Willets Point, opponents are looking carefully at the legal battles over those two projects, as a guide for which strategies to follow and which to avoid.
One major problem:
Yet in the end, what will shape the outcome is not broad support but the courts. And in New York, where the laws are notoriously permissive, the courts broadly support eminent domain.
NoLandGrab: Especially for other people's houses.
Posted by eric at 11:32 PM
Park Slope residents fear noise that Nets arena, local bars would bring
The Real Deal
Prime 6, a bar set to open in May at the corner of Flatbush and Sixth avenues, one block from the Nets' forthcoming Atlantic Yards arena in Brooklyn, caught flack from Community Board 6 yesterday for a 46-seat outdoor patio it intends to keep open, according to the Brooklyn Paper.
Posted by eric at 9:54 PM
Midnight ours! CB6 tells controversial bar to close early on weekend
The Brooklyn Paper
by Natalie O'Neill
A Community Board 6 committee demanded on Monday night that a controversial Park Slope bar close its 46-seat outdoor patio by midnight on weekends, saying neighbors aren’t exactly the late-night party types.
“It’s reasonable,” said Pauline Blake, who lives nearby and dreads the boom of boozy voices coming from Prime 6, a 230-person sports bar under construction at Flatbush and Sixth avenues. “Later than that means I’m not going to sleep.”
Prime 6 owner Akiva Ofshtein will fight the resolution, saying that he has invested too much money to boot his open-air cocktail crowd earlier than 1 am, which is similar to competing bars nearby.
“I can’t go below the competitive standard,” said Ofshtein, who will open in May.
...Park Slopers have been protesting Prime 6 for weeks, saying it will keep them up at all hours, clog streets and lure a rowdy crowd from Barclays Center arena, which will open one block away in 2012.
Posted by eric at 10:35 AM
The Central Park South Building That Just Won't Die
Curbed
by Joey Arak
A fear of e-mail hasn't kept Extell Development chief Gary Barnett from finding himself in the middle of some of the day's hottest topics, from Atlantic Yards (where he tried to outbid Bruce Ratner at the last minute) to the economic crisis, which he tried to fix with a two-page memo. Now he's wormed his way into the case of 220 Central Park South, a rental building that Vornado has been trying to tear down and replace with luxury condos since 2005.
Posted by eric at 10:30 AM
March 28, 2011
Vornado Project Hits Hard Spot
The Wall Street Journal
by Eliot Brown
Extell Development has thrown a wrench in Vornado Realty Trust's plans to redevelop a lucrative site at 220 Central Park South. And as Atlantic Yards watchers know, Extell's not shy about causing rival developers a little agita.
This isn't the first time Mr. Barnett has butted heads with a heavyweight in New York City real estate. A decade ago, he unsuccessfully sued to block construction of the New York Times tower on 41st Street after the state tried to seize land owned by Mr. Barnett for the Forest City Ratner project. And in 2005, he made an unexpected bid to the M.T.A. in an attempt to offer an alternative to another Forest City project, the Atlantic Yards basketball arena and housing development in Brooklyn.
Posted by eric at 10:10 AM
March 23, 2011
Brooklyn Paper: some contradictions in the Prime 6 story about bottle service; Capital NY: owner leaning toward "California cuisine"
Atlantic Yards Report
The Brooklyn Paper reported yesterday, in In Prime 6 fight, the bar owner has two faces:
The owner of a controversial new bar in Park Slope maintains that his place will be a local eatery — but he told state liquor officials that the two-story, 230-person “lounge,” will hire four “security guards,” offer “bottle service” and have an outdoor “stand-up bar.”
Prime 6 will be a live music venue that caters both to Brooklynites and, “out-of-town patrons in anticipation of the Barclays stadium” that is rising one block away, according to a booze permit application filed by owner Akiva Ofshtein last year with the State Liquor Authority.
“It will offer several rooms for private parties, including a basement lounge [and] a large outdoor secluded-dining backyard to be enjoyed during the spring,” the application continued.
Posted by eric at 10:56 AM
March 22, 2011
In Prime 6 fight, the bar owner has two faces
The Brooklyn Paper
by Natalie O'Neill
The owner of a controversial new bar in Park Slope maintains that his place will be a local eatery — but he told state liquor officials that the two-story, 230-person “lounge,” will hire four “security guards,” offer “bottle service” and have an outdoor “stand-up bar.”
Prime 6 will be a live music venue that caters both to Brooklynites and, “out-of-town patrons in anticipation of the Barclays stadium” that is rising one block away, according to a booze permit application filed by owner Akiva Ofshtein last year with the State Liquor Authority.
Neighbors are concerned.
“It underlines the mysteriousness of the proposed bar,” said Steve Ettlinger, whose yard faces Prime 6’s outdoor patio, which will seat 46 people. “There are a number of things that don’t stack up.”
Community Board 6 now wants to reopen the debate, voting last week to ask the state for a new license hearing on the grounds that the board failed to provide locals with enough advance warning about the lone hearing.
...On a wider level, opposition to Ofstein’s bar can be seen as a proxy battle in the long fight over the Atlantic Yards mega-project, which will undoubtedly alter the local nightlife scene once the Barclays Center arena is completed in late 2012. The area is already bustling at night — but there is no telling what 19,000 basketball fans will do once they become a thrice-weekly fixture.
Posted by eric at 10:58 AM
March 20, 2011
Times Magazine takes look at architect Scarano: NYC Department of Buildings was overwhelmed during boom, and relied on self-certifications
Atlantic Yards Report
In a fascinating article headlined The Supersizer of Brooklyn, the New York Times Magazine explores the curious case of now-disgraced Robert Scarano, who became the architect of choice for developers looking to capitalize on the outer-borough building boom, especially in gentrifying Brooklyn neighborhoods like Williamsburg, Greenwood Heights, and Park Slope's Fourth Avenue.
Scarano's specialty: he found ways to build not only eye-catching modernist designs, but to work around the zoning code, building loft mezzanines that qualified as storage space, thus adding secret space to a more cramped (on paper) apartment.
(Ahead of the curve, the late Bob Guskind wrote about Scarano a ton.)
Self-certification
Clearly, gentle city procedures, allowing architects to proceed on the honor system, enabled Scarano's tactics. The Times reports:
Scarano boasted that he knew every nook and cranny of the zoning code, and few thought to question his expertise. He had a genial relationship with the buildings department, and he usually submitted his designs under the city’s self-certification program, an honor system instituted to save money during the Giuliani administration. This meant that, in the vast majority of cases, buildings were being constructed with the go-ahead from just one person: Robert Scarano. In neighborhoods all over the city, though, concerned citizens began to throw up obstacles.
Cracking down
Finally, however, Scarano faced a backlash, as the Times reports:
In early 2006, after a meticulous review, the city filed a series of civil charges against Scarano in an administrative court, among other things claiming that he “made false or misleading statements” in submissions for 25 self-certified projects. Most of the violations concerned mezzanines. The buildings department had just promulgated new guidelines, holding that if the mezzanines had more than five feet of headroom, they could not count as storage space. A few months after the case was filed, the city settled the charges in return for Scarano’s giving up his right to self-certify. “I believe strongly and until today that my interpretations and my decisions were founded on things that were permissible,” Scarano says, contending that many of his audited buildings were eventually cleared by examiners.
Some wonder, if what he was doing was so blatantly illegal, why Scarano met with approval for so long. Robert LiMandri, the commissioner of the buildings department, said he had “no information that indicates that there was any sort of corruption” and that no employees were disciplined. Rather, he contended, the department was overwhelmed by a “frenzy” of building activity, and it relied on Scarano’s representations, which were often voluminous and confusing. At the time, the department had no way to punish him for lying. In 2007, though, state legislators, inspired by complaints about scofflaw architects, passed a law that allowed tough sanctions. “We really needed this stick to be able to say to people, look, there are no more cat-and-mouse games,” LiMandri said. The department created a new Special Enforcement Unit, focusing on Scarano as an initial target.
(Emphasis added)
Perhaps the Buildings Department's posture toward Scarano was not dissimilar to other departments' posture toward Atlantic Yards: they relied on representations they couldn't, or wouldn't, examine closely.
Posted by steve at 9:55 PM
March 18, 2011
HOSPITAL BRIBERY CHARGES: Willets sticks with Lipsky
YourNabe.com
by Connor Adams Sheets
You have to hand it to the Willets Point United crew — they're far more loyal than Richard Lipsky has ever been. Or Forest City Ratner, for that matter.
Willets Point United was keeping Lipsky’s services as of Monday, bucking the trend of cutting ties with him set by many of his other clients and associates. The group paid Lipsky $57,500 in 2010, according to lobbying records.
“The allegations have nothing whatsoever to do with Willets Point, and we consider that Dr. Lipsky has done a most effective job on behalf of WPU to expose the severe negative impacts of the proposed Willets Point development,” the group said in a lengthy statement on its website. “WPU is motivated, indefatigable, and inspired by Dr. Lipsky’s contact with federal enforcement agencies.”
Forest City Ratner Cos., the developer of the controversial Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn, a flashpoint in the national eminent domain debate, hired Lipsky, effectively barring him from being able to work on behalf of project opponents.
Joe DePlasco, a spokesman for the developer, said Lipsky worked for Forest City Ratner as a consultant for about five years before he was terminated last week.
“He actually worked on issues related to youth and sports. His background is in sports. He has a doctorate in sports psychology or something like that,” DePlasco said. “He was a consultant, so he wasn’t directly employed.”
Hmm. We'll have to go back and re-read all of Lipsky's "Daniel Does Destroy" blog posts attacking Atlantic Yards critics to try to find the youth and sports angle.
Sen. Tony Avella (D-Bayside), an outspoken opponent of the $3 billion plan to redevelop Willets Point, spoke at that same protest. He said Friday he was “very surprised” to hear that the lobbyist worked on both sides of the eminent domain issue.
“I wouldn’t have expected Lipsky to be involved, but it’s symptomatic of the system,” he said. “How the hell can you be involved in helping the Willets Point owners fight the misuse of eminent domain and yet you’re supporting the misuse of eminent domain by Ratner at Atlantic Yards in Brooklyn?”
Indeed.
Posted by eric at 11:21 AM
March 15, 2011
Flatbush Avenue freakout: How a race-baiting hoax hooked Bobo Brooklyn, briefly
Capital New York
by Michael McLaughlin
An excellent piece by Mike McLaughlin on the brouhaha over "Prime 6."
THE FIGHT IS ALL BUT OVER EXCEPT for a Hail Mary attempt by the bar’s opponents to get the State Liquor Authority to grant what would be an unusual second hearing on the liquor license application. State Sen. Montgomery, State. Sen. Daniel Squadron, Assemblyman James Brennan and Councilman Stephen Levin signed a March 8 letter making the same request.
There’s also an upcoming summit scheduled by North Flatbush Avenue Business Improvement District officials to make peace between Ofshtein and the opponents. They’ll tackle an agenda on mundane items like garbage pickups and what hours the garden will be open. Race, very likely, will not be a topic again.
Of course, if the overall theme of the place still seems vague to the locals, it seems to be vague to Ofshtein himself, now chastened.
“I wanted to make something a little more high-end,” he told Capital. “Maybe a steakhouse. But now I’m leaning more and more towards California cuisine.”
And in all likelihood: Prime 6 will open, and Ofshtein's relationship with the neighbors will improve.
“This isn’t what I wanted to be talking about before I even opened my restaurant,” he said. “They have legitimate issues and I don’t want to ruin my relationship with them.”
Posted by eric at 11:37 AM
March 10, 2011
Staples Rumored To Be Taking Sid’s Former Space
Office Supply Chain Will Have 27,000 Square Feet
Brooklyn Daily Eagle
by Linda Collins
Looks like Forest City Ratner is bringing another "mom 'n' pop" business to Metrotech.
The Eagle has learned from at least three sources “on the street” that a Staples store has leased the former home of Sid’s Hardware at 345 Jay St. in MetroTech.
The rumor could not be confirmed as of press time Wednesday as e-mails from the Eagle to both Staples and Forest City Ratner Companies, the landlord, went unanswered.
Posted by eric at 11:06 AM
Brooklyn Paper piles on Prime 6 story, doesn't acknowledge petition might be fake, continues to ignore the EB-5 story and the Markowitz video
Atlantic Yard Report
The Brooklyn Paper today offers an article headlined Web war over Prime 6! Online petitions reveal racism, fear-mongering, ignorance, which takes a petition opposing the coming bar/restaurant (and asking for hip-hop to be traded for indie music) as legitimate and representative, even though it acknowledges that the author can't be found and most signers made fun of "Jennifer McMillen."
In other words, it could be a fake, or a parody, neither of which the newspaper acknowledges.
But "the story was packaged by The Brooklyn Paper with its familiar hysterical slant," to borrow the words (regarding another article) of former Brooklyn Paper publisher Ed Weintrob.
Proxy battle?
So maybe they should be careful claiming that "The fight against the bar can be seen, in part, as a proxy battle for the lost war over Atlantic Yards."
As Steve Ettlinger, one of the neighbors concerned about the bar, has said:
All we who have been most active in dealing with Prime 6 have talked about is licensing procedure, use of the common garden area (affecting dozens of people), and things like garbage pickup -- the stuff that the community board asks us to comment on, and for which that Feb. 28 meeting was specifically held. Very boring, every day, concrete stuff that has absolutely zero to do with judgment or taste in music or whatever. Boring, straightforward stuff. Neighborly stuff. Civic stuff.
Related coverage...
The Brooklyn Paper, Web war over Prime 6! Online petitions reveal racism, fear-mongering, ignorance
Sound of the City [VillageVoice.com], Park Slope "Rap Club" Update: The Community Board Meets, And Jennifer McMillen Stays Suspiciously Silent
According to [Community Board 6 Permits and Licenses Committee Chair Mark] Shames, the Park Slope community raised three main complaints. First, Prime 6 will be providing bottle service, which, alongside an apparently risqué website (since taken down), led residents to believe the venue, in Shames' words, "might be a gentleman's club." It won't be a gentleman's club. But it will be open until 4 a.m., which seems to be a sticking point, and residents on the adjacent St. Mark's Avenue fear that the backyard space will bring the noise over from Flatbush to their more residential street.
...The biggest obstacle to Prime 6's liquor license was the 500-foot rule, whereby an establishment serving liquor cannot be within 500 feet of another establishment doing the same thing. The club passed, but now the community wants a redo on the hearing.
Posted by eric at 10:44 AM
March 6, 2011
LETTER: Reseve Judgement on Atlantic Yards-Area Restaurant
Prospect Heights Patch
By Regina F. Cahill
This open letter from the head of the North Flatbush Avenue BID urges locals to takes a strong wait-and-see stance regarding the new restaurant Prime 6.
We know that some of our neighbors are concerned about new developments, particularly Prime 6 being built at the corner of Flatbush and Sixth Avenues, but I ask you to reserve judgment on Prime 6.
We know it will be a bar restaurant, we know it may attract a new customer base but we also know that there are measures and regulations that we can employ to encourage new business to succeed while preserving our quality of life. New York State Assemblywoman Joan Millman has proposed just such controls with A 11288 which calls for restrictions on use of backyards for cafes and hours of operation.
The BID is committed to working together, to encourage the enforcement of the existing regulations and to create guidelines for existing and new businesses that will allow for business growth while preserving the peaceful enjoyment of our homes. We welcome all new businesses and residents upon their arrival provided they operate within the law and continue to be good neighbors. Additionally, we must recognize that we each have a personal responsibility to be a good neighbor and that it must start with facts, communication and understanding that there are such things as private property rights; local, state and federal regulations that often apply to our actions and there are entities and agencies to enforce existing rules and regulations.
Posted by steve at 9:31 PM
March 4, 2011
Media meme #2: about that "indie rock" petition for Prime 6; the author can't be found and the whole thing may be fake
Atlantic Yards Report
We've been played, folks.
Neighbors' concerns about Prime 6, the "sports bar," club, or simply nightlife spot with an entrance on Flatbush Avenue and a backyard extending into a residential block, has turned into a huge donnybrook about 1) bars capitalizing on the arena and 2) places attracting a "hip-hop" crowd.
The first seems at least partly true. Evidence for the second relies mostly on an online petition urging that the bar switch to "indie" rock, a petition so precious that it generated numerous parody signatures, and a petition in response urging "Jennifer McMillen" to move to the Hamptons. And lots of pile-on coverage.
Except no one, save the Wall Street Journal, tried to find McMillen, who's not listed in the phone book or in any database. And the Journal couldn't find her, and suggests the kerfuffle is based on a falsehood:
It was provocative stuff, especially for a famously liberal and oft-mocked Brooklyn enclave. Except it might not be true.
At a recent meeting, most locals who turned out in force to air gripes about the establishment—tentatively called Prime 6 and tentatively set to open in May—didn't know a Ms. McMillen. Efforts by The Wall Street Journal to find a person with that name in New York City were unsuccessful.
Related coverage...
The Wall Street Journal, Brooklyn Venue Sparks Debate
Residents insisted none of their concerns had to do with any playlist at the spot, planned for Flatbush and Sixth avenues, just a few blocks from the Atlantic Yards development, which includes a new basketball arena for the Nets.
"I care about the 4 a.m. closing hour," said Michael Rooney, an attorney.
"No one—even among the most concerned neighbors—said anything about hip-hop music. That's a complete invention with racist overtones," said Steve Ettlinger, a writer and Park Slope resident of 26 years. He thinks the petition must be a hoax.
NoLandGrab: So the question is this — is "Jennifer McMillen" just a prankster having some fun, or is there something more sinister and calculated going on here? Like an effort to tarnish people opposed to the overriding of zoning rules that typically prevent an enormous sports arena from being built immediately adjacent to residential neighborhoods?
Posted by eric at 10:44 AM
Downtown Brooklyn's population boom reaching sky-high levels
NY Post
by Rich Calder
Downtown Brooklyn’s population is soaring as high as its glimmering new apartment buildings — but the flood of new residents are already reeling from the area’s lack of shopping and public services.
...But newcomers are already griping about a dearth of local schools, grocery stores, retail shops, timely sanitation pickup and street lighting.
“These people were promised the Manhattanization of Brooklyn by their brokers and all they got was being able to live in tall buildings,” said City Councilwoman Letitia James (D-Brooklyn), who represents most of the area.
...Officials estimate about two million more people will be visiting the area per year by 2012, following the planned opening of the Nets' new NBA arena a half-mile away and the nearby expansion at the BAM Cultural District.
NoLandGrab: Wonder how many of those two million will be driving.
Posted by eric at 9:50 AM
March 3, 2011
New Gowanus hotel already at war with rivals
The Brooklyn Paper
by Gary Buiso
A brash Brooklyn-bred newcomer to the borough’s burgeoning hotel scene is already calling out rivals, boasting that his soon-to-open Gowanus establishment could put one competitor — Hotel Le Bleu — in the red.
Thirty-year-old Bensonhurst-native Alec Shtromandel says his Union Hotel on Degraw Street between Third and Fourth avenues will be the crown jewel in a narrowly defined market place.
...And Union has proximity to the Barclays Center basketball arena and Atlantic Yards development — now a selling point for prospective hotels.
“That is definitely a factor,” Shtromandel said. “We are five blocks away from Atlantic Yards, and at some point there will be a lot of new housing, and the arena in 2012 will drive a lot of traffic to the hotel.”
NoLandGrab: OK, when was the last time you stayed in a hotel before or after attending the circus, or Disney on Ice, or a Nets' game? And "five blocks away?" No.
View Larger Map
Posted by eric at 10:57 AM
March 2, 2011
Important truths about Willets Point
Crain's NY Business
by Greg David
One place you surely won't get the truth about eminent domain abuse is from Greg David, who's even b.s.-ed his own daughter about it.
It may appear Wednesday at a public hearing that there is considerable opposition to the Bloomberg administration's plan to clean up and redevelop the hazard waste site known as Willets Point, Queens. Don't be deceived. Tomorrow is the end game of a decades-long effort to make Willets Point a generator of jobs and business activity. Also don't forget that the last-ditch efforts of the few holdout businesses have extracted a steep cost: preventing the city's economy from being as prosperous as it could be.
...The opposition has been greatly overstated. In a 2007 survey, Hunter College researchers found exactly one resident in the area. At the time, there were 225 businesses, mostly auto parts and repair business. They employed 1,300 people. Most of the major businesses in the area have reached agreements with the city to relocate elsewhere, mostly to nearby College Point. The numbers of remaining businesses and workers is much smaller today.
Meanwhile, opponents keep inventing strategies to derail the city. For a while, it was the idea that planned highway ramps somehow violated the environmental impact statement. A judge dismissed the claim summarily. Another complaint is that eminent domain is being wrongly applied. New York's highest court has rejected that line of reasoning at both Atlantic Yards and Columbia University's West Harlem plan, and the U.S. Supreme has refused to consider the cases. Case closed.
NoLandGrab: Yes, Greg, a government that can take land from whomever it wants whenever it wants — that's got to be good for business, right?
Posted by eric at 12:20 PM
Is Any Business Safe From the Arenafication of Brooklyn?
Curbed
by Joey Arak
Atlantic Yards is already the biggest thing to hit Brooklyn since that meteor that killed all the dinosaurs (look it up), and its impact will extend far beyond the megaproject's footprint. The under-construction Barclays Center is a huge arena, and huge arenas bring in huge crowds. Local businesses that rely on the exchange of goods and services for currency like to appeal to these crowds. It's the reason why you can't swing a dead Flyers fan outside Madison Square Garden without hitting a sports bar. But the Barclays Center is not in Midtown, and already brownstone Brooklyn residents are fearing the first signs of the arenafication of their neighborhoods.
That's apparent in the backlash to Prime 6, the planned bar/restaurant at Flatbush and Sixth Avenues that some Park Slopers assume will be a rowdy hip-hop club catering to arena crowds. The latest chapter in the saga, Fucked in Park Slope points out, is one resident's apparently serious attempt to get Prime 6's owner to opt for indie rock over hip-hop. And nope, race has nothing to do with it.
...Even some local haunts appear to be getting arenafied. Ancient dive bar O'Connor's on Fifth Avenue and Dean Street, not far from the Barclays Center, is tripling in size and adding an upstairs restaurant in an effort to modernize, the Brooklyn Paper reports. The owners say it has nothing to do with the arena, but one regular says "it seems like there won’t be that same run-down feeling," and an O'Connor's bartender told the BP "the vibe might change." What's next, Gorilla Coffee selling Nets foam fingers?
Related coverage...
F**ked in Park Slope, PRIME 6 PETITION: ANYTHING BUT HIP-HOP!
Sorry Park Slope: this is the kind of thing that makes me want to move to NJ and live in a white community that ADMITS they're racist.
Apparently this "petition" has been floating around facebook since yesterday; and I'm embarrassed to see that a few douchebags have actually SIGNED it.
The gist of it is that this retarded park slope yenta (non jewish? thank g-d) is trying to convince the owners of that new controversial bar on Flatbush, Prime 6, to "embrace indie music" instead of hip hop. If you read between the lines, the none-too-subtle message is that she'd rather have white guys in flannels standing around her patio than hard hittin' brothas with blow-torches and pairs a' pliers.
PetitionBuzz, PRIME 6: EMBRACE INDIE MUSIC!
So here's the gist of my big idea: Isn't there some middle ground between this spot being a stroller repair shop and it being a full-on hip-hop club?
No one can change the fact that Prime 6 WILL exist - they have their liquor license, and nothing's going to deter them from opening. BUT: What if owner Akiva Ofshtein could be convinced that his business will see far more financial success as a different kind of nightlife establishment. Instead of focussing on hip-hop and urban entertainment, what if Prime 6 embraced some of the more indie local artists of ALL races who live and perform in the area.
The L Magazine, Park Slope, Manhattan Beach Fight to Keep Out Poor People, Black People
Now, tempers are high over a planned nightclub that plans to open near where the Barclays Center will be. Prime 6, a multi-story restaurant and lounge at Sixth and Flatbush avenues, concerns neighbors because it could attract an unwanted element. "To have a restaurant for the Atlantic Yards crowd is different than to have a restaurant for this community," a representative for Councilmeber Stephen Levin said at last night's community board meeting, the Park Slope Patch reported. Critics' central complaint seems to be noise: the planned late hours, combined with outdoor seating areas.
Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn, Bottle Service Comes to Flatbush
OK, so there may not be a Carlton Avenue bridge anytime soon, but don't say that the Arena hasn't already started to bring new features to the neighborhood. Last night at a contentious Community Board 6 meeting, Park Slope residents received a first, somewhat murky look at the plans for Prime 6 NYC at the corner of Flatbush and Sixth Avenue.
With three liquor licenses already approved, Prime 6 NYC's proprietors promise a multi-floor establishment with "bottle service" open to 4 AM, plus a large outdoor area adjoining residential property. Prime 6 NYC has been variously described in the media as "a gentleman's club", a "hip-hop venue" and a "sports bar"; something, as it were, for the whole family.
Park Slope Patch, Petition Urges Atlantic Yards-Area Restaurant to 'Embrace Indie Music'
The Brooklyn Paper, Another old-man bar bites the dust as O’Connor’s gets pre-Nets makeover
Fifth Avenue’s beloved old-man bar, O’Connor’s, will get a makeover and expansion just in time for the Barclays Center to open a couple blocks away — but the owner says his loyalties are to longtime customers, not the thousands of sports fans who will fill the arena next year.
Come summertime, the no-frills Prohibition-era dive will be expanded to include an upstairs restaurant with seating that serves “good, off-the-bone Irish-American food” and — for the first time — beer on tap. It will be three times bigger and one story taller.
“We’re trying to keep the old look, but modernize it a bit,” said owner Mike Maher, who has run the bar, near Dean Street, for three years.
Maher said that the renovation and retooling had nothing to do with the 19,000-seat arena rising one block away, but the arena is sure to draw a crowd of sporty types from outside Park Slope to a place that’s now only popular with a small band of regulars.
NoLandGrab: This is exactly the kind of crazy stuff that happens when you override zoning laws and allow Bruce Ratner to drop an enormous arena in the midst of three residential neighborhoods. There are not a whole lot of residential uses in the blocks near Madison Square Garden — for good reason.
Posted by eric at 11:09 AM
March 1, 2011
The Downtown Brooklyn rezoning produced housing (& the DBP is happy), but shouldn't landowners who got a gift have been required to share the wealth?
Atlantic Yards Report
In a 2/27/11 article headlined Downtown Brooklyn's residential growth: Downtown, slated for office space, got a residential boom, Crain's reports how the downtown Brooklyn rezoning approved in 2004 has produced far less than the "forecast 4.5 million square feet of new office space and accompanying 18,500 jobs."
Rather, 1.3 million square feet of office space has been produced--no job total announced--and a lot of new housing: 23 residential buildings, and 4300 units.
The designated cheerleader is happy:
“One of the components of a healthy downtown is having a 24/7 community with a vibrant residential sector,” said Joe Chan, president of the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership. “We're delighted.”
What about the change?
Yes, that's a component, but then again there's the record:
“We were supposed to get the third-largest business district in the city [behind midtown and lower Manhattan],” said Robert Perris, manager for Brooklyn's Community Board 2, which includes downtown. “What we've gotten is a high-rise residential neighborhood.”
Affordable housing
The article notes:
City Councilwoman Letitia James, who represents large sections of the downtown area, argued that the boom has excluded low- and middle-income families. She also noted that the neighborhood lacks schools, food stores and other necessary services and amenities.
“We were sold a bill of goods,” Ms. James said. The residential component should have more affordable housing, she added, but what she most wants to see is the thriving commercial center that the city initially proposed.
Posted by eric at 10:38 AM
Slopers are too late to stop Yards-area bar
The Brooklyn Paper
Dozens of enraged Park Slopers stormed a community board meeting on Monday night to object to a liquor license for a controversial bar at the corner of Flatbush and Sixth avenues — but the protesters quickly learned that they were too late: the liquor license had been granted earlier this month because no one raised an objection.
Akiva Ofshtein was granted his license by the State Liquor Authority on Feb. 16 for his location inside the former Royal Video store about a block and a half from the under-construction Barclays Center basketball arena.
He had notified Community Board 6 back in November of his intention to seek the license. The board had 30 days to object, but it did not.
...The business will occupy a prime spot in what is already a nightlife hub, one that will undoubtedly get busier with the arrival of the Brooklyn Nets. The battle against the bar can be seen, in part, as a proxy battle for the lost war over Atlantic Yards.
...Community Board 6 will reconsider the matter in a month, but it is unclear what the panel can achieve.
Ofshtein still needs the Department of Buildings to sign off on the plans, which request a total occupancy of 230 people.
Related coverage...
Atlantic Yards Report, The battle over Prime 6 at the corner of Flatbush and Sixth: not a sports bar, but questions over the owner's intentions
Given the capacity and the proximity to transit, it's questionable that Ofshtein is targeting a neighborhood audience, as he claimed to the Paper:
In an interview, he told us that he has yet to decide what type of restaurant his place will be, deciding between a “California kitchen” and a steakhouse, possibly named Prime 6.
But either way, he insisted, his restaurant is for locals.
“I am gearing up for a Park Slope clientele,” he said, promising a May opening.
The bar will serve food until 4 am, feature two large televisions, a private party area, “acoustic music,” and an outdoor garden area — which residents said must be removed from his plans.
Park Slope Patch, Slopers Rally Against Atlantic Yards-Area Restaurant
A controversial restaurant near Atlantic Yards was granted a liquor license weeks ago without any protest from the community, but the throngs of angry Slope residents who crowded a community board meeting Monday night in hopes of blocking the license had no idea.
...Neighbors to Prime 6 particularly decried the restaurant’s plan to serve food until 4 a.m., seven days a week and called for any backyard space to be scrapped entirely.
“He really just needs to abandon the outdoor space. He may not be aware of the acoustics, but there is no way that it will not be loud,” said Paul Zumoff, a Bergen Street resident and area real estate broker. “I sympathize with how difficult it is to open a restaurant, but he doesn’t appear to be receptive to our concerns.”
Brownstoner, Slopers Rally Against Alleged 'Gentleman's Club'
Brownstoner has some video from last night's meeting.
Posted by eric at 10:11 AM
February 28, 2011
Wanna build a hotel near BAM? It’ll cost you
The Brooklyn Paper
by Laura Gottesdiener
Throughout this hotel craze, the BAM Cultural District has remained a bed-and-breakfast area only — though that will likely change when Bruce Ratner’s basketball arena is done.
“A hotel is something that has been proposed for a long time,” said Councilwoman Letitia James (D–Fort Greene).
“People are anticipating the arena, which would necessitate a hotel.”
Posted by eric at 11:08 AM
Brooklyn, NY Focus
Mole's Progressive Democrat
NYC Community Organizations Blast Wal-mart for Partnering with Predatory Lender Jackson Hewitt...WalMart, Bruce Ratner and now predatory lenders...this is one nasty nest of corruption here, and Bloomberg and Marty Markowitz are part of it.
Another example of Bruce Ratner's corrupt influence on NYC: Will mystery of Ridge Hill be explained when case goes to trial in June?
Posted by eric at 11:03 AM
Richmond Ave. getting its mojo back, as it lands Dick's 1st Staten Island store
SILive.com
by Stephanie Slepian
Guess who's malling Staten Island.
Another high-profile vacancy along Richmond Avenue will be filled this summer when Dick’s Sporting Goods opens its first Staten Island store in the spot once home to Circuit City in New Springville.
Dick’s, the largest publicly-traded sporting goods store in the country, joins DSW and Trader Joe’s — which will mark its arrival this spring — by bringing life back to one of the borough’s busiest shopping corridors.
..."It’s good news," said Mike Rapfogel, a spokesman for Forest City Ratner, the well-positioned real estate company that owns commercial and residential properties around the country, including the shopping center that will become home to Dick’s.
...Earlier this month, the Pittsburgh-based [Dick's] agreed to settle a class-action lawsuit and 22 related state lawsuits brought by current and former employees who say they weren’t properly paid overtime and were made to work through breaks.
Posted by eric at 10:56 AM
February 27, 2011
Slopers will rally tomorrow night against sports bar near Barclays Center
The Brooklyn Paper
By Natalie O’Neill
First came the fight over Atlantic Yards — now comes the fight over all the bars it will attract.
Park Slope residents are planning to storm a Community Board 6 hearing on Monday night to protest a liquor license for Prime 6 NYC, a live music venue and sports bar that is under construction at the corner of Flatbush and Sixth avenues — just one and a half blocks from the future home of the Brooklyn-bound Nets.
...
“It is completely in conflict with an internationally famous, family oriented area,” said Steve Ettlinger, a non-fiction writer who lives nearby. “And everyone who has approached the owner has been rudely rebuffed.”
...
The liquor license application will be discussed by Community Board 6 at the Prospect Park YMCA [357 Ninth St. between Fifth and Sixth avenues in Park Slope, (718) 643-3027] on Feb. 28 at 6:30 pm.
Posted by steve at 7:10 PM
February 23, 2011
Ruffled feathers! Environmentalists, Walmart foes want to stop Four Sparrows shopping center
Courier-Life Publications
by Thomas Tracy
Mill Basin residents say the city’s plan to expand a shopping center built atop protected marshlands near the foot of Flatbush Avenue is not going to happen without a fight — and some argued it shouldn’t happen at all.
At a Feb. 18 meeting intended to get the neighborhood’s take on its plans for the Four Sparrows Retail Center between Kings Plaza and the Gil Hodges Memorial Bridge, environmentalists and Walmart opponents joined forces to shoot down the project — making it clear that if the city and developer Forest City Ratner Companies want to replace the cherished wetlands with big box stores, there will be a war on two fronts.
• Front one: Environmentalists and bird watchers want to prevent any development at the site, claiming that construction will destroy a borough treasure — a priceless city-owned wetland.
“The city says it wants to build something fabulous [on the wetlands],” nature lover Vivian Carter told residents attending the hearing at Kings Plaza. “But we have something there already, thank you very much.”
• Front two: The battle over which store — we’re talking about Walmart, of course — will be housed in the new shopping center.
...Forest City Ratner Companies is also currently building the controversial Barclays Center, the future home of the Brooklyn Nets, as well as a proposed 16-tower mini-city containing more than 6,600 units of housing — another project that some believe swiped public land for private benefit.
To read more about the project and send in comments, visit www.nycedc.com/ProjectsOpportunities/CurrentProjects/Brooklyn/FourSparrowsRetailCenterAtMillBasin.
Posted by eric at 10:00 AM
February 22, 2011
Near arena site, O'Connor's expands, though AY-connected buyer was rebuffed
Atlantic Yards Report
Here's Park Slope blogger Dan Myers has an interesting interview with Mike Maher, who bought O'Connor's Bar, on Fifth Avenue between Bergen and Dean, three years ago, and is expanding it with a beer garden, a backyard, and a kitchen.
And while it is not becoming an arena bar, as apparently some suitors sought, it can't not be influenced by the building just a few blocks north:
"When I was a candidate to purchase this bar from the O'Connor family, I was the only one who promised to keep the name, and the brand," said Maher. "Everybody else wanted to change the name. People connected to the Atlantic Yards offered them more money, but they sold it to me because I promised to keep it O'Connor's, and to not build condos on the roof. I think the O'Connor family would be happy with what we're doing here. They never considered the bar a 'dive,' and if you take a look around, we've always kept it spotless in here."
Maher claims that the rising Barclays Center didn't affect his decision to expand, but with construction well-underway just up the street, it's clear that there will be a huge demand for bars like the new O'Connor's as soon as the arena opens. It remains to be seen whether the old bar will remain the classic, regular hangout it's been for decades, or if the new additions will alter the bar's character irreparably. It appears to be in good hands, though.
(Emphasis in original)
Note that Freddy's Bar & Backroom was populated by staff and patrons who once moved from O'Connor's.
Related coverage...
The L Magazine, Park Slope Dive Bar O'Connor's to Expand: Is That a Bad Thing?
Maher tells Here's Park Slope:
We're modernizing the room, but a priority is to keep the old look...We'll be saving the bar and the booths and as much of the room as we can, but the seats will be replaced, because they're falling apart. If we want to serve food, we have to bring it up to code.
That makes sense: O'Connor's could use new stools and booths. But does Maher's threefold expansion spell that he's up to something more than making the place look nice? Maher claims he is not building an "arena bar," but I remain skeptical: will this new O'Connor's be connected to its community, like the old Freddy's or even (to a lesser extent) the old O'Connor's? Or will it be a hot spot to grab a bottle of Bud and a plate of wings after a Nets game? God help us if it's the latter, blech.
Posted by eric at 11:26 PM
Ratner’s First Residential Development 97% Leased
Amenities, Proximity to Barclays Arena Credited With Its Success
Brooklyn Daily Eagle
by Linda Collins
It's clear that the Eagle really can't get enough of Bruce Ratner.
The new 36-story rental building at 80 DeKalb Ave. in Fort Greene, Forest City Ratner’s first residential building in Brooklyn, is 97 percent leased.
“Only a few units are left,” MaryAnne Gilmartin, executive vice president of commercial development at Forest City Ratner Companies (FCRC), told attendees at the Brooklyn Real Estate Roundtable earlier this month.
And if you order by midnight tomorrow...
The building, situated between Hudson Avenue and Rockwell Place, “is a great building,” she added. Her reasons? It has great access, it’s beautiful inside and out, it’s near the Barclays Center arena, and it has great amenities like a washer and dryer in every unit.
NoLandGrab: Yes, surely the renters can't wait for the arena. Those always add value to a residential neighborhood.
Related coverage...
DNAinfo, Frank Gehry’s Skyscraper Has Rent-Stabilized Apartments
We're guessing that if you can pay $3,300 a month for a one-bedroom, rent-stabilization doesn't really matter.
Frank Gehry’s sparkling new luxury skyscraper on Spruce Street offers a surprising amenity: rent-stabilization.
Forest City Ratner, which developed the 76-story tower, received Liberty Bonds and city tax breaks for the project and in return has to keep all 903 apartments rent-stabilized for 20 years.
That doesn’t mean the apartments are cheap — the rents start at market rate, or $3,300 for a one-bedroom.
Posted by eric at 10:51 PM
February 21, 2011
SAVE FOUR SPARROW MARSH
New York City Audubon
Take Action!
NYC Audubon has some great resources to help you craft and submit comments to the New York City Economic Development Corporation on its destructive plans to partner with Bruce Ratner and build yet another mall over critical marsh habitat along Jamaica Bay.
Comments are due by February 28th.
Will it be this?
 |
or this?
Posted by eric at 9:27 AM
February 18, 2011
Public Scope
Backyard and Beyond
Here's a must-read piece, which we republish in its entirety, about Forest City Ratner's plans to annex some scarce Brooklyn marshland for yet another shopping mall.
I attended the Four Sparrow Marsh “retail center” public scope meeting last night.
How sweet, the community room at King’s Plaza Mall — was it a requirement of the project’s approval long ago or a goodwill gesture on the part of management? — is located under the parking garage. It’s symptomatic of our degraded democracy that private spaces — malls — are the preeminent agoras of our nation, but they are agoras only in one sense, the market place of things. Not the market place of ideas, mind you. Consumption – our reigning religion, formerly a name for a disease, which consumed — burnt up — the body of the victim, as consumption now does the planet — is a such a fallen idol; predicated on creating desires that can never be met, lest we only go shopping once.
The turnout was well over the 60 allowed in the room. The proposal, a private taking of public land, was revealed as something of a shell game: it’s all speculation right now, with no named commercial tenants, and two vague renderings. Yet the machinery of Economic Development grinds on; this meeting is the precursor to the Environmental Impact Statement. The project architect – actual architects put their names on these commercial boxes? – kept referring to a “view corridor” towards the marsh, until somebody asked him if he meant the, uh, four-lane road. He was. (This was a better euphemism than “fill of unknown origin” which describes a lot of the littoral edge of the city.) A trio of slick politicals – Council, Assembly, Senate – spoke, mostly against, sort of. A community board type suggested that something classy like Lord & Taylor would be welcome. Representatives from park advocacy and environmental groups were rightly and decidedly against this folly, but the real joy of the evening was seeing the non-affiliated public in action. Some real voices of Brooklyn on display. A couple were clearly gadflies of long standing – you go, ladies. Two construction union reps, invested in such projects, unfortunately, both had the message that mega-developer and long-time benefactor of public-giveaways (socialism-for-the-rich) Forest-City Ratner cared about communities. Oy!
The public comment period is open to 2/28. The comment I’ll be submitting goes something like this:
Four Sparrow Marsh is a small piece of wildness in the city. It’s not a park – you mostly sink into the goo if you try walking there, and you have to watch where your feet go because the place is crawling with fiddler crabs in season. The birds, both residents and migrants passing through during the spring and fall, get most of the attention, but the marsh is also home to much invertebrate life, and fish, amphibians, reptiles, and mammals. Musk rat, for instance. There are also, of course, plants, and lichens, and fungi, components of the whole web of life that we humans are also a part of. As part of the larger ecosystem and life web of Jamaica Bay, which is part of the vast estuary that surrounds New York City, the marsh is vital to the future of the city. As a water filter; as a buffer against the rising waters of global warming; as an incubator of new life, fresh air, rich soil, the miracle of a small bird seen by someone otherwise surrounded by concrete. It’s a place, even with the highway howling nearby, you can hear the wind in the reeds. Why do we still have to defend the obvious, vital need for such things? It certainly shouldn’t be diminished and threatened by another mall and vast parking lot, a speculative project of short-term (and short-sighted) profit, indicative of a development ethos – transferring the commonwealth to private power – that has proved a failure over and over again.
Posted by eric at 11:33 AM
February 16, 2011
East Harlem Mall to Add Food Court
DNAinfo
by Jeff Mays
Bruce Ratner is bringing a new amenity to the folks of East Harlem. One "amenity" he's already brought them? A way-too-big parking garage.
East River Plaza features both a Target and a Costco, but the developers of the massive mall say they left out one major trait shared by most successful shopping centers: a food court.
Representatives from Forest City Ratner and Blumenfeld Development Group say they plan to remedy the oversight and are currently looking for an operator to oversee the food court they are planning to install.
...Andrew Miller, a vice president for Forest City Ratner, said the parking space has been leased out to an operator so they have no control over the rates. Some retailers have the option of offering validated parking and have been encouraged to do so but have not, he said.
"Everyone agrees the garage is much, much larger than it needed to be," said Miller.
Posted by eric at 9:45 AM
February 14, 2011
Is Wal-Mart Worse?
Gotham Gazette
by Courtney Gross
It was a relatively quiet morning in front of Atlantic Center -- the usually buzzing Brooklyn shopping complex kitty-corner to the site of Atlantic Yards.
Mikey Richardson, 29, had a Target bag in one hand and a cigarette in the other. Richardson comes to Target -- the anchor store in the center -- once or twice a month for the occasional household item.
Last week it was a power tool set.
The 29-year-old Crown Heights resident has no problem unloading his wallet at this particular national retailer, which boasts more than 1,700 stores throughout the country.
But Richardson changed his tune when it came to its competitor, the world's number one retailer: Wal-Mart.
NoLandGrab: Bruce Ratner, of course, has done more than his unfair share to bring big-box retailers to New York City.
Posted by eric at 10:22 AM
February 10, 2011
Downtown Brooklyn: Old School
The Heidelberger Papers
Downtown Brooklyn in undergoing rapid change with the construction of highrise luxury condos, the Atlantic Yards project, and many other tides indicative fast paced NYC gentrification. These shots were taken from Livingston Street, near Bond, a section that resembles what Downtown Brooklyn (and much of the entire city) used to appear before it took a much more upper class trend.
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Photo: Matt Heidelberger
Posted by eric at 10:49 AM
February 3, 2011
City to Seize Land in Queens
Eminent-Domain Proceedings Set for Property Holdouts at Willets Point Project
The Wall Street Journal
by Eliot Brown
New York City is moving to seize property from landowners in Willets Point.
Seeking to kick-start a massive Queens real-estate development project conceived in the boom years, the Bloomberg administration is moving to seize a portion of the site from private property owners.
Next week, the city plans to initiate the eminent-domain process on holdout owners who own property in the first 20-acre phase of the 62-acre project. The city also is planning to solicit bids from developers in the spring, according to city officials.
Known as Willets Point, the development site by Citi Field is slated to ultimately contain more than eight million square feet, with more than 5,000 apartments, a hotel and more than 1.7 million square feet of retail space.
The site currently is filled with junkyards and auto-repair shops, along with some larger industrial properties. The City Council in 2008 approved the use of eminent domain to acquire parcels from holdouts.
The property owners are expected to litigate to block the city action, although New York state laws give the government broad powers to use eminent domain. Similar recent development projects, like the new basketball arena being built at Atlantic Yards in Brooklyn, have survived court challenges.
...Richard Lipsky, a lobbyist who represents business owners at the site, says that the eminent domain action was "an absolute disgrace."
NoLandGrab: The mercenary Lipsky, like a broken clock, is occasionally right. But he sure sang a different tune when Daniel Goldstein refused to sell to Lipsky's client, Bruce Ratner.
Related coverage...
Curbed, City Ready to Drop an Iron Fist on the Iron Triangle
The Bernie Madoff fallout may have plunged the Mets into financial chaos, but the real fireworks in Queens are about to kick off across the street from the team's stadium. The city is getting ready to start the controversial process of separating property owners from their property at Willets Point, the self-contained village of junkyards and auto-repair shops known as the Iron Triangle.
...The Journal reports that next week Team Bloomberg will initiate eminent domain proceedings against nine holdouts, with more to come in the future. It's expected that the property owners will fight the government in court, but if you've been paying attention to how these things have gone as of late (Atlantic Yards, Columbia expansion, etc.), let's just say that the Mets stand a better chance of winning the World Series than some guy does of keeping his scrap heap behind the outfield.
Queens Crap, Here comes the Bloomberg steamroller
Crain's NY Business, City plans to seize Willets Point land
Posted by eric at 11:01 AM
January 31, 2011
Catching up: on declining manufacturing jobs, uncounted vacant lots (that could support new housing)
Atlantic Yards Report
The Bloomberg administration may gain respect for pursuing illegal gun sales, but there are lots of lapses when it comes to land use.
In a post January 15, I quoted the Village Voice quoting City Limits on the decline of manufacturing jobs, but here's Sarah Crean's original piece, dated January 3, headlined Did City's Industrial Policy Manufacture Defeat?
She wrote:
According to research conducted by the New York Industrial Retention Network, 23.4 million square feet of industrial space was lost to approved rezonings between 2001 and 2008, impacting some of New York’s most populated manufacturing districts. Significant portions of Greenpoint-Williamsburg, Long Island City, the midtown Garment Center, and Port Morris in the Bronx were rezoned during this period, mainly for residential development.
Repeated attempts by community groups, labor unions, industrial advocates and others to promote alternative plans that would not place as much pressure on manufacturing clusters met with limited success. We were particularly unsuccessful in reaching any sort of a conceptual common ground with the Department of City Planning. They generally ignored the argument that permitting residential development in industrial areas would lead to conversion pressure because owners of industrial buildings could generate higher returns with residential tenants. The Department of City Planning made repeatedly clear its belief that manufacturing jobs were not integral to New York’s future, while residential development, of course, was. Now as we struggle through double-digit unemployment in many of the city’s low income neighborhoods, the logic of ignoring our industrial sector seems more questionable.
NoLandGrab: But where is one going to find a nice poached turbot in beurre blanc and a lovely Pouilly-Fuisse in a manufacturing district?
Posted by eric at 11:08 PM
January 25, 2011
Latest City Incubator Opens in Flatiron Area
The Wall Street Journal
by Joseph De Avila
Atlantic Yards gets a mention as the yardstick for wasteful public spending.
The eighth entrepreneurial program sponsored by New York City opened Monday, aimed at providing technology and design classes to aid new businesses.
The Bloomberg administration plans to launch another so-called incubator in the Bronx this spring. To date, the city has invested $3 million in the programs, with about 500 people working out of its incubators.
Compared with the amount of money the city invests in corporate tax incentives and big real-estate projects like Atlantic Yards, incubators are "still a drop in the bucket," said Jonathan Bowles, director of the Center of for an Urban Future, a nonpartisan research group. Still, he said, "I think it's a huge shift in local economic development policy, and it's long overdue."
Posted by eric at 10:19 AM
January 24, 2011
The Vanishing City: film focuses on the fruits of a corporate-friendly mentality and the "luxury city"; AY gets a cameo
Atlantic Yards Report
Trying to understand the arc of the city that led to such projects as Atlantic Yards, I've been writing recently about the loss of manufacturing. That's part of a larger story, told intriguingly--if incompletely--in the 55-minute 2010 documentary, The Vanishing City, by Fiore DiRosa and Jen Senko.
The overview:
Told through the eyes of tenants, city planners, business owners, scholars, and politicians, The Vanishing City exposes the real politic behind the alarming disappearance of New York’s beloved neighborhoods, the truth about its finance-dominated economy, and the myth of “inevitable change.” Artfully documented through interviews, hearings, demonstrations, and archival footage, the film takes a sober look at the city’s “luxury” policies and high-end development, the power role of the elite, and accusations of corruption surrounding land use and rezoning. The film also links New York trends to other global cities where multinational corporations continue to victimize the middle and working classes.
Opening with the voices of neighborhood residents who fear they are being pushed out, the film pivots on the insights of anthropologist and urban historian Julian Brash, author of Bloomberg’s New York: Class and Governance in the Luxury City and subject of this 10/22/08 Q&A on Jeremiah's Vanishing New York blog.
The "luxury city" quote, as noted at the bottom, reflects Mayor Mike Bloomberg's framing of the city as a luxury product for corporations to choose as a location--a philosophy, as the film points out, that's belied by the tax breaks targeted for big employers.
But the film, not inappropriately, points to an emphasis on building luxury housing, with the attendant shift in the character of neighborhoods, as small businesses close.
The question, echoed in the 2007 and 2008 discussions of Jane Jacobs and Robert Moses, is whether that was simply the market at work. As the film reminds us, it wasn't.
Posted by eric at 9:04 AM
January 19, 2011
Great moments in euphemistic coverage: the Wall Street Journal reports on Steiner Studios expansion, ignores EB-5
Atlantic Yards Report
From the Wall Street Journal yesterday, regarding the expansion of Steiner Studios at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, Take Two for a Brooklyn Film and TV Studio:
Doug Steiner, chairman of Steiner Studios, says about $65 million will come from private investors, $10 million to $20 million will come from Steiner and the rest will come from government programs.
Those private investors are immigrant investors trading $500,000 for green cards for themselves and their family under the federal government's EB-5 program, as the New York City Regional Center (NYCRC) reminds us.
The NYRCR is promoting another, more controversial effort to trade green cards for investments, involving Atlantic Yards.
Posted by eric at 11:12 PM
Why the NYPD Bicycle Crackdown Is a Sign of How New York Sucks in 2011
myFDL
Something is rotten in the state of New York. The putrescent miasma, leaching out slowly from the windows in towering pre-war apartments, from out of the sidewalk vents where one can hear from below the failing heartbeat of the subway system, slowly being bled to death. The stench is everywhere… thick, suffocating, lethal. Some are immune, born with the resistance through inheritance, countless others traded away their soul for it. Everyone else just has to suffer.
...Bloomberg’s administration has, through a variety of policies, criminalized any kind of independence of thought. The rezoning of certain areas in a number of examples, the far west side/Hudson Yards, or the Atlantic Yards catastrophe that awaits the people of downtown Brooklyn. One of the most egregious, the 125th St. rezoning plan where the city has changed the code to allow for residential construction as high as 30 stories tall, increasing the residential capacity of the corridor by as much as 750%. Developers are awarded height bonuses for ‘inclusive housing’, lottery winners from the immediate neighborhood, or in other words the lucky few who won’t have to be a part of the mass exodus of the poor Harlem denizens to the Bronx and points further afield. Retailers that can afford these newly zoned spaces are ones that can afford the high new rent: Old Navy, American Apparel (although them maybe not much longer), Nike, M.A.C., The Body Shop, Starbucks, and the list goes on. Local retailers need not apply.
Posted by eric at 9:49 AM
January 18, 2011
Panasonic HQ to unbuilt Atlantic Yards tower? There's nearly three times as much vacant space at MetroTech
Atlantic Yards Report
Last week, as rumors surfaced that Panasonic might move its headquarters from New Jersey to Brooklyn--and Forest City Ratner's extant MetroTech or yet-to-be built Atlantic Yards office towers--I suggested that the tower at AY's Site 5 might be a better destination than Building 1.
However, given available space at MetroTech, that seems like a more likely destination. Panasonic needs 250,000 square feet. Crain's, in a 1/16/11 article headlined Office vacancies grow in boroughs outside Manhattan, reports:
Downtown Brooklyn saw the largest setbacks: NYSE Euronext moved out of roughly 387,000 square feet at 2 MetroTech Center, and J.P. Morgan Chase left about 352,000 square feet at 4 MetroTech...
And because tenants in the outer boroughs tend to seek smaller spaces, leasing up emptied offices takes longer than it would in Manhattan. For instance, the tenant taking the most new space in the boroughs last year was the city's Department of Information Technology & Telecommunications, which took 72,000 square feet at 2 MetroTech.
That means there's some 739,000 square feet available at MetroTech, nearly three times the amount Panasonic needs.
Sure, they'd prefer to be flagship tenants in a building, but wouldn't existing space be cheaper? It would, unless the city offered additional subsidies.
Posted by eric at 12:10 PM
Walmart and the Theater of the Absurd
The Neighborhood Retail Alliance
Lobbyist Richard Lipsky and rabid NY Post columnist Andrea Peyser, of one (warped) mind on Atlantic Yards, have parted ways when it comes to Walmart. Perhaps Forest City Ratner needs to put Lipsky back on the payroll.
In our view, it is a form of grotesque pandering for Peyser to troll East New York looking for out of work folks-and then ask them about their view of the store: "In a park in East New York, a long Town Car drive from Manhattan, I met a dad who watched his kids. Last year, he was out of work 12 months. Now it's going on 24. To him, Walmart is not just a store. It's the chance for a new life. "We need jobs," said Malik Johnson, a laid-off laborer. "I'd work at Walmart in a heartbeat."
It's heartbreaking to hear about anyone who has been out of work and struggling in this economy-but asking them about how they would feel about a potential job opening, is what we would call a self fulfilling prophecy.
NoLandGrab: Of course, it wasn't a "form of grotesque pandering" for Bruce Ratner to troll Prospect Heights looking for out of work folks-and then ask them about their view of Atlantic Yards. No, because Lipsky was on the inside for that one.
Posted by eric at 11:58 AM
January 17, 2011
Office vacancies grow in boroughs outside Manhattan
The office market in Brooklyn and Queens and on Staten Island is still struggling to recover
Crain's NY Business
by Amanda Fung
Whether you call it "Miss Brooklyn," "B1" or vaportecture, the market for Bruce Ratner's proposed Atlantic Yards office tower is non-existent.
The office market in Brooklyn and Queens and on Staten Island is still struggling to recover.
Those areas, whose collective net space absorption was negative throughout 2010, posted their highest level of negative absorption in the fourth quarter, according to CoStar Group's latest report on the boroughs beyond Manhattan (not including the Bronx). In all, 564,930 more square feet of space was put on the market than was leased during those three months, even as Manhattan racked up positive absorption of 2 million square feet.
Accordingly, the office vacancy rate for the three boroughs jumped to 8.1% in the last quarter, from 7.2% in the previous period.
“The outer boroughs clearly have some issues,” said Chris Macke, senior real estate strategist at CoStar.
Downtown Brooklyn saw the largest setbacks: NYSE Euronext moved out of roughly 387,000 square feet at 2 MetroTech Center, and J.P. Morgan Chase left about 352,000 square feet at 4 MetroTech. Since the market in the boroughs beyond Manhattan is so small, with just 67 million square feet of rentable office space, those departures put a relatively big dent in the figures, Mr. Macke noted.
Posted by eric at 9:20 PM
The absurd Wal of fear
NY Post
by Andrea Peyser
Here's a shocker — Andrea Peyser, aka the angriest woman in the world, is a fan of Walmart.
On Monday, The Brooklyn Papers reported that the giant purveyor of discount orange juice and underwear six-packs was to open a massive store in a new development on the fringes of Flatbush Avenue near Kings Plaza, spreading jobs, bargains and -- if you believe carping critics -- pain. By Tuesday, word spread like a cancer to blogs and the mainstream media.
Tuesday night, an emergency meeting was scheduled so local officials might run Walmart out of town.
"I don't know what the idea is," said Dorothy Turano, district manager of Community Board 18. "We could wake up one morning and find a Walmart there."
The hearing was pushed back, due to snow. The next day, a spokesman for Forest City Ratner denied his company met with Walmart about opening a store in its planned Four Sparrows Retail Center.
NoLandGrab: If Forest City Ratner says they didn't meet with Walmart, you can be certain they met with Walmart.
Related coverage...
Mole's Progressive Democrat, Brooklyn, NY Focus
Not surprising that Walmart and Ratner would get together. After all, they both are about as sleazy and greedy as you can get.
Posted by eric at 10:48 AM
January 15, 2011
Panasonic Headquarters Rumored to Move
InfoTech Spotlight
By Juliana Kenny
Rumors of a Panasonic move to a Forest City property are repeated.
Relocation may be in the works for Panasonic (News - Alert) Corp. The company has been eyeing property in Brooklyn, NY, which is where it may move its current headquarters from Secaucus, NJ. But the New Jersey Economic Development Authority has also approved a huge amount of money for tax credits if Panasonic moves to Newark instead and stays within New Jersey’s borders.
Posted by steve at 11:30 AM
January 14, 2011
Panasonic HQ to move from NJ to Brooklyn and FCR's MetroTech or Atlantic Yards? A few unanswered questions and some Site 5 speculation
Atlantic Yards Report
Panasonic might stay in Secaucus or move to other cities, so it's likely the company is conducting a behind-the-scenes subsidy auction.
Remember, in March 2009, Mayor Mike Bloomberg complained about New Jersey dangling subsidies to attract New York-based companies across the river. So would this truly be economic development?
Site 5 location?
There are only two building sites in the Atlantic Yards footprint destined for office space, and the flagship building, Building 1, likely would be too big for Panasonic, which needs 250,000 square feet.
Moreover, Building 1 would be extremely complicated to build, involving an Urban Room attached to the arena rather than the plaza currently planned.
Thus, if Panasonic does move to the Atlantic Yards footprint, Site 5, currently the home of Modell's and P.C. Richard (bounded by Pacific Street and Fourth, Flatbush, and Atlantic avenues), might be a more likely spot for that office building.
NoLandGrab: OK, let's see if we can get this straight. Atlantic Yards involves millions upon millions in subsidies for a Russian oligarch, Chinese "investors" seeking green cards, and now, more subsidies for a Japanese electronics giant? Brooklyn really is a melting pot.
Posted by eric at 10:49 AM
Panasonic Eyes N.J., Brooklyn
The Wall Street Journal
First Apple, now Panasonic? Soon, we expect "unnamed sources" to suggest that President Obama is considering relocated the White House to Atlantic Yards.
Panasonic Corp. of North America is in talks with New York City officials about relocating the company's headquarters and hundreds of jobs to Brooklyn, according to people familiar with the matter.
The Japanese electronics maker's U.S. headquarters currently is located in Secaucus, N.J. On Tuesday, the New Jersey Economic Development Authority approved as much as $102.4 million in tax credits for Panasonic to move to Newark instead of a possible move to New York City. The plan would keep about 800 jobs in New Jersey.
"This is about keeping jobs in the state and growing the economy," said Laura Jones, a spokeswoman for the authority. She added that Panasonic was keeping their "options" open and is also looking at other major cities including Atlanta, Chicago and New York.
People familiar with the matter said that Panasonic is eyeing two sites in Brooklyn—the MetroTech Center development in Downtown Brooklyn and the new Atlantic Yards development, which is also the site of a new basketball arena for the New Jersey Nets. Both Brooklyn sites are controlled by Forest City Ratner.
"At this point no decision have been made," said Jim Reilly, a spokesman with Panasonic, a unit of Panasonic Corp. of Japan. The company is still exploring its options, including staying in Secaucus, he said. He declined to discuss which cities the company was considering moving to.
Executives of Forest City Ratner couldn't be reached.
Posted by eric at 10:39 AM
January 12, 2011
"Shocking news": Observer floats lightly-sourced claim that Apple is looking for store near arena location; what about the EB-5 story?
Atlantic Yards Report
Yeah, and LeBron James is going to cut the ribbon at the grand opening of the first Frank Gehry-designed Apple Store, which will also contain 300 units of affordable housing.
The New York Observer claims it's broken "some shocking news recently and nobody noticed," because only subscribers to the new Commercial Observer Now tri-weekly newsletter got it.
The headline in the Observer is iRatner! Apple Digging Atlantic Yards for First Brooklyn Store, but the story--likely based on a real estate broker--is more vague:
With plans dashed for a fifth Apple store on 34th Street late last year, sources say the tech behemoth is now setting its sights on a location near the proposed Atlantic Yards arena in Brooklyn, future home to the Nets basketball team.
Since last month, the Cupertino, Calif.-based company has been informally chatting with potential landlords, including Atlantic Yards developer Forest City Ratner, about leasing options in the area, a source with ties to Forest City Ratner told The Commercial Observer on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, the Observer and others have steered clear of some other "shocking news," such as the admission, by a firm with ties to Forest City Ratner, that its agents are misleading potential immigrant investors about an EB-5 investment in Atlantic Yards tied to green cards.
Related coverage...
The Commercial Observer, Apple Mulling Atlantic Yards Store
"They've been very gun shy, the Apple people," said the source, who refused to be identified because the person was not given clearance to speak publicly. "They're focusing on the arena area right now, but there's no space. But it's the only place in Brooklyn that's super visible, close to trains and about as close as you can get to a 24-hour community in the borough."
Spokespeople for Forest City Ratner and Apple did not immediately return calls Wednesday.
If you're wondering how these fanciful stories sometimes take on a life of their own, here's how...
Curbed, Atlantic Yards to Get Brooklyn's First Apple Store?
Gothamist, Brooklyn Teased With Talk of Atlantic Yards Apple Store
Posted by eric at 12:26 PM
The new Downtown Brooklyn skyline, the rezoning gone awry, and yet more proof KPMG's report to the ESDC was bogus
Atlantic Yards Report
The more we learn about the state of condo sales in Brooklyn, the more Arthur Andersen's, er, KPMG's "market report" "justifying" the Atlantic Yards project looks like a total joke — except the joke's on us.
I'm coming a little late to the 1/9/11 cover story in the New York Times's Real Estate section, headlined Suddenly, a Brooklyn Skyline, but it's worth another look, for its slant and its omissions.
Notably, the nearby public housing is ignored and the main justification for the rezoning that led to the towers--an expected need for office space--is downplayed.
And--no surprise--there's no mention of the discrepancy between the sales figures revealed in the article and the ones consultant KPMG ginned up for an 8/31/09 report to the Empire State Development Corporation on the housing market in Brooklyn--a report used to justify the unrealistic ten-year Atlantic Yards buildout.
...Sales figures vs. KPMG
According to the Times, Oro was more than 50 percent sold before the building was finished but, "[b]y September 2009, the building was only 28 percent sold." That led to price drops. Now its about 70 percent sold.
Funny, but KPMG claimed on 8/31/09 that the Ora was 75 percent sold. Not even close.
Posted by eric at 10:42 AM
January 11, 2011
Express support for affordable housing in Manhattan
Save the Lower East Side
Atlantic Yards is offered up as an example of what not to do.
Tuesday Jan. 11 is the deadline for community comment submissions (send to spura@cb3manhattan.org) on SPURA -- the largest vacant land area south of 96th Street -- a rare opportunity for the creation of affordable housing, and a part of Bloomberg's plan to create or preserve 165,000 affordable units, including 60,000 new units to be created. How many of these 60,000 new units SPURA will contribute depends in part on what our community says.
CB3 is currently working towards a plan of 800 affordable units, and a total residential ratio of 50% market-rate to 50% non-market-rate. The non-market-rate housing will comprise
20% low-income housing,
20% moderate (<$100,000 income) & middle income (<$130,000 income) housing, and
10% senior housing.In other words, the CB plan, if built, would result in at least 1,600 residential units, about the size of one EV block of six story tenements.
Whether the city will respect the community agreement is an open question. Look at what happened to Atlantic Yards.
NoLandGrab: By "look at what happened to Atlantic Yards," we're not sure whether they mean the refusal to entertain the UNITY Plan (despite Extell's higher bid for the Vanderbilt railyard), or the "Community Benefits Agreement" whose "benefits" consist, as of now, of unenforceable promises and the whims of "market realities."
Posted by eric at 10:34 AM
January 10, 2011
Stores Planned Near Brooklyn Marsh
The Wall Street Journal
by Joseph De Avila
Forest City Ratner is in the process of destroying a large swath of Prospect Heights to make way for a basketball arena. Now they've turned their sights on an environmentally fragile section of Mill Basin, where they plan to build — wait for it — a car dealership.
A plan to transform a 15-acre swath of land near Four Sparrow Marsh in Mill Basin, Brooklyn, into a car dealership and retail center has drawn criticism from local conservation groups.
The city has eyed this area for development for more than a decade, but locals have opposed adding retail projects along traffic-clogged Flatbush Avenue.
...
We have great concerns," said Glenn Phillips, executive director of New York City Audubon, a conservation group. New York City Audubon has pushed to protect the marsh, home to several threatened species of birds, and its surrounding area since the late 1980s.
The plan calls for a 110,000-square-foot Cadillac dealership to be built next to an existing Toys "R" Us store on Flatbush Avenue. The new retail center, covering at least 127,000 square feet, would be located just south of the toy store and north of the Four Sparrow Marsh.
The project is scheduled to begin the city's land use process this spring. Developer Forest City Ratner Cos. will oversee the project, breaking ground in 2014.
"This area has not only some of the best demographics in the country, but is extremely under-retailed as well," Andrew Silberfein, executive vice president and director of finance and retail development at Forest City Ratner, said in a statement.
Under-retailed?
At issue is the 67-acre Four Sparrow Marsh, which is currently a nature preserve and the nesting site of several threatened species of birds, like the seaside sparrow. The project could hurt the amount and quality of water in the basin, said Mr. Phillips with New York City Audubon. It could also disrupt the nesting of several species of birds, he said.
...The city will work to ensure that the project proceeds with negligible environmental impacts, said Julie Wood, a spokeswoman with the New York City Economic Development Corp.
"That's something we take seriously on all of our projects," she said.
And surely, their consultant — let us go out on a limb and guess it will be AKRF — will take seriously the need to deliver an Environmental Impact Statement that reveals... no impact!
The retail center would be located less than a mile away from Kings Plaza Shopping Center, also on Flatbush Avenue. In the past, the local community board has opposed retail projects that would add to local traffic.
"Flatbush Avenue is a disaster," said Dorothy Turano, district manager of the board.
NoLandGrab: Wait, we thought it was "under-retailed."
Posted by eric at 10:22 PM
January 8, 2011
What Neighborhoods Are All The New Developments In?
Brooklyn Daily Eagle
by Dennis Holt
One might think that urban planning should take place before buildings are constructed. This editorial seems to suggest that waiting until afterward is better. Adding to a lack of credibility is the implication that housing at the Atlantic Yards site will be built anytime soon and confusion as to its location.
Wouldn’t it make more sense for all these housing units east of Flatbush Avenue to be considered in “Downtown” rather than Fort Greene? And for that matter, the same kind of questions can be raised about the Atlantic Yards site — “Downtown” or Prospect Heights?
NoLandGrab: Since the new Nets arena is now under construction, it's no longer necessary to pretend along with Bruce Ratner that Prospect Heights is in downtown Brooklyn.
Posted by steve at 8:29 AM
January 6, 2011
This man is bringing Smashburger to NYC
Jim Denburg is thinking big. And Brooklyn!
Metromix New York
by Jim Rodbard
And maybe even the "Atlantic Yards area."
You're opening three locations! Where are you looking?
My territory is the downtown business district, so Brooklyn Heights, Park Slope, Fort Greene and the Atlantic Yards area. I think two can go into that area.
Posted by eric at 10:03 AM
January 4, 2011
The Bloomberg Era, Part Two
Nathan Kensinger Photography
Forced Change
December 31, 2010 - At the beginning of the second decade of the 21st century, this multi-part photo essay examines how New York City's built environment has changed over the past 10 years, and what the future of New York's skyline might be. Part one of this essay can be seen here.On January 1st 2010, Michael Bloomberg was sworn into office for a nearly unprecedented third term as the Mayor of New York City. Bloomberg, the 23rd richest person in the world, is only the fourth mayor in the city's history to serve a third term in office, and accomplished that goal by running "the most expensive self-financed political campaign in U.S. history," according to the Huffington Post. During his tenure, Mayor Bloomberg has "amassed so much power and respect that he seems more a Medici than a mayor," according to The New Yorker. He has used his power and wealth to enact an agenda of post-9/11 development that has radically changed the city's landscape. As described in part one of this photo essay, "not since Robert Moses has a single individual presided over such a large-scale transformation of New York City's built environment."
Like Robert Moses, the legendary Power Broker, Mayor Bloomberg currently exerts a stranglehold of power over New York City. In 2009, New York Magazine bluntly declared "Mike Bloomberg owns this town," and "in the past seven years Michael Bloomberg has become the only powerful figure in New York who really matters.... The mayor is not a dictator... but Bloomberg gets what he wants more than any mayor in modern memory." Also like Robert Moses, who was called New York's Master Builder, much of Mayor Bloomberg's work has focused on constructing a new version of the city. In 2009, Bloomberg drew comparisons between his accomplishments and Robert Moses', telling The New Yorker that "we’ve done more in the last seven years than—I don’t know if it’s fair to say more than Moses did, but I hope history will show the things we did made a lot more sense." Unfortunately, the parallels between Bloomberg and Moses also include the use of controversial methods to force development projects through, often at the expense of New York's unique fabric of small neighborhoods.
One of the most controversial tools Mayor Bloomberg has utilized in his quest to transform New York City is eminent domain, a practice whereby the state seizes private property to clear the way for an impending development meant for civic and public improvement. This was a favorite tool of Robert Moses, "who rammed highways through dense urban neighborhoods with a 'meat-ax' and became the un stoppable engine of 'slum clearance'," according to Metropolis Magazine. Moses' methods were often vilified, but he created the infrastructure for present day New York City, building highways, bridges, tunnels, parks and institutional landmarks like the Lincoln Center and the United Nations that have been freely used by countless millions of people. Michael Bloomberg, on the other hand, has approved the use of eminent domain for private development projects that include luxury residences and retail shops, college campus facilities and a sports arena. When completed, none of these developments will be open to the general public. They include several neighborhoods documented on this website: Willets Point (aka The Iron Triangle), Manhattanville and the Atlantic Yards.
Posted by eric at 1:28 PM
New Life for Projects Put on Hold
The Wall Street Journal
Real-estate developers that haven't seen much action lately are hoping 2011 is going to be different.
For more than two years now, the landscape for new real-estate development in New York City has been a cold one. The economic downturn relegated many a project throughout to hibernation mode.
Employment plummeted after 2008, and with it any immediate need for new office space to house the tens of thousands of new office workers expected in a booming economy. While rental housing and hotels have fared better, construction financing remains scarce.
But with green shoots emerging in the New York City economy, developers are dusting off their plans crafted back in 2006 and 2007. A handful are even making a go at getting a shovel in the ground some time this year, even though most are predicting that the economic rebound will be sluggish.
Here's a look at four large sites that may (or may not) see construction in the year ahead:
Atlantic Yards—First Residential Tower
Forest City Ratner
CHANCES: Decent. With a new basketball arena under way, Forest City has said the company will start construction on this 400-unit building in 2011. Then again, the firm, which has hit some tough times, said the same thing last year.
NoLandGrab: The Journal is starting to catch on.
Photo: Daniella Zalcman for The Wall Street Journal
Posted by eric at 1:20 PM
December 30, 2010
Jersey City Complex Awaits Tax-Credit Boost
The Wall Street Journal
by Shelly Banjo
With construction projects stalled throughout the region, developer George Filopoulos is hoping a vote by the New Jersey Senate next month will help him continue his high-profile redevelopment of the old Jersey City Medical Center into a 14-acre mixed-use complex.
...Mr. Filopoulos's financing plans underscore the key role the public sector is playing these days in private construction projects. With the economy and banking system still under stress, conventional sources of construction financing are scarce. Other projects under way, such as the basketball arena at Atlantic Yards in Brooklyn and office buildings at the World Trade Center, have some form of public support.
"The market has been horrendous and folks are turning to government agencies for help," says Robert Antonicello, executive director of the Jersey City Redevelopment Agency.
NoLandGrab: Some folks have always turned to government agencies for help, which is why New York City and New York State lease so much space in Forest City Ratner's Metrotech and Atlantic Center.
Posted by eric at 9:05 AM
December 29, 2010
No Vacancy: Why Empty Condos Aren't Becoming Affordable Housing
Boom-time overbuilding left thousands of units vacant. But a city program to convert them to affordable housing has found the market uncooperative.
City Limits
by Diana Scholl
We've all seen the half-built boom-era condos and thought: "Wouldn’t it be great if this could be low-income housing? Everybody wins!”
So why hasn’t that happened yet?
In May 2009 City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and New York City’s Department of Housing and Preservation and Development (HPD) unveiled the Housing Asset Renewal Plan (HARP). Politically, it sounded great. The idea was to kill two birds with one stone: Build much-needed affordable housing while at the same time heading off the potential blight represented by what Quinn described as “tarnished trophies of the building boom.” The $20 million initiative provides developers and banks incentives to turn unused condo units into middle-income housing.
In her State of the City address that February, Quinn said, “These vacant apartments now represent our best asset in the fight for affordable housing.” The original estimate was that up to 500 units could be made affordable.
Flash forward almost two years after Quinn’s prophecy, and not one HARP deal has been signed.
...Avi Rosenthalis, coordinator of Right to the City-New York City (RTC-NYC) advocates more publicly and community-owned residential properties. “The city is working under the premise that affordable housing must be profitable,” Rosenthalis says. In Right to the City’s recent report on vacant condos, it argues for using eminent domain to seize vacant residential buildings and turn them into affordable housing, and for using tax foreclosures to facilitate the conversion of tax delinquent vacant residential buildings in low-income communities into quality affordable housing.
Right to the City is currently looking into vacant buildings that would qualify for city takeover. The group proposes that these buildings be turned into community land trusts—non-profit entities that buy and manage land for the purpose of providing low- to moderate-income housing. Homeowners within a community land trust are only permitted to sell their homes back to the land trust or to another low-income family, guaranteeing that the units of housing remain permanently affordable.
“We’re talking about Robin Hood-type options,” Rosenthalis says. “These are the most feasible options on the books. But it takes political will.”
NoLandGrab: Unfortunately, the only political will in New York City is for the reverse Robin Hood — taking from the needy to give to the likes of Bruce Ratner.
Posted by eric at 10:34 AM
December 23, 2010
‘Freak’ out! Evicted shooting gallery is bulldozed in Coney
The Brooklyn Paper
by Alex Rush
The Disneyifcation of America's Playground continues apace, this time under cover of darkness.
What the freak?
The landlord who evicted the Shoot the Freak booth and seven other businesses on the Coney Island Boardwalk last month ransacked the paintball attraction overnight on Dec. 22, boarding up the main entrance and jacking paintball equipment, memorabilia and other props.
“They came like thieves in the night,” said booth owner Anthony Berlingieri. “Those little sneaks emptied out the place and there is nothing left, except for the Shoot the Freak sign.”
Central Amusement International — which has a 10-year lease to not only run a theme park, but fulfill a city plan to revive the entire amusement area — gave the eight businesses the boot on Nov. 1.
NoLandGrab: First it was Bruce Ratner alleviating "blight" by creating real blight. Now it's Central Amusement International "reviving" Coney Island by bulldozing it.
Posted by eric at 10:41 PM
December 22, 2010
Brooklyn Broadside: Brooklyn in 2011 Will See More Downtown Development
Brooklyn Daily Eagle
by Dennis Holt
It is that time of the year, with only a handful of days left, to try to peer ahead and predict what may happen in Brooklyn in 2011.
After two years of squealing brakes and cries of woe because of the great recession in Brooklyn, projects began to move again, some with force, in the Downtown Brooklyn area and elsewhere in 2010.
Looking ahead to next year, we can expect more of the same, with a tag reading “To Finish in 2012,” on many of the projects.
Some of these projects are obvious. After years of holdups, Atlantic Yards began to take shape when the skeleton of the Barclays Center went up. But that first very important structure will not be finished until 2012. What we should see in 2011 is the beginning of the housing portion of the project.
NoLandGrab: Don't set your watch by Holt's predictions. Here's last year's gaze into the crystal ball for 2010.
"If Forest City can hold to its schedule, the first residential building will start being built, and by the end of the year, there could also be news about the commercial part of the project."
Posted by eric at 10:54 AM
December 17, 2010
Violet and Green: NYU’s LEED Platinum-Hopeful Wilf Hall Opens To Positive Reviews — And Protests
The Energy Collective
by Stephen Del Percio
Bruce Ratner and Atlantic Yards make cameos in a perspective on a new NYU building in the West Village.
As I’ve written in the past, there are times when it’s instructive — or at least interesting — to ask the green building aficionado’s version of WWJD — call it WWJJT, What Would Jane Jacobs Think? The legendary urbanist and rabble rouser did battle with a wholly different set of powers-that-be than the ones that currently, um, be in New York City — where Robert Moses’s power resided in City Hall, the real power in New York City real estate today resides with the mega-developers to whom City Hall has effectively ceded power through a series of official and unofficial policies. But while it’s easy enough to figure out where Jane Jacobs — or her disciples, or anyone of good faith — would come down on grandiose mega-developments such as Riverside Center and New Domino, it’s perhaps even easier to tell where she would come down on some of the massive neighborhood overhauls being undertaken by NYC’s major educational institutions. While Columbia prepares for a massive $6.3 billion, eminent domain-powered neighborhood re-imagining of Manhattanville, NYU is already going ahead with the first stage of an equally ambitious — and much-protested — expansion in the West Village. Given that the West Village was Jacobs’ old stomping/living grounds, it’s likely that she’d be on the front lines with the protesters.
...That NYU seems comparatively well-intentioned, or at least brand-sensitive enough to attempt to play the good neighbor in this case, is nice, but beside the greater point — the system isn’t working when the best that communities can hope for is that the Implacable Megaforces terraforming their neighborhood are of the comparatively benign higher-educational variety as opposed to purely profit-motivated mega-developers. (Just as the political discourse is dysfunctional when it pits cynical billionaires against moderately more tolerant billionaires) This isn’t the way that it is supposed to work, and for every community board taking a tenuously successful stand against this sort of thing, a great many more are either bulldozed by the political power of big developers and institutions or hornswoggled — as at Atlantic Yards or New Domino — by the city’s unwillingness to hold developers accountable for their higher-minded promises of affordable housing, public space, and so on.
Posted by eric at 10:27 AM
December 16, 2010
City dangles carrot to help produce a Google
Deputy Mayor for Economic Development Robert Steel says the city is ready to offer cash or real estate to attract an applied science school and bolster the area's economic future.
Crain's NY Business
by Jeremy Smerd
This has nothing to do with Atlantic Yards, eminent domain, or Forest City Ratner — yet. But it's worth noting that Forest City Enterprises "is recognized as one of the country's leading developers and owners of life science campuses," by its own humble admission. And since they are also to subsidies what a pig is to truffles, and the Bloomberg Administration said today that the city "will contribute an as-yet undefined but 'significant' sum to persuade a university or applied science organization to set up shop here," you can expect that the gears in Bruce Ratner's head are already turning — if, in fact, the deal hasn't already been cooked up in some Metrotech back room.
The Bloomberg administration wants the next Google to be made in New York.
The city is looking to attract engineers whose innovations could help shift the local economy away from its reliance on the financial services industry. Deputy Mayor for Economic Development Robert Steel announced in his first policy speech that the administration is seeking to attract to the city a new school for applied science and engineering.
...In his speech, made Thursday at Google's New York City headquarters on Ninth Avenue, Mr. Steel said the city is issuing a formal request for expressions of interest and will contribute an as-yet undefined but “significant” sum to persuade a university or applied science organization to set up shop here.
He said incentives could come in the form of cash or city real estate in locations such as the Navy Hospital Campus at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, several sites on Governors Island, Goldwater Hospital Campus on Roosevelt Island, Farm Colony on Staten Island or in central business districts around the city. Mr. Steel cited Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City as an example of the kind of remote campus the city envisions.
Posted by eric at 5:11 PM
On the edge
NY Post
by Katherine Dykstra
What makes a new condo building desirable? Not proximity to an endless construction site.
After four years on the market, One Hanson Place is down to its last eight condos.
While the former Williamsburg Savings Bank building — which has been hosting the Brooklyn Flea in its magnificent ground-floor space — is undeniably beautiful, part of the slow sales can likely be attributed to its less-than-ideal location. Though it sits at the intersection of desirable neighborhoods — Fort Greene, Boerum Hill — it’s also on a noisy, windy block that’s near Atlantic Yards, which will be a construction site for years to come.
Posted by eric at 10:01 AM
December 14, 2010
Development, Zoning Fights Fuel Push For NYC Roadmap
City Limits
by Jarrett Murphy
It was hard not to be impressed by the December 2006 rollout for Mayor Bloomberg's PlaNYC 2030 initiative. Guests who took the subway out to Flushing were carted via trolley-bus to the stunning Queens Museum of Art. The crowd of dignitaries, advocates and reporters packed the floor of an exhibition hall and flowed onto a mezzanine above. A slick multimedia presentation accompanied the mayor's remarks, and the former NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw oversaw a panel discussion after Bloomberg spoke. The mayor himself was masterful, weaving together civic confidence, moral purpose and self-deprecating humor. And how sweeping his vision was: carbon emissions reduction, affordable housing, new parkland, better transit and cleaner water.
There was just one problem: PlaNYC wasn't actually a plan. Nor was it meant to be one. "It's supposed to be an agenda, and that's what it is," says one former PlaNYC staffer. "We made a mistake by calling it a plan."
No shock there. As the new issue of City Limits magazine reports, real planning is not something New York City has ever done. Other major cities have drafted comprehensive plans that linked land development to transit improvements and government services. But New York has always relied on zoning, which creates rules for what the private market can build, rather than planning. Some attribute this to the city's political complexity, others to the power of the local real estate industry. Many argue that New York is too spontaneous a place for a plan.
But there are growing calls to re-examine those assumptions. Pitched battles over recent redevelopment plans—from Atlantic Yards to Manhattanville—have fueled a fervor for more community input into how the city grows. Developers face lengthy environmental reviews that can increase the cost and alter the marketability of a project. Deals in which builders offer benefits in exchange for community groups' support are under increasing legal and political scrutiny. New York, with a transit system strained by growing ridership and crumbling finances, is struggling to compete with other cities in offering a greener and more efficient commute.
In "City Without A Plan," City Limits looks at the past, present and possible future of planning in New York, with reporting from the South Bronx to the Brooklyn waterfront to suburban Staten Island.
Posted by eric at 5:04 PM
December 10, 2010
"Retail and residential protections" around the Atlantic Yards site? Nope
Atlantic Yards Report
Just in case you were wondering, a City Hall News article, Bing Pitches Greater Economic Impact Of Second Avenue Subway Construction, got an Atlantic Yards reference wrong:
In front of the Second Avenue entrance to Delizia Pizza on the Upper East Side was a crane and the camped materials of a continuous construction site underway. In front of the 92nd Street entrance to the table-service area was another unit, humming and blocking the view from the north. And inside was Assembly Member Jonathan Bing, his hands deep in dough and tomato sauce.
...If not, Bing said, the consequences will go far behind his district which is one of the most affluent in the state, but has so far not been provided with the special retail and residential protections granted at other major construction sites around the state, such as on the Far West Side or around the Atlantic Yards development.
(Emphases added)
Really? That would be very surprising to those who endured utility work at the site in 2008.
Nope.
Bing's office tells me he didn't say that.
NoLandGrab: Maybe City Hall News editor Edward-Isaac Dovere was channeling his Brooklyn Standard days.
Posted by eric at 10:53 AM
December 9, 2010
Bing Pitches Greater Economic Impact Of Second Avenue Subway Construction
City Hall
by Edward-Isaac Dovere
In front of the Second Avenue entrance to Delizia Pizza on the Upper East Side was a crane and the camped materials of a continuous construction site underway. In front of the 92nd Street entrance to the table-service area was another unit, humming and blocking the view from the north. And inside was Assembly Member Jonathan Bing, his hands deep in dough and tomato sauce.
Bing made it through college and law school without having to spend a summer waiting tables, and his pizza experience before Wednesday night was limited to eating an occasional pepperoni slice. But he got behind the counter and pulled on a white T-shirt with a picture of a gondolier to make a point: in the three-and-a-half years since the most recent groundbreaking, one-fifth of the businesses along the construction for the line that will eventually run through his Upper East Side district have been forced to close, and he wants the state to do something about it.
If not, Bing said, the consequences will go far behind his district which is one of the most affluent in the state, but has so far not been provided with the special retail and residential protections granted at other major construction sites around the state, such as on the Far West Side or around the Atlantic Yards development.
NoLandGrab: Special what? If by "special protections," Bing means having the state seize your home or business to hand it over to Bruce Ratner, then yes, he's correct.
Posted by eric at 7:57 AM
December 6, 2010
Vote Could Mark End of Long Quest for Project
The Wall Street Journal
by Eliot Brown
Extell Development, which offered the MTA more money for the Vanderbilt Yard than Forest City Ratner did, but lost the bidding anyway, is hoping to start a big Manhattan project soon.
After years of planning and public tussle with the Upper West Side community, a giant set of apartment towers planned to rise by 59th Street and the West Side Highway is nearing approval from the City Council.
But between now and then, key issues need to be resolved between the developer, Extell Development, and the community. While the size of the project is likely to be close to what Extell wants, the two sides are still debating the amenities that Extell will put into the neighborhood like a school and park.
...One of the largest privately-held development sites in Manhattan, the project marks the latest of a string of multi-thousand-apartment megaprojects planned in recent years to seek public approvals.
Those projects, including Atlantic Yards, the West Side rail yards, the development of a former Con Edison site on the East Side, and the conversion of the Domino Sugar factory in Brooklyn, all have yet to start construction of the housing.
NoLandGrab: Better change that slogan to "Hoops, Jobs & Housing."
Posted by eric at 8:32 AM
December 3, 2010
The "Brooklyn buy-in" for the Aqueduct "racino" involves the Darman Group and the state minority contractors' group (and Forest City, tangentially)
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder looks at the sleazy shenanigans behind the Aqueduct "racino" bidding.
As I wrote November 29, Forest City Ratner continues to rely significantly on The Darman Group, a firm run by Darryl Greene, which was unfit to participate in a bid for the Aqueduct "racino" because of Greene's criminal record.
Indeed, in the past two years, Greene's firm has expanded beyond its Queens office, as indicated in the screenshot below, to Brooklyn and Philadelphia.
The Brooklyn office is at 182 Duffield Street, a row house adjacent to the MetroTech development, which is owned by Forest City Ratner's First New York Management division.
(Photos by Jonathan Barkey)
The IG's Aqueduct report
Greene and his firm came in for some tough treatment in the state Inspector General's 10/21/10 report that criticized the Governor’s Office and state Legislative leaders for failing to fulfill their public duty in the January 2010 selection of Aqueduct Entertainment Group (AEG) to operate Video Lottery Terminals (VLTs) at Aqueduct Racetrack in Queens. (Full report here.)
According to the IG, AEG should have been disregarded at the start, and that the chaotic process resulting in AEG’s multi-billion dollar award was a “political free-for-all” marked by unfair advantages and more than $100,000 in campaign donations.
The report has been forwarded to United States Attorney Preet Bharara and New York County District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance, Jr., for appropriate action and referring Senators John Sampson and Malcolm Smith (Greene's former partner) and Senate Secretary Angelo Aponte to the Legislative Ethics Commission.
NoLandGrab: Surely Governor-elect Status Cuomo is going to clean up this mess, though, right?
Posted by eric at 10:20 AM
December 2, 2010
Lone Local Manufacturer Fights to Survive
The Bragley Manufacturing Company has had to fight competition abroad and a difficult economic environment at home.
Prospect Heights Patch
by Justin Hunte
Why, here's one Prospect Heights business that has survived the coming of Atlantic Yards — for now.
"My father started this business," says Neil Lurie, owner of Bragley Manufacturing Company, Prospect Height's lone remaining manufacturing company. "From the age of 12 or 13 I was in a machine shop with him so that's where I learned how to do this. These are generational businesses and once they're shut down, they're gone. They never open up again."
Lurie's frustration with the current state of US manufacturing is apparent almost immediately. Straddled with increased competition abroad and an ominous economic environment at home, he's witnessed the industry's downward spiral as America transitions into a service-oriented economy first hand.
...The daunting economic climate continues to plague Bragley's operating environment. Despite a seemingly constant barrage of new challenges -- severe shortages of suppliers and customers, increased unemployment taxes and looming real estate tax increases expected with the arrival of the Atlantic Yards project -- Lurie continues to fight to maintain position, one order at a time.
NoLandGrab: If Lurie's business can't survive, there are sure to be plenty of good jobs selling cotton candy at the Barclays Center, right?
Posted by eric at 10:07 AM
December 1, 2010
Lawsuit Tries to Slow "New Domino" Development
Gothamist
by Garth Johnston
Crying poor environmental review seems to be the hot way to try and stop Brooklyn developments of late. Just as Develop Don't Destory Brooklyn is attempting to slow the Atlantic Yards project because of misrepresentations in its enviromental impact statement another group of Brooklynites is using a similar tactic to try and halt the massive development planned for the old Domino Sugar refinery (which got City Council approval back in June after much community opposition).
Posted by eric at 10:35 PM
November 28, 2010
On Flatbush Avenue, small plazas slated for an upgrade; unlike plaza slated for arena block, this involved community consultation
Atlantic Yards Report
The (temporary) plaza planned for the Atlantic Yards arena block isn't the only plaza along Flatbush Avenue that's getting a makeover.
Several small plazas at the intersections of Flatbush and four cross streets, from Sixth Avenue to Eighth Avenue, are getting makeovers.
And these makeovers come about via a much different process, a public charrette, meetings with the public.
The Atlantic Yards plaza was dispensed from on high, though the decisionmaking process was discussed by developer Forest City Ratner and Gregg Pasquarelli of SHoP Architects.
The meeting on the Flatbush plazas was held on September 28, one day before the arena plaza event, at a joint meeting of the Transportation Committees of Community Boards 6 and 8.
More from Brownstoner here.
From the BID
As stated on the North Flatbush Business Improvement District (BID) site:
On Tuesday, September 28, NY Department of Transportation Downtown Brooklyn Coordinator, Christopher Hrones, unveiled the new conceptual designs for the corridor along Flatbush Avenue from Atlantic Avenue to Plaza Street. These conceptual designs calls for the transformation of the 6, 7 and 8 Avenue Triangles into public space and the redesign of the Carlton Avenue for pedestrian safety.
This plan came out of a charette the BID hosted in June 2008 partnering with Project for Public Space. With a grant from SBS, The North Flatbush Avenue BID hired New York based urban landscape designers, W-Architecture and landscape LLP. Now with almost 3 million in capital funding, DOT has contributed conceptual plans for the 6th, 7th and 8th Avenue Triangle parks as well as the small Carlton Avenue triangle.
Many of the plans calls for expanding the triangle, adding new planters, benches, tables and chairs, bike racks and reconfiguration of the 6th Avenue Victorian clock. In the future, the BID hopes to host events and sidewalk fairs in these public spaces.
Posted by steve at 9:52 AM
November 25, 2010
Is the Domino Developer Out of Money?
The L Magazine
by Henry Stewart
Atlantic Yards makes a cameo as the yardstick for bait-and-switch development projects.
Last week, a rumor circulated suggesting that CPCR might not have the resources to continue with the Domino project—rumors that the developer denied. "There is absolutely no validity to those rumors," Richard Edmonds, a spokesman for the Domino project, wrote in an email. "Domino is proceeding on schedule, with a groundbreaking on the upland parcel in late 2011."
As CPCR fought for zoning changes that would allow its 2,200-unit, 11.2-acre project to move forward, many in the community worried that the developer might win approval but then sell the project to another developer. CPCR promised a generous 30 percent affordable housing component to the project—well-above the 20 percent required by law, which helped to win it the support of many local groups—but only as a non-legally binding promise of the sort a cash-strapped developer could later go back on, particularly under pressure from a new business partner.
These aren't the only promises on which CPCR could renege. Consider the five blocks of promised waterfront-parkland that would provide access to that part of the East River in Brooklyn for the first time in roughly 100 years. That could, conceivably, be scrapped as a result of "financial strain." Preserving the historic DOMINO sign—another CPCR promise—could be deemed too costly; retaining noted architect Rafael Vinoly's design could prove unduly pricey and be replaced with something even more garish. (Something similar happened with Atlantic Yards when the Frank Gehry design that helped win the project approval was eventually scrapped, because of "cost concerns," in exchange for a brutish concrete slab.)
Posted by eric at 9:23 AM
November 18, 2010
Review & Comment: Weight of the Apple
Brooklyn Daily Eagle
by Henrik Krogius
The Eagle's Krogius laments the fact that Bruce Ratner doesn't get his name into the new edition of The Encyclopedia of New York City.
In the age of Google and Wikipedia, Yale University Press (in conjunction with the New-York Historical Society) has not been deterred from issuing a 9-pound second edition of The Encyclopedia of New York City. Its editor-in-chief is once again the eminent urban historian and Columbia Professor Kenneth T. Jackson. It runs to 1561 pages, up from 1350, in an 8 ½-by-11-inch format, with three columns to the page in fairly small 8-point type ($65).
...Among the new Brooklyn entries are those for Brooklyn Bridge Park, Brooklyn Brewery, Brooklyn Cyclones, DUMBO, and Atlantic Yards. The DUMBO entry, by independent historian Cathy Alexander, runs to one column and summarizes both the area’s history and recent development, not omitting references to controversy. The brief Atlantic Yards entry, by Norman Brouwer, skims over the subject, noting dispute but not naming the developer (Bruce Ratner) or original architect (Frank Gehry).
NoLandGrab: Maybe their spell-checker thought "Bruce Ratner" was a dirty word.
Posted by eric at 10:38 AM
November 17, 2010
Partridge Family star’s feathers ruffled over city’s handling of Tobacco Warehouse bid
The Brooklyn Blog [NYPost.com]
by Rich Calder
Atlantic Yards pops up not once, but twice, in an article about the latest murky dealings at Brooklyn Bridge "Park."
“I felt like this was Atlantic Yards again and Bruce Ratner was stacking a meeting with his union supporters,” said Judi Francis of the watchdog group Brooklyn Bridge Park Defense Fund.
...It is the second time in two weeks that the full media and public were not properly notified, as is required by state and federal law, for what should have been a public meeting at Borough Hall. The earlier illegal meeting involved the Atlantic Yards project in Prospect Heights.
Posted by eric at 11:27 AM
November 11, 2010
‘Green School’ Work Site Rocks 72nd St. Homes
Owners Fear Dirt, Noise, Darkness Will Cloud Their Properties
Bay Ridge Eagle
by Harold Egeln
Meanwhile, for other Brooklynites, "Atlantic Yards" is a synonym for "nightmare."
Yes, a new school is wonderful and needed, all agreed. But its construction is already making life a little less wonderful for its neighbors, who brought their concerns directly to the NYC School Construction Authority through Community Board 10.
“This is our smaller Atlantic Yards-type dispute,” resident Joe D’Angelo said, claiming his backyard usage may be curtailed during the construction.
Posted by eric at 10:15 AM
November 10, 2010
Big Real Estate's Super: Steve Spinola Has Run REBNY But How Will He Get on With Another Cuomo?
NY Observer
by Zeke Turner
You might not believe this, but in New York City, real estate and politics are the same thing!
Developer Bruce Ratner came to Steven Spinola for help in 1985. Mr. Ratner needed to get tenants for his planned MetroTech Center in Brooklyn, and Mr. Spinola was Ed Koch's economic development chief. Part of his job was to keep tenants in New York, and Morgan Stanley was thinking about moving its back offices to New Jersey.
"They were trying to convince Morgan Stanley to go to MetroTech," said Mr. Spinola last Friday, sitting at the lunch counter at Junior's near Times Square, his left hand surrounding a Diet Coke with lemon as he recalled his rise to prominence. "They asked me to go to a meeting with Morgan Stanley to discuss and to tell them that the city was ready to encourage them to do whatever."
Mr. Spinola was wearing a dark brown, three-button suit with a black-and-gold Real Estate Board of New York lapel pin. For the past 24 years, REBNY has been the seat of Mr. Spinola's power. He's the longest-serving president in the century-plus history of the city's largest trade group and arguably the most powerful real estate lobbyist in the state. He faces his sharpest challenge in years in dealing with an incoming governor, Andrew Cuomo, who has an electoral mandate and also a need to work with a real estate industry whose interests do not always jibe with his party's political machinery.
After Mr. Spinola's meeting with Morgan Stanley, the prospects for a deal looked dim. "We went down in the elevator. I turned to Bruce Ratner and I said, 'There's no way you get them to MetroTech.' I said, 'But I have a site on Pierrepont Street that's currently a garage. And one of my guys came to me two months earlier and said, "The city's about to give a new lease for this garage. We oughta have a cancellation clause in case we ever need it."'"
..."So I called up City Hall, I asked for it, they gave it to me. So I said to Ratner, 'Can you spend the weekend coming up with a design for a building on that site? I'll sole-source it to you if we can get Morgan Stanley to be the principal tenant.' And we made that deal."
Posted by eric at 8:48 AM
November 5, 2010
No Brooklyn Brewery Beer Hall for Phony Island, After All
Grub Street
Yesterday the Times' City Room blog reported that Brooklyn Brewery was rumored to be negotiating to open a beer hall in Phony Island — which is what we’re calling it from now on, thank you very much. The Post also wrote today that “sources said” Brooklyn Brewery was the favorite to operate a beer garden. But don’t boycott the brewery just yet: An operations employee there, Brian Dochney, tells us (and we believe him) that it’s absolutely not true, and indeed all mention of Brooklyn Brewery has mysteriously disappeared (without a correction) from the City Room post. “The article was supposed to read a Brooklyn brewery, not the Brooklyn Brewery,” he says.
“We have no involvement in that, and no plans for a Coney brewery. It was literally a typo that makes us look like the big bad wolf. It’s misinformation, and we’ve been chasing our tail around the Internet trying to put out fires.” Dochney adds, “We want our reputation to be for supporting the classic Brooklyn things — it’s funny it’d be us they mention.” Actually, a Brooklyn Brewery beer hall might’ve been the best of all evils. We’ve said it before: If a Dunkin’ Donuts on the boardwalk can happen in Seaside Heights, it can happen here.
NoLandGrab: Ah, yes. The "classic Brooklyn things": a Russian oligarch's plaything, a British bank-tagged basketball arena, scores of Chinese investors, eminent domain abuse, etc., etc. Which may explain why opponents of Atlantic Yards are still boycotting the Brooklyn Brewery.
Posted by eric at 12:50 PM
November 2, 2010
As the Boardwalk Is Remade, 9 Fixtures Are Told to Leave
The New York Times
by Charles V. Bagli
The Las Vegasfication of Brooklyn continues apace.
From behind the bar at Ruby’s, hard on the Boardwalk in Coney Island, Cindy Jacobs Allman commiserated with customers and other business owners slowly grasping that their livelihoods — as well as a familiar part of the city’s landscape — would soon be gone.
Nine longtime Boardwalk tenants, including familiar places like Ruby’s, Shoot the Freak and the Beer Garden, were told on Monday that their leases would not be renewed.
The news came from Central Amusement International, which has a long-term city lease for the 3.1-acre seaside amusement area and the Boardwalk. The company said it wanted to extend its “vision of a resurgent Coney Island.”
Translation: "Not like Coney Island at all."
But the nine businesses that are part of that past have until Nov. 15 to shut down. Ruby’s, for example, has been a fixture on the Boardwalk since 1934, and the pathway nearby is named after its founder, Ruby Jacob.
“We just heard this devastating news,” Ms. Allman said. “We are a throwback to the past. We make people feel good. To think we’re not going to be part of the new Coney Island is just very sad.”
...Anthony Berlingeri, who owns Shoot the Freak and Beer Island, said he was angry that longtime business owners were being expelled, much as stalwarts were evicted during the redevelopment of Times Square and the site of the Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn.
Posted by eric at 3:29 PM
October 27, 2010
Cataloging non-blight on Vanderbilt Avenue
Atlantic Yards Report
Despite the presence of the eastern end of a "blighted" Atlantic Yards project site, "Almost every corner along the stretch of Vanderbilt Avenue that runs through Prospect Heights is home to an eatery or drinkery of note," according to Brooklyn Based.
Of particular note are Woodwork, on Vanderbilt between Pacific and Dean streets, and Weather Up, at Dean Street, both immediately across the street from the staging/construction zone slated to be a massive surface parking lot.
Posted by eric at 11:39 AM
October 22, 2010
MAS Survey on Livability: people say they're satisfied, but dismay regarding (over)development seeps out
Atlantic Yards Report
Though a Municipal Art Society (MAS) survey on livability released yesterday garnered headlines for its seemingly counter-intuitive conclusion that most New Yorkers are happy and find the city livable, it also contains signs of significant discontent regarding development.
And that wariness--72 percent seemingly oppose new housing or housing beyond existing scale in their neighborhoods--suggests a tension between those who like neighborhood scale and the Bloomberg administration's expectation of another 1 million people here by 2030.
Results of this initial poll were not particularly subtle--it would be important to understand attitudes toward development teased out by type of neighborhood, zoning, and transportation options, because the key question is fitting increased density to neighborhoods that can handle it.
Posted by eric at 11:40 AM
September 30, 2010
Brooklyn Tornadoes and a Cool-Headed Appraisal of Weather Weirding in New York
Noticing New York
Only Michael D.D. White would even think about trying to tie together tornadoes, blizzards, rising sea levels, hydrofracking and Atlantic Yards, but wouldn't you know, he pulls it off.
First, his own warning:
Get ready: This is going to be about New York and the environment in some very, very big-picture terms.
...We confess we found ourselves initially irritated by the “apocalyptic thinking” of the “Rising Currents: Projects for New York’s Waterfront,” show at the Museum of Modern Art.
Its grand scale thinking made us uncomfortably ill at ease, reminding us of the kind of from-on-high it-is-easy-to-replace-everything planning arrogance* that is, for example, associated with Coney Island’s destruction.
(* Sure, its easy enough to tear down a portion of Prospect Heights, including newly renovated buildings, to construct the murkily unparticularized “Atlantic Yards” but the ability to actually fill in this hole developer Bruce Ratner created in the neighborhood becomes a theoretical maybe-someday exercise when the developer says of replacement construction: “it's really market-dependent as to when it will really be completed.”)
...Storm Surge Barriers?
I was at the New York City Council during little reported hearings where the possibility and expense of buildings storm surge barriers was discussed. It’s done in the Netherlands. The cost was estimated at $5 billion and possible because there are only a few choke points in the harbor that would need to be addressed. Naturally, any public work estimated to cost $5 billion will probably cost more: The Brooklyn Bridge (built during the reign of Boss Tweed) cost more than twice its original estimate. But $5 billion is not much more than all the public subsidies we are putting into the Atlantic Yards project; money spent on such barriers would be for infrastructure of benefit to all rather than subsidizing one development firm’s private profit at the expense of others and wouldn’t even $10 billion likely be a small cost compared to the cost of a catastrophic storm surge?
Posted by eric at 12:52 PM
September 28, 2010
Loft building near Barclays arena re-enters market at 50 percent off
The Real Deal
A 24,000-square-foot industrial loft building at 1199 Atlantic Avenue, just blocks away from the new Barclays Center sports arena, is back on the market at $72 per square foot, nearly half its original price. The property, marketed by commercial real estate firm TerraCRG, had been on the market in contract in mid 2008 for $3.3 million but the sale was never completed after developers couldn't obtain construction financing. The four-story loft building is currently vacant. Allowable uses include hotel, retail, offices, and as-is industrial and the site has approved plans from Howard Johnson for a 44-unit hotel. "With the construction of the Nets Arena underway, the location on Atlantic Avenue is becoming more strategic as an economy hotel site," said Ofer Cohen, founder and president of TerraCRG. "Unfortunately, the lingering recession and the tough economic climate prevented this development from moving forward in the previous round."
NoLandGrab: As with most claims about Atlantic Yards, the "just blocks away" description isn't all that accurate, unless your idea of "just blocks" means "more than a mile." It would, however, be closer than the Best Western Arena Hotel.
Posted by eric at 11:30 AM
September 12, 2010
Real estate ad: Beat the Nets to Brooklyn
Atlantic Yards Report
Rising real estate values are anticipated with the construction of the Nets arena? Why not? The area around an arena is probably as attractive as, say, the residential streets adjoining Bruce Ratner's mall.
Well, maybe real estate agent Delroy Bodley could use a little help with fonts and proofreading (click on graphic to enlarge), but he gets credit for being the first to presume that the arrival of the Atlantic Yards arena will boost downtown real estate values:
GET THE OLD BROOKLYN PRICES BEFORE THE NEW DOWNTOWN BROOKLYNS ARRIVES, THIS IS A AMAZING DEAL THAT JUST WILL GET BETTER & INCREASE IN VALUE AFTER THE NEW ARENA OPENS IN 2012.
If so, then shouldn't those luxury condos on the Atlantic Yards site go up lickety-split?
Well, maybe not. The apartment at issue is about $700 a square foot. Forest City Ratner, according to a KPMG report, is counting on sales prices of $1217/sf in 2015 up to $1369/sf in 2019.
Posted by steve at 11:03 AM
September 8, 2010
Atlantic Yards Report: "Stealing the common from the goose": Henry Stern's compelling case against 15 Penn Plaza (and the glaring Atlantic Yards blind spot)
Save Hotel Pennsylvania
A blog dedicated to fighting Vornado's massive 15 Penn Plaza discovers Atlantic Yards Report.
An interesting blog that I came across. He makes a valid point, and just for those who are wondering, it's not over, yet.
Posted by eric at 10:55 AM
September 7, 2010
For Developers, a Time of Opportunity
Economic Downturn Leads Civic Groups and Community Boards to Rethink Their Longtime Policies of Limiting Retailers
The Wall Street Journal
by Anton Troianovski
Developers are gearing up to bring more national retailers to Brooklyn, Queens and Long Island—if local politics allow it.
Long Island civic groups are infamous among developers for their success in blocking projects such as a huge mall proposed by Taubman Centers Inc. at the site of the old Cirro Wire factory and Old Plainview, a 166-acre mixed-use project that Charles Wang and Scott Rechler wanted to develop in the town of Oyster Bay.
Community boards in the Bronx, Brooklyn, Staten Island and Queens are similarly prickly about major projects involving national chains, fearing traffic woes for area residents and competition for home-grown retailers.
But developers may have an easier time these days because of the economic downturn and the efforts of local governments to boost employment. "There's a heightened sensitivity to the idea of anything new, anything vibrant, anything fresh on the Island because it potentially represents jobs," said Kate Murray, supervisor of the town of Hempstead.
Ms. Murray's town board of appeals recently gave a green light to a proposed shopping center called the Gallery at Westbury Plaza. The developer, Equity One, a national shopping-center landlord based in North Miami Beach, Fla., is negotiating to lease some of the space to Trader Joe's and the Container Store, people familiar with the project say.
Other plans slowly moving forward include one by a venture of developers Forest City Ratner and Philips International to bring a major retailer to a development site in the Mill Basin neighborhood of Brooklyn.
NoLandGrab: We recommend the "state override" as a tried-and-true tactic for steamrolling local opposition — and the archaic notion of "democracy."
Posted by eric at 9:50 AM
September 1, 2010
Lunch with the Critics: Park51 & 15 Penn
Design Observer
The specter of you-know-what looms in a discussion of NYC's latest development controversies.
For this second installment of Lunch with the Critics, Mark Lamster and Alexandra Lange traveled to midtown to visit the Hotel Pennsylvania, across from Penn Station and Madison Square Garden on Seventh Avenue. It is the site of a planned 67-story office tower developed by Vornado Realty Trust that would dramatically alter the midtown skyline, rivaling (perhaps) the Empire State Building. On the subway there, they talked about Park51, the proposed community center and mosque in lower Manhattan that has become a political target. In their previous lunch, they explored the recent renovations to Lincoln Center.
...Mark Lamster: What’s rather insane about 15 Penn is that it actually adheres to the zoning code, and exploits it quite cannily. It seems silly that this property should be allowed a 56 percent (!) bonus because it’s adjacent to a major transit hub and the developers are making a variety of accommodations. The $100 million in transportation renovations Vornado is kicking in will create some very real improvements to the area, but they don’t necessarily assuage all the extra square footage and skyline-hogging bulk. Also, you can’t put all kinds of new pressure on the transit system and then ask for a pat on the back for making sure it doesn’t totally collapse the day you open for business. More to the point, Penn Station needs a massive and comprehensively planned overhaul. It’s not a pig that needs more lipstick.
Alexandra Lange: I agree with all of that. Even in the glory days of the plaza bonus in the 1960s and 1970s, when a mid-block, all-but-hidden passage with a tiny tree sign indicating it was public space could get you extra floors, we were never talking 56 percent. What Vornado is “giving” us is what they should be required to do. Their building isn’t going to be attractive to tenants unless they renovate the transport and paths to it.
The craziness of piling tower on tower in one of the most congested parts of the city reminds me of the oft-ignored community objections to the original Atlantic Yards scheme. Sure, it is great to put an arena on top of a transit hub, but only if it is a transit hub (and an intersection, for that matter) that has extra capacity. The reason the Citibank tower still sits in lonely splendor in Long Island City is an earlier administration’s attempt to spread the office worker wealth, not concentrate it. Unfortunately, it didn’t really work. Or hasn’t worked yet.
Posted by eric at 10:27 AM
August 26, 2010
Brooklyn Broadside Proposed 15 Penn Plaza: Not Worthy of Our Great City
And Ratner Should Have Kept Original ‘Miss Brooklyn’ Design
Brooklyn Daily Eagle
by Dennis Holt
Look who just caught on! All these years, we took Dennis Holt to be serious in his unfettered enthusiasm for every last proposed development, no matter how ill-conceived. But his latest column — in which he finally discovers a project he opposes (in Manhattan, of course) — reveals that it was all just parody.
I’m glad this scrap is taking place across the river and not here, because the current issue is a misplaced one. It really isn’t that Vornado’s proposed building, 15 Penn Plaza, is only 900 feet away from the Empire State Building, or that from New Jersey they look like they are shoulder to shoulder, or that the Vornado building could be 1,250 feet tall. Those are sidebars.
What the issue really concerns is appearance. The proposed building stinks, it is boring, and it shouldn’t be located anywhere, even New Jersey.
...To my dismay, I haven’t heard or read about people talking about style or panache, only about location. Where is the Municipal Art Society? Where is the Art Commission? Where is Amanda Burden? Where are the city’s crack architectural critics? How can something so boring get so far along without a hue or a cry? The tragedy of the Atlantic Yards saga isn’t really that the arena was held up for six years, or approved, for that matter: It is that Frank Gehry’s Miss Brooklyn is not going to be built and its replacement won’t be built where it should have been. (Some of us continue to hope that if and when it is feasible to put a commercial building over P. C. Richard, Bruce Ratner will turn once more to Gehry.)
NoLandGrab: Someone let Mr. Holt know that Frank Gehry was a Southern California Trojan horse from the start, please.
Posted by eric at 9:31 AM
August 25, 2010
Brooklyn Broadside: Domino Development: As Important to Brooklyn As Atlantic Yards
Brooklyn Daily Eagle
by Dennis Holt
Now there's an endorsement!
It is also not hyperbole to predict that the area will continue to bring dramatic change that will have to include new schools, new public services and big-box stores.
And there is reason to concur that the Domino project is at least on a par with Atlantic Yards in importance. The major impacts of Atlantic Yards will be the sports arena and eventually new commercial development. The housing planned for the area will evolve over decades.
The Domino project will bring a lot of new people to a not-so-large area in a very short amount of time. The views from the Williamsburg waterfront will be much better than any view from Prospect Heights, the site of Atlantic Yards.
NoLandGrab: Holt, who grew up during the Great Depression (the first one), refuses to ever use "over" and "development" in the same sentence.
Posted by eric at 11:06 AM
August 24, 2010
The Empire State Building vs. 15 Penn Plaza: the battle over views recalls Miss Brooklyn vs. the Willy B (except there were promises from FCR)
Atlantic Yards Report
After a hearing yesterday, the New York City Council is expected to vote Wednesday to approve a new, 1216-foot tower, 15 Penn Plaza, across the street from Penn Station and two blocks away from the iconic, 1250-foot Empire State Building (ESB).
The ESB's owners protest that the new tower would block a unique asset on the city's skyline--an argument that depends, of course, on perspective, as the renderings below (via the Times) suggest.
And the campaign against that new tower by the ESB's owners, on a web site and in full-page newspaper ads, sounds a little like the criticisms about the impact of Frank Gehry's Miss Brooklyn tower on the iconic Williamsburgh Savings Bank.
There are a few key differences, however:
- in Brooklyn, there was a much stronger case against the new tower, given that Forest City Ratner promised at the start that it wouldn't block the bank's iconic clock
- in Brooklyn, the new building would be positioned on perhaps the main view corridor for the older building
- in Manhattan, unlike Brooklyn, the owner of the older building spent money on a public campaign to raise awareness
The view from Vornado
The view from the ESB's owners
Related coverage...
Gothamist, Could 15 Penn Plaza Be Successful Somewhere Else?
As we mentioned before, a good 76% of New Yorkers apparently think building a 1,200 foot tower two blocks away from the Empire State Building would be detrimental to the New York City skyline. But as The Empire State Building Company's Times ad said, "There will be taller buildings in New York City...but they should merit the height with excellence." We took a look back at some recent New York history to one building that seems to be doing just that. The year was 2009, and Frank Gehry's 76-story Beekman Tower was causing quite a stir.
Developer Bruce Ratner almost had to stop the building at 38 stories due to the economy, but got the project back to its full height after negotiating with labor unions to save costs. And though the 867-foot tower is is changing the city's view of the iconic Woolworth Building (the city's tallest building from its construction in 1913 until 1930), it has not seen nearly as much criticism as 15 Penn Plaza has in just the past few days.
Posted by eric at 10:51 AM
August 23, 2010
Todd Triplett just needs a little cash, that’s all
The Brooklyn Paper
by Aaron Short
Todd Triplett is about to open a new art space in Fort Greene, a second try for the would-be dance impresario three years after his original venue, Amber Art Space, was closed down and seized by the city.
Triplett has found a location — a former parking garage on Atlantic Avenue — to realize his vision of a multipurpose arts and performance space for Prospect Heights and Fort Greene that he is calling “Free Candy.”
...Free Candy is similar to Triplett’s prior effort, Amber Art Space — though he hopes it won’t end the same way.
In 2007, the city took over Amber a mere four weeks before its opening, claiming that the neighborhood around it was blighted and the building was needed as part of the BAM Cultural District plan.
Triplett and his partners had poured $1.2 million into that space, hoping to open a three-story music club on Ashland Place. But the city wanted to build a 187-unit condominium tower on the site, smashing Triplett’s dreams.
The building was never built.
“Basically, they’ve created the blight,” said Triplett. “I’ve moved on. I don’t have any anger. I just want to do it. What’s so hard about supporting the arts? Let’s just go.”
To support Todd Triplett's "Free Candy" project via Kickstarter, click here.
Posted by eric at 10:32 AM
August 22, 2010
Judge won't block Willets Point redevelopment
State Supreme Court judge rejects group's attempt to halt project on environmental grounds.
Crain's NY Business
by Daniel Massey
The same judge who gave the first legal pass to the deeply flawed Atlantic Yards Environmental Impact Statement has done the same for the deeply flawed Willets Point Environmental Impact Statement.
A state Supreme Court judge has denied an attempt by Willets Point's lone resident and nearly two dozen local land and business owners to win an injunction halting the redevelopment of Willets Point, Queens.
The group's members had argued that the environmental review conducted by the city failed to “take a hard look at the environmental impacts” on regional highways, emergency response services and area water supplies, among other complaints.
They had sought an order annulling the environmental review of the project and the City Council and Planning Commission's approvals, as well as an injunction barring the city from continuing with the development until it complied with proper environmental procedures.
But State Supreme Court Judge Joan Madden denied the request, ruling against the Willets Point group on all of its claims—which ranged from questioning the environmental review to contending the office of the deputy mayor for economic development did not have the authority to be the lead agency on the project.
...Jerry Antonocci, owner of Crown Container owner, one of the businesses that filed suit, promised the group would persevere in their attempt to stop the development.
“I'm sure we're going to appeal the decision,” he said. "We just got out of the first inning. It ain't over. We're not giving up.”
Posted by eric at 12:18 PM
August 19, 2010
Williamsburg's Last Domino: A Gentrification Time Bomb?
The L Magazine
A Williamsburg "agent-provocateur" cites Bruce Ratner's Brooklyn boondoggle as the benchmark for mass gentrification.
Dennis Farr, a local activist and lifetime resident, is standing alongside me underneath some of the project's scaffolding on an afternoon in late July. In the middle of our conversation, he looks at me, seriously, and says: "Atlantic Yards pales in significance to what's gonna happen here."
Posted by eric at 9:10 AM
August 17, 2010
The changing face of retail on Flatbush, poised for more change, especially closest to the arena block
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder takes an in-depth look at changes along Flatbush Avenue. If Madison Square Garden is a guide, can Sbarro's and McDonald's be far off?
Flatbush Avenue south of Dean Street has been changing for a while and the anticipated Atlantic Yards arena is likely a significant factor regarding the future of the adjacent block, as well as some factor--though not necessarily the most significant one--further down the road.
Near Seventh Avenue
A few long blocks from the arena site, at Park Place just below the intersection of Flatbush and Seventh avenues, Park Heights Stationers has closed after 25 years, "due to the rising cost of operation," which sure sounds like a rent increase.
As the handwritten comments indicate, the store was appreciated, but as comments on Brownstoner suggest, some thought it too slow to change with the times. (Photos by Norman Oder)
Will it become another chain drug store, just as the Dominican lunch counter across Seventh Avenue became a Duane Reade? Possibly, but it more likely could become an eating and drinking establishment that takes advantage both of the subway access (it's right outside the subway stop for the Q and B trains), and the relative arena proximity.
My information is thirdhand, but a source who spoke to a former employee told me that that employee believed that the landlord sought more rent from an arena-related business.
Posted by eric at 12:06 PM
August 6, 2010
Last Summer at Coney Island
BAM.org
If not for Bruce Ratner and Atlantic Yards, the pillaging of Coney Island would surely be a contender for Brooklyn's worst development tale ever.
Part of the BAMcinématek series Brooklyn Close-Up
Mon, Aug 9, 2010, 4:30, 6:50*, 9:30pm
*Q&A with director J.L. AronsonDirected by J.L. Aronson
(2010) 94min
Coney Island revitalization: seaside salvation or Brooklyn boondoggle? Coinciding with the opening of a new Luna Park this summer, this timely documentary wrestles with the fate of “the world’s playground,” birthplace of the hot dog, and precious vestige of our nation’s past. Featuring interviews with longtime residents and key players on all sides of the recent scuffle, the film details the storied evolution of Coney Island and past and present plans to redevelop it. World premiere.
BAM Rose Cinemas
General Admission: $12
BAM Cinema Club members: $8
Posted by eric at 10:56 AM
New Hotel on Third Ave. in Gowanus Readies for Opening in Early Fall
Brooklyn Daily Eagle
by Linda Collins
A soon-to-open new Brooklyn hotel has discovered an untapped market — construction tourism!
The new 12-story, 130-room hotel, at 181 Third Ave. in Gowanus, on the edge of Boerum Hill, is a project of the Troutbrook Company, a privately owned real estate investment firm based in Manhattan.
...I am excited about bringing the first Fairfield Inn by Marriott to Brooklyn,” said [hotel developer Mark J.] Freud. “With Forest City Ratner finally breaking ground on the Nets Arena, just five blocks away, the Fulton Mall undergoing a $15 million streetscape reconstruction and many other new projects in the area, there has never been a better time for leisure and business travelers alike to stay in Downtown Brooklyn.”
Posted by eric at 9:20 AM
August 4, 2010
Roundtable Wrap: Apple Store Teaser
Brownstoner
On the same day that the blog FIPS reported a Marty Markowitz staffer saying that Apple was not coming to Brooklyn, we sat in the audience at the quarterly Real Estate Roundtable luncheon at the Brooklyn Historical Society at which veteran commercial broker Robert Greenstone said he knew where the new Apple store would be but was sworn to secrecy. He could have been pulling the audience's collective leg, but it didn't seem like it. The whispers after the talk were that it was going to be in or around Atlantic Yards.
NoLandGrab: After 25 years of Macs, might we have to return to the PC? "In" or "around" will make all the difference.
Posted by eric at 12:39 PM
August 2, 2010
Tables for Two: KAZ AN NOU
53 Sixth Ave., between Dean and Bergen Sts., Brooklyn (718-938-3235)
The New Yorker
by Amanda Thompson
If any neighborhood is in need of a morale boost, it’s the stretch between Flatbush and Vanderbilt Avenues, bordering the Atlantic Yards site. The last tenant took a multimillion-dollar payout, Forest City Ratner’s heavy equipment has moved in, and Freddy’s Bar has served its last beer. Just south of the buildings awaiting demolition, though, Kaz An Nou seems determined to bring a bit of Caribbean color and hope. (Its proximity to the Atlantic Yards wrecking ball has caused some concern, but the owners think they’re safe, thanks to the Seventy-eighth Precinct station house next door.)
The restaurant’s name means “our house,” and eating here does have the feeling of home: the host, waiter, and chef, Sebastien Aubert, owns and operates the place with his wife, Michelle Lane, and minimal other assistance.
Posted by eric at 9:33 AM
July 27, 2010
For the New Domino, newly unveiled MOU casts doubt on affordable housing promises
Atlantic Yard Report
Last week, I raised questions about the guarantees of 30% affordability in the New Domino plan in Williamsburg (which approaches a full City Council vote on Thursday).
Now Williamsburg Greenpoint News+Arts advances the story, reporting:
Unlike the Greenpoint-Williamsburg rezoning of 2005, which spelled out the inclusionary housing goals and benefits in the zoning text, the affordability aspects within the New Domino proposal are in a separate letter, a non legally binding document called a memorandum of understanding (MOU).
...In the case of the New Domino plan, the “out” lies not just with the city but with the developer CPCR as well. From a copy of the actual MOU (see at end of article) for the proposed New Domino plan, exclusively obtained by WG News + Arts, paragraph 9 in the text clearly states:
“Whereas, this MOU is not a legally binding instrument and is only intended to set forth the understandings of the parties without creating any legally enforceable rights or obligations.”
If it sounds too good to be true, remember that in other famous MOUs that have so far not been fully met, if at all met, like the second MOU attached to the Atlantic Yards proposal, developers were actually required to pay fines and restitution if the deal were to fall apart.
Related coverage...
Williamsburg Greenpoint News+Arts, New Domino Development Goes to a Vote in City Council w*/ no Guarantees for Community
The Brooklyn Blog [NYPost.com], City set to approve Domino plan -- without guarantees
NY Observer, At New Domino, Affordable Housing Promise More of a Pledge
Alas, this resembles the groundwork of many a development project in New York. While a good number of developers do end up delivering on promises, other projects are sold to the public on the promise of certain public benefits (in exchange, the public's representatives grant approvals), only to see those benefits eroded over time as they prove difficult or impossible to fulfill. A couple other case studies to look at: Battery Park City, once meant to be mostly below-market rate housing; and Atlantic Yards once meant to have a green roof and a Frank Gehry-designed arena.
Posted by eric at 9:26 AM
July 25, 2010
Birth of a new urban model
Crain's New York
By Amanda Fung
This article suggests that the nearly-completed Battery Park City could serve as a template for building sustainable projects that create wholly new communities. How Atlantic Yards could be included on this list is a mystery as there are no indications that the project was planned with sustainability in mind and it is destroying, not creating a community. The article gives credit for the success of Battery Park City to the State's Battery Park City Authority. Atlantic Yards is unique among New York's large projects in having no real oversight.
Now, with major mixed-use development projects looming on the horizon—from the rail yards on the West Side of Manhattan to Willets Point in Queens to Atlantic Yards and Coney Island in Brooklyn—Battery Park City is also being viewed by planners as a potential model for crafting sustainable communities from scratch.
The article also lists several large projects in various stages, including Atlantic Yards. The project is mistakenly listed as being in downtown Brooklyn, instead of Prospect Heights. The project's original goals are listed, but with only a basketball arena being constructed and one residential tower supposedly on the drawing board, nobody can really say what the developer will build in the 25 years allowed by the Empire State Development Corporation. Parking lots are more likely than 16 towers.
ATLANTIC YARDS
Area 22 acres in downtown Brooklyn
Goals The Barclays Center, an 18,000-seat arena, will be home to the Nets basketball team. Future plans for 16 towers for mostly residential units, but project will also include hotel and office space.
Status The foundation for the Barclays Center was recently poured.
Developer Forest City Ratner Cos.
Posted by steve at 8:09 AM
July 24, 2010
Big Footed by the EPA in Brooklyn
The Wall Street Journal
By Julia Vitullo-Martin
The complaint in this op-ed is that the city and state, at the behest of developers, should be in charge of cleaning up the Gowanus Canal. Given the way the city and state bent over backwards for developer Bruce Ratner, it's not surprising that many favor going to the EPA, rather than risk sacrificing a diligent cleanup because of the needs of developers. The quote below invokes the Atlantic Yards project as an example of how not to do intelligent development.
Some neighborhood activists are happy with the Superfund designation. Linda Mariano, co-founder of Friends and Residents of Greater Gowanus, tells me she opposes "premature development." She argues that "the neighborhood belongs to the people—not to the private developers and not for the kind of Atlantic Yards overdevelopment this mayor has been advocating for. The EPA will do a significant cleanup so that we can reuse the brownfields as open space, recreation, adaptive reuse for light industry and artisans."
Posted by steve at 6:55 AM
July 23, 2010
Community Board Approves Its Disapproval of Riverside Center
NY Observer
by Sam Levin
Manhattan Community Board 7 is all for bloated, neighborhood-warping mega-projects — just as long as no one builds one within the confines of Manhattan Community Board 7.
Step one of Riverside Center’s public review is complete.
After four hours of debate in a special meeting devoted entirely to Extell’s 8-acre project, Community Board 7 on Thursday night finalized its own recommendation for the final frontier of the Upper West Side.
...“CB7 endorses the initiatives of the City government,” the [Board's] report says, citing precedent of Atlantic Yards and the New Domino Sugar Factory development.
Posted by eric at 11:07 AM
July 21, 2010
Enough Already
Talking Points Memo
by David Kurtz
TPM Reader MK, a New Yorker, has had enough with out-of-towners like Sarah Plain protesting the mosque near the WTC site:
I first heard about this project a month or two ago, and the thing that struck me the most about it was the overwhelming support it had from the local community board in Lower Manhattan. As you are probably familiar it is nearly impossible to have a community board agree on even the most mundane issues, so to have a community board agree 29-1 on ANY this particular issue is quite an accomplishment.
Furthermore, why is land use in New York City the business of anyone else but the citizens of New York? If so, I would really like to know Sarah Palin's opinion of the Atlantic Yards (or Hudson Yards or the expansion of Columbia University) project, an issue that is 1,000,000x more controversial than this project. That's all this is: a land use issue.
Posted by eric at 11:05 AM
July 20, 2010
New Domino plan passes key hurdle with no essential modification; is affordable housing subject to same loopholes as with Atlantic Yards?
Atlantic Yards Report
When it comes to big developments, you always have to look behind the curtain. And when it comes to the controversial New Domino development in Williamsburg--the second-largest in Brooklyn, after Atlantic Yards--the land use process, the affordable housing, and the urban planning all deserve another look.
Notably, the project has been justified because of the promised affordable housing, but, as with Atlantic Yards, the developer won't commit to building the housing in the announced timetable.
So the likely loopholes should be part of the public discussion.
And here's a number you haven't seen in print: $2.5 million, which is (nearly) the total the New Domino developer spent on lobbying in the last five years (details below).
...I posed several questions to the New Domino developers, including whether the 660 units had to be built in ten years, whether the timing or number of units is subject to subsidy availability, and whether the developer--as in some Community Benefit Agreements--was required to put money in an affordable housing fund up front.
"I apologize, but no one is available at CPC Resources to answer this inquiry," spokesman Richard Edmonds responded.
NoLandGrab: Hey, at least he apologized!
Posted by eric at 9:59 AM
July 15, 2010
18th-Century Ship Found at Trade Center Site
City Room
by David W. Dunlap
How does the discovery of a 200-some-odd-year-old ship relate to the saga of Atlantic Yards? Read on.
In the middle of tomorrow, a great ribbed ghost has emerged from a distant yesterday.
On Tuesday morning, workers excavating the site of the underground vehicle security center for the future World Trade Center hit a row of sturdy, upright wood timbers, regularly spaced, sticking out of a briny gray muck flecked with oyster shells.
Obviously, these were more than just remnants of the wooden cribbing used in the late 18th and early 19th centuries to extend the shoreline of Manhattan Island ever farther into the Hudson River. (Lower Manhattan real estate was a precious commodity even then.)
“They were so perfectly contoured that they were clearly part of a ship,” said A. Michael Pappalardo, an archaeologist with the firm AKRF, which is working for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey to document historical material uncovered during construction.
NoLandGrab: Clearly, AKRF has its claws in nearly every major (and majorly subsidized) construction project in New York City. We've been unable to ascertain, however, whether the World Trade Center Environmental Impact Statement claimed that the project would have "no adverse impact on maritime operations in lower Manhattan."
Posted by eric at 9:48 AM
July 13, 2010
Hidden New York Byways Revealed With 80,000 Photos in the Latest AIA Guide
Bloomberg News
by James S. Russell
Fran Leadon, an authority on New York City byways, wore out four pairs of shoes tramping as much as 20 miles a day to update the classic “AIA Guide to New York City.”
“I love discovering these quiet corners of New York,” Leadon said as I joined him recently on a city walk, referring to a quiet enclave of vine-clad 19th-century row houses called Vinegar Hill. It missed out on the boom decade’s wave of gentrification that seems to have swallowed up much of Brooklyn.
...The AIA guide, sponsored by the New York Chapter of the American Institute of Architects, is a 1,055-page love letter to the city. It obsessively details the greatness of well-known neighborhoods, while luring the reader to bucolic corners of Staten Island and the hidden Art Deco grandeur of the Bronx.
Leadon, who helped update the work of the original authors, the late Norval White and Elliot Willensky, had the daunting task of reflecting the biggest explosion of development in New York since the 1950s. He says he took 80,000 photographs.
...He documents the robust renovation that has energized the neighborhoods all around the planned Atlantic Yards megadevelopment. “None of these areas were in the last edition of the guide,” he said. The riches he uncovers explode the argument that Forest City Ratner’s contentious project was needed as an antidote to blight.
Image: Oxford University Press via Bloomberg
Posted by eric at 11:27 AM
July 12, 2010
Atlantic Yards as Muse
Curbed
The Nets haven't made a big splash in the NBA free agent market, but they're changing the game when it comes to cheap Brooklyn hotels. A new inn on Atlantic Avenue was going to be called the Best Western Downtown Brooklyn, but was renamed the Best Western Arena Hotel because of its proximity to the Barclays Center, even if both names aren't quite accurate when you take a look at the location. Still, we would've gone with Best Western Eminent Domain Environs.
Posted by eric at 9:56 AM
A partnership slows in Downtown B'klyn
Stalled merger exposes political divisions
Crain's NY Business
by Erik Engquist
Something is rotten in Downtown, and guess who's one of the players?
The Downtown Brooklyn Partnership, a local development corporation formed by the Bloomberg administration in 2006 to reshape the city's third-largest business district, has run into financial and political difficulties that cloud its future.
The seed money it was getting from the city, a robust $2 million only two years ago, has plunged to a mere $250,000, forcing it to shed personnel and accelerate a long-envisioned takeover of three local business-improvement districts and their reliable revenue streams. But the longtime head of one BID has balked, and local politicians have put the merger on hold.
The partnership must pull off the ambitious reorganization if it is to survive as anything but a shell. The BIDs would account for $5 million of the organization's proposed $7.5 million budget for the fiscal year that began this month. Member contributions would total just $340,000.
Meanwhile, some Brooklyn City Council members—who view the organization as an arm of the Bloomberg administration, characterized by big salaries and nebulous accomplishments—want it disbanded.
The partnership—which is down to nine employees after cutting several positions from its 19th-story MetroTech suite—has support for its restructuring plan from the large corporations that dominate its board. But Michael Weiss, executive director of the MetroTech BID, who would lose his job in the shakeup, has rounded up political support to stall it.
...Mr. Chan declined to comment, but his spokesman, Lee Silberstein, paints a bright picture of the partnership's accomplishments and future. “On balance, this is playing out as it was supposed to,” he says, noting that the partnership enjoys strong support from the downtown Brooklyn business community, including titans like developer Bruce Ratner, banker Alan Fishman and former KeySpan chief Robert Catell.
...But Councilwoman Letitia James says Mr. Chan miscalculated in his handling of Mr. Weiss's BID. “Joe's usurpation of MetroTech was not wise, was not smart politically. He did not do his homework and is now suffering the consequences,” she says.
Mr. Ratner tried to broker a compromise by offering Mr. Weiss a job paying more than the $165,000 he is making, but Mr. Weiss declined.
NoLandGrab: Of course, Mr. Ratner collects rent from the Partnership, and Partnership personnel have turned up at public hearings to laud his Atlantic Yards project, a good chunk of it on the public dime.
Posted by eric at 9:36 AM
July 11, 2010
Behind the "Best Western Arena Hotel" and its "six blocks away" location
Atlantic Yards Report
We've become used to hearing all kinds of deceptive claims made for the Atlantic Yards project, but now the management of a new hotel is trying to say that, once the Nets arena is complete, guests will be close by. Nope.
Well, the new Best Western Arena Hotel is in Bedford-Stuyvesant, but that has not stopped them from claiming proximity to Downtown Brooklyn, promoting (as in the graphic below) Brooklyn scenes at Fulton Ferry, and drawing a name from the two-years-away Atlantic Yards arena.
A press release claimed:
Located within walking distance to the Atlantic Terminal, guests have convenient access to a variety of attractions including the Barclays Center, future home for the Nets NBA team, Brooklyn Children’s Museum, Brooklyn Academy of Music, the Brooklyn Museum and the world-famous, Coney Island. Just minutes from the hotel, guests will also enjoy shopping at Atlantic Terminal Mall and Macy’s.
“Brooklyn is quickly becoming a top destination for tourists, business and leisure travelers, and with the new Barclays Center, a new sports arena for the New Jersey Nets scheduled to open in 2011, our hotel will be a great addition to the city,” said Mukesh Patel, owner of the Best Western Arena Hotel. “We are only six blocks from the new arena and the only hotel and first stop along the Long Island Rail Road, making it a convenient stay whether they're in the area for work or play.”
Um, the arena is scheduled to open in the fall of 2012.
Also, even the most generous interpretation of "six blocks"--starting at Nostrand Avenue (which should count as a half block away)--is wrong. A walker on the south side of Atlantic Avenue would have to walk seven quite long blocks (Bedford, Franklin, Classon, Grand, Washington, Vanderbilt, and Carlton avenues) before getting to the Sixth Avenue border of the arena site.
As for the Long Island Rail Road, the best arena access would be via the Atlantic Terminal stop. It would be 1.4 miles from the hotel address to the northeast corner of Atlantic and Sixth avenues, and probably about 1.5 miles to the actual arena entrance.
Short blocks in New York City are about 20 blocks to a mile, with the average for long blocks about seven avenues to a mile, the New York Times's 9/17/06 FYI column. That would make the arena hotel about 30 short blocks from the arena, or about ten long ones.
Posted by steve at 2:53 PM
July 2, 2010
Nets Owner to Operate From Seagram Offices
The Wall Street Journal
by Craig Karmin
Russian billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov recently completed his first Manhattan property deal since becoming owner of the New Jersey Nets, taking office space in the Seagram Building on Park Avenue.
His private investment firm, the Moscow-based Onexim Group, has agreed to lease about 2,500 square feet on the 26th floor of the famous building designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Philip Johnson, said a person familiar with the matter.
Mr. Prokhorov plans to use the space as his business office when he's in town and it will serve as an office for the Nets basketball team, this person said.
NoLandGrab: Surely that can't be right. The owner of the future Brooklyn Nets would want to have his office in Brooklyn, wouldn't he? Maybe in the flagship new Atlantic Yards office tower that Bruce Ratner will start building any day now. Oh, wait...
Crain's NY Business, NYC office construction at near standstill
Building starts in first four months of 2010 fall to lowest level in years, with 99% of the work coming in alterations and renovations.
New York City office construction is at a virtual standstill, according to the New York Building Congress, a nonprofit group that represents the construction industry. However, there are signs of a possible recovery in coming years.
According to the group's review of multiple data sources, the value of office construction starts sank to a mere $163 million in the first four months of 2010. At that pace, the value of starts for the year as a whole would come to just $489 million, compared with $2.6 billion in 2009 and $1.3 billion in 2008.
...Currently, the majority of office construction work is in the alterations and renovations category, rather than new ground-up construction. For the first four months of 2010, alterations accounted for more than 99% of all construction starts as measured by value—$162.3 million, versus $700,000 in new construction. In 2009, alterations accounted for $1.7 billion of the $2.6 billion in office starts.
While the data doesn't suggest an imminent turnaround, a review of historical construction data, as well as recent employment and leasing trends, suggest that the office market outlook will be one of gradual absorption of available space, potentially followed by renewed expansion, for the next few years.
NLG: But let's not let this news stop the Empire State Development Corporation from claiming the full Atlantic Yards project will be completely built in 10 years.
Posted by eric at 9:43 AM
Brooklyn Broadside: Domino Joins Brooklyn’s Big Projects
Brooklyn Daily Eagle
by Dennis Holt
This reporter believes that there are five big projects on the Brooklyn lineup, big in terms of size but also big in terms of impact on the borough and for the future. Brooklyn would be totally different, and quite poorer, without them.
...Atlantic Yards has started, and Wednesday’s Eagle reported that nearly 700 cubic yards of concrete has been poured in building the sports arena. In one sense, this is the biggest of the projects because of the number of housing units that might be built, because the impact of the sports arena itself will be almost immeasurable, and because the possibility of a whole new Downtown springing up in a number of years is strong.
NoLandGrab: Even Dennis Holt is right sometimes, as in his admission that Atlantic Yards's housing units might be built. Yet while the economic impact of the arena might be "almost immeasurable," the traffic impact of the arena is already being felt all to well by nearby residents.
Posted by eric at 9:33 AM
June 30, 2010
INTERVIEW | JESSICA PICHARDO OF LINGER CAFE & LOUNGE BROOKLYN, NY
Eating Everywhere
Jessica Pichardo runs from the backyard space of Linger Café & Lounge, her restaurant on Atlantic Ave in Brooklyn where she’s chatting up a group of people to say hello to me. She seems a bit frazzled – the polar opposite of the mood in the restaurant which is more laid back and calm. But such is life when you run a café in a booming neighborhood; working six long days per week. But she’s in great spirits, and is genuinely happy with her life since opening the doors of Linger almost one year ago.
...What do you see happening in this part of Brooklyn right now and going forward?
I see a lot of development – more & more people moving to the area. It’s such a great central location. We’re on the cusp of a lot of different neighborhoods (Boerum Hill/Fort Greene/Clinton Hill/Downtown Brooklyn/Park Slope) within walking distance. It’s definitely an up and coming area especially with the Atlantic Yards project happening. I expect a lot more hustle & bustle over the next few years. I’m excited about being one of the pioneers in this neighborhood, and one of the things that’s important to me is staying true to that mom & pop, small business sort of mentality regardless of how developed the area may become.
NoLandGrab: Linger, unfortunately, is exactly the type of mom & pop shop that one doesn't find amid the fast-food chains surrounding Madison Square Garden, Yankee Stadium and other sports venues.
Posted by eric at 9:36 AM
June 17, 2010
Thor’s Sitt says he was "blindsided" at Coney Island, others say challenges to be expected
The Real Deal
by Candace Taylor
The developers of three significant -- and often controversial -- Brooklyn projects commiserated about the challenges of building in the borough at a panel today, while sharing how they embrace those challenges.
The panel, part of GreenPearl's Brooklyn Real Estate Summit, was held at St. Francis College in Downtown Brooklyn. Panelists included Joseph Sitt, the chairman and CEO of Thor Equities, which owns much of the commercial real estate in Coney Island even after selling 6.9 acres to the city for $96 million last year. Also present were MaryAnne Gilmartin, an executive vice president at Forest City Ratner, the developer of the massive Atlantic Yards project in downtown Brooklyn, and Andrew Kimball, the CEO of the Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corp.
The moderator of the panel, the Brooklyn Economic Development Corporation's Joan Bartolomeo, asked the three if they ever get sick of the politics and hassles that accompany large development projects in New York City.
Perhaps Joan should've asked Brooklyn residents and property owners if they ever get sick of having their homes seized for private development fueled by massive public subsidies, or the gridlock and endless horn-honking caused by the absence of planning, or the corrupt politics that masquerade as public "process."
Sitt said he was surprised by the emotional public response to his plans to redevelop Coney Island, including removing aging buildings to make way for newer attractions.
"I admit, in the case of Coney Island, I got kind of blindsided," he said.
Ten years ago, the Brooklyn-native said, "nobody had any interest in Coney Island," adding that he got involved in the seaside amusement district "not so much for the investment," but more "as a personal hobby, to try to give back" to the community.
Joe, why didn't you say so? If we'd only known it was all about philanthropy, we would've tossed roses at you and kissed your benevolent feet.
Gilmartin said her company Forest City Ratner is prepared for the "great challenges" that come with their projects. "If you want to be an urban developer, this is what comes with the territory," she added.
Forest City Ratner's projects are often more challenging because they build from the ground up, rather than purchase properties built by others, and the company often engages in complicated public-private partnerships.
Those "complicated public-private partnerships" are well worth the billions in free taxpayer dollars and the handover of other people's properties.
Posted by eric at 9:51 AM
June 10, 2010
Exhibit: The City We Imagined/The City We Made: New New York 2001-2010 (including, of course, Atlantic Yards)
Atlantic Yards Report
An exhibition at The Architectural League, The City We Imagined/The City We Made: New New York 2001-2010, concerns architecture, planning, and development in New York since 2001.
It's well worth watching and, yes, Atlantic Yards is a component of the story. Still--and this is some useful perspective for those of us focused on AY--so much in New York has changed that it's understandable that those elsewhere in the city may find it hard to pay attention to all.
The free exhibition is on view at 250 Hudson Street (entrance on Dominick Street) until June 26 and should move to a summertime venue beginning on the July 4th weekend. It's open Wednesday-Sunday, Noon-7 pm.
Posted by eric at 9:34 AM
How Communism Shaped New York—Literally
NY Observer
by Nicholas Juravich
In his new book, Manhattan Projects: The Rise and Fall of Urban Renewal in Cold War New York, Samuel Zipp, an assistant professor of urban studies at Brown, explores the competing visions of the city that arose in the two decades following World War II. Charting the rise of four major sites of clearance and construction, Mr. Zipp argues that these projects must be understood as products of Cold War battles for cultural superiority, as well as of local developments.
At each stop along the way—the United Nations Headquarters, Stuyvesant Town, Lincoln Square and East Harlem—we encounter government planners, business and real estate interests, liberal reformers and local residents, all struggling to articulate their own ideas of what the postwar "Capital of the World" should be, fighting for "the right to give imaginative shape to the city." The resulting account breathes new life into the ink-stained history of urban renewal and asks important questions about its legacy in today's global metropolis.
...And yet, New Yorkers today not only enjoy the fruits of urban renewal—concerts at Lincoln Center, strolls along the Brooklyn Heights Promenade, apartments—but continue to renew their city—Atlantic Yards, save for its ZIP code, would be right at home in Manhattan Projects—even as they curse the phrase.
NoLandGrab: Then it was Communism, today it's Socialism — for the rich.
Posted by eric at 9:28 AM
June 6, 2010
Is Coney starting to remind you of Atlantic Yards?
Coney Rocks
This blog entry is here to remind us that the city is all too often ready to bend to the wishes of developers. The author seems to be someone who wants to suck up to the powerful, and doesn't care if Coney Island becomes a generic, indoor mall.
First they try to stop hotels through zoning. They lose. Then they try to stop hotels through a historic district designation. They lose again. Now they want to tell the developer how he should develop the buildings. LOL What's next?
Looks quite obvious that those dilipated buildings will be bulldozed and hotels will eventually happen in Coney.
Coney will go year round. Like it or not!
Posted by steve at 7:45 AM
June 3, 2010
Job Growth Requires Vibrant Urban Neighborhoods
The Huffington Post
by Vin Cipolla
The president of the Municipal Art Society, which wouldn't dirty its hands by joining with fellow BrooklynSpeaks members to sue the Empire State Development Corporation over Atlantic Yards, laments the failures of mega-projects to create good jobs while touting the job-growth potential of Columbia U's land grab (with nary a mention of eminent domain abuse).
The debate about the physical development of New York City inevitably focuses on large-scale projects: Atlantic Yards, Hudson Yards, and the World Trade Center site. But those massive developments are not where most job growth typically takes place; they largely involve relocating existing jobs much more than creating new permanent ones. The current slow-down in development brought about by the recession provides a chance to refocus attention on how urban planning can create jobs. With unemployment at 10 percent in New York City, we cannot afford to miss any opportunities, and a number of good ones are in front of us.
...Second, the new 17-acre campus of Columbia University, being developed on the West Side at 125th Street, provides another opportunity. The campus offers enormous advantages to the city, expanding New York's intellectual base and research capacity, and the challenge for the city now is to ensure that, as it develops, the surrounding areas benefit sufficiently from job generation. This, in part, requires that the nearby neighborhoods have the amenities and attributes needed to attract the entrepreneurs and related businesses that the new campus can inspire.
New York will always be a city of mega-projects. It's a city of big dreams. The challenge is to ensure that those dreams are compatible with business growth and do not undercut the job-generating potential of the city's fundamental fabric of urban neighborhoods.
Posted by eric at 8:43 AM
May 30, 2010
Coney Island reopens for summer season, but will buildings be demolished for chain retail and condos? Also, an AY cameo in the saga of a "razzle"
Atlantic Yards Report
Here's a look at how the city continues to work hand-in-hand with a developer to destroy Coney Island as an amusement area even as both claim to revive it.
The summer season has begun at Coney Island, with Astroland replaced by the new rides of Luna Park (named to echo one of the three great amusement parks, open from 1903 to 1944 and replaced by public housing).
That's the cause of much official celebration and, indeed, there are some other signs of life, such as the city's plan to move the famed B&B Carousell to Steeplechase Plaza.
However, as Kevin Baker writes in the Village Voice and the folks at Save Coney Island remind us, much remains contested, notably developer Joe Sitt's plan to demolish some historic structures on or below Surf Avenue and replace them with chain retail and restaurants--and, quite possibly, hotels/time-shares that would be turned into condos, thus leading to the demise of the amusement zone ecosystem (despite Coney's unique zoning).
Perhaps the most basic question is asked by Save Coney Island spokesman, Juan Rivero.
“The Bloomberg administration needs to decide: Will this summer be remembered as the beginning of Coney Island’s rebirth? Or will be remembered as the summer that the City allowed an opportunistic developer to demolish Coney Island’s history?” Rivero said.
Posted by steve at 8:46 AM
May 29, 2010
Coney Island's Grand Past and Grim Future
Requiem for a dreamland
Village Voice
by Kevin Baker
An epic and well-worth-reading piece on the Joe Sitt/Mike Bloomberg/Dominic Recchia/Amanda Burden destruction of the incredibly resilient-but-teetering American playground, Coney Island, wouldn't be complete without a mention of the epitome of the modern "razzle" — Atlantic Yards.
Coney Island today is a place where you can drink beer, "shoot a freak," see a geek, see a burlesque show, see fish, catch fish, eat fish, ride the Cyclone, ride the waves, win a kewpie doll, play Skee-Ball, go to a ballgame, see a band, lie on the sand. It is the last stand of the demimonde, the last place where you can feel the openness and the energy of 1970s New York, stripped of the accompanying dread of crime and decay.
The city and the developers they favor now propose to rescue us from all that, just as, in the past, they "rescued" a unique, prosperous community of 100,000 people by turning it into a bereft, isolated slum of 50,000 people. Where, 50 years ago, an unaccountable, unelected city authority tore down much of Coney Island under "Title 1," now an unaccountable, unelected city authority endorses tearing it down again under "Phase 1." And once again, anyone who objects is accused of championing "the nostalgic fables of the past."
It's not just Coney. Much like Thor Equities, Michael Bloomberg's administration has forwarded its development schemes everywhere with "renderings of some fantastic building." On and on it goes, from the Olympics and the West Side Stadium, to the gargantuan "airport village" in Jamaica, to the wall of condos planned for the Queens and Brooklyn waterfront along the East River, to the Hudson Yards project on the West Side, newly revived—an endless carny game of bait-and-switch, sold on the promise of one amazing, futuristic building after another, none of which ever seem to get built.
A veritable catalog of such swindles—past, present, and future—can be found in a triumphalist 2006 copy of New York magazine on "Tomorrowland"—the Oz-like New York it imagined would exist by 2016.
Therein can be found a headline that reads, "Brooklyn (Like It or Not) Will Get a Shimmering Frank Gehry Crown."
It refers, of course, to the Atlantic Yards project, where somehow no shimmering crowns ever appeared—only plans for a cheesy, college-style fieldhouse, built to house a bad basketball team owned by a mysterious Russian oligarch. In the process, the city—which currently claims to be unable to afford to let schoolchildren ride the subway at half-price—may well have squandered nearly $200 million for the cash-strapped MTA, money it left on the table in its rush to hand the site over to a single mega-developer that ended up flipping the whole project.
Actually, Bruce Ratner has only flipped the Nets, and 45% of the arena, which he had to do to keep the project solvent. Of course, he's also flipped the bird to Brooklynites.
Just down the page, in the same New York article, is a mention of another coming attraction in Tomorrowland: the Thor Galleries Tower, in Albee Square.
The real problem here, though, isn't Joe Sitt, or even Mayor Mike, the developers' buddy, but the driving force behind them and so many other mayors and developers over the years. It's a mentality, a secular religion, a form of warped corporate progressivism that insists order and sterility and profit can always be imposed upon the vast creative anarchy of this city.
Down on Coney Island, they know better.
..."I think the island is both welcoming and malicious. I think it'll thwart them in some way," says Richard Snow, who remembers seeing the remnants of the foundation holes dug for the great Friede Globe Tower, still visible into the 1970s. "I think I know enough about Coney to say that it won't work out the way anybody's saying it will."
Posted by eric at 1:46 PM
May 24, 2010
Looking a Gift Horse in the Mouth? An Examination of Brooklyn Bridge Park in Terms of the Politics of Development
Noticing New York
Michael D.D. White publishes an epic three-part look at the politics of development in New York City, viewed through the prism of Brooklyn Bridge Park. It touches only tangentially on Atlantic Yards, but the delays in construction of the park conjure scary visions of a 50-year buildout in Prospect Heights.
This three-part article, which is principally about the new Brooklyn Bridge Park currently under development, wends a long, more serpentine path through the politics of New York City development than perhaps any other we have written. As you would expect, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg's appearance is much more than a cameo. We don’t offer him praise.
Inevitably the metaphor of looking a gift horse in the mouth comes to mind when we contemplate the spectacular change to the city’s waterfront that will one day be Brooklyn Bridge Park. Whatever our government agencies ultimately do, the park will provide desirable benefits that will be extremely hard to complain about. But not conscientiously examining “gifts” that government officials deliver just doesn’t work in the political environment of New York. Besides Brooklyn Bridge Park is not truly a gift; it is something that community activists worked for years to obtain. Our elected representatives are, after all, supposed to be working for us. It is their job to properly administer our available public resources. Whether they are doing so requires a conscientious examination. We hope you will find that conscientious examination takes us on an interesting and worthwhile trip.
Posted by eric at 10:59 AM
May 15, 2010
Behind “Vision Plan for the Fourth Avenue Corridor,” a "community-based process," including concerns about Atlantic Yards
Atlantic Yards Report
Remember how a Department of City Planning official admitted that the city had had no interest in developing the Vanderbilt Yard, and that Atlantic Yards was a developer-driven project?
Well, now Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz (the biggest booster of AY) has spearheaded a "community-based process" to help figure out how to improve the major artery of Fourth Avenue, which, at its northern end, nearly reaches the Atlantic Terminal mall and the Atlantic Yards arena site.
In fact, the report (embedded below) issued yesterday recommends improvements in open space on the south side of Flatbush Avenue very near the arena site. The source of funding for this and other improvements, such as landscaping, is unclear.
Yes, a plan for a main artery like Fourth Avenue is not the same as a plan for an arena plus housing, but the contrast in process remains striking.
Posted by steve at 7:23 AM
May 11, 2010
EMINENT DOMAINIA: The Big Apple Bites!...
Courier-Life Newspapers via NYPost.com, Last holdouts face eviction to make room for 'Willoughby Square Park'
There are dozens of tenants left in the city-acquired properties on Albee Square between Willoughby and Fulton streets, some of whom allege that the city isn’t helping them find new homes.
“They keep telling us that they’ll help us get a place, or that they’ll pay us to move out — but they lied,” said Ray Ahamed, a 14-year resident of one of the properties. “Some people have been living here for 50 or more years. My family will have a hard time finding a place to go.”
Ahamed added that he was given a July deadline to get out — a date not confirmed by the city.
...“What’s the worst-case scenario? We’re not sure,” said an HPD official, who asked not to be named.
Posted by eric at 10:50 PM
May 10, 2010
What We Built (and Didn’t)
Bloomberg’s surprisingly unchanged city.
New York Magazine
by Justin Davidson
At times during the last decade, it felt as though every part of New York was constantly trying on new identities, and not always so comfortably. “The City We Imagined/The City We Made: New New York 2001–2010,” a sweepingly particular new exhibit presented by the Architectural League in a storefront at 250 Hudson Street, chronicles that period of convulsive construction. On one side of a snaking line of panels is the imagined New York: a time line of dreams, fights, proposals, announcements, visions, and revisions. On the other are 1,000 photographs of the city as it really became. You could walk through the displays repeatedly and follow a different story line each time. The show is a sentimental journey through a decade’s worth of real-estate-development fights.
In these ten years, New Yorkers discussed what was to be built with vituperative intensity. Architecture mattered—architects themselves became celebrities—and the city’s soul always seemed to be hanging in the balance. What dominated discussion were the grandest dreams and angriest battles: the threat of a stadium looming over the West Side, the vision of a jagged Olympic village bristling at Hunters Point, the alternately hopeful and paralytic saga of Moynihan Station, the demoralizing arc of Atlantic Yards, the tortuous tale of the World Trade Center. Many of these are stories of soufflélike fantasies that collapsed and left their sites in 2010 essentially as they were in 2001—or worse.
Posted by eric at 11:08 AM
May 9, 2010
A Tower Grows at Flatbush and Myrtle
The Wall Street Journal
by Anton Troianovski
A high-rise called Toren hovers over Brooklyn's jumbled cityscape like a sci-fi robot elevated on a platform of dimpled, zigzagging metal panels.
"It's like something from outer space," says Deborah Johnson, who walks past the new apartment tower on the intersection of Flatbush and Myrtle a few blocks from the Manhattan Bridge on her trip home from work.
...Up the street is Forest City Ratner's Atlantic Yards project. "Over time it's going to mature and it'll be a different kind of place," Mr. Duffy says of the stretch of Flatbush occupied by Toren.
But some are nervous. Standing at Toren's base, Manhattan attorney A. Mason says, looking upward, "The reason I chose to live in Brooklyn is because it does not look like that."
NoLandGrab: Of course, Toren doesn't look like that, either. In one of the classic marketing-brochure fantasy shots of all-time, BFC Partners issued a rendering showing the building surrounded by green lawns, rather than in its true locale, shoehorned among other high-rises smack up against chaotic Flatbush Avenue.
Posted by eric at 10:10 PM
May 6, 2010
The Times's Dining section discovers new restaurants thriving less than a block from blight
Atlantic Yards Report
From a New York Times "$25 and Under" restaurant review yesterday, headlined The Vanderbilt and Kaz an Nou:
The service was slick, the room was handsome and the food reliably good at the Vanderbilt, a well-groomed gastropub that opened last fall in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn. But something was missing.
It was not half as pleasurable as Kaz an Nou, a new French-Caribbean place two blocks away with half its size and sophistication.
Looking at the map
Those living nearby or checking the map know that the two blocks between Kaz an Nou (on Sixth Avenue between Bergen and Dean, closer to Dean) and The Vanderbilt (on Vanderbilt Avenue between Bergen and Dean, closer to Bergen) are long east-west blocks.
By contrast, each restaurant is less than a single short north-south block from the corner of Dean Street, which happens to be the southern border of the Atlantic Yards footprint.
Why does this matter? Because the Empire State Development Corporation, in its Blight Study, declared at the outset:
This report presents an evaluation of conditions in the area proposed for the Atlantic Yards Arena and Redevelopment Project which themselves are evidence of blight or which may retard the sound growth and development of surrounding areas.
(Emphasis added)
Posted by eric at 9:57 AM
April 28, 2010
Community Pacts Questioned in the Zoning Process
The New York Times
by Terry Pristin
Now, in a report that is likely to have considerable influence on policy makers, the New York City Bar Association has urged the city to stop allowing community benefits agreements to be part of the zoning approval process. The report warns, among other things, that the agreements could create an opportunity for corruption.
Ya think?
“It is our recommendation that the city announce that it will not consider C.B.A.’s in making its determinations in the land-use process,” the bar association said in the report last month. The report, which was in the works long before the armory proposal was defeated, also urged the city to declare that it would no longer play a role in “encouraging, monitoring or enforcing the agreements.” The report acknowledged that there was no way to prevent developers from making deals with community groups. But it said the city should get involved, if at all, only when the developer was seeking a public subsidy.
And when don't developers seek a public subsidy?
In recent years, city officials have opposed these private agreements on the ground that the city review process provides ample opportunity for community groups to seek concessions from developers. But previously, the Bloomberg administration championed or helped foster the agreements for projects like the Atlantic Yards development in Brooklyn; the Gateway Center at Bronx Terminal Market, a Related Companies project; and the expansion of Columbia University.
Of course, in the case of Atlantic Yards, there was no city review process.
While acknowledging that many residents believe that the city’s formal zoning process, known as the Uniform Land Use Review Procedure, or Ulurp, “fails to adequately consider or protect their interests,” the bar association report raised these and other questions about the private agreements:
¶Do the groups involved in the C.B.A. truly represent the community or are they simply seeking advantages for themselves?
¶Are they experienced enough to strike a good bargain with the developer, or will they sell out too cheaply?
¶Could benefits that require public subsidy — like affordable housing, for example — be awarded to a particular neighborhood to win acceptance of a project rather than on the basis of where these benefits are needed most?
NoLandGrab: The Atlantic Yards CBA, of course, fails all those tests, and badly.
Additional coverage...
Atlantic Yards Report, In Times, City Bar task force members warn against CBA abuses; Atlantic Yards examples are actually more egregious
A New York Times Real Estate page (Square Feet) article today headlined Community Pacts Questioned in the Zoning Process takes off from the critical report on Community Benefits Agreements (CBA) issued last month (my coverage).
Notably, while the article makes but a glancing reference to Atlantic Yards, the abuses referenced all relate to projects that go before the City Council; Atlantic Yards didn't even face that level of oversight, given that it was shepherded by the unelected Empire State Development Corporation, ignoring the role of both the local Community Boards and the local Council Member.
Moreover, the report contains what might be considered a slap at ACORN, given that one influential lawyer warns against a Council Member designating which affordable housing group should be selected. In the case of Atlantic Yards, there was not even that minimal level of local involvement; the decision was made by Forest City Ratner.
Posted by eric at 10:10 AM
April 15, 2010
Big finish
Mega-projects forge ahead
NY Post
by Max Gross
In just about every real estate cycle, you’ll find the wild-eyed dreamer — the person who makes the case that the moment is ripe to try something new. Something expensive. Something labor-intensive. Something that will change the face of the city as we know it.
Of course, these dreamers only get a hearing during the boom years. Everything changes with a bust. But, yes, we admit that these visions can get pretty far afield before their patriarchs are led to a padded cell.
Our most recent real estate cycle was no different.
Some huge projects got under way over the past decade. Many of them involved hundreds of millions of dollars (in some cases, billions) in investment and years of work. And a surprising number are soldiering on — economy be damned.
...ATLANTIC YARDS & DOWNTOWN BROOKLYN
Yes, the Nets are getting their arena.
It’s been a long time coming. There were a lot of disruptions along the way. “Obviously, the timing of Atlantic Yards, that’s been deferred,” says Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz. “The original plans that we were so excited about back in 2004 — obviously the world’s changed.”
But after court challenges, protests and a deal with Russian billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov, ground was broken last month on the Nets’ Barclays Center, set to open in the spring of 2012. (Jay-Z and Beyoncé were in attendance.) The Barclays Center is the crown jewel in the $4.9 billion Atlantic Yards project, which will include 6,430 new housing units (2,250 of which will be affordable). And Atlantic Yards is its own jewel in Downtown Brooklyn’s crown.
NoLandGrab: The Nets are getting their arena if Mikhail Prokhorov didn't violate U.S. sanctions against Zimbabwe's Mugabe regime.
Additional coverage...
Atlantic Yards Report, Post real estate section says Atlantic Yards is among megaprojects that "forge ahead"
What? How can the Post be sure it will include everything they say? I guess there was no reason to read the Development Agreement that 1) gives the developer 25 years to build the project, 2) offers the option of building the project 44% smaller, without penalty, and 3) provides for ample extensions if there's a lack of affordable housing subsidies.
The implies less a jewel than an ongoing construction site.
If Atlantic Yards is a jewel in Downtown Brooklyn's crown, it's a jewel off a dogleg, since it doesn't even fit into the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership's map.
Posted by eric at 11:33 PM
April 12, 2010
Where to Live in 2014
Everyone wants to spot the next Soho or Park Slope. Ten real-estate experts offer their nominees.
New York Magazine
by S. Jhoanna Robledo
Prospect Heights
Chosen by: Jonathan Butler, founder of Brownstoner.com.
If Butler were in the market, he says he’d be looking here. “It’s got some Park Slope in it but a little Williamsburg, too”—that is, brownstone warmth plus some bite. “You can’t read a magazine or a blog without seeing another bar or restaurant opening on Vanderbilt and Washington Avenues,” says Butler. His tip: stick to streets not directly affected by Atlantic Yards.
NoLandGrab: There are streets not directly adjacent to Atlantic Yards, but streets not directly affected by Atlantic Yards? If Bruce Ratner realizes his dream, there's a decent chance they'll all be a nightmare.
Additional coverage...
Atlantic Yards Report, Prospect Heights in 2014: great, if you avoid "streets not directly affected by Atlantic Yards"
I'd add that the "blighted" strip of Vanderbilt Avenue with cool restaurants and bars is adjacent to that massive planned interim surface parking lot.
Posted by eric at 12:38 PM
April 6, 2010
The DBP's "Downtown Development Story" and the Atlantic Yards asterisk
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder comments on Dennis Holt's column yesterday about Downtown development projects.
Holt acknowledges that "no one really knows right now" how many of the announced 6430 apartments would be built" and thus that, without the AY figures, the numbers under planning don't seem so impressive.
Still, he concludes by accepting the DBP's figures:
The Partnership's new score card is thus a very useful format, and tells the story of the building of a new Downtown Brooklyn in a more meaningful manner. The totals are impressive. They include $9.7 billion spent to create 22,615,000 new square feet of built space, and 14,481 new housing units.
But there's no assurance that figure is being spent or will be spent. Remember, only 24% of that square footage has been built.
Posted by eric at 9:49 AM
Partnership’s Report Details Downtown’s Development Story
Brooklyn Daily Eagle
by Dennis Holt
More than six years into this thing, and Dennis Holt is still insisting that the Atlantic Yards site, snug in the midst of the low-rise Brooklyn Neighborhoods of Fort Greene, Prospect Heights and Park Slope, is somehow part of Downtown Brooklyn.
Looking at this new statistical method, one very important element leaps out at you: How the Atlantic Yards project dominates the Downtown Brooklyn numbers. For example, of all the cost estimates, the Yards account for 41 percent of the total. About 44 percent of the new residential units are for Atlantic Yards, and the entire Yards site takes up almost 38 percent of all the space.
The sports arena part of the planned project -- Barclays Center -- takes up a relatively small part of the total project numbers.
At the moment, no one really knows how many of the planned 6,430 housing units will be built.
NoLandGrab: Actually, Bruce Ratner probably knows, and it's probably a lot less than 6,430, too.
Posted by eric at 12:03 AM
March 20, 2010
Brooklyn Broadside: Major Development Projects Proceed Quickly in Brooklyn
Brooklyn Daily Eagle
by Dennis Holt
Dennis Holt is someone who never met a real estate development he didn't like. (He'd rather someone just hurry up and build on the banks of the Gowanus Canal rather than waste time cleaning up a toxic site.) He takes a look into his credulous crystal ball and predicts buildings without plans occupied with tenants who can't be found.
During this first quarter, as just about everybody knows, holes were dug for the official birth of Atlantic Yards and the sports arena. Thus, movement begins, after so long a delay, on what promises to be the second core center of Downtown Brooklyn.
The old, first core is itself being revamped — it started more than 20 years ago with MetroTech — and the new core already consists of the Atlantic Center and Atlantic Terminal, the office building and P.C. Richard. It is only a matter of time before an anchor tenant comes forth to permit building a commercial building, probably above the P.C. Richard store.
NoLandGrab: Bruce Rather says: "Can you tell me when we are going to need a new office tower?"
Posted by steve at 7:56 AM
March 17, 2010
Bar Association: Reform Community-Developer Dealmaking
NY Observer
by Eliot Brown
The Association of the Bar of New York City doesn't seem to think all that highly of the current process by which landlords cut formal, non-standardized deals with community groups—known as Community Benefits Agreements—to win approvals for planned developments.
CBAs proliferated in recent years, particularly in the late real estate boom, as community groups and elected officials rushed to try to wrest concessions and mitigations from developers who may or may not be financially prepared to shower a bounty on the community. The use of CBAs has been criticized, in part because of the somewhat arbitrary manner in which they are formed (there is no standard for which groups end up being signatories in a CBA or participate in the negotiations with a developer, for instance), and the offerings from developers may not necessarily benefit the larger public interest, but rather just assuage a certain small constituency that happens to be negotiating the CBA.
CBAs have popped up at Atlantic Yards, Columbia University's planned West Harlem expansion, and recently at the Kingsbridge Armory development in the Bronx, which was voted down by the City Council after the requirement of a "living" wage became a make-or-break for the elected officials involved.
The well-researched Bar Association's report piles on more criticism and suggests that the tit-for-tat linking of a council land-use approval with a CBA is improper, if not illegal, given that developers are effectively buying zoning changes by paying certain community groups.
NoLandGrab: Or, in the case of Atlantic Yards, paying "community" groups that didn't exist before the developer itself created them in order to have a handful of entities that would agree to flimsy community benefits!
Posted by eric at 11:22 PM
March 16, 2010
A Quiet Alarm Sounds
A multimedia art exhibit in Fort Greene examines the neighborhood-changing going on all around it.
City Limits
by David Alm
Fort Greene — “The Gentrification of Brooklyn: The Pink Elephant Speaks,” at the Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts, 80 Hanson Place, Brooklyn. Open Wed. – Sun, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., Suggested donation $4, through May 16.
Anyone who’s lived in New York for a while has done it: Walked down a familiar block and remembered the old days – even three or four years ago – when that yoga studio was a bodega, that multinational bank was a local business, and you could rent a one-bedroom apartment for under $2,000.
Depending on your politics, income and connection to a place, such changes can be a welcome sign of new amenities and safer streets, or symptoms of a kind of urban cancer. And few places in the city reflect such trends more in recent years than the neighborhoods of northwest Brooklyn. Take a walk through Fort Greene, Clinton Hill or Bed-Stuy today and you’ll barely recognize the world filmmaker Spike Lee immortalized two decades ago in his classic "Do The Right Thing."
“The Gentrification of Brooklyn: The Pink Elephant Speaks” brings together more than 20 artists to inspire thought and conversation around these seismic shifts in New York’s fastest-growing borough. Centered at the Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts in Fort Greene, the four-month-long project combines art exhibitions with discussions, a play, a poetry reading and other events to reach beyond black-and-white diatribes and polarizing prescriptions.
...With the controversial Atlantic Yards construction site looming just beyond MoCADA’s front door, “The Gentrification of Brooklyn” sounds a quiet alarm, one that grows louder the longer you listen.
NoLandGrab: "Do the Right Thing?" Not any more, apparently. Spike Lee attended Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards groundbreaking last Thursday.
Posted by eric at 10:37 AM
March 14, 2010
Downtown Brooklyn losing its big edge
Crain's New York
By Joe Cavaluzzi
This article points out the failure of Bruce Ratner's Metrotech as large tenants seem prepared to decamp from this publicly-subsidized dead zone in downtown Brooklyn. The obvious question: Why is the ESDC, which is supposed to be about job creation, sinking taxpayer subsidies into Atlantic Yards when there is no market for additional office space in Brooklyn?
Much like New York's other traditional overflow market—the Jersey waterfront—downtown Brooklyn is suffering from not one but two setbacks. It has seen a huge dulling of its competitive edge as it competes with vastly lowered Manhattan rents, and it has seen tenants of all types and tastes reduce their space needs in response to the recession. What's more, those setbacks come at a time when several major developers are weighing plans for new office buildings—led by Forest City Ratner Cos.' plans for a vast commercial/residential project at the edge of downtown Brooklyn at Atlantic Yards, which had been mothballed for two years.
“It's hard to see who would have an appetite for large chunks of office space in downtown Brooklyn,” says Marisa Manley, president of Commercial Tenant Real Estate Representation. She notes that MetroTech and Pierrepont Plaza were both developed 20 years ago with an eye toward back-office use by big financial firms, including J.P. Morgan, Chase Manhattan and Goldman Sachs. “It's not clear that the companies that originally leased those spaces have the same appetite for space now.”
In fact, the city's Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications is eyeing 85,000 square feet of office space at 2 MetroTech Center, part of the 434,000 square feet being vacated by Securities Industry Automation Corp., a unit of NYSE Euronext. The company's lease expires in November.
...
Pressure is building, however. Industry sources say that several of the area's largest tenants may not renew their leases when they come up. Meanwhile, there are some large blocks of space already on the market, including the Chase Building at 4 MetroTech Center, where Jones Lang LaSalle is currently marketing 428,000 square feet for owner Forest City Ratner. The asking rent is $30.50 per square foot.
...
Don't worry, New York City is happy to follow the ESDC's lead of subsidizing Bruce Ratner by shoveling more money into Metrotech, ostensibly in the name of job creation.
A combination of aggressive landlord incentives and New York City's Relocation and Employment Assistance Program attracted just a handful of tenants to downtown Brooklyn last year. Those signing long-term leases or renewals of 10 years or more for prime space at MetroTech Center were able to negotiate free rent of six months to a year, along with tenant improvement allowances of up to $40 per square foot, according to Glenn Markman, executive vice president at Cushman & Wakefield Inc. On top of that, there were REAP benefits in the form of a $3,000-per-employee tax break for 12 years, which Mr. Markman notes works out to a subsidy of about $15 a square foot.
Posted by steve at 7:35 AM
Mayor Bloomberg likes the big picture, but he should keep an eye on the details, too
Daily News
By Adam Lisberg
Mayor Bloomberg loves to think big. The little things may need some attention.
He was in his element last week at the groundbreaking for the Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn - thousands of jobs, billions of dollars (plus more than $200 million in public subsidies), shovels, hardhats, progress.
...
All this attention to big projects comes at a price, though.
Some of the price comes out of your pocket - water and sewer rates have skyrocketed under Bloomberg, and the city's construction debt is higher than ever before.
Some of the price comes in the changed character of a city marked by giant footprints - neighborhood haunts like Freddy's Bar and some apartment buildings replaced by a new Brooklyn arena.
And some of the price comes in opportunities lost, inattention to detail, small problems that could have been fixed before they became big ones.
...
History doesn't worry much about a few hundred million extra here and there. It's the taxpayers' job to look at the price tag.
NoLandGrab: Two "little details" the Mayor seems to have missed are that the new Nets arena is projected to be a money-loser by the City's own Independent Budget Office and that there is no market for additional office space and, thus, few permanent jobs generated by this project.
Posted by steve at 7:24 AM
March 10, 2010
Space TALK: Commercial Realty Firm Moves to Site Close to Atlantic Yards Development
Brooklyn Daily Eagle
by Linda Collins
Though groundbreaking isn't happening until tomorrow, the Eagle seems to think that "Atlantic Yards" is already a place.
he boutique commercial real estate brokerage, Terra CRG, has moved its offices to a new location across from Atlantic Yards and just off the intersection of Atlantic and Flatbush avenues in Park Slope.
Posted by eric at 11:53 PM
March 9, 2010
Rev. Flake, rapper Jay-Z exit sinking Aqueduct bid
Withdrawals come amid ongoing federal and state investigations into how AEG was picked to develop huge racino in Queens.
Crain's NY Business
by Amanda Fung
Jay-Z is pulling out of a crooked real estate deal — but it's not Atlantic Yards.
After weeks of controversy and federal and state investigations involving Gov. David Paterson's selection of Aqueduct Entertainment Group to develop the Aqueduct racino, Rev. Floyd Flake and rapper Jay-Z both withdrew themselves from the project Tuesday afternoon. The defections come at a time when the deal was already foundering, and sources say that it is now coming apart quickly and could be canceled by the governor within days.
...Jay-Z, who also withdrew his participation in the group Tuesday, according to sources, had a small stake amounting to 2% in AEG through an entity called Gain Global Investments Network.
NoLandGrab: As Norman Oder pointed out last week, Atlantic Yards makes the Aqueduct Racino deal look squeaky-clean. When can we expect the federal and state investigations?
Posted by eric at 4:55 PM
March 8, 2010
Developer Steve Roth: "the more the building was a blight, the more the governments would want this to be redeveloped"
Atlantic Yards Report
A New York Observer piece on Vornado Realty Trust Chairman, headlined Steve Roth, Uncorked, described the developer's strategy in holding a key site at Lexington Avenue and 59th Street, later to become the Bloomberg LP tower.
The rationale--acknowledged developer's blight--sounds a lot like a strategy pursued by Forest City Ratner for the Atlantic Yards site.
The Observer reports:
There was another plus to waiting, [Roth] noted, offering a refreshingly candid developer's take on one way to pursue government subsidies:
"My mother called me and said [of the site], 'It's dirty. There are bums sleeping in the sidewalks of this now closed, decrepit building. They're urinating in the corners. It's terrible. You have to fix it.'
"And what did I do? Nothing.
"Why did I do nothing? Because I was thinking in my own awkward way, that the more the building was a blight, the more the governments would want this to be redeveloped; the more help they would give us when the time came.
"And they did."
Laughter followed.
NoLandGrab: ROTFLMAO? No.
Posted by eric at 9:21 AM
March 4, 2010
New condos, Oro and Toren, rise in downtown Brooklyn
Urbanite [amNY]
by Garett Sloane
The wrapping is off Toren, Downtown Brooklyn’s latest star condo tower, and with it a neighborhood is transforming.
Down the street another condo high-rise, Oro, soars above Flatbush Avenue and Gold Street, and it’s surrounded by new rental towers: the Brooklyner, Avalon Fort Greene and the Brooklyn Gold building.
The nearby BellTel Lofts just released more units on the market to hopefully catch a wave of prospective buyers.
...There are new apartments to accommodate an influx of thousands of residents. Flatbush Avenue, a little dreary now, is set for a makeover by the city, and a developed Atlantic Yards would bring the Nets nearby.
Posted by eric at 1:12 PM
March 3, 2010
Real-estate machers praying for Jehovah’s properties
The Brooklyn Paper
by Andy Campbell
More competition for Bruce Ratner's planned Atlantic Yards luxury condos.
The Jehovah’s Witnesses’ planned pullout from Brooklyn is huge news for the faithful, but it’s even bigger news for the real-estate market.
The Witnesses — known officially as the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society — announced last week that the group will move forward with an $11.5-million residential and administrative headquarters in upstate Warwick, after more than 101 years in the Heights.
Richard Devine, property manager for the organization, said he doesn’t know what will happen to more than 30 first-class properties that the Witnesses own in Brooklyn Heights and DUMBO. Some properties have been on and off the market for years, but now that the sect has officially announced its eventual pull-out, real-estate brokers are chomping at the bit.
“If these properties go on the market — which will take a long time, I imagine — they’ll bring in a lot more residents who will spend in arguably some of the strongest markets in the borough,” said Chris Havens, CEO of Creative Real Estate in the Heights.
...“They have [a vacant lot zoned] for 1,000 units of housing right off the bridge in DUMBO, which is a big deal,” Havens said. “They’ll probably sell it at some point, but they’re smart. They’ve been watching the market literally for decades and we probably won’t see much on the market until the economy is better.”
NoLandGrab: Right about the time Ratner will be seeking a market for his condos. View of Manhattan or view of the Nets? You decide.
Posted by eric at 9:27 PM
February 18, 2010
Brooklyn Broadside: Atlantic Yards Opponents Are Only the Latest Opposing Atlantic-Flatbush Development
Brooklyn Daily Eagle
by Dennis Holt
The Atlantic Yards-obsessed Holt relates the story of Baruch College's 1973 proposal to relocate to the current site of Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Terminal and Atlantic Center malls, but gets the headline wrong: there's no mention in the story of local opposition to that plan. Nor any mention of plans to use eminent domain back when (though the College is a public entity), nor to bolster the college move with billions in subsidies. Nor any thought of dropping an arena directly across the street from low-rise residences in an override of city zoning. In fact, almost nothing about that 1973 proposal smacks of the Atlantic Yards project.
Except The Eagle's misleading headline.
Posted by eric at 9:12 PM
February 11, 2010
B'klyn hot spot
Downtown's population exploding
NY Post
by Rich Calder
Brooklyn's fastest-growing residential neighborhood isn't in the Brownstone Belt from Brooklyn Heights to Park Slope -- it's all happening Downtown. New data show that since 2000, Downtown Brooklyn has gone from a struggling business district saturated with 99-cent stores to home to more than 9,000 people (see the map and census information [PDF]).
Interestingly, the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership itself locates the entirety of the Atlantic Yards footprint outside of downtown Brooklyn, something that would be news to Forest City Ratner, which has for years claimed the project was "downtown" rather than in the midst of the low-rise Brownstone neighborhoods of Fort Greene, Prospect Heights and Park Slope.
[Downtown Brooklyn Partnership President Joe] Chan also said he expects the area to be boosted by the $800 million arena planned for the Nets in nearby Prospect Heights. The arena is part of Bruce Ratner's $4.9 billion Atlantic Yards project, which was slated to bring more than 6,000 new units of housing before lawsuits and the credit crunch held it up.
Whether the rest of Atlantic Yards is built or not, Chan expects that "the impact of the arena will be historic," adding, "It's a game-changer for Downtown and the borough."
NoLandGrab: It'd be a "game-changer," no doubt.
Posted by eric at 3:09 PM
February 7, 2010
The Observer points to the 2006 "historical delusion" perpetuated by those pushing Stuy Town; weren't similar delusions behind AY?
Atlantic Yards Report
The purchase of Stuveysant Town by Tishman Speyer Properties and BlackRock Realty turned out to be a disaster due to overly-rosy projections. A more critical look at unrealistic projections for the proposed Atlantic Yards development could avert a disaster before it happens.
In a New York Observer article this week headlined The Selling of Stuy Town, Eliot Brown and Dana Rubenstein write:
To flip through the pages of the 2006 offering book for potential buyers of the 11,200-apartment Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village-a deal that has devolved into the largest individual property default in modern history-is to immerse oneself in an historical delusion, one that, from today's privileged vantage point, appears as likely as Iraqi WMDs.
The book wove the strands of possible Stuy Town revenue into a real estate dreamscape, one in which the largely rent-regulated complex could become a wealthier community, complete with an elite private school, gourmet grocery shops, private spas, gated communities, Santa Cecilia granite countertops in every apartment.
Well, there were other historical delusions put forth in that heady year, perhaps not of the precise magnitude, but significant nonetheless.
How about the projected Atlantic Yards timeline, which in April 2007 I suggested might be a fantasy?
Posted by steve at 8:28 AM
February 3, 2010
Review and Comment: Hotel Town
Brooklyn Daily Eagle
by Henrik Krogius
The Eagle's Krogius gets all gee-whiz over the 40 hotel projects claimed to be in the works in Brooklyn (motto: "if the condo market is toast, build hotels"), reminisces about his childhood pre-Jackie Robinson, and fluffs Marty Markowitz.
A rush toward new hotels was encouraged by the rezoning for new construction downtown, by the growing cultural district around the Brooklyn Academy of Music, by the continuing gentrification of brownstone areas, and by such potential magnet projects as Brooklyn Bridge Park and Atlantic Yards. However, since the plans for new hotels were made before the financial collapse in 2008 and the resulting deep recession, it will be interesting to see if all the 40 actually get built and how many of them will thrive.
Question: When was the last time you, or anyone you know, booked a hotel room in conjunction with attending an NBA game? Think hard now.
The loss of the Brooklyn Dodgers didn’t help Brooklyn’s hotel situation. Without the Dodgers, Brooklyn lacked a destination magnet to compensate for the general perception that it was a prime example of urban decay and crime. As long as they were in Brooklyn the Dodgers not only drew people to hotels but they also stayed in them during the baseball season.
Fun fact: an NBA roster can have a maximum of 12 active players. That doesn't fill a lot of hotel rooms.
Where Golden lacked charisma, his successor, Marty Markowitz, has little actual power but plenty of infectious personality that carries beyond the borough’s borders. With Marty cheerleading the way, and with urban decline largely in reverse, here’s hoping that Brooklyn as a revived hotel town can actually be realized. That future depends also on other projects like Brooklyn Bridge Park and Atlantic Yards going forward in the face of a still uncertain economy.
NoLandGrab: H1N1 is infectious, too — and you wouldn't want to catch it, either.
Posted by eric at 4:07 PM
February 1, 2010
Another reason not to trust the KPMG report to the ESDC on the housing market
Atlantic Yards Report
There's yet another reason not to trust the report (dated August 31) that KPMG delivered to the Empire State Development Corporation on the housing market in Brooklyn.
Remember, the report claimed that Richard Meier's On Prospect Park was 75% sold. However the New York Times reported September 27 that the developer asserted that half of the units had been sold and the web site StreetEasy.com documented only 25 closings.
KPMG also claimed that the Oro Condos in Downtown Brooklyn were 75% sold. That didn't ring right.
In September, Crain's reported that prices at Oro had been slashed 25%. And yesterday the New York Times reported that the building is 44 percent sold.
Why does this matter?
Because the ESDC relied on the "expert" KPMG to validate its dubious estimate that the Atlantic Yards housing could be absorbed in a decade, a crucial defense in the case challenging the ESDC's approval of the 2009 Modified General Project Plan and the failure to issue a Supplementary Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS).
The information on Oro further undermines KPMG's expertise.
Posted by lumi at 4:10 AM
January 29, 2010
40 Hotel Projects in Pipeline for Brooklyn
Brooklyn Daily Eagle
by Linda Collins
This round-up of hotel construction manages to include this whopper in figuring how many hotel rooms might exist in the Brooklyn of the future:
And this does not include the proposed hotels at Brooklyn Bridge Park (100-200 rooms estimated) and in Forest City Ratner’s Atlantic Yards Plan (150 rooms estimated in “Miss Brooklyn”).
NoLandGrab: The "Miss Brooklyn" moniker was used for a monstrous piece of office tower vaportecture designed by Frank Gehry who was long ago kicked off he project. There's no design or schedule for this building, and even Bruce Ranter says “Can you tell me when we are going to need a new office tower?”
Posted by steve at 4:25 AM
January 23, 2010
The dirt on development
Crain's takes the measure of six key projects citywide and assesses the chances that renderings will become realities
By Andrew Marks
The deepest recession in decades and a financial market catastrophe that has all but dried up once-mighty credit flows have both contributed to the 550 stalled real estate development projects that dot the city, from Riverdale in the Bronx to Todt Hill in Staten Island.
For the city's biggest projects, ranging from the rebuilding at Ground Zero to the transformation of the rail yards in downtown Brooklyn into a 22-acre mini-metropolis, the normal headaches of political infighting, community opposition and myriad legal challenges now pale in comparison with the great question of the moment: When will tenants once again start banging on doors to demand more office space for their companies or more living space for their families? Only when the market shows signs of reversing its downward spiral—as assessed by measures ranging from rents to land prices—will lenders even think about further risking their battered balance sheets.
As the new year gets under way, Crain's takes a look at half a dozen of the city's biggest projects and judges their chances of completion.
ATLANTIC YARDS
Size/Scope: 22 acres; an arena and 16 mixed-use towers
Date announced: December 2003
Original cost estimate: $2.5 billion
Current cost estimate: $4.9 billion
Developer/lead government agency: Forest City Ratner Cos./None
Thanks to a Russian billionaire, the New York State Court of Appeals and an overwhelming response from bond buyers just last month, it appears that Bruce Ratner's mega-redevelopment of downtown Brooklyn will start to become a reality. At least, that's the case for the new home of the Nets basketball team, the 18,000-seat Barclays Center planned for the corner of Flatbush and Atlantic avenues; construction could begin this month.
The overwhelming bulk of the project still awaits financing, not to mention tenants. After the dismissal of Frank Gehry last year over cost issues, the project also needs an architect.
But Mikhail Prokhorov's $200 million purchase of a majority stake in the Nets and a chunk of their new home, along with Forest City's successful sale of $511 million in bonds, has given the project something it hasn't had in months: hope.
The arena is now expected to be completed this year. But the fate of the original plan, including more than 300,000 square feet of office space, 250,000 square feet of retail, a hotel, and 6,400 apartments—2,000 of which are earmarked for affordable housing—is still in doubt.
“Taking that first step is very important, but between the economic downturn, the luxury housing glut and the state of the office market, it will be a steep climb to get all that built in the next 10 years, if not much longer,” observes Mary Ann Tighe, chief executive of the tristate region for real estate brokerage CB Richard Ellis.
HUDSON YARDS
Size/Scope: 26 acres; 12.4 million square feet of commercial, residential and recreational space
Date announced: September 2006
Original cost estimate: $15 billion (including $2.1 billion for extension of the No. 7 line)
Current cost estimate: $15 billion
Developer/Lead government agency: Related Companies/ Metropolitan Transportation Authority
It may be a first in New York: At Hudson Yards, the sprawling, mixed-use project slated to be built above the rail yards west of Penn Station, the city is actually further along with its part of the project than the private developer is. The MTA broke ground early last year on the extension of the No. 7 subway line to 11th Avenue and West 34th Street, and it plans to complete the project in 2014.
In the meantime, Related Companies, which has agreed to build the planned 5.5 million square feet of commercial space, 5,500 apartments and 4 acres of parkland atop a $1 billion platform over the yards, is in a holding pattern. Last February, the developer—which stepped in after original winning bidder Tishman Speyer Properties dropped out the previous spring—requested a one-year extension on closing its $1 billion deal with the MTA.
Related's first $43.5 million payment is due in just a month, and company officials are hopeful.
“We're working diligently with the MTA and expect to meet the deadline,” says a company spokeswoman.
A crucial rezoning of the western section of the site was approved last month after the city and Related tentatively agreed to preserve or build 551 affordable apartments in the area, in addition to the 743 that were already pledged.
With both the developer and the city committed to the plan, its prospects look good in the long run.
“The opening of the subway means that something will get built there,” says Jon McMillan, a director at TF Cornerstone Inc., which is building apartments on West 37th Street that will front the yard's planned boulevard. “Once we've got the 7 line here, it will be [an example of], 'If you build it, they will come.' ”
MOYNIHAN STATION
Size/Scope: 400,000 square feet (plus 750,000 square feet of private retail and commercial redevelopment)
Date announced: May 1999
Original cost estimate: $500 million
Current cost estimate: $1.4 billion
Developer/Lead government agency: None yet/Empire State Development Corp.
The plan to shift passengers from cramped, dingy Penn Station to a new space in the rebuilt Farley Post Office across Eighth Avenue has long made sense. But efforts to line up agreements from local landlords, as well as the necessary city, state and federal approvals—and cash—have repeatedly fallen short.
“It has been a case of one lost opportunity after another,” says Vishaan Chakrabarti, now director of Columbia University's real estate development program, who was a director at the Department of City Planning before moving to Related Companies to develop a public-private plan for the station in 2005.
That plan, which would have moved Madison Square Garden into the back of the Farley Building, went by the wayside when MSG pulled out in April 2008. The Paterson administration is now hoping that working out a less-grandiose scheme will finally get shovels in the ground.
“We're taking a phased approach now, and we could be poised to start the first actual work on Moynihan [this month],” says Peter Davidson, executive director of the Empire State Development Corp.
The state has applied for $98 million in federal stimulus money to get the project rolling, but getting the funding is hardly assured.
“We think our chances are good,” Mr. Davidson says.
That money, along with another $100 million previously obtained from Washington, would let the ESDC start below-ground work to extend passenger concourses and build additional platforms to service existing tracks under Farley. The second phase—developing the station above the tracks—could go ahead simultaneously. But that would require another $400 million.
In the most hopeful sign to date, Amtrak agreed in September to move its operations, serving about 25,000 daily commuters, to the new station—should it ever be built.
Nothing is set as far as the 750,000 square feet of retail and commercial office space proposed for the rear of Farley. Discussions with private developers are continuing, says Mr. Davidson.
“The market is not yet conducive to solidifying a deal, but we have reason to be optimistic and are progressing steadily toward that end,” he adds.
GROUND ZERO/ WORLD TRADE CENTER
Size/scope: 16 acres; 10 million square feet in six office towers, memorial, museum, transit hub, performing arts center
Date announced: January 2003 (master plan)
Original cost estimate: $10 billion
Current cost estimate: $15 billion to $18 billion
Developer/Lead government agency: Silverstein Properties Inc. and Port Authority of New York & New Jersey/Lower Manhattan Development Corp.
First, the good news: The Sept. 11 memorial is on schedule to open on the 10th anniversary of the terrorist attacks. The surrounding plaza, however, will not follow until 2013.
After that, the news becomes still more grim. Gov. David Paterson and Mayor Michael Bloomberg failed in their attempts last August to get leaseholder Silverstein Properties and the Port Authority, the site owner, to settle their long-running dispute over financing two of the three buildings that Larry Silverstein is hoping to build on the site. Mr. Silverstein opted for binding arbitration instead.
As recently as 2008, Towers Two and Three were targeted for completion in 2012. According to a Port Authority estimate, that date could now stretch to 2037, though Mr. Silverstein is aiming for 2016.
Tower Four, a planned 1.8 million-square-foot property that rose above grade last month, could also soon be in limbo. Although both the city and the Port Authority have committed to lease 600,000 square feet apiece, the building's 2012 completion date now hinges on resolution of a range of issues with the agency, including the schedule for the completion of necessary infrastructure.
“The dispute delays development of the entire site, not just the towers,” says Seth Pinsky, president of the New York City Economic Development Corp. Because of the way the master plan was developed, he explains, “every element of the site is necessary for the completion of the other elements.”
No matter what an arbitrator decides, the arguments and delays will go on for years.
“The arbitration solves only one of hundreds of disputes [between Mr. Silverstein and the Port Authority],” says Mr. Pinsky. “They need to agree to work together.”
Meanwhile, the transit hub is running as much as five years behind its planned 2013 completion date. 2019 now looks like the best bet for 1 World Trade Center, the erstwhile Freedom Tower.
“The government agencies have made the project much more difficult than it should be,” says Daniel Libeskind, Ground Zero's master planner. “But we used to argue about major things, and now we're down to discussing street widths.”
JACOB K. JAVITS CONVENTION CENTER
Size/Scope: Renovation of 790,000-square-foot building plus 40,000-square-foot expansion
Date announced: June 2004
Original cost estimate: $1.8 billion
Current cost estimate: $463 million
Developer/Lead government agency: Empire State Development Corp. fills both roles
The Javits Center has been lambasted as an undersize embarrassment to the nation's largest city almost since its doors opened 23 years ago. Over time, a series of proposals to expand it—and even to supplant it with a convention center in Queens—have come and gone.
After years of false starts, the latest plan has at least one thing going for it: its sheer modesty, with a downscaled price tag to match. The plan entails spending a mere $463 million on a retrofit and 40,000-square-foot expansion of exhibit space, replacement of the roof and construction of an entirely new exterior envelope.
That's quite a comedown from the Pataki administration's $1.8 billion scheme, much less the $5 billion project, including a 160,000-square-foot expansion, advanced by Eliot Spitzer.
“There's a lot less to it, but something is a lot better than nothing,” says Louis Coletti, president of the Building Trades Employers' Association, of the latest plan, which will be entirely funded by a bond issuance backed by a $1.50-per-day tax on hotel rooms that will be applied for the next 40 years. “It means jobs, and it will result in a more appealing convention center that will bring more money into the city.”
Work began last July on the extension—which includes “support” space ranging from loading docks to bathrooms—and is expected to be completed in July of this year. After that, it will serve as “swing space” for exhibitions while the entire existing structure undergoes a phased renovation, expected to be completed in full by 2013. The center's leaky black windows will be replaced with a translucent skin, and new HVAC systems will be installed.
“The Javits Center project still includes an expansion,” points out Peter Davidson, executive director of the Empire State Development Corp. “But everyone agrees that the first need is to rehabilitate what we already have.”
WILLETS POINT
Size/scope: 62 acres; 1.5 million square feet of office, retail, entertainment, hotel and residential space for 18 acres in first phase
Date announced: Spring 2007
Original cost estimate: $3 billion
Current cost estimate: $3 billion
Developer/lead government agency: None yet/New York City Economic Development Corp.
The city's Economic Development Corp. garnered 29 responses to last November's search for developers interested in turning the Iron Triangle—a heavily polluted industrial zone of auto repair shops, junkyards and manufacturers—into a Queens version of Battery Park City. In coming weeks, the EDC will whittle that list down and send out a request for proposals to build the envisioned residential and office buildings, park, school and convention center.
Persuading the remaining land-owners in the area to sell their properties may be far harder. Working with a budget of $400 million, the EDC has bought up more than 60% of the site, and 70% of the property where the redevelopment will be concentrated. But Richard Lipsky, a lobbyist representing Willets Point United—a group of 20-plus holdout property owners—estimates that the city will need at least $700 million, based on prices paid thus far.
“It's pretty clear they're intending to use eminent domain to force out businesses that don't want to leave,” Mr. Lipsky says.
EDC President Seth Pinsky insists that his agency will continue to negotiate, but adds that his staffers will do what's needed to keep the ball rolling. In fact, eminent-domain procedure hearings could begin as soon as this month.
The EDC has scrapped its original plan of bringing in a single developer in favor of adopting a rolling, three-phased project, starting with the southernmost section bordering Citifield, that could have multiple developers.
The only bids solicited thus far have been for the $150 million infrastructure contract to bring in badly needed sewage and storm-water drainage systems. Work is expected to begin in 2011, paving the way for a planned 1.5 million square feet of retail, entertainment and commercial space, 2,000 housing units and 400 hotel rooms.
B'KLYN BRIDGE HAS A PARK TO SELL YOU ON ... REALLY!
So it took 25 years. With the official opening of the park's first phase, Pier 1, at the base of the Brooklyn Bridge, slated for this winter and the first phase of Pier 6 debuting in the spring, the struggle to transform the moribund piers along the Brooklyn waterfront into a park will be over.
Almost. While money is already in the coffers to bankroll Piers 4 and 5, the joint state-city project needs another $100 million or so to finish Pier 6 and move on to Piers 2 and 3. Peter Davidson, executive director of the Empire State Development Corp., is confident.
“We've got two years to line up the financing,” he says. “In the meantime, we'll be getting the first 70% done.”
Size/Scope: 85 acres stretching south along 1.3 miles of waterfront from the Manhattan Bridge
Cost: $350 million
Who's in charge: New York state
Completion date: 2013
Posted by eric at 11:04 AM
January 1, 2010
Starting in the New Year: Domino Sugar Fight
NY Observer
by Eliot Brown
A story about the controversial Domino Sugar factory project begins thusly:
Just because Atlantic Yards is (probably) now happening, that's not to say Brooklyn has seen the last of big development battles.
Posted by eric at 3:32 PM
December 22, 2009
Mayor Touts Council O.K.'s for West Side Yards, Broadway Triangle; Rebukes Kingsbridge Rejection
The New York Observer
By Eliot Brown
The proposed Atlantic Yards project gets a mention as a project that may happen soon, although there's no more market for office space or condo's than for the other large projects listed. The ESDC, the tool of developer Bruce Ratner, has put all of its efforts into seeing that an economically questionable arena gets built.
Speaking to reporters, the mayor ticked off a list of projects he put under the banner of progress: Coney Island, Willets Point; Hunter's Point South in Queens; Homeport in Staten Island.
"For decades, leaders have tried to tap the potential of these projects, but they're actually getting done now," he said. "These projects are leaping off the drawing boards and into reality. They're creating jobs for New Yorkers and affordable housing for families."
Such a characterization as "leaping" is a stretch to be sure, as the largest projects, while approved by the Council, now depend on the market, and few, if any, are moving anywhere fast. The city has made some movement in these projects, though no one can realistically expect Coney Island or Willets Point to be developed any time soon. (Then again, the Atlantic Yards project is poised to move forward at the end of the month.)
Posted by steve at 6:05 AM
December 17, 2009
At Long Last: Atlantic Terminal to Open Next Week
NBC New York
We can't possibly get any more excited about this than Brownstoner, which has already decreed it the "most momentous news in the history of time," but here it is: the Atlantic Station LIRR terminal entrance is supposed to open next week. That would be this thing, which was originally slated to be finished in 2007 after about 156 years of construction. Above: the plans versus the result. Brownstoner also reports that there'll be a completion ceremony inside the terminal tomorrow. All in all, it's been a big week already for Bruce Ratner: first the bonds for the Atlantic Yards basketball arena sell out, and now Long Islanders will be able to get there in style if the thing gets built.
NoLandGrab: Let's not forget the lovely security perimeter surrounding the new terminal entrance — likely a preview of Barclays Center defenses.
Posted by eric at 12:53 PM
Willets Wonderings
The Architect's Newspaper Blog
by Matt Chaban
The A|N Blog's Chaban continues to do good reporting on Atlantic Yards and other controversial NYC development projects.
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It appears the city’s plan to trifurcate development out at Willets Point has been a smashing success, as the Economic Development Corporation announced on Friday that 29 developers from across the country have expressed interest in the first phase of the project, an 18-acre swath of land on the western section of the 62-acre Iron Triangle that contains the densest mix of uses. “The quantity and quality of these responses are strong indicators that the development community has confidence in the successful redevelopment of Willets Point despite current economic conditions,” Seth Pinsky, president of EDC, said in a release. An RFP is expected sometime in 2010 for a selection of those 29 respondents. After that, the next hurdle is finishing land acquisition, which stands at 75 percent of the phase one area controlled by the city. If need be, the city has not ruled out acquiring what’s left through eminent domain, a specter that has cast a long shadow over the area’s redevelopment, though one that could be sunsetting.
29 companies interested in developing Willets Point "despite current economic conditions," yet in 2005, when everything was rosy, only Bruce Ratner (and Extell) was interested in developing the Vanderbilt Yard? Something's fishy.
Following a court ruling that the state could not seize land in the Manhattanville section of Harlem so that Columbia could build a new campus there, Atlantic Yards opponents are hustling to have their ultimately unsuccessful case reheard, a last-ditch effort to impede the sale of Forest City Ratner’s bonds. Whether or not they succeed, all this eminent domain tumult—combined with the recent collapse of plans for the Mother of Them All in New London, Connecticut—could nudge New York over the edge, taking it off the list of a handful of states that have yet to enact eminent domain reform since the Kelo decision four years ago. State Senator Bill Perkins certainly thinks so, calling for the governor to live up to his previous promises of a moratorium on eminent domain in the state.
Willets Point is one of the most egregious examples of eminent domain abuse, since the city, for years and years, denied the many productive businesses there the most basic services, like paved streets and sewer connections.
How could this all pay out in Flushing, Queens? David Lombino, a spokesperson for EDC, emphasized the agency’s strong track record on reaching deals with business owners in the area, despite the continued intransigence of some. “The response from the private sector is encouraging,” he said. Should it come down to eminent domain, but eminent domain is no longer there? EDC, while proffering hypothetical projects, does not respond to hypothetical questions.
Posted by eric at 12:30 AM
December 10, 2009
Atlantic Yards YES! Brooklyn's 237 stalled building projects NO!!
New York State has one set of rules for Bruce Ratner and another set of rules for everybody else.
Crain's NY Business, Stalled construction site total hits 515
Brooklyn is hardest hit borough, followed by Queens; further stalled projects are unlikely as work has to start in order to be halted.
Construction work has halted on 515—mostly residential—properties across the five boroughs according to the latest analysis of the city's Department of Buildings inspection records. Hardest hit is Brooklyn.
Nearly half, 46%, of the stalled projects citywide are in Brooklyn according the New York Building Congress, which conducted the analysis. Northern Brooklyn neighborhoods such as Williamsburg and Greenpoint, which had seen a housing boom in the years leading up to the market collapse, have the most stalled projects, making up 30% of the 237 sites in the entire borough.
...Since the city DOB began tracking stalled construction sites weekly in July, the total has increased by 30% as of Nov. 29. The good news is the numbers aren't expected to worsen because there aren't too many new projects in the ground, said Mr. Anderson. “You need them to get started before they can be stalled,” he noted.
...“To have all these sites just sit there is not encouraging. They do not generate jobs and tax revenues,” said Mr. Anderson. “There is a great deal of construction activity throughout the city that can hopefully be unleashed with the right kind of programs.”
NoLandGrab: That's right, folks. With literally hundreds of residential development projects — many of which could be converted to affordable housing — sitting idle and incomplete, the Empire State Developerment Corporation is pouring all its efforts into breaking ground for a basketball arena. And no, that's not a typo.
Posted by eric at 9:21 PM
December 7, 2009
Willets Point United's fight against eminent domain again causes its lobbyist to gyrate
Atlantic Yards Report
From a press release from Willets Point United:
Willets Point United, Inc. – a group of more than 20 property owners in Queens, NY, fighting to keep their land despite the city’s desire to condemn it and turn it over to a yet-to-be-named private developer – believes the NYC Economic Development Corporation’s (EDC) approach to improving Willets Point is inappropriate, and we will oppose it in every way. Today we have notified the EDC via letter of the very disturbing track records of certain developer firms likely to respond to the EDC’s Request for Qualifications (RFQ) by today’s deadline and asks that these firms be disqualified from future consideration for receipt of a Request for Proposals (RFP).
(Emphasis added)
One contact on the press release was lobbyist Richard Lipsky, the same guy who declared Atlantic Yards opponents should get "a well-deserved delay of game penalty" and sneered "Enough already! It's high time that the DDDers, took their settlement monies, and went back to their lattes."
Lipsky is having to gyrate on eminent domain. He supports eminent domain for his client, Forest City Ratner, but opposes it for his client, Willets Point United, as well as for his client Nick Sprayregen of Tuck-It-Away, who has so far successfully challenged eminent domain for the Columbia University expansion.
Commenter Daniel Goldstein writes:
Wouldn't Lipsky help his Queens and Manhattan clients more if he dropped ranks with his Cleveland-based client and joined ranks with the eminent domain plaintiffs in Brooklyn who are fighting the same exact thing he and his clients are fighting in Queens and Manhattan?
Wouldn't he sleep better at night? A few thousand bucks really can't be worth all the agita from that much cognitive dissonance.
Posted by eric at 9:44 PM
Coney Island site attracts 50 interested bidders; how was the Vanderbilt Yard different?
Atlantic Yards Report
From a New York Daily News article today headlined Coney Island redevelopment plan attracts 50 amusement park companies from seven countries:
The competition to build a new amusement park at the faded seaside mecca has reached a fever pitch as a who's who of amusement operators work to put together proposals by a Dec. 18 deadline.
...It was standing room only when city officials presented their request for proposals at the Las Vegas IAAPA convention last month, after sealing a deal to buy 6.9 crucial acres from developer Thor Equities for $95.6 million.
Some 50 companies from at least seven countries showed up for the information session.
Yet when it came to a "great piece of real estate" (in the words of Forest City Enterprises CEO Chuck Ratner) like the Vanderbilt Yard, only one bidder besides Atlantic Yards developer Forest City Ratner responded to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's July 2005 Request for Proposals.
Could that have been because city and state officials had already been backing FCR's plan for the past 18 months?
NoLandGrab: Nah, 'cause if the city had been backing the FCR plan already, that would mean there was a pre-textual situation, like with Columbia. And the courts have said that wasn't the case, right?
Posted by eric at 9:37 PM
December 3, 2009
Appellate Division overturns ESDC's use of eminent domain for Columbia expansion; how different is it from AY?
Atlantic Yards Report
A big development in New York City eminent domain news — the Appellate Division has ruled against the ESDC's planned use of eminent domain for Columbia University's Manhattanville land grab.
From the majority opinion in the Appellate Division's 3-2 overturning of the Empire State Development Corporation's (ESDC) planned use of eminent domain for the Columbia University expansion:
It is recognized that Kelo, as described below, did not concern an area characterized as "blighted." However, the blight designation in the instant case is mere sophistry. It was utilized by ESDC years after the scheme was hatched to justify the employment of eminent domain but this project has always primarily concerned a massive capital project for Columbia. Indeed, it is nothing more than economic redevelopment wearing a different face.
So too did the Atlantic Yards petitioners argue that blight was a pretext because it wasn't mentioned as a justification for the project for more than a year after it was announced--an issue ignored by the majority in the Court of Appeals decision last week.
Underutilization
Wrote Justice James Catterson (who also filed a fiery concurrence in the case challenging the AY environmental review):
The most egregious conclusion offered in support of the finding of blight is that of underutilization. AKRF and Earth Tech allege the existence of blight from, inter alia, the degree of utilization, or percentage of maximum permitted floor area ratio ("FAR") to which lots are built. The theoretical justification for using the degree of utilization of development rights as an indicator of blight is the inference that it reflects owners' inability to make profitable use of full development rights due to lack of demand. Lack of demand can only be determined in relation to the FAR when combined with the zoning for the area in question. Manhattanville, for the relevant period, was zoned to allow maximum FAR of two, leaving owners essentially with a choice between a one or two-story structure. No rationale was presented by the respondents for the wholly arbitrary standard of counting any lot built to 60% or less of maximum FAR as constituting a blighted condition.
This is the exact same ratio used in the Atlantic Yards Blight Study.
Norman Oder has more details on the other side of the link.
NoLandGrab: This is great news for the business owners who steadfastly refused to cave in under the threat of eminent domain, but it does leave Atlantic Yards opponents scratching their heads and asking, "how is Columbia U. so different from Bruce Ratner?"
Posted by eric at 3:18 PM
December 2, 2009
Star of Real Estate Boom Is Confronting Hard Times
The NY Times
By Christine Haughney
This story of developer Shaya Boymelgreen's declining fortunes includes a bit about his deal with Atlantic Yards developer Bruce Ratner to double-cross footprint property owner Henry Weinstein and the lingering issues with the Newswalk building, which is located in the curious cutout of the megaproject's outline:
Residents of the 173-unit Newswalk building, a former Daily News printing plant in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn, that Mr. Boymelgreen finished converting into condos in 2002, have spent $5 million in repairs and legal fees to address structural problems, said Michael Rogers, a member of Newswalk’s condo board. He said the building had so many leaks that some of its original concrete beams had started to fall apart.
“This was a really solid building,” Mr. Rogers said. “The construction is so poor. It’s construction that could have hurt people.”
...
Then there is the convoluted eviction battle: Henry Weinstein, who owns a Prospect Heights building that Mr. Boymelgreen leases, and where he has his office, sued Mr. Boymelgreen in 2003 for selling the lease on the building to Forest City Ratner, the developer of the Atlantic Yards project. The office is located within the Atlantic Yards site.But hours before Mr. Weinstein was to evict Mr. Boymelgreen, Henry Herbst — whose company installed telecommunication systems in Mr. Boymelgreen’s projects and who also had his offices in the building — filed bankruptcy proceedings against Mr. Boymelgreen, according to public records and interviews with Mr. Herbst and Mr. Weinstein’s lawyer, David Brody. Mr. Herbst said he feared losing his office and the offices he sublet to others.
“He refused to go into bankruptcy,” Mr. Herbst said. “So we put him into bankruptcy.”
Posted by lumi at 6:08 AM
November 22, 2009
Mapping Out Forest City Ratner’s Monopolistic Strategy of Subsidy Collection
Noticing New York
This blog post points out how Forest City Ratner, developer for the proposed Atlantic Yards project, has pursued a strategy of sucking up available public subsidies by being the only developer considered for any given project. Atlantic Yards is a perfect example of the developer being given a huge chunk of Brooklyn real estate, and subsidies, without competitive bidding.
The ever-growing Ratner monopoly is illustrated with maps showing growth starting from 1 Pierrpont Plaza and spreading further into Brooklyn.
The post finishes with the following:
We conclude simply with this. If monopolies have always been recognized to be bad, such that we have national laws against them, and if monopolies facilitate “rent seeking” behavior that enables developers like Forest City Ratner to manipulate gains for itself at society’s loss, why is the government fostering these real estate monopolies for one real estate company’s unprecedented takeover of so much of Brooklyn? It doesn’t make sense to us but it’s a really BIG question. We hope that our mapping it out helps to visualize just how big.
Posted by steve at 7:16 AM
November 17, 2009
BRONX LIVING WAGE BATTLE MOVES TO CITY COUNCIL
As the City Council takes up consideration of the Kingsbridge Armory redevelopment plan, the developer and local pols are locked in a dispute that could derail the project.
City Limits
by Jarrett Murphy
Atlantic Yards makes a cameo in a report on the battle over the Kingsbridge Armory redevelopment, living-wage jobs and community benefits as an example of a project whose alleged benefits are looking very tenuous.
Behind the wage issue is a struggle over who holds the power in deciding how public land and money are used to develop under-served city neighborhoods. Pointing to other recent deals where community benefits are in doubt—like Yankee Stadium and Atlantic Yards—Diaz told an October 25th KARA rally that the push for a better deal from Related was part of "our revolution here, our new civil rights movement here, and that is economic development."
NoLandGrab: NLG pop quiz! Read the paragraph below and then guess which way the Kingsbridge Armory project will go when it comes to a Council vote.
Now the matter moves to the City Council, which along with the mayor has final say on the proposal. Related Companies, which has a number of projects besides the Armory that require government approval or assistance, has spent at least $150,000 lobbying city officials and agencies this year and donated $132,000 to municipal campaigns in the 2009 cycle; Land Use Committee chairwoman Melinda Katz, who ran for comptroller this year, was the biggest recipient with $41,650 in Related contributions. Carrion received $29,750, and Queens Councilman Eric Gioia—a member of the zoning subcommittee who ran unsuccessfully for public advocate—garnered $11,050 in Related money.
Posted by eric at 1:57 PM
November 12, 2009
The Coney Island comparison and the Atlantic Yards paradox
Atlantic Yards Report posted a couple of items comparing the City's attempt to redevelop Coney Island and Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards.
The City has finally struck a deal with Coney Island landowner Joseph Sitt to purchase 6.9 acres for $95.6 million. Having reportedly paid $93 million for approximately 10 acres, Sitt's tidy profit amounts to an increase in the value of the land.
Cut to Atlantic Yards, where the MTA recently renegotiated its deal with Bruce Ratner, spreading payments for the Vanderbilt Railyard over 22 years at a very generous interest rate and agreeing to allow the developer to build a replacement railyard with less capacity than the current railyard. The effective decrease in the value of the land over the railyard is another one of those curious Atlantic Yards paradoxes.
NoLandGrab: For Atlantic Yards's next trick, watchdogs like Norman Oder are keeping an eye on the land values that will have to magically increase in order to justify the triple-tax-free bonds that Ratner and the Empire State Development Corporation are hoping to float before the end of the year.
Pastor Guillermo Martino of the Tabernacle of God's Glory Church in Crown Heights, who testified not so coherently on June 22 before the Metropolitan Transportation Authority Finance Committee in favor of the Atlantic Yards plan (video below), has a curious profile when it comes to development disputes.
In November 2007, he protested the mayor's plan for Coney Island. As reported by the Bay News, Martino was "one of the dozens of people who turned out wearing bright yellow hats carrying the message 'The Bloomberg Plan: How Much? How Long? Who Pays?'"
...
Martino and fellow protesters came on buses chartered by Sen. Carl Kruger, who, as the Daily News later reported, spent several thousand dollars from his campaign fund. (After all, Kruger has a huge campaign fund but an untouchable seat.)
...
Of course, the same questions, including those on the yellow hats, could be raised about Atlantic Yards. Note the Kruger team included not only Martino but also James Caldwell (right in photo), president of Atlantic Yards Community Benefits Agreement signatory BUILD (Brooklyn United for Innovative Local Development), who heads the 77th Precinct Community Council in Crown Heights.
NLG: So exactly what is these guys' guiding principle?
Posted by lumi at 4:59 AM
November 2, 2009
Stealth By Design
How the city is sneaking great little buildings into unexpected places.
NY Magazine
By Justin Davidson
Congratulations Bruce Ratner, your Atlantic Yards megaproject is part of the City's elite club of overdevelopment follies:
The map of Michael Bloomberg’s New York bears the scars of vast, unfinished dreams of renewal. Hudson Yards, Atlantic Yards, Coney Island, Willets Point, ground zero, Governors Island, the Gowanus Canal—all those glittering megaplans, derailed, deferred, or debased. Yet the Bloomberg administration can claim triumphs at a tiny scale: Station house by station house, library by library, the city has been doggedly smuggling high-level architecture to the neighborhoods that need it most.
Posted by lumi at 4:41 AM
October 29, 2009
A Stalled Vision: Big Development as City’s Future
The New York Times
by Russ Buettner and Ray Rivera
Here's The Times article about which Atlantic Yards Report wrote this morning.
Over the past seven years, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has presided over a historic re-envisioning of New York City, one that loosened the reins on development across the boroughs and pushed more than 100 rezoning measures through a City Council that stamped them all into law.
...And when the economy was burning white hot, as it did for several years, the mayor’s plan appeared to be bold and forward-looking, a prescient decision to remake portions of the city in order to lure companies, create jobs and increase economic vitality.
But that vitality is missing in some sections of New York today, where developments spurred in part by easy credit and in part by city initiatives are now stalled or in danger of collapse.
...That investigation has expanded into the activities of the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership, which the city helped create in 2006 to help push through development plans following a broad rezoning of the area.
The city awarded the group a $6 million three-year no-bid contract. The group raised another $1.1 million in private donations, tax records show. And Mr. Doctoroff installed a top aide, Joe Chan, to run it. The partnership has become a key voice for the development of Downtown Brooklyn, inserting itself, critics say, into the debate over a plan to build a Nets area and high-rises at the Atlantic Yards. It has spent some $200,000 on lobbying expenses.
NoLandGrab: Irony alert! When we navigated to this article this morning (headline reminder: "A Stalled Vision"), the banner advertisement below appeared at the top of the page.
Posted by eric at 8:37 AM
The Times takes on stalled development: barely a mention of AY but questions about the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership
Atlantic Yards Report
The photo attached to today's front-page New York Times article, headlined A Stalled Vision: Big Development as City’s Future, is of the CityPoint site at the Fulton Street Mall in Downtown Brooklyn, but it could just as easily have been of various parts of the Atlantic Yards site.
But Atlantic Yards--well, a segment of it--might get going, so maybe it wasn't the perfect poster child.
Still, the development deserves significant mention because it has been enormously delayed: when Atlantic Yards was announced in 2004, the arena was supposed to open in 2006; when the project was approved in 2006, the arena was supposed to open in 2009; and now it's supposed to open in 2012, though uncertainties abound.
In fact, Atlantic Yards gets barely a tangential mention in an article that touches on Downtown Brooklyn, Hudson Yards, new baseball stadiums, Willets Point, and more.
The mention follows up on an investigation by the Attorney General's office into apparently illegal lobbying by lobbyists for Willets Point, with a revelation that there may be similar questions concerning the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership (DBP) when it comes to AY.
Posted by lumi at 6:01 AM
October 27, 2009
Survey finds 601 troubled condo projects
Figure from grassroots alliance Right to the City-New York covers just six neighborhoods but is far above the official tally for the city as a whole
Crain's NY Business
by Amanda Fung
There are a total of 601 condominium buildings scattered across a half dozen neighborhoods in the city that have substantial numbers of vacant units or where construction has stalled, according to preliminary data compiled by Right to the City-New York, an alliance of grassroots community organizations. That figure is well above the 454 recorded by the Department of Buildings for the city as a whole.
[Emphasis, ours]More than 150 members of Right to the City canvassed six neighborhoods in Manhattan and Brooklyn to identify buildings that feature many vacant units or stalled construction. The group, along with several members of the City Council, will announce the results Tuesday afternoon at a rally in downtown Brooklyn as part of an effort to urge the city to convert vacant condos into affordable housing.
...In July, the city unveiled a $20 million pilot program, the Housing Asset Renewal Program, designed to turn unsold condos and stalled residential buildings into as many as 400 affordable housing units. Community groups and local officials like Right to the City say the housing renewal is a good start, but it is not enough to resolve the proliferation of vacant buildings, the decline in low-income housing and the city's increasing homelessness rate.
Among the 126 buildings in downtown Brooklyn, Right to the City identified Be@Schermerhorn, a 246-unit luxury condo, with a vacancy rate of more than 93%, and Forté, a 108-unit luxury condo, with a vacancy rate of more than 60%. Both buildings have been on the market for at least a year. Forté was recently taken over by its lender Eurohypo bank. The group has not identified specific buildings in the Manhattan neighborhoods yet.
“Clearly HARP is not sufficient to meet the needs for the entire city,” said Councilwoman Leticia [sic] James, who will be attending the afternoon rally.
NoLandGrab: Here's an idea — turn off the subsidy pipeline to Atlantic Yards, take back whatever other city cash Ratner hasn't already spent, and drop it all into HARP. 'Cause it's clear that Atlantic Yards' planned 4,180 units of not-Gehry-designed market-rate housing are not going to be in demand any time soon.
And who's surprised that the City of New York is grossly understating the size of the condo glut? Instead of pushing blindly ahead on Atlantic Yards and fighting the Superfunding of the Gowanus Canal, maybe they should be exercising eminent domain, paying the condo speculators the 20¢ on the dollar that their empty buildings are worth, and solving the affordable-housing crisis all at once.
Nah.
Posted by eric at 4:58 PM
October 22, 2009
Sharp Drop in Building Residences in the City
The NY Times
By Charles V. Bagli
After five consecutive years in which residential construction in New York exceeded 30,000 apartments and houses annually, fewer than 6,300 units will be built this year, according to the latest report from the New York Building Congress, an industry trade group.
...
More than 460 residential projects have been delayed, nearly a third of them in Brooklyn, according to the latest figures from the city’s Buildings Department. Many analysts say it will take several years for the market to absorb all the luxury apartments that have been built recently.
NoLandGrab: And we're supposed to believe that Atlantic Yards developer Bruce Ratner is really planning to keep his commitment to build 6,430 residential units in the next ten years?
Posted by lumi at 6:53 AM
October 21, 2009
The 15-year time horizon for a project less than one-third the size of AY
Atlantic Yards Report
The New York Times reports on East River Plaza, a six-acre project in East Harlem that will soon open as a big-box vertical mall:
Looking back on his experience at East River Plaza, [developer David] Blumenfeld said that developers of complex projects needed a lot of patience. “Ten to 15 years is probably the right time horizon,” he said. “I don’t know if a lot of people have the stomach for that.”
The site was purchased 15 years ago. Partner Forest City Ratner came on board five years ago and helped speed things up.
Even with FCR's capacity to move projects, surely a 22-acre project like AY that would affect Brooklyn neighborhoods with engaged activists might take a while. Or is the state's decade-long timetable plausible?
Posted by eric at 9:48 AM
October 17, 2009
Jane Jacobs, Star Edition
Metropolis
By Suzanne LaBarre
Here is another example of Mayor Bloomberg backing a project and refusing to listen to any alternatives. In this case, the City plans to build a salt shed, garbage garage and maintenance facility at Spring Street, on Manhattan's lower west side. John Slattery, the actor who has recently become well known for his role on the series "Mad Men", has lent his voice to an alternate plan called "Hudson Rise".
In this article, the proposed Atlantic Yards project again becomes the example of how not to do development in New York City, as Slattery observes the unwillingness of city officials to look at alternatives.
Slattery has a point. New York has made sport of bad planning, from the demolition of Penn Station decades ago to the psychic mess of Atlantic Yards. PlaNYC, Bloomberg’s sweeping effort to green the city, was supposed to change everything. But what’s green on paper doesn’t always translate to the street. The Department of Sanitation facility meets PlaNYC’s imperative because it’s expected to earn LEED certification even though just looking at the thing, it’s obvious there’s nothing particularly green about it. “I think some of the problems in New York City is the architecture that gets approved,” said Slattery. “This is a chance to actually implement something community-related, sustainable, and forward-thinking.”
Posted by steve at 6:05 AM
October 16, 2009
At the Board: Atlantic Terrace Coming Soon
The Local [Fort Greene/Clinton Hill]
by Jordan Shakeshaft
On Nov. 1, applications will be available for Atlantic Terrace, the 80-unit mixed-income residential development at Atlantic and South Portland scheduled to top off next month. Construction should be complete by May, followed soon after by a city-sponsored lottery.
Heather Gershon of the Fifth Avenue Committee, the nonprofit housing advocacy group that is developing the site, said that residents can expect a LEED-certified green building. “I’m pleased to report that not only are we using sustainable practices and materials, we’re actually buying the majority of our finishes locally,” Ms. Gershon said. The IceStone countertops made of recycled glass and concrete, for example, are all produced at the Navy Yard.
NoLandGrab: Let us get this straight. The Atlantic Terrace project, which was announced on June 13, 2007, will begin accepting applications for its mostly affordable units on November 1, 2009, and will be ready for occupancy probably during the summer of 2010, a scant three years from start to finish.
Right across the street, the Atlantic Yards project, which was announced on December 10, 2003, and which has received overwhelming political backing largely (and allegedly) for it promise of affordable housing, has yet to break ground almost six years later.
What, we might ask, is preventing Bruce Ratner from building affordable housing on all the empty lots he's created in Prospect Heights, with attendant good-paying union construction jobs? Could it be that Atlantic Yards was never really about affordable housing and jobs at all?
Related coverage...
Brownstoner, Atlantic Terrace Applications Available Nov 1
Image via Brownstoner
Posted by eric at 4:59 PM
October 15, 2009
In the Heights
Prospect Heights could be the next Cobble Hill
NY Post
by Katherine Dykstra
Talk to almost anyone affiliated with Brooklyn’s Prospect Heights, and their unofficial line on Vanderbilt Avenue is that it’s what Cobble Hill’s Smith Street was 10 years ago. By that, they mean it’s primed to become the local go-to stretch for everything from a cup of coffee and a seat outside to a locally sourced gourmet dinner. And residential developers are also a big part of this thoroughfare’s land grab.
...The neighborhood’s affordability has many buyers willing to overlook the possibility of the neighborhood changing massively if and when the much bandied about Atlantic Yards ever finds its footing. And with the recent investment of Russian billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov in the Nets, it’s looking more likely than ever that at least an NBA stadium will be built.
“It’s not even on my radar,” says finance guy/Brooklyn blogger Kenny Eng, who bought a 1,450-square-foot three-bedroom in the Washington for $545,000 three years ago. “The part [of the Atlantic Yards site] that’s closer to me, on Vanderbilt, will probably be a parking lot for the construction workers, so I’m not too thrilled about that.”
After a moment, he adds: “That whole project is 10 to 15 years off, even more. Who knows? I could be gone by then.”
Posted by eric at 8:43 PM
Review and Comment: Us Against Ourselves
Brooklyn Daily Eagle's Henrik Krogius is at it again:
The latest perversity is the concerted opposition to an expansion of Brooklyn Friends School into Boerum Hill. Just as the saying goes that no good deed goes unpunished, so no good project for Brooklyn goes unopposed. (One can only imagine the agitated uproar if Jesus were to come back to earth in Brooklyn.)
By "good project," Krogius means Bruce Ratner's eminent domain-abusing, subsidy-sucking historically dense Atlantic Yards overdevelopment:
With Atlantic Yards, too, the unease about outsiders coming in has clothed itself in a variety of more respectable arguments, including traffic (never mind that the site is uniquely well served by public transit), eminent domain (which affects a small handful of people for a 22-acre project), impact of scale on brownstone neighborhoods (which in fact don’t abut the site), and financing arrangements (as if the developer hadn’t incurred considerable risk). That’s not to say there isn’t reason for concern about what the as yet unrevealed, Gehry-less major part of the project will look like.
NoLandGrab: By "outsiders" Krogius may mean the multi-billionaire Russian oligarch that Ratner has lined up to help salvage his taxpayer-funded boondoggle.
Posted by lumi at 7:23 AM
October 7, 2009
Condo prices slashed 25% at big Brooklyn tower
Forty-story Oro in downtown Brooklyn to emphasize bargains over luxury.
Crain's NY Business
By Amanda Fung
In an aggressive effort to boost sales, the developer of the 303-unit Oro tower in downtown Brooklyn said Tuesday that it is slashing prices of its remaining unsold condominiums by as much as 25%.
To date, just 90 units have closed and 30 are in contract at the 40-story tower in the Flatbush Avenue corridor.
NoLandGrab: And Bruce is going to start on a residential building nearby within months of breaking ground on the arena. Yeah. Sure.
Posted by lumi at 5:08 AM
October 5, 2009
Divided on development and AY, Marty Markowitz and Kevin Powell talk past each other in the Dreamland Pavilion
Atlantic Yards Report
At the Dreamland Pavilion: Brooklyn and Development Conference held this weekend at Kingsborough Community College, Atlantic Yards was not only the theme of one panel but the central--yet divergent--example for the two main speakers at the inaugural dinner.
Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz, a longtime Atlantic Yards booster, maintained his support for the project, while writer and activist (and periodic political candidate) Kevin Powell offered a more critical take on AY and the process of development.
..."There's not a project in this borough more important than Atlantic Yards for this and future generations," Markowitz declared. "One of the most difficult things that I've had to tackle as Borough President is to somehow get over the limited vision of so many people, who don't think about what tomorrow will bring, only what affects me today. It's very hard, when you're in a position of leadership.... you have to begin shaping what tomorrow will bring as well as what this immediate day and tomorrow brings. And Atlantic Yards taught me that, and continues to teach me that."
...Powell, noting that he'd risen from poverty thanks to education, said, "I've seen the world through the eyes of poor and working-class people, but I've also seen the through the eyes of someone who's a property owner and a business owner."
"So, as I was sitting there, at this Atlantic Yards hearing, it saddened me deeply, because you began to realize, if you're someone who cares about all human beings... and you really love people, and you really love Brooklyn... you don't want to see that kind of ugliness, because you realize that all these people, ultimately, are being manipulated, and only a handful of folks are really benefiting from this thing."
Posted by eric at 9:56 AM
October 4, 2009
Finding a bottom in Brooklyn
A neighborhood breakdown of prime Kings County -- aka Brooklyn -- shows where prices have dropped most
The Real Deal
By Sarah Ryley
Though Lyin' Bruce Ratner tells everyone that Atlantic Yards is in Downtown Brooklyn, after reading this article about the state of residential development in Kings County, he'll be glad it isn't.
The neighborhoods of Downtown Brooklyn, Clinton Hill and Fort Greene were among the most rapidly gentrified during the real estate boom. Now, the district has also experienced the most rapid fall in median sales price, 29 percent over the past two years.
"Downtown Brooklyn has done worse than just about any other neighborhood, even worse than Williamsburg, for two reasons," said Miller Cicero's Falsetta. "The bulk of the developers in Downtown Brooklyn have been generally unwilling to cut pricing.
"And the other reason is, Downtown Brooklyn never really finished gelling as a neighborhood."
According to the article, it will take years for the market to shake out.
Robert Knakal, chairman of Massey Knakal Realty Services, which is marketing several distressed assets in Brooklyn, predicted prices will bottom sometime next year, at the same time unemployment peaks, and then flatten for two or three years after that.
Ultimately, he said the firm expects prices to drop an additional 5 to 10 percent.
NoLandGrab: Meanwhile, as the demand for luxury housing has evaporated, all of the assumptions that Ratner used when Atlantic Yards was first announced in 2003 are moot.
Posted by lumi at 5:42 PM
September 24, 2009
Bloomberg may be pro-development, but it's much more than that: it's an idée fixe
Atlantic Yards Report
Bloomberg's posture goes well beyond a basic philosophy; it entails (take your pick) loyalty to a certain developer class, unswerving support once he's announced it, and an unwillingness to do the math you'd think a billionaire businessman would feel comfortable doing.
When confronted with evidence from a New York City Independent Budget Office report that the Atlantic Yards arena would be a money-loser for the city, Bloomberg said, according to the Observer:
“I don’t know what the IBO studies would have shown back when they tried to establish the value of Central Park or Prospect Park or anything else,” he told reporters. “These are the kinds of projects you have to do because without that we don’t have a future, and we’re going to get this one done.”In a January 2004 radio interview, he claimed erroneously that "any city monies of any meaningful size will be debt issues financed by the extra tax revenues that come from this."
As it happens, the IBO, whatever the limits of its report on AY, has done a far more thorough and honest job than the New York City Economic Development Corporation or Empire State Development Corporation, which have produced economic benefit studies that ignore or downplay subsidies and public costs.
Posted by eric at 11:08 AM
September 23, 2009
The Specter of Atlantic Yards
Whether it's a dispute over a new school on State Street, the expansion of a historic district, or more scandal at ACORN, Atlantic Yards — like vaportecture — forever looms in the background.
The Brooklyn Paper, ‘State’ of disunion! Residents clash over school expansion plan
As much as the community might want a residential building, IBEC says that it’s just not feasible at this time. Indeed, other projects in the neighborhood, including the massive Atlantic Yards development are experiencing similar problems with financing.
Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Council OKs Prospect Hts Historic District
At the time, residents feared that the neighborhood’s rich historic architecture was threatened by the Atlantic Yards project, a proposal by the developer Forest City Ratner to build 16 towers and a sports arena on a site adjacent to the neighborhood.
The American Spectator, Yes, ACORN Does Cheat on Its Taxes
ACORN also sold out its poor constituents in Brooklyn in exchange for a cash bailout from Forest City Ratner, a wealthy developer trying to build the Atlantic Yards project.
Posted by eric at 10:37 AM
September 3, 2009
It came from the Blogosphere...
Inversecondemnation.com, Amicus Brief In NY Court Of Appeals In Goldstein/Atlantic Yards Case: NY's Public Use Clause Prohibits Judicial Rubber Stamp Of Takings
Willets Point United has filed an amicus brief supporting their fellow New York City property owners in the public use case now pending in the New York Court of Appeals regarding the Atlantic Yards "redevelopment" project in Brooklyn, Goldstein v. New York State Urban Dev. Corp. As we noted here, Willets Point is under the takings gun itself, and has our Owners' Counsel colleague Mike Rikon helping them (he also filed the amicus brief).
The brief argues that the Court of Appeals should not follow the Kelo rule of total deference to economic development takings: "The majority decision in Kelo v City of New London written by Justice Stevens was wrong, wrong in its holding and wrong on its facts."
Brownstoner, Atlantic Yards Misrepresents Ownership
The Atlantic Yards Report points us towards a little sleight-of-hand by the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC). In the comments filed regarding the Modified General Project Plan (GPP) for the Atlantic Yards development, local property owner Henry Weinstein states that the GPP uses an old and inaccurate map of Forest City Ratner's holdings. The map, dated November 1, 2006, falsely implies that Forest City Ratner owns or controls Weinstein's property, which includes a building and two lots used as a parking lot at the corner of Carlton and Pacific.
Brownstoner Forum, Buying into Newswalk?
It's just one person's opinion — "perhaps" believes that Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards plan is a point of consideration before purchasing a unit in the Newswalk building:
It's also important to consider newswalk's engulfed (almost) by the Atlantic yards project - units facing away from the yards (south exposure) are preferable, but you'll see that reflected in pricing
Queens Crap, "Affordable housing" promise becomes even more of a joke
"Crappy" reposted Atlantic Yards Report's analysis of the Daily News follow-up on the Atlantic Yards Report scoop on lack of affordable housing guarantees for Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards megaproject.
Architectural Lamentations, The Ignominious Brooklyner is Now Brooklyn's Tallest
111 Lawrence Street is now Brooklyn's tallest building with 51 stories of bland condominiums. It is impressive that this building managed to escape relatively unscathed, from public outcry or protest. This is especially so considering the amount of attention Frank Gehry and Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards Project Miss Brooklyn received.
The Local, Linkfest: Final Word, Crime Alert and More
The Daily News calls the race for the City Council 35th District seat as being a battle over Atlantic Yards. Candidate Delia Hunley-Adossa said incumbent Letitia James’s unflinching opposition to the project without considering a negotiation is “unacceptable.”
On a similar note, Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn wants opponents of Atlantic Yards to register for a walkathon to raise funds for legal action against the development. The walk route ends with a party at Fort Greene’s Habana Outpost.
Posted by lumi at 6:22 AM
August 18, 2009
Will Brodsky look into the curious assessments in the Atlantic Yards arena block?
Atlantic Yards Report
[W]hile the questionable assessments in the case of the new Yankee Stadium generated vigorous criticism from Assemblyman Richard Brodsky, he has mostly been agnostic about Atlantic Yards and hasn't turned his attention to the assessment issue.
On Sunday, at the press conference on the bill concerning public authorities reform, I asked Brodsky if he knew about the issue and would look into it.
His answer was careful, neither ruling Atlantic Yards in or out: "There are a lot of very reasonable questions about the role of the assessor's office in these large authority deals, that are currently under review."
NoLandGrab: Our bet is that Brodsky is more about grandstanding and making noise over shady done deals, than getting in the way of those still in progress.
Posted by lumi at 5:46 AM
August 13, 2009
Good Luck on That Condo Thing Bruce
Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn
Bruce Ratner wants to build 1,930 luxury condo units not far from this site:
Goldman Sachs' Brooklyn condo bet sours
The company, along with partner The Clarett Group, is negotiating with German lender Eurohypo Bank to turn over the 30-story Forté tower after sales went nowhere.
Crain's
By Amanda FungForté, a 30-story luxury residential tower in the Brooklyn Academy of Music cultural district in downtown Brooklyn, is underwater.
Manhattan-based developer The Clarett Group confirmed Thursday that, along with its majority partner Goldman Sachs Group Inc., it is negotiating with the project’s construction lender to transfer control to the lender. After two years of marketing, the 108-unit, upscale FXFOWLE Architects-designed building is only 37% sold.
NoLandGrab: This doesn't bode well for sales of not-designed-by-Frank Gehry Atlantic Yards condos. The Forté is about as close to Atlantic Terminal transit as any of Ratner's buildings would be, and it's a nice building (we've been there) with spectacular views. Goldman, by the way, is lead underwriter for Atlantic Yards arena bond sales.
Posted by eric at 6:08 PM
Stimulus funds for CityPoint; could there be stimulus funds for AY? Not from Recover NYC
Atlantic Yards Report
City Point, the big Fulton Mall development project, was just awarded $20 million in tax-exempt bonds under Recover NYC, which directs Federal stimulus funds.
Might Atlantic Yards be next?
It would be tough for Atlantic Yards to make the deadline, given that the NYCEDC would announce the candidates for the second round on November 3, before the Atlantic Yards eminent domain case is likely resolved.
But the issue's moot. Only projects located in the yellow recovery zones would be eligible, and the parcel going east of the intersection of Atlantic and Flatbush avenues isn't included. But I wouldn't be surprised at other efforts to gain some stimulus funding for AY.
Questions of fairness
In the Times, one watchdog questioned the Recover NYC program:
“This is a sort of David-and-Goliath example of small businesses that are paying the rent and providing services to a diverse constituency of Downtown Brooklyn and having something kind of dropped on top of them, which is a big wealthy developer getting subsidies,” said Bettina Damiani, director of Good Jobs New York, which studies the use of economic development incentives. “So the impact on the local community needs to really be taken into consideration before we move forward with economic stimulus.”
NoLandGrab: We're pretty sure fairness is of little concern to Bruce Ratner.
Posted by eric at 10:42 AM
July 13, 2009
The Billyburg Bust
A working-class neighborhood became a bohemian theme park, which in turn became a fantasyland for luxury-condo developers. Now, littered with half-built shells of a vanished boom, Williamsburg is looking like something else entirely: Miami.
New York Magazine
by David Amsden
A big honking overdevelopment cautionary tale is unfolding ever-so grimly in Williamsburg and Greenpoint. Are you paying attention, Empire State Development Corporation and Governor Paterson?
With sales across Brooklyn down a staggering 57 percent from a year ago, Williamsburg, with its high density of new construction, has taken on an ominous disposition. Walk down virtually any block and you’ll come across an amenity-laden building that sits nearly empty: relics of a moment in history that seems, increasingly, like a fever dream. Some developers with iffy financing have quietly been forced to go rental, others have lowered prices to the point where losses are inevitable, and a handful of projects, including two buildings Maundrell had been selling, have gone into foreclosure.
Most unsettling are the cases of the developers who seem to have vanished, leaving behind so many vacant lots and half-completed buildings—eighteen, to be precise, more than can be found in all of the Bronx—that large swaths of the neighborhood have come to resemble a city after an air raid. “I mean, look at that,” Maundrell said as we drove down a particularly grim block on North 9th Street that was lined on both sides by pits of mud where luxury buildings were supposed to be going up. “No signs of anyone actually building anywhere. It’s crazy. My lovely Williamsburg is filled with all these vacant sites everywhere you look.”
NoLandGrab: With hundreds of finished apartments sitting vacant in Greenpoint and Williamsburg, and thousands more coming on line this year and next, remind us again: why is the ESDC pushing full speed ahead on Atlantic Yards?
Posted by eric at 12:48 PM
July 11, 2009
The Downtown Brooklyn Partnership's AY fig leaves
Atlantic Yards Report
The Downtown Brooklyn Partnership essentially serves as a representative for developers, so visitors to their website (a screenshot of it is here) should have their b.s. detectors in good working order. Fortunately, Norman Oder is here to set things straight.
You'd think the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership (DBP) would've gotten this right, especially since its representatives last month testified in favor of Atlantic Yards before the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and the Empire State Development Corporation.
However, it claims on its web site that Atlantic Yards would be "built over the rail yards near Atlantic and Flatbush Avenues...."
For the record, Atlantic Yards would cover 22 acres; the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's Vanderbilt Yard is about 8.5 acres. The project can't be built over the rail yards.
Also, some of the numbers are off; as approved in December 2006, the project would include 6430 housing units, a reduction from the 6800 once promised and stated on the DBP web site. There is no plan as of now for hotel space.
And, of course, the Atlantic Yards site is not in Downtown Brooklyn, but would extend it.
Why bother with these seemingly minor issues? Because some people unfamiliar with the project may take the DBP's representations at face value.
Posted by steve at 8:01 AM
June 26, 2009
July 1, Wed, 10 am: City Council Hearing on Coney Island Rezoning
Noticing New York
The Bloombergian machine (assisted on Atlantic Yards by the increasingly confused and foundering Governor Paterson) is certainly revved up to shove things down the public’s throat.
Atlantic Yards, Willets Point, Dock Street — next up... Coney Island.
Posted by lumi at 4:59 AM
June 23, 2009
What could $20 million buy? Only a little more than this small Lower East Side site
Atlantic Yards Report
The day after the Metropolitan Transit Authority Finance Committee rubber-stamped the $20M cash-up-front deal for the arena portion of the Vanderbilt Railyard with Atlantic Yards developer Bruce Ratner, watchdog Norman Oder continues his series examining what $20M will get you on the open market.
From the Fourth Quarter 2008 Massey Knakal Sales Journal:
A 91’ x 75’ development site at 154 Delancey Street on the Lower East Side of Manhattan was sold by Massey Knakal Realty Services in an all-cash transaction valued at $15,750,000. The property is located on the north side of Delancey between Clinton and Suffolk Streets. Based on the C6-2A proposed zoning (current zoning is C6-1), it contains approximately 47,706 buildable square feet.
...
The segment of the Vanderbilt Yard at issue is 495' x 200', or 99,000 square feet, some 14.5 times larger than the Lower East Side site. If you multiply the Upper East Side price by 14.5, it comes out to $228.4 million.
NoLandGrab: Bruce Ratner knows that only poor suckers buy property on the open market and secure private financing to develop it.
Posted by lumi at 5:15 AM
June 17, 2009
What could $20 million buy? Not even two small DTB development sites
Atlantic Yards Report
While Atlantic Yards developer Bruce Ratner is set to strike a deal with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority by which he'll cough up only $20M up front for the development rights to the portion of the Vanderbilt Railyard on which he plans to build the arena, Norman Oder pokes around looking for comps:
Here's an example of a lot nearly one-seventh as small that in late 2007 sold for more than half the $20 million sum.
From the First Quarter 2008 Massey Knakal Sales Journal:A 187’ x 80’ development site with plans for hotel rooms at 300 Schermerhorn in Downtown Brooklyn was sold by Massey Knakal Realty Services in an all-cash transaction valued at $11,900,000 to a hotel developer and operator... The as-of-right buildable square footage is approximately 83,000 square feet for a mixed-use development project, or 90,000 square feet for a community use property. The site is also located near several mixed-use retail, residential projects, office buildings and is only blocks from one of the strongest retail corridors in New York City, the Fulton Mall.
Keep in mind that the segment of the Vanderbilt Yard at issue is 495' x 200', or 99,000 square feet. The 300 Schermerhorn site is 14,960 square feet.
Yes, the market has changed, but has it changed that much? And isn't a site supporting an arena, housing, and more somewhat more valuable than a hotel site?
NoLandGrab: Long-time watchdogs will recall that Ratner's deal with the MTA was already the lowball bid. Uh-huh... RATNER IS SHORTCHANGING HIS OWN LOWBALL BID.
Posted by lumi at 5:02 AM
June 15, 2009
Don’t build it — They will come
MetroNY
As public apathy turns to disdain for Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards megaproject, commentator Neil deMause recalls other publicly funded megaprojects that died a slow death for the better:
But history shows that red tape sometimes has its silver lining:
• The better part of my childhood was spent in anticipation of Westway, which for roughly a zillion dollars was going to tear up the Hudson River waterfront and bury an expressway beneath it. Thirteen years of bitter public fights later, an endangered-fish lawsuit finally killed the plan, at which point the city instead got the cash for new subway cars and a beautiful scaled-down waterfront promenade.
• Before that, Robert Moses’ Lower Manhattan Expressway, which would have linked the Holland Tunnel to the Williamsburg and Manhattan Bridges, was debated for most of the 1960s before being abandoned. In the interim, the “blighted” district he had wanted to pave over became ... Soho.
When big projects falter, there’s no shame in stepping back and asking: “Why are we doing this again?” and “What else could we do instead?” It’s what a bunch of good-government groups have already asked about Ground Zero — which blew yet another deadline of its own last week — saying a Westway-style trade-in for mass transit cash makes more sense than subsidizing office towers that will sit empty for a generation.
Posted by lumi at 6:52 AM
What could $20 million buy? A warehouse in the Bronx
Atlantic Yards Report
Would the Metropolitan Transportation Authority be getting a raw deal if it agreed to Atlantic Yards developer Bruce Ratner's offer of $20 million up-front for the development rights for the arena portion of the Vanderbilt Railyard. To get a sense of what $20 million is worth these days, Norman Oder has been running a series on what $20 million will buy you these days.
From the 6/10/09 LoHud.com: NAI Friedland Realty, a commercial real estate firm based in Yonkers, said that it recently helped complete one of the largest real estate sales of the year in the Bronx. The 144,000-square-foot Paradise Foods warehouse at 1080 Leggett Avenue in the Hunts Point area of the Bronx has sold for $20 million. Manhattan Beer Distributors purchased the 4.9-acre property from Paradise Foods.
That's a little more than twice as much acreage as the section of Vanderbilt Yard at issue, but the warehouse is much smaller than the development planned for the segment of the railyard.
Posted by lumi at 5:25 AM
June 6, 2009
Silver hints W.T.C. consensus is to build more towers
Downtown Express
By Julie Shapiro
The main point of this article is to try to understand what is planned for the World Trade Center Site, even though elected officials are keeping those plans secret. The proposed Atlantic Yards project gets a mention.
Silver listed the other office projects that are falling through, from Hudson Yards to Atlantic Yards, which will make the World Trade Center towers all the more important.
Posted by steve at 7:12 AM
May 19, 2009
LHinks: Bits and bytes post-woodland retreat
LighthouseHockey.com
Long Island watchdogs and hopeful hockey fans are keeping an eye on the Atlantic Yards arena and how recent events affect their chances of getting a new arena for the NY Islanders:
"I'm not dead yet." -- Because no land development news happens without a "how does this relate to the Islanders?" angle: Another hurdle surpassed for the Atlantic Yards development (and the quest to move the New Jersey Nets -- which I am told is a "basket-ball" team) -- to Brooklyn. There has been a long, hard-fought effort to stop this development, but if it ever launches -- now October is the target -- calls will renew for that to be the Lighthouse alternative for the Long Island Brooklyn Islanders.
Note: "The Lighthouse" is Long Island's version of a boondoggle mixed-use megaproject attached to a new arena.
Posted by lumi at 5:28 AM
May 13, 2009
Brooklyn Exchange opening
Produced by architecture and communication design students at Pratt Institute, this exhibition presents downtown Brooklyn’s past, present and future development projects in order to imagine a more creative and just vision for its future.
Opening Reception: Friday May 15, 6-8 PM
http://www.metropolitanexchange.org/bex
Metropolitan Exchange
33 Flatbush Avenue
2/3/4/5 to Nevins, B/N/R/Q to DeKalb
A/C/G to Hoyt-Schermerhorn, G to Fulton
or B/D/M/N/R/Q/2/3/4/5 to Atlantic Avenue
Gallery Hours, May 16-June 1, W-Sa, 12-6PM
Note: This exhibit also addresses some Atlantic Yards issues.
Posted by lumi at 7:13 AM
The Perils of Public-Private
The NY Observer
By Eliot Brown
While the effort to rebuild the World Trade Cetner site has become the poster-project for the pitfalls with public-private development deals — especially when the economy sours and the private partners seek to renegotiate subsidies and contracts — Bruce Ratner's controversial Atlantic Yards megaproject is next in line:
The imbroglio downtown brings into glaring view a flaw common to public-private development deals in New York, a city where progress on large-scale projects so often proves elusive. Struck in strong economic times under aggressive assumptions, agreements on large government-administrated developments almost inevitably falter when the economy shifts, causing private developers to petition the public sector for new concessions or subsidies to keep the deals alive. The result is a system in which large projects seem to rarely provide the public with the value initially advertised, at least not within the time frame once imagined.
While the World Trade Center is by all measures an extreme example, with a host of other factors contributing to the mess, this pattern appears again and again in a glance at some of the city’s largest real estate projects on public land in recent years.
In Brooklyn, at the imperiled $4 billion Atlantic Yards project, developer Forest City Ratner is negotiating with a host of agencies to delay or decrease its hundreds of millions in obligations to the public sector, as the viability of the project is now threatened.
Posted by lumi at 6:31 AM
WOW factor on Dean St.
Corcoran's online listing for a penthouse in the Newswalk building tries to sugar coat fact that it is "near" Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards project:
This is the most Dynamic Pent House in the building with a true WOW factor.... Located in Prospect Heights near the proposed Atlantic Yards, which involves the designs of world famous architect Frank Gehry and a stadium for the New Jersey Nets basketball team.
NoLandGrab: Wow — by "near" they mean actually surrounded by Bruce Ratner's contorversial Atlantic Yards high-rise complex. [Click image to enlarge.]
 |
Not to nitpick, but a realtor ought to know the difference between a "stadium" and an "arena." Stadiums are bigger, right?
Posted by lumi at 6:17 AM
May 6, 2009
WTF, ESDC? Recession Twists State’s Economic Development Arm
New York Observer
by Eliot Brown
You probably never would have guessed this, what with its slick handling of, and all the progress with, the Atlantic Yards project, but the Empire State Development Corporation is in disarray.
STILL, multiple business leaders and others who deal with the ESDC said that in New York City and elsewhere in the downstate region, the agency does not seem to have adopted a new approach amid the recession. The ESDC’s downstate efforts have generally been defined by a series of high-profile private and public development projects—Atlantic Yards, the expansion of Penn Station—many of which have been stalled.
“I think it is fair to say that if ESDC has a plan for economic development, nobody downstate knows what it is,” said a leader of a downstate economic development organization who interacts with the ESDC.
NoLandGrab: "Nobody downstate knows what" the plan for economic development is? Sure they do. It's "In Bruce We Trust."
Read the full article to learn about the frosty relationship between the ESDC's Chairman and CEO, and how the "keen priority" of filling the job of downstate president has dragged on for the better part of a year. Could it be the psychological test?
Posted by eric at 12:24 PM
May 5, 2009
Another gentrification discussion, the hard to find "sweet spot," and the "public realm"
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder reviews a preview of a live WNYC broadcast of a discussion on preservation and gentrification, and ties it ever-so-obliquely to Atlantic Yards.
A caller named Manny, who grew up in the Lower East Side and Washington Heights, expressed understandably mixed feelings.
"Is the city safer, yes, but at what cost?" he asked rhetorically. "To have $90-a-plate food [at restaurants] on Avenue B is crazy... It's good, but it's also bad, because the poor people at the end have to pay."
Well, that's only if the city allows developers and homeowners to share the benefits of rising property values without any sharing the wealth--redistributing tax money in the form of "public realm" investment, requiring subsidized housing as a tradeoff for increased density, and making non-gentrified neighborhoods more attractive thanks to better transit and parks.
(Oh yeah, what's the connection to Atlantic Yards? Had the city been doing this all along, a project like AY--essentially a private rezoning--wouldn't have been seen as a savior by some and wouldn't have been so polarizing.)
Posted by eric at 10:29 AM
April 29, 2009
In discussion about Fort Greene and Clinton Hall, history, transition, gentrification, and, yes, Atlantic Yards
Atlantic Yards Report
It’s hard to do justice to the sometimes compelling, sometimes disjointed, wide-ranging panel discussion concerning Fort Greene and Clinton Hilll presented last night by the New York Times’s blog The Local at the Brooklyn Public Library’s Dweck Center at Grand Army Plaza.
But the session, titled “Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow,” did touch on the important and sometimes fraught intersections of neighborhood transition, development pressure, and race/class relations. (Of the panelists, two were black and two were white.)
And, despite some overlong monologues (from both panel and audience) or off-topic questions, it left people longing for more, for the messy humanity of in-person dialogue, in contrast with often-anonymous online interaction.
...The growth of new residential towers, mainly at the neighborhood’s edges--and in several cases the unexpected consequence of a Downtown Brooklyn rezoning aimed to produce new (but ultimately unnecessary) office space, provoked dismay from [Nelson] George, who linked them to the planned Atlantic Yards project, which would be built just across the border in Prospect Heights.
Posted by eric at 9:17 AM
April 28, 2009
Lessons from Times Square redevelopment: even after legislative approval, financial accountability is needed
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder looks at Atlantic Yards through the lens of "Lynne Sagalyn's 2001 epic analysis of redevelopment, Times Square Roulette."
Closer evaluation
Sagalyn argues that, given the lengthy project buildout and economic changes--situations that have recurred in the case of AY--further analysis was warranted:
This context of review intensifies the accountability issues attached to public deal making, as does the task of coping with a changing economic context and its implications for already-cut deals. Both issues make apparent the need for financial accountability of public deal making, after initial legislative approval. By the conventional norms of public policy, this means some type of review of the public’s financial commitments, an ex-ante evaluation of a deal's costs and benefits or an ex-post audit of financial transactions or both. That the public resources in question may be in the form of off-budget foregone revenues (rent credits or tax abatements) or long-term contingent commitments (ESAC) rather than direct cash grants or loans does not change the logic. It only complicates the tasks of analysis and explanation.
(Emphasis added)
...Accountability needed
Sagalyn concludes:
If deal making is to progress as an effective and politically sustainable strategy in the took kit of development officials and city planners, the protocols for democratic accountability need to be further refined.
Posted by eric at 11:05 AM
April 9, 2009
NYC EDC head on recent past: "We’ve been much more the 'Real Estate Development Corporation'"
Atlantic Yards Report
When we thought that "EDC" meant "Every Developer Corporation," we weren't far off. NYCEDC Prez Seth Pinsky explains why:
The current issue of City Hall News contains excerpts from a March 13 "On/Off the Record" breakfast session with New York City Economic Development Corporation President Seth Pinsky.
Q: You are the president of the Economic Development Corporation. At this moment of recession, general economic turmoil, what do those words even mean?
A:...What occurred to me was that, really, for much of the last several years, even though we call ourselves the Economic Development Corporation, we’ve been much more the “Real Estate Development Corporation”, and that’s been because the economy has been growing on its own without much need for the city’s interference.
In the full quote, Pinksy admits to an "epiphany" that hardly inspires confidence.
Posted by lumi at 6:03 AM
April 7, 2009
Crain's Two-fer Tuesday: Atlantic Yards buzz kill edition
All signs point to an Atlantic Yards project that, for a long, long time, might be nothing more than a basketball arena. Don't expect condos anytime soon.
Condominium sales in the boroughs outside of Manhattan plummeted in the first quarter, but several neighborhoods are still faring better than others, according to a report released Tuesday.
While Manhattan saw a 63% decline in condo sales in the first three months of 2009 from the year-earlier period, Brooklyn wasn’t far behind, with a 61% drop in sales volume. Meantime, sales in Queens and the Bronx were down 58% and 50%, respectively.
The data come from a quarterly study conducted by ResidentialNYC.com, a web site operated by the Real Estate Board of New York.
...Citywide, average condo sale prices fell 10%, to $1.2 million, the report said. Prices in Brooklyn recorded the largest percentage drop compared with other boroughs, tumbling 12%, to $516,000, from the year-earlier period. In Manhattan, average prices fell 5%, to $1.7 million.
Well, at least they can build some office space, right? Er...
Office rents: Biggest plunge in 25 years
Enormous growth in sublease space pushed Manhattan office rents to their biggest quarterly decline in 25 years as they fell 6% in the first three months of this year, according to a report released Tuesday by Cushman & Wakefield Inc.
Rents fell to an average of $65.01 a square foot in the first quarter, and the $4.43 drop from the end of 2008 was the largest quarterly descent since Cushman began keeping records in 1984.
Rents have slid 11% since hitting a high of $72.97 a square foot in the third quarter of 2008. By the end of the year, rents are likely to plunge 30% from their peak, according to Joseph Harbert, chief operating officer of Cushman & Wakefield’s New York Metro region.
...The larger issue is the inability to get debt financing,” Mr. Harbert said. “It is going to take a while for the situation to work itself out.”
The outlook seems grim. There are only $100 million worth of properties under contract now, down from $3.5 billion a year earlier.
NoLandGrab: With Manhattan rates plunging, and office space abundant, any pricing advantage that Brooklyn once held is rapidly eroding.
Posted by eric at 4:21 PM
April 6, 2009
Atlantic Terrace construction
Video, Tracy Collins, via flickr Atlantic Yards Photo Pool.
From Tracy Collins, some stop-action-y video of the Fifth Avenue Committee's Atlantic Terrace project.
Unfortunately, they are not going to install solar panels as planned, as the building would be virtually in perpetual shade due to the towers of Atlantic Yards, which would be to the south, across Atlantic Avenue.
Posted by eric at 8:37 PM
April 5, 2009
Four neighborhoods roll with punches
Recession hits some locations harder than others
Crain's NY Business
by Amanda Fung
And so it goes all across the city as the recession—which many people thought as recently as a year ago might bypass us—hits with increasing fury. Yet the impact of the downturn is highly uneven. In this report, Crain's takes a look at how four very different sections of the city are faring and rates the recession's impact on each.
Big projects stalled out
DOWNTOWN BROOKLYN
Recession Impact: BloodiedRESIDENTIAL UNITS 2,000
OFFICE SPACE 18 million square feet
RETAIL SPACE 4 million square feet (half on Fulton Street)Source: Downtown Brooklyn Partnership
AFTER NEARLY 20 YEARS of growth fueled by government agencies and back-office operations for big Wall Street firms, downtown Brooklyn made major strides in recent years attracting private businesses and diversifying its mix of commercial tenants.
Last year, companies including WPP's ad agency UniWorld Group and News Corp.'s Community Newspaper Group signed leases at MetroTech Center, according to Keith Caggiano, a broker at CB Richard Ellis Inc. At the time, landlords were dangling asking rents in the high-$30s per square foot, but this year rents have fallen to the mid-$30s and few deals are getting done. Meanwhile, a number of big projects that promised to make downtown Brooklyn the fastest-growing office market in the city outside Ground Zero are on hold.
Among those are Forest City Ratner's sprawling $4 billion Atlantic Yards project, and City Point, which was supposed to transform the Albee Square site on Fulton Street into Brooklyn's tallest building, a 1.5 million-square-foot residential, retail and office tower.
NoLandGrab: More than five years after the Atlantic Yards project was launched, journalists are still misplacing its planned location. Sure, the footprint is near downtown, but it's actual location is in Prospect Heights, bordering Fort Greene.
Kudos, though, to Forest City Ratner's pr team, for its influence on plate tectonics.
Posted by eric at 10:04 PM
Brian Lehrer Takes Stock of the Building Boom: We Ask Some Coulda, Shoulda Questions About the (AOL) Time Warner Center
Noticing New York
This blog entry is largely concerned with assessing the Time Warner Center. Included is a prediction of the effect that the World Wide Web will have on the history of developments.
No one in the future will ever forget or lose access to all the details of the Atlantic Yards fight when you have forever afterwards all of Atlantic Yards Report, No Land Grab and Develop Don’t Destroy’s websites, including many other permanent assets like Bob Guskind’s Goawanus Lounge. The plans like the Unity Plan and the Pacific Plan which are better far better alternatives to the Ratner designs for Atlantic Yards will not fade away as they will remain easily accessible on the web. By the same token, all the ways that the Ratner/ESDC lack of proper public process shortchanges the public will remain just a click or two away.
It is doubtful that were the monstrosity of Atlantic Yards ever built, Paul Goldberger and Hugh Hardy would have a blithely forgetful conversion on Brian Lehrer’s program only eight years after the end of a development battle of so many years running. To be fair though, Atlantic Yards is bigger, much worse than the Time Warner Center since it is a net negative for the public rather than a net positive. Also, so far, unlike the AOL Time Warner Center, Atlantic Yards involves no competitive bids an no compromises from the developer!
A “Time Warning” Question: Will We Be Different in the Future by Having a Different Past?
Our take-away point with respect to the (once-AOL) Time Warner Center is that it is amazing that something from just a few years ago is so remote when we seek to refresh our memories in order to gain perspective on the present. We note, however, that things are changing with the new capabilities of the internet. With those new capabilities, we wonder whether the future will unfold in such a way that we have a quite different relationship with the recent past.
In the future, perhaps 15 years from now, you might even find your perspective on what could have been versus what is shaped by revisiting the current Brian Lehrer series taking stock of what is happening to the built environment in the city. You may find your future perspective shaped when, listening to the series in the far future year, you are reminded that, in the month of April 2009, you phoned in or commented on the program’s web page to express your hopes about what the city could be.
Posted by steve at 8:06 AM
April 3, 2009
Downtown tower keeps going and going and going…
The Brooklyn Paper
The 491-unit residential tower, slated to top off at 514 feet, or two feet taller than the legendary Williamsburgh Savings Bank Building, is at 111 Lawrence St., between Willoughby Street and the vestigial remnant of Myrtle Avenue, in rapidly changing Downtown.
...
A year earlier, some Brooklynites were aghast to discover that Frank Gehry’s iconic Miss Brooklyn tower, the trophy skyscraper at the gateway to Bruce Ratner’s Atlantic Yards mega-project, would rise to 620 feet and obscure some views of the bank building’s clocktower. But later that year, Ratner agreed to lower its height to just below 512 feet (though, not to sound like a broken record, the project is stalled due to the economic downturn).
NoLandGrab: Though many Brooklynites decried the notion that "Miss Brooklyn" would dethrone the Billyburg Building, others questioned the notion that the new tallest building in Brooklyn should be around the block from the former.
Though Bruce Ratner's atlanticyards.com web site would have you believe that the planned Atlantic Yards project is in Downtown Brooklyn, the Lawrence St. tower actually is.
Posted by lumi at 5:42 AM
March 30, 2009
‘Half-built sites’ cast shadow on New York’s economic landscape
Arab Times (AP)
A New York City contractors’ group has tracked over 100 projects in the city either stalled or canceled since last fall’s credit crisis dried up developers’ financing. The city’s Department of Buildings said more than 30 construction sites have been idled during recent inspections, and “we suspect that there are more,” spokeswoman Kate Lindquist said.
One of the biggest is Atlantic Yards in Brooklyn, a 22-acre (9-hectare) development where a new arena for the New Jersey Nets basketball team and up to 16 towers are planned. Construction activity stopped in December and won’t resume until a residents’ opposition lawsuit is resolved. The developer, Forest City Ratner, has delayed closing on a deal to purchase all the land until they have enough financing for the $4 billion megaproject.
Posted by lumi at 5:28 AM
March 25, 2009
Boro shopping stripped: New report says Brooklyn is hardest hit by shuttering of small businesses
NY Daily News
By Jeff Wilkins, Amanda Prescott and Erin Durkin
Hard times are compounded by Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards ghost town, for one small business owner located near the footprint of the project.
Paul Laidlow, the owner of Living Lights near Clinton Ave., added that the nearby Atlantic Yards project's dormant construction site has also driven shoppers away from the avenue.
"I had my eyes on that project as the lifeline of my business," said Laidlow. "Right now, it's basically survival. We're not even looking to make profit. ... We may not be here much longer if it doesn't turn around."
Posted by lumi at 5:21 AM
March 19, 2009
Best Western Adds Sunset Park, Downtown Hotels
Brooklyn Daily Eagle
In a recent article covering plans for new hotels in Brooklyn, reporter Linda Collins forgot the "cow pie" meter:
If you believe that Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards project is NOT in Downtown Brooklyn, despite claims by the overdeveloper's marketing materials, this one is even more of a stretch:
Best Western Downtown Brooklyn, 1324 Atlantic Ave. at Nostrand Avenue in Bed-Stuy, is expected to be the first completed, with its opening anticipated this summer.
Last we checked Bruce Ratner hasn't built the arena or the rest of Atlantic Yards, but someone forgot to tell hotelier Mukesh Patel:
He has had a lot of negative comments about the hotel’s location but he had that for the others, too. “But today, Fourth Avenue is changing,” he said. “Today, everyone is going to Williamsburg.” “This [Atlantic Avenue] location is not far from Downtown Brooklyn, it’s not far from the new stadium and Atlantic Yards development, and it’s easy to reach me: by public transportation — there is a Long Island Railroad station right in front of my property.”
Posted by lumi at 5:33 AM
March 14, 2009
Downtown B’klyn to get Hyatt, Best Western
The Brooklyn Daily Eagle
by Linda Collins
This article talks about the coming glut of hotel rooms in downtown Brooklyn. It is estimated that if all the proposed devlopment is completed, there will be 2,000 hotel rooms in the area.
The article concludes by making mention of the hotel rooms that would be added by the proposed Atlantic Yards project.
And this does not include the proposed hotels at Brooklyn Bridge Park (100-200 rooms) and in Forest City Ratner’s Atlantic Yards Plan (150 rooms in “Miss Brooklyn”).
NoLandGrab: Not only is Atlantic Yards not in downtown Brooklyn, there is currently no estimate as to when, if ever, "Miss Brooklyn" might be built.
Posted by steve at 8:08 AM
After the Bubble
New York Times
By Jonathan Mahler
One might think that The New York Times was going out of its way to misrepresent the proposed Atlantic Yards development. In an article in this weekend's real estate supplement, the author recalls a meeting with then deputy mayor for economic development, Dan Doctoroff. Atlantic Yards is mentioned as part of Mayor Michael Bloomberg's master plan (emphasis added).
As a violent summer storm raged outside, Doctoroff sketched out for me Bloomberg’s ambitious plans for New York. The rail yards and warehouses of the far West Side would be replaced by condos, hotels and retail stores. Thousands of apartment units and a new arena for the Nets would rise on the site of the Atlantic Yards in downtown Brooklyn. Penn Station would undergo a gut renovation (and be renamed after Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan). Lower Manhattan would be transformed into a recreational playground, with cafes, performing-arts pavilions, ball fields, an outdoor ice rink, even a floating garden on the East River.
"Atlantic Yards" is the name of a proposed mixed-use development planned for Prospect Heights, Brooklyn.
-The location of the development is Prospect Heights (or at least say "Vanderbilt Yards" if you're thinking about the Long Island Railroad facility).
-The location is outside of downtown Brooklyn.
-Only about a third of Atlantic Yards would be built over the existing rail yard. The rest would be built by razing the adjoining part of Prospect Heights.
Posted by steve at 7:50 AM
March 13, 2009
After taking over Governors Island and Brooklyn Bridge Park, would the city oversee Atlantic Yards? Nah
Atlantic Yards Report
NYC is planning on taking over the Governor's Island project and is thinking of doing the same for Brooklyn Bridge Park. Norman Oder explains why Bruce Ratner's controversial Atlantic Yards project won't go the same route:
Now, why wouldn't New York City want to take over Atlantic Yards? Well, first of all, it's not a joint city-state project; rather, it's a state project with city contributions.
...
Let me suggest several other reasons the city wouldn't take over:
- the project requires a state override of city zoning
- a city takeover would make a mockery of the lack of city input during the approval process
- a state agency, the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC), not a city one, has proposed using eminent domain
- the ESDC has led the way defending the project in court
- the city doesn't have any more money to contribute
- City Council member Letitia James, an AY opponent, might have some questions
- City Council members Bill de Blasio and David Yassky, sometime AY critics and current attention-seeking citywide candidates, also might have questions
- AY is a political hot potato, likely the only project that elected officials and civic groups have opposed as unworthy of federal stimulus funds
Posted by lumi at 6:10 AM
Hotels’ shaky bet on success in Brooklyn
Crowds flock to downtown Brooklyn’s Fulton Street Mall for discount school clothes at Cookies or hip-hop wear at Jimmy Jazz. But a new industry is in a risky bid during the recession to dominate the area: luxury hotels.
MetroNY
By Amy Zimmer
Even the hotel portion of Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards megaproject is looking like it's not going to fly, as a staggering number of hotel rooms are already in the pipeline in Brooklyn during a serious citywide occupancy downturn.
A staggering 2,000 hotel rooms are in the pipeline for downtown Brooklyn — 750 alone on Duffield Street, a tiny block off of Fulton believed to have been a stop on the Underground Railroad.
“If a new hotel doesn’t have financing, it’s not going up,” said Dan Lesser, of CB Richard Ellis. “That’s just the reality.”
...
Manhattan’s hotels filled only 67 percent of their rooms last month, according to preliminary data from PKF Consulting. A year ago they were 82 percent full. Average room prices plummeted from $250 to $206.
Posted by lumi at 6:00 AM
March 12, 2009
Changes at 470 Vanderbilt: The Box plus a new residential building
Atlantic Yards Report
The real news in a report on plans for the conversion and expansion of the former Atlantic Telecom building on the northwest corner of Atlantic and Vanderbilt avenues may be the land valuation.
In April 2007, I wrote about Forest City Ratner's flirtation with a plan to add 470 Vanderbilt Avenue, a nine-story former tire plant turned significantly empty telecom center just north of Atlantic Avenue, to the Atlantic Yards footprint.
That plan went by the wayside, and the telecom center became increasingly empty. But now it's showing signs of major changes: a renovation and rebranding of the office space, with new new retail, plus a new residential building slated for the site's large parking lot.
And there's an important Atlantic Yards connection; follow along to the bottom and take note of the assessed value of the land.
...Assessed land value: under $11
It's worth looking at Department of Finance records to see the latest assessment. While DOF does not provide the square footage of the site, multiplying the dimensions (441.67 feet x 218.92 feet) yields a lot size of 96,690 square feet. PropertyShark calculates 90,500 square feet.
The land is valued by the city at $990,000.
That's under $11 a square foot. Such valuations near the Atlantic Yards site will become increasingly relevant if and when the arena block is assessed for the purposes of issuing tax-exempt bonds, especially given the example of Yankee Stadium.
NoLandGrab: To make the numbers work for those bonds, the valuation of the land beneath the planned arena would have to be many, many times that of 470 Vanderbilt, which is just a stone's throw away.
Posted by eric at 9:50 AM
March 9, 2009
Smith: How Bloomberg Could Finally Build Moynihan Station
NY Magazine, "Daily Intel"
By Chris Smith
The state sponsor of Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards megaproject gets dissed by an unnamed government official in an article about efforts to get the Moynihan Station project back on track (emphasis added):
It would be wildly premature to hire another stonecutter, but there is new hope that Moynihan Station will get underway. Senator Chuck Schumer, with the help of the recession, has reframed the project along its original lines: Creating a new transportation hub instead of redeveloping a vast stretch of Midtown West all at once by moving Madison Square Garden to Ninth Avenue, as private developers Vornado and Related Companies intended to do when they won bidding rights four years ago. “Vornado and Related can’t get financing for the larger project right now, and they don’t know where they’re putting the buildings,” a government official says. “Dealing with trying to move Madison Square Garden is an intractable mess, and ESDC [New York State’s development agency] is not capable of running such a project. So this simplifies things by putting the Port Authority in charge and making transportation the central part of the project again.”
NoLandGrab: We can't speak for the competency of the ESDC, however it is commonly believed that it was chosen so the Atlantic Yards project would be scrutinized under a less stringent land-use review process and, by law, the State could supercede all local zoning restrictions.
Posted by lumi at 5:33 AM
March 7, 2009
The Answer to Our Question About NYC Density - Destiny Is National News
Noticing New York
Plans to close portions of Manhattan's Broadway to vehicular traffic probably bring a smile to pedestrians. However, this policy is an indication that the City's approach to development has led to too great a density.
In the case of midtown Manhattan, closing streets to traffic is a possible safety valve. But what safety valve could Mayor Michael Bloomberg use in Brooklyn for the density-busting Atlantic Yards? (Emphasis added.)
The shutting down of the street space is also “answer” to the density question in another sense: although it was likely not anticipated when more density was being created, it serves as an after-the-fact escape valve adjustment to deal with it. That raises the question in our mind: What will happen in those situations where we build to cram in maximum additional density and we don’t have extra streets and avenues to close down as an escape valve or way to adjust when it turns out that we get more congestion than we can otherwise handle? The question is urgent because cramming in maximum additional density is the new Bloombergian planning style.
We are thinking in particular of areas of the city that will experiment with combining superblocks with never before tried levels of density with FARs (zoning code parlance for “Floor to Area Ratio”i.e. “density”) that only become legally possible with such street closings. Ironically, important acknowledged urbanists like Jane Jacobs would call for more streets and avenues (particularly for pedestrians) as a means to cope with high density. Two examples of situations where we therefore may be building without the kind of escape valve option being used here are Atlantic Yards and, considered by the City Planning Commission only last Wednesday, construction of a dense new superblock of towers at what is now Fordham University’s midtown campus site.
Posted by steve at 6:33 AM
March 4, 2009
Plenty of rooms & deals - but no one's staying
NY Daily News
By Elizabeth Hays
According to an article in yesterday's Daily News, there's a glut of hotel rooms in Brooklyn, with more on the way:
As Brooklyn’s hotel boom goes bust, it’s hard times for hotel proprietors. But, for visitors, it’s never been better.
...
"Brooklyn . . . is hurting pretty bad," said hotel developer Sam Chang, who opened five Brooklyn hotels in recent years, including the Holiday Inn Express on Union St., but sold off his last one two years ago."There are too many hotels," he added.
The situation is only going to get worse if the economy doesn't pick up quickly, proprietors predicted.
Nearly 800 luxury hotel rooms are currently under construction downtown, according to the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership, including a Sheraton hotel set to open this spring.
Still, other projects are hoping additional construction days will help them ride out the recession.
NoLandGrab: Every few months or so, as the tide shifts in the local real estate market, Bruce Ratner predictably lets on that the configuration of his Atlantic Yards scheme has changed. When commercial vacancies were way down in Manhattan, the signature tower was primarily devoted to offices. Then the condo market was on fire, and planned office space morphed into luxury condos. [Officially, as a hedge, two configurations have been approved by NY State.] For the past couple of years, Brooklyn couldn't host enough hotels, and, like magic, Ratner included a hotel in his plans.
The moral of the story is that the Atlantic Yards is actually a big "whatever" — just give Bruce more money and he'll figure it out along the way. The public doesn't really need Atlantic Yards and this article is more proof that the marketplace doesn't need Atlantic Yards.
Unfortunately, the one feature of Atlantic Yards that the public seems to need or want is the affordable housing, which is supposed to get under way when the "whatever" gets built.
Posted by lumi at 4:46 AM
March 1, 2009
Huge glut of office space coming soon
Queens Crap
From Bloomberg:
New York’s biggest banks and securities firms may relinquish 8 million square feet of office space this year, deepening the worst commercial property slump in more than a decade as they abandon a record amount of property.
JPMorgan Chase & Co., Citigroup Inc., bankrupt Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and industry rivals have vacated 4.6 million feet, a figure that may climb by another 4 million as businesses leave or sublet space they no longer need, according to CB Richard Ellis Group Inc., the largest commercial property broker.
What a great time to build Willets Point and Atlantic Yards up with offices!
Posted by steve at 5:47 AM
February 21, 2009
Manhattan on Sale
Barron's
by Leslie P. Norton
With all the awful goings-ons in the financial markets this week, what did Barron's choose to put on its cover this week? A report on New York City's teetering luxury real estate market.
First came Miami, Las Vegas and Phoenix. Now Manhattan's high-end housing market is cratering. With Wall Street firms stepping up layoffs, and money for big-ticket mortgages drying up quickly, prices for new york apartments and townhouses of $5 million or more have been falling and may well drop by another 30% before finally bottoming out. That could help turn the Big Apple into the ugliest housing market in America.
While Barron's reported three months ago that the New York luxury market was headed for trouble ("Sand Castles," Nov. 24, 2008), the outlook has become notably worse, with some experts citing the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers as the breaking point.
The local economy is reeling as the securities industry moves to cut some 46,000 jobs by the summer of 2010. Affluent investors have pulled back from house shopping to nurse wounds inflicted by the stock market. Even that most voracious of buyers -- the hedge-fund manager -- has lost his appetite, as angry investors yank their money from his funds.
article [subscription required]
NoLandGrab: Sure, Manhattan's not Brooklyn, but this can't bode well for big, Manhattan-style luxury high-rise buildings in outer boroughs that haven't yet broken ground, like, um, those planned for Atlantic Yards. It's very possible that market assumptions for the project's nearly two thousand condo units are now out the window.
Posted by eric at 2:50 PM
February 13, 2009
Back and Forth: Developing Agenda with Marisa Lago
The Capitol
by Andrew J. Hawkins
A sharp-eyed reader tipped us off to this November interview with the president and CEO of the Empire State Development Corporation.
Over the summer, Gov. David Paterson (D) began to put together a team to run the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC), first appointing M&T Bank chief executive Robert Wilmers to chair the economic development agency. Two months later, he nominated former Citi executive Marisa Lago to be president and CEO.
Since then, Lago has been traveling to communities upstate and down in an effort to better acquaint herself with the state’s dire economic conditions. She agrees that times are tough for major development projects like Moynihan Station and Atlantic Yards, but sees opportunities for job growth and retention.
Lago talks about the search for a downstate chair, the need to improve infrastructure even during tough times, and the criticisms of Wilmers as a reluctant executive.
Posted by eric at 10:02 AM
February 3, 2009
Adventures in real estate: agent hypes property next to AY site
Atlantic Yards Report
Sometimes you have to wonder if descriptions of properties located near Atlantic Yards are intended as marketing or full disclosure:
Ingram & Hebron Realty, marketing three contiguous properties at 670-674-678 Pacific Street, bills them as "[d]irectly across the street from $4 billion Atlantic Yards/Nets Arena project" and advertises them using a deeply aspirational map of the AY footprint.
(Photo by Tracy Collins shows the brick Spalding building in the background, to the west on Pacific Street.)
After all, nothing has been built, and the property for sale/lease would directly border the site of Building 15, which would first serve as a staging area for arena construction, should it go forward, and then, in four years or more, become the home of a 272-foot tower. It could take decades, if ever, to build the towers in Phase 2, east of the arena block.
In other words, anyone living or working at that location had better bring earplugs.
Posted by lumi at 5:17 AM
From Ratner to Trump?
Atlantic Yards Report
A high-profile official at another highly leveraged development company asserts that they are looking for opportunities to take over projects stimied by the current economic climate. Then again, Ivanka did work for the Brucester.
Posted by lumi at 4:45 AM
January 28, 2009
Atlantic Yards as footnote
The troubled Atlantic Yards project frequently pops up as a context-setter — usually as the what-not-to-do example.
BrooklynPaper.com, What’s up, Dock? Lobbying fees, that’s what
For example, when Bruce Ratner’s Atlantic Yards project was nearing its approval by Albany lawmakers in 2006, the developer spent $2.105 million to lobby elected and appointed officials, up from less than $500,000 the year before.
Brooklyn The Borough, An Update on Brooklyn Bridge Park
With even Bruce Ratner scaling back, who is going to invest in more overpriced residences during an economic crisis?
Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Navy Yard, B’klyn Waterfront Are Bright Lights in Otherwise Dismal ’09 Econ. Outlook
George Sweeting, deputy director of the NYC Independent Budget Office and the panelist focusing on the city as a whole, also said a turnaround is far off.
...Asked about [Forest City Ratner’s] Atlantic Yards arena project, Sweeting said “It may be time for the city to take another look at it. It’s pretty clear it will not look like originally planned.”
Posted by eric at 9:26 AM
January 26, 2009
IF YOU CAN’T SELL ’EM, RENT ’EM
The Brooklyn Paper
By Mike McLaughlin
Activity in the luxury condo market around the block from Bruce Ratner's controversial Atlantic Yards arena and highrise project paints a bleak picture for the need for more luxury housing in the area:
Sales of luxury apartments in the majestic and phallic Williamsburgh Savings Bank building are so sluggish that the owner will rent the unsold units until the economy improves — the latest proof that the real-estate market has gone to hell in a rent basket.
Brooklyn’s tallest building, once predominantly filled with dental offices and now a 190-unit tower called “One Hanson Place,” earlier this year was proudly boasting of an upper-floor apartment with wraparound views of the New York skyline that cost $6 million, but is now trying to fill the last 19 domiciles with rent ranging from $3,400 to $4,800 per month, according to the Stribling Properties Web site.
NoLandGrab: One of the more curious details of Ratner's struggle to build Atlantic Yards has been the occasional announcement that the proportion of housing and commercial space has once again changed. When there was a boom in the price of office space, the formerly-known-as Miss Brooklyn signature skyscraper was supposed to be an office tower. As the luxury condo market soared, Ratner changed his mind and added condos. Two different plans were approved by the Public Authorities Control Board to help Ratner continue to hedge his bet, underscoring the fact that neither is truly in demand.
Predictably, none of the promised affordable housing that is being used to promote Ratner's project will get built if the arena and office space-slash-luxury condos are stalled.
Posted by lumi at 5:01 AM
January 21, 2009
Speaking of Mythical Places
Develop Don't Destroy posted an item on something we all missed. It appears that the powers that be in New Jersey are concerned that groundbreaking on their Xanadu get started before Bruce Ratner's Shangri-La:
From the January 15th Bergen Record:
Codey questions Xanadu's viability
State Senate President Richard Codey strongly questioned the viability of the struggling [Meadowlands] Xanadu project today, given the repeated delays in its opening as well as the downturn in the national economy.
Former Govs. Jim Florio, left, Richard Codey and Donald DiFrancesco were part of a roundtable discussion on the Meadowlands. "I think it’s a race to see which project is put in the grave first: the Brooklyn [Barclays] arena or Xanadu," Codey said, referring also to the Nets’ long-deferred attempt to move out of the Izod Center...
Posted by lumi at 5:01 AM
January 16, 2009
EDC: City Not a One-Trick Pony
GlobeSt.com
By Paul Bubny
NEW YORK CITY-"We are undeniably in difficult times," Tokumbo Shobowale, COO of the New York City Economic Development Corp., told an Associated Builders and Owners audience on Wednesday. However, he said that in many ways the city is better prepared to withstand the current downturn than it was following 9/11, thanks in large part to a diversifying economy. "We’re no longer a one-trick pony," Shobowale said.
NoLandGrab: Yeah we're, like, a three-trick pony, that is if you're counting boondoggles for sports team owners, or eminent-domain-abusing megaprojects.
The timelines of two major Brooklyn EDC initiatives--revitalizing Coney Island and the Atlantic Yards project--are less clearly defined at the moment. Shobowale said the goal with Coney Island is to turn it into a 12-month tourist destination, but at present there are only a few acres of the arcades and rides that made the area famous. Forward movement on Atlantic Yards hinges on developer Forest City Ratner Cos. lining up financing, he said, pointing out that the renewed commitment of Barclays to the project is an encouraging sign.
NLG: Ugh, Coney Island is now famous for even less than a few acres of arcades and rides, and we can't decide who is more to blame, developer Joseph Sitt or Mayor Bloomberg.
Meanwhile, "Forward movement on Atlantic Yards hinges on" more than financing: Forest City needs to renegotiate its existing debt burden, continue to feed operating losses from the NJ Nets, and deal with legal suits, a sour credit market, etc.
And since when is Atlantic Yards a "major Brooklyn EDC initiative?" The Mayor signed over New York City's role to the Empire State Development Corporation a long, long time ago.
Posted by lumi at 4:55 AM
January 12, 2009
Door slams shut on New York City’s property boom
Taipei Times
AFP, NEW YORK
Bruce Ratner's struggling Atlantic Yards megaproject is the current celebrity spokesmodel for the flagging NYC construction industry and real estate market:
Manhattan has traditionally been a real estate fortress, protected from wider trends simply by the facts that so many people want to be here and space on the island is finite.
Not any longer.
...
Construction, one of the great New York industries, is also stuttering.Reports suggest that at least US$4 billion worth of construction projects have been cancelled or delayed, among them a 16-storey tower and basketball arena project in the Atlantic Yards neighborhood.
“No one wants to take the risk of putting up a new building,” Harbert said.
The picture is similar in the residential market.
NoLandGrab: BTW, the "neighborhood" is "Prospect Heights" — "Atlantic Yards" is the name of the project.
Posted by lumi at 4:49 AM
January 9, 2009
Builder: This ‘Domino’ won’t fall
Th Brooklyn Paper
By Ben Muessig
Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards arena and highrise megaproject is now the official totally floundering, ill-conceived, way-too-expensive poster project:
The developer behind Brooklyn’s second biggest construction project says that he’s doing fine — even though his foes are hoping that the softening economy will do to his oversized project what it did to Atlantic Yards.
Posted by lumi at 5:08 AM
January 7, 2009
Markowitz Supports Reopening the Jail and Adding Retail
Gowanus Lounge
Atlantic Yards makes a cameo in GL's report on the Borough President's support for the re-opening of the Brooklyn House of Detention. And yes, the Beep apparently really did say that "Brooklyn families have a right to expect reasonable commuting to visit detained relatives as opposed to the extreme burden of traveling to Rikers Island.”
And we can reassure everyone that Mr. Markowitz has not suggested a Frank Gehry-designed prison at Atlantic Yards should Bruce Ratner cut bait and run, leaving the Beepster twisting in the wind of one of New York’s most historically disastrous failed megaprojects.
NoLandGrab: Stranger things have happened, at least in Springfield, where the Frank Gehry-designed Cultural Center quickly became The Montgomery Burns State Prison (highlights below).
Posted by eric at 1:42 PM
January 6, 2009
Plans for population growth may be off
MetroNY
By Amy Zimmer
In better times, city officials banked on a population boom, but the recession has some urban planners saying the Bloomberg administration may need to reconsider its rosy estimate of a city of 9.1 million people in 2030.
Expectations of a population spike were buoyed by massive construction projects such as the troubled Hudson and Atlantic yards.
“The downturn in the real estate market signals that the city’s population is not likely to increase in the near-term future,” said Tom Angotti of Hunter College’s Center for Community Planning and Development.
Posted by lumi at 4:25 AM
January 5, 2009
Destroying Coney Island to save it
MetroNY
By Neil deMause
After two straight years of “last summer ever!” at Coney, 2009 is starting to feel like the end for real. Astroland itself is in the process of being packed up — possibly for shipment to Australia — leaving only the Cyclone and the smaller Deno’s Wonder Wheel Park as remnants of Coney’s once-great amusement district.
...
Such is what’s become of the city’s 4-year-old plan to “revitalize” Coney Island via a sweeping rezoning plan to bring in housing and “entertainment retail.”
...
[Developer Joseph] Sitt’s money-grubbing has drawn lots of deserved jeers, but Coney has plenty of company as a failed example of Bloomberg development policy: Hudson Yards, Atlantic Yards, Willets Point, all of which promise to end up as empty holes commemorating the popping of the real estate bubble (let’s not even get into Ground Zero). A Jan. 14 meeting by the Municipal Art Society is expected to turn into a last-ditch push for the city to call a timeout on its rezoning and go back to the drawing board. It’s a bit late for “think before you act,” but better late than never.
Yesterday, Gowanus Lounge featured a video of Coney Island's makeshift memorial.
Posted by lumi at 5:46 AM
December 31, 2008
GL’s 2009 Brooklyn Deathwatch: Five Rotting Corpses???
Gowanus Lounge
Here is a list of 5 development development projects that are thought to have one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel. Topping the list of projects is the one that we'd like most to see pushing up daisies: the not-dead-yet Atlantic Yards.
Last year, we went out on a limb and predicted the Gowanus Whole Foods project wouldn’t happen. It hasn’t. Yet. This year there are oh-so-many projects that one can predict will be scaled back or do the Dance of Death. Here are a few to chew on:
- Atlantic Yards. We think there is a good chance most of the project will choke on its own excess, including the arena, because of the credit crunch. Unless, of course, Forest City Ratner succeeds in getting a taxpayer bailout to make it happen. If the arena does happen, we predict a crappy Prudential Center-like structure that would be built at half the cost of Frank Gehry’s work. So, maybe it’s not an entirely dead and rotting corpse, yet, but the thing is already on life support.
Posted by steve at 3:12 PM
December 27, 2008
Downturn Ends Building Boom in New York
New York Times
By Christine Haughney
This article does not mention the proposed Atlantic Yards project, but it provides one context for evaluating claims made by certain developers and State agencies about the project moving forward.
Nearly $5 billion in development projects in New York City have been delayed or canceled because of the economic crisis, an extraordinary body blow to an industry that last year provided 130,000 unionized jobs, according to numbers tracked by a local trade group.
The setbacks for development — perhaps the single greatest economic force in the city over the last two decades — are likely to mean, in the words of one researcher, that the landscape of New York will be virtually unchanged for two years.
“There’s no way to finance a project,” said the researcher, Stephen R. Blank of the Urban Land Institute, a nonprofit group.
Posted by steve at 8:28 AM
December 24, 2008
Construction unions may finance building projects
Crain's NY Business
As Forest City Enterprises deals with cash flow woes and tries to keep plans for the Atlantic Yards megaproject alive, here's something to keep track of:
New York construction unions, anxious to keep their members employed as building in the city slows, are exploring starting a fund to help finance real estate projects.
Ed Malloy, President of the Building and Construction Trades Council, says the unions may put $100 million of pension fund money into a fund that would fund various construction projects. However, he said the unions would seek matching funds from the city and the state to create a fund of $300 million. A proposal will be sent to government officials next year.
“As the days go on you hear about more projects with financial problems and we really want to do something to help,” said Mr. Malloy.
Posted by lumi at 5:03 AM
December 12, 2008
Yes to Dock St project
The Brooklyn Paper comes out in support of the Dock St. project because the public review process forced the developer to propose improvements to the design, something that never happened in the case of Atlantic Yards:
Walentas needs a zoning change to make his Dock Street dream a reality.
That requirement allowed community leaders and elected officials to pick apart the original project, a process that revealed its flaws and prevented it from being built.
Such public review was entirely lacking at Bruce Ratner’s Atlantic Yards, where a cursory environmental impact review found serious flaws, yet because no approval was needed by a local agency or elected official, the flaws were never corrected.
On Dock Street, however, the system worked: A flawed project was rejected, and the developer went back to the drawing board and returned with a better design that includes substantial public benefits.
Posted by lumi at 4:41 AM
December 10, 2008
Empty lot — and empty promises? — at Court St project
The Brooklyn Paper managed to report the big news that work has been halted on the MTA railyards for Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards megaproject, toward the end of an article on a Carroll Gardens project that has been suspended for quite a while now:
The developers of a controversial residential project on Court Street have quietly halted construction for at least six months, raising anxiety that the empty lot will haunt the main drag of Carroll Gardens during this increasingly dire economic downturn.
Here's the second-to-last paragraph:
The same can be said for the borough’s main construction project, Atlantic Yards. The Daily News reported last week that construction at the 16-skyscraper, arena, residential and office space project has halted, pending developer Bruce Ratner’s purchase of land from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and the conclusion of several pending lawsuits.
NoLandGrab: Satisfied Atlantic Yards opponents can just shut up now.
Posted by lumi at 5:40 AM
December 7, 2008
As city housing agency considers bonds for Albee Square tower, FUREE promises a protest
Atlantic Yards Report
The now-demolished Albee Square Mall site in Downtown Brooklyn is slated to become the CityPoint tower, and the image at right from the CityPoint web site presumably illustrates the target audience.
...
FUREE protestHowever, Families United for Racial and Economic Equality (FUREE), a fierce critic of plans emanating from the Downtown Brooklyn rezoning, has called (below) for members to protest the plan, stating, "The developers who bought the historic Albee Square Mall and evicted all the small businesses there are now asking the City for $400 million for the 60 story luxury tower they want to build."
Actually, it's $400 million in low-interest financing, not a $400 million grant. Such bonds, which can carry an interest rate of some 175 basis points less--e.g., 4.25% vs. 6%--are attractive to borrowers. The federal government, which takes the hit on lost interest, limits each state's allocation.
FUREE argues that the building should include 50% low-income affordable housing. (Atlantic Yards, btw, was initially promoted as 50% affordable, given 20% low-income rentals, and 30% middle- and moderate-income rentals among the 4500 rentals, but the addition of 1930 condos--at least 1730 market-rate--would bring the affordability ratio down.)
Posted by amy at 9:05 AM
November 25, 2008
President's message: Eyes on the horizon
New York Real Estate Journal
by James McCullar, FAIA
However, when institutions such as St. Vincent's Hospital and Columbia University need to modernize through expansion, or new developments such as Hudson Yards and Atlantic Yards transform existing typologies, they often confront resistance from established neighborhoods and civic organizations. New growth is imperative if a city is to remain competitive in the global marketplace; yet those needs must be synthesized with existing contexts and expectations for sustainable communities.
The Wall Street collapse and crisis in global financial markets has unexpectedly brought expectations for unlimited growth to a halt. The New York Building Congress has projected the worst is yet to come in 2010 after projects in the pipeline dry up. However, as Governor Paterson reminded us recently, some of the most significant infrastructure and landmarks in the city, such as Rockefeller Center, was built over periods of economic ups and downs - we must keep our eyes on the horizon.
The silver lining in this cloud will be the opportunity for architects to work together with government, the development community, and civic organizations to plan more thoughtfully for the next cycle of growth, and to rethink projects hastily conceived in the rush of the recent real estate boom. As our workload slows down, we will all have more time to think about the future.
Finding the right balance presents an enormous challenge and demands a creative collaboration often missing in recent new developments where government overrides local concerns. We must be careful not to replicate the errors of our modernist past. Above all we must look back on this period as having created something good that will be remembered by future generations.
Posted by eric at 12:54 PM
Developer Chakrabarti: environmental review process is "workfare" for lawyers and consultants
Atlantic Yards Report
A lot of community groups don't like the environmental review process that, under city, state, and national law, requires elaborate disclosure documents that are burdensome to produce but not necessarily helpful.
And developers don't like them, either.
According to Vishaan Chakrabarti, the Executive Vice President of Design and Planning for the Related Companies:
"Our environmental impact process is completely flawed," he said. "Our regulatory process for a project like Moynihan Station--probably over $15 million has been spent on environmental work that no one will ever read, that is its own kind of workfare program for lawyers and consultants.”
Posted by lumi at 5:10 AM
November 21, 2008
What Decrepit Brooklyn Nabe Gets (In Dreams) This Gleaming Waterfront Park?
Runnin' Scared [Village Voice blog]
Forest City makes a cameo in this brief piece casting doubt on the likelihood of a newly proposed Brooklyn waterfront development coming to fruition.
One of the bright sides of a collapsing economy is that developers -- who normally treat us peons like, well, peons -- are getting their asses kicked. Forest City Enterprises, the home office of Atlantic Yards villain Bruce Ratner, has lost 93 percent of its share value this year. Brooklynites are even starting to reach across neighborhoods to hassle builders. Up your ass like a war of class, richies!
Posted by eric at 1:17 PM
November 20, 2008
The 28 of '08
Busted! New York real estate took a wallop this year—the properties that saw it all and survived to tell us something
NY Observer
What a year, eh? Arab money, Irish money, federal money, no money! This year was the annum when the party stopped and the hangover started, and New Yorkers slept little in between. Both the residential and commercial real estate markets stormed into Jan. 1 of this year happy and bloated, wafted along by hefty credit markets, an indifferent government and a can-do fervor.
And why not? Last year had marked record amounts of investment and apartment and building sales. And the possibilities appeared endless, as lenders poured capital in and buyers yanked it out to satiate markets where $5,000 for a square foot of condo space or $1 billion for an office building felt normal and never-ending.
So long to all that.
As 2008 closes, certain properties stand emblematic of the year’s triumphs and tribulations. Below comes a ranking of the 28 most representative—the towers, sites, stores, developments and complexes that captured a New York City in transition from thrill to chill, and that show the direction of the city property-wise in 2009 and beyond.
...No. 25 of 28: Atlantic Yards
article [Click on the dot in central Brooklyn for the lowdown]
Posted by eric at 9:05 AM
November 16, 2008
Initial results of Imagine Coney to be presented tomorrow
Atlantic Yards Report
After two public meetings and two design meetings last week for the Imagine Coney project, the Municipal Art Society will unveil the design team's initial recommendations on Monday at 6:30 PM at the BAMCafe upstairs at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Reservations are recommended.Initial ideas
While the design team obviously isn't wedded to suggestions from the public, the MAS has provided a list of "top public ideas," some of which are far more realistic than the others.
* Create a Venice, CA-style Muscle Beach
* Brooklyn Nets/Nudie Bar/Gambling (note that these are not linked)
* Hologram Facility/Video Wormhole
* Dig Hole to China
* Reestablish Massive Clock
* Outdoor Stage/Indoor Theater for Public Use
* New Fanciful Architecture
* Best Water Ride Ever
* Robots
* Adult Fun
* New Old Rides
* National Eating Hall of Fame (my idea)
* Transport Rides
* Be in Video Game
* Laser Water Show
* Interspecies Friendship
Posted by amy at 9:31 AM
November 12, 2008
In Coney Island Visions report, new ideas, express dreams, and AY avoidance
Atlantic Yards Report
Observing that the city's truncated Coney Island plan--an apparent accommodation to developer Joe Sitt--"greatly reduces the area set aside for open-air amusements and puts too much faith in 'entertainment retail,'" the Center for an Urban Future yesterday issued a report called Coney Island Visions, asking thinkers from a variety of fields about Coney Island's future.
The effort is a partnership with the Municipal Art Society (MAS), which recently began the Imagine Coney initiative. While the MAS is soliciting advice from everybody, the Center for an Urban Future consulted amusement industry veteran, writers, architects, urban planners, and historians. Most have not been involved in the details of the development debate but were asked to provide a broader picture.
The first person quoted in the report brought up Atlantic Yards is an example of what not to do.
NoLandGrab: More evidence that Atlantic Yards is the poster project for top-down, coercive, community-unfriendly planning and development.
Imagine Coney? Here are three ideas: amusement museum; eating contest Hall of Fame; and street hoops haven
And while we're on the topic of Coney Island, Norman Oder offers three fun ideas for redevelopment of the world-famous amusement destination.
Posted by lumi at 6:02 AM
Will Extell Prove That Diamonds are Forever?
NBCNewYork.com
Extell's Gary Barnett has always been a maverick of sorts in the development world. He was the only rival bidder to Bruce Ratner at Atlantic Yards (even though the cause was hopeless). He bought up most of the insular Diamond District to assemble air rights for a skyscraper to be built smack in the middle of it. He wore a baseball cap to the unveiling of the Hudson Yards bids. A maverick, indeed, but that might be the problem: times have been tough for mavericks of late.
NoLandGrab: In one of the most intersting chapters of the Atlantic Yards saga, the mavericky developer Gary Barnett submitted a rival bid to the MTA for the development rights over the railyard. Despite Barnett's higher bid, the MTA decided to give Ratner another shot and subsequently awarded the rights to... Ratner!
Posted by lumi at 5:40 AM
November 9, 2008
Science Park has winning formula
crain's
Steve Garmhausen
Drug development company NaniRx Therapeutics will soon outgrow its 2,000-square-foot space near Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center. In years past, the company would have been considering a move outside the city.Instead, executives have their eyes on what's likely to become one of New York's hottest neighborhoods for biotechs: the East River Science Park.
The development “is going to allow us to stay in New York City,” says David Cohen, chief executive.
Larger developments, including the $4 billion, 8 million-square-foot Atlantic Yards in Brooklyn and the $15 billion, 26-acre Hudson Yards on the West Side, are drawing more attention than the Science Park. But its Manhattan location and narrow focus are likely to make it a hot spot for small firms that work in the bioscience world. That includes not only biotechs, but law firms and the investment banks that serve them.
article
NoLandGrab: Fascinating - a proposed development that actually has prospective tenants in mind? Isn't it more fun to just say "if we build it they will come...or the government will bail us out?"
Posted by amy at 11:55 AM
November 8, 2008
Downtown Office Growth Continues Despite Recession
Brooklyn Daily Eagle
Dennis Holt reports on the recent NY Times article about businesses moving to Downtown Brooklyn.
The centerpiece of the new Downtown will probably turn out to be the City Point development, where the Albee Square Mall used to be. It will be very large and will be located in the old Downtown Brooklyn business core.The current plan calls for creating about 500,000 square feet of office space. Anchor tenants will probably be acquired before everything is completed. Oddly, the Times’ report did not include this project.
It did mention Atlantic Yards, that somewhat spooked major development, and the potential of significant additional office space along with the sports arena. The point to note with it is that Atlantic Yards will create a second commercial and business center.
It will be both part of an expanded Downtown business center and a new center of its own. How the new center evolves will depend on the progress of the Cultural District and other trends not yet predictable.
Posted by amy at 7:29 AM
November 4, 2008
World According to... Ivanka Trump
Portfolio
By Lloyd Grove
On more than one occasion (1, 2), Ivanka Trump has mentioned that she "earned her stripes working for rival real estate mogul Bruce Ratner," the implication being that she's not just daddy's little girl and that she can totally hold her own with straight-suited politically connected overdevelopers.
Posted by lumi at 5:01 AM
October 25, 2008
LPC Plans Hearing on Proposed Prospect Heights Historic District
Brooklyn Daily Eagle
by Linda Collins
The process for establishing the Prospect Heights Historic District continues.
A public hearing on the proposed Prospect Heights Historic District will be held Tuesday, Oct. 28, before the Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) in Manhattan.
...
The MAS, PHNDC and the hundreds of residents who wrote letters to the commission believe that the neighborhood’s rich historic architecture — with blocks of beautiful Italianate and neo-Grec rowhouses, interspersed with churches, small commercial and apartment buildings — was threatened by the Forest City Ratner’s Atlantic Yards project.
...
The public hearing is set to take place from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. in the conference room, 9th floor, at 1 Centre St. in Manhattan.
Posted by steve at 8:53 AM
October 22, 2008
Brooklyn's Top 50 Most Influential No. 31 - 40
Brownstoner
Several Atlantic Yards B-list celebs landed spots on B-stoner's Brooklyn's most influential list:
32. Joe Chan, Downtown Brooklyn Partnership
34. Michelle de la Uz, Fifth Avenue Committee
38. Bertha Lewis, ACORN
39. Urban Planners: Brad Lander, Pratt Center for Community Development, and Tom Angotti, Hunter College Center for Community Planning and Development
Posted by lumi at 6:14 AM
Condo of the Day: Newswalk Two-Bedroom
Brownstoner
How big a discount is Newswalk getting these days for the Atlantic Yards effect? Based on this two-bedroom apartment it certainly looks cheap.
Posted by lumi at 5:34 AM
October 20, 2008
Sunday in the Park at (New) Domino; the developer (obscurely) opens the door
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder compares and contrasts the New Domino and Atlantic Yards projects.
Yesterday was an opportunity for a wide variety of Williamsburg residents to enjoy an afternoon in a remarkable space--the gritty concrete backyard of the closed Domino Sugar plant, open to the public--as the advertisement indicates--for the first time in a century.
...But who was behind this event? You couldn't tell from the advertisement (above) in the Brooklyn Downtown Star or the Courier-Life chain.
New Domino developers CPC Resources and Isaac Katan were not real open about their role, but the posters and other materials were far less egregious than any of Forest City Ratner's "liar fliers" or fake newspapers.
The New Domino project, unlike Atlantic Yards, will go through the city's Uniform Land Use Review Procedure (ULURP). The four acres of open space would be mapped as city parkland, again an improvement over the Atlantic Yards open space, which would be managed by a nonprofit organization.
And, of course, there's no way we could have a "Sunday in the Atlantic Yards open space," since so much depends on superblocks, unless someone closed off Pacific Street between Carlton and Vanderbilt avenues for a block party.
As with Atlantic Yards, however, the project is already delayed beyond its optimistic p.r.
Posted by eric at 10:33 AM
October 15, 2008
Construction industry to take hit from economy
Citywide, nearly 30,000 construction jobs could be lost by 2010 due to the economy, according to a new report. Construction spending will drop 22% to $26.2 billion in the same period.
Crain's NY Business
By Daniel Massey
If you believe this report, you have to assume that Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards project is in the eye of the credit crisis storm (emphasis added):
The credit crunch, a slowing economy and growing budget deficits will strip almost 30,000 construction jobs from the city’s workforce by 2010, bringing industry employment to its lowest level in more than 10 years, according to a report released Tuesday by the New York Building Congress.
...
The number of residential units constructed is expected to be nearly halved by 2010 to 18,500 with a falloff in spending of $2.2 billion. Nonresidential construction, including office space, institutional development and sports venues, will fall nearly 30% to $7.1 billion. And government projects—which remain the primary driver of construction activity in the city—will fall more than 15% to $14.4 billion by 2010.
NoLandGrab: BTW, that's 30,000 real jobs, not "Bruce Ratner jobs" (300 jobs over 100 years).
The NY Times, End Seen to New York Building Boom
From Charles Bagli's article on the same report:
The report confirms that construction and real estate activity tends to be a lagging indicator of economic health. Projects that got under way in the last two years are going forward despite a flagging economy. But experts say that new projects are being delayed.
...
The big question, [NY Building Congress President Richard T.] Anderson said, is whether the city and state will continue their commitment to capital spending on subway expansions, schools and other projects, or be forced to slash their budgets as tax revenues from Wall Street and real estate fall sharply.
NoLandGrab: The question is where does Bruce Ratner's controversial megaproject fit in this mess. NY City and State have committed hundreds of millions of dollars in direct subsidies, some below-grade work is underway, but many aspects of this large complicated project have ground to a halt and there isn't any marketplace momentum to get the project started.
Posted by lumi at 5:17 AM
October 9, 2008
On stage, the gentrification of Williamsburg: one actor, compelling characters, and some gaps
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder reviews a one-man show about gentrification:
The prodigiously talented Danny Hoch, he of the one-man, multi-character shows “Jails, Hospitals, and Hip-Hop” and “Some People,” turns to his home neighborhood of Williamsburg in “Taking Over,” a deftly portrayed and thoroughly absorbing--yet at times frustrating--look at gentrification.
It’s admirable that Hoch pushed for free shows in the boroughs, and it’s worth paying good money to see him, a kinetic Jewish guy from Queens who's steeped in hip-hop. More than a mimic, he inhabits an array of characters, both gentrifiers and the gentrified, capturing the details that mark the tense transition from drug-ravaged 'hood to condo paradise, the loss of New York’s soul that got further attention since the first Jane Jacobs panel last year.
Hoch leaves us with some arresting images and the message, at least, to wake up, and to be willing to look your neighbor in the eye. I joined in the enthusiastic applause at the end of the show but hope that, as the show develops, Hoch might flesh it out more, the same way documentary theater artist Anna Deavere Smith deepened the show Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992 by adding more ambiguity.
Posted by eric at 5:18 AM
October 8, 2008
Reality Bangs on Bloomberg's Development Door
Four more years may not help as finance crisis compounds uncertainty of big projects
The Real Estate Observer
Mayor Bloomberg is citing the current economic crisis as justification for casting aside the term-limit law, permitting him to run for a third term, but budget challenges could stand in the way of several planned megaprojects.
Reporter Eliot Brown assesses the local-megadevelopment landscape, which includes Bruce Ratner's highly subsidized Atlantic Yards arena and high-rise project in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn.
What another Bloomberg term would mean for approved developments such as the West Side rail yards and Atlantic Yards isn’t clear, but both developments require substantial investments where financing remains tricky. With Atlantic Yards, developer Forest City Ratner has yet to secure financing or to close on the nearly two-year-old deal, and has asked the city for a new infusion of subsidy.
As for development projects still seeking approval or those that need additional funding, the road could indeed be a rocky one, as city revenues over the next four years would take a major hit from a wounded financial sector.
“People would rather cut some long-term projects,” said John Tepper Marlin, former chief economist at the city comptroller’s office, “than cut regular workers, like police and fire and teachers.”
...
Generally, business leaders and fiscal experts credit Mr. Bloomberg with exercising fiscal discipline and express confidence in his ability to guide the city in a recession. Still, the amount of city debt accrued in his administration suggests that that, too, could compound budget problems in a third term. The total amount of city debt and obligations is slated to rise from $59 billion this year to more than $73 billion by 2011, according to city figures, and, should tax revenues fall, debt payments would take up a significantly larger portion of the budget. That, again, leaves less money for the big projects.
Atlantic Yards Report, "Total uncertainty," says Wylde about development projects (but is AY "shaky"?)
Norman Oder considers some of the opinions expressed in the Observer article and yesterday's Brooklyn Papers story, which described the status of the Atlantic Yards project as "shaky":
[T]he funding at issue, I suspect, may be linked less to the arena than the rest of the project. That means that, should legal challenges be resolved and tax-exempt arena bonds be made available, Forest City Ratner will go ahead and build the arena--and then might have leverage to extract subsidies for towers and additional infrastructure.
...
Well, there's certainly more doubt about AY than before, and there are a lot of moving parts and challenges, but that doesn't mean it's shaky or ready for a kill.
NoLandGrab: Though Norman may be quite right, it isn't too early to wonder who will finally pull the plug on Atlantic Yards: the State, which is wrestling with a budget gap in the several-billions of dollars; or Forest City Enterprises, which is covering the NJ Nets's approximately $40-million annual operating loss.
Posted by lumi at 6:13 AM
October 3, 2008
Failed Deals Replace Boom in New York Real Estate
The NY TImes
By Charles V. Bagli
Though this article from yesterday's Times does not mention Bruce Ratner's controversial Atlantic Yards project, it goes a long way in explaining the implications of the credit crisis on the local commercial and residential real estate market, and is a must-read for those who are trying to understand the possible effects on Ratner's megaproject:
Developers are complaining that lenders are now refusing to finance projects that were all but certain months or even weeks ago.
While Ratner is searching for an anchor tenant for Building One (formerly known as "Miss Brooklyn")...
Examples of aborted deals and troubled developments abound. Last Friday, HSBC, the big London-based bank, quietly tore up an agreement to move its American headquarters to 7 World Trade Center after bids for its existing home at 452 Fifth Avenue, between 39th and 40th Streets, came in 30 percent lower than the $600 million it wanted for the property.
A 40-story office tower under construction by SJP Properties at 42nd Street and Eighth Avenue for the past 18 months still does not have a tenant.
Ratner has already expressed some marketplace flexibility by issuing two configurations of Atlantic Yards, one devoting more space to commercial tenants, the other favoring more residential space. But Charles Bagli reports that the credit crisis affects both the commercial and residential properties:
Some developers who are currently erecting condominiums are trying to convert to rentals, while others are looking to sell the projects.
Existing bond-financing is also being affected:
Commercial properties are not the only ones facing problems. On Friday, Standard & Poor’s dropped its rating on the bonds used in Tishman’s $5.4 billion purchase of the Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village apartment complexes in 2006, the biggest real estate deal in modern history. Standard & Poor’s said it cut the rating, in part, because of an estimated 10 percent decline in the properties’ value and the rapid depletion of reserve funds.
The rating reduction shows the growing nervousness of lenders and investors about such deals, which have often involved aggressive — critics say unrealistic — projections of future income.
Posted by lumi at 7:48 AM
September 24, 2008
Planning Commission approves Willets Point plan
Crain's NY Business
by Matthew Sollars
The surprise here is that one of the 12 City Planning Commissioners actually voted against the Bloomberg administration's proposal to redevelop Willets Point, though City Council member Hiram Monseratte saved us the trouble by calling today's vote "a rubber stamp."
The Willets Point plan will now move to the City Council for a vote, where its fate is far from certain. A majority of council members have pledged to vote against the plan if it does not include a higher percentage of affordable housing. They have also objected to the use of eminent domain, something the city has not ruled out if it can’t come to terms with property owners to acquire the land there.
Posted by eric at 4:53 PM
September 22, 2008
Development Watch: Atlantic Terrace Rising
Brownstoner
Another dishonorable mention for Atlantic Yards (is there any other kind these days?) in an update on the progress of the Fifth Avenue Committee's Atlantic Terrace project.
 |
It's not looking like we're going to see any affordable housing at Atlantic Yards anytime soon (or market rate housing, for that matter), but at least a smaller project across the street at 669 Atlantic Avenue continues to chug along. Next door to the Atlantic Terminal Mall, the 80-unit Atlantic Terrace co-op project now has lots of steel in the ground, noticeable but hardly rapid progress compared to when we checked in last April. Roughly 70 percent of the apartments will be set aside for either low- or moderate-income earners.
NoLandGrab: Astute readers will remember Atlantic Terrace as the project that had to scrap plans for solar panels due to projected looming shadows from Atlantic Yards, recalling the classic "Who Shot Mr. Burns?" episode of The Simpsons (see the third paragraph after the jump).
Posted by eric at 2:38 PM
September 21, 2008
NYC:Brooklyn hoods-Fort Greene
Skyscraper Life's TalB posts a brief history and exhaustive photo tour of Ft. Greene, following up on last week's tour of Downtown Brooklyn:
In the 1990's, the imfamous Bruce Ratner, who is the of FCR, built the Atlanic Ctr Mall, but many Ft Greene residents called it turnning his back on them b/c there was no entrance on Hanson Pl and just one Atlantic Ave only. More recently, he got the air rights over the Altantic Terminal and made it into a mall, which has still yet to be completely filled, to go with the one he already built.
Photo, Tracy Collins.
Posted by amy at 11:30 AM
September 19, 2008
Our ideal ’hood
In the search for the best neighborhoods in NY, Time Out New York featured several Brooklyn neighborhoods as also-rans. Prospect Heights made the cut, despite one looming überdevelopment.
As indicated by the widespread uproar over the Atlantic Yards development, there’s a refreshingly strong sense of community in this teensy Brooklyn nabe. See what all the fuss is about on a walk through the recently proposed Prospect Heights Historic District, a 21-block area filled with beautiful architecture and carefully preserved Italianate and neo-Grecian row houses. Sip Gorilla Coffee at Joyce Bakeshop (646 Vanderbilt Ave between Park and Prospect Pls, 718-623-7470), or hop across the street to Fermented Grapes (651 Vanderbilt Ave between Park and Prospect Pls, 718-230-3216), where the superfriendly staff can help you choose the perfect vino. Then have a postdrinking chow on crispy wood-fired pizza from Franny’s (295 Flatbush Ave between Prospect Pl and St. Marks Ave, 718-230-0221), touted for making one of the best pies in the city—and deservedly so.— Amy Plitt
Posted by lumi at 5:30 AM
September 18, 2008
Financial crisis likely to slow NYC real estate
Associated Press, via amNY
By Amy Westfeldt
The Wall Street crisis that hit the heart of the city's financial district should slow construction of its biggest commercial real estate projects, including the World Trade Center and Atlantic Yards in Brooklyn, real estate experts said Wednesday.
"Basically, people are afraid," said Tom Geurts, a professor at New York University's Schack Institute of Real Estate. "Although a project could be profitable, they are afraid to put their money in it because they don't know what is going to happen."
...
At the multibillion-dollar Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn, developer Bruce Ratner long ago decided to postpone building a planned office tower until a major company agrees to move into the building.
MetroNY, Wall St. crisis spreads to real estate projects
A slow recover would drive down sales, increase vacancy rates, and possibly delay large-scale redevelopment projects, such as Manhattan's far West Side and Downtown Brooklyn.
NoLandGrab: We presume that "large-scale redevelopment projects" includes Atlantic Yards in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn which keeps being lumped in with the Downtown Brooklyn redevelopment by developer Bruce Ratner and NY City officials.
Posted by lumi at 6:30 AM
September 17, 2008
An anchor tenant for Building 1? The search just got tougher
Atlantic Yards Report
The Lehman Brothers meltdown can't be good news for backers of Atlantic Yards, especially since Forest City Ratner is searching for an anchor tenant to begin construction of Building 1, the one office tower planned for now.
From a New York Times article, headlined City and State Brace for Greater Demands on Diminishing Resources:
With the prospect of Lehman’s space going on the market, the likely result will be a drop in rents at some of the city’s premier buildings and fewer new towers going up, said real estate executives, urban planners and government officials. Those that are built will probably be smaller, they said.
Look what the cat draggged in
As chance would have it, the BBC is reporting that Barclays Bank plans to purchase the Lehman Bros. headquarters for $1.5 billion. Yup, that's the same Barclays Bank that signed a $400 million naming-rights deal for the new arena to be built at Bruce Ratner's controversial Atlantic Yards complex. The deal to purchase the building and other Lehman assets would make Barclays the third largest investment bank in the world.
Posted by lumi at 5:30 AM
September 13, 2008
Polytechnic alumni file suit to rescind NYU consolidation deal
Atlantic Yards Report
Some two months after the State Board of Regents in late June approved New York University's no-money-down absorption of Brooklyn's Polytechnic University, a group of seven dissident alumni have filed suit (PDF) in Albany to rescind the decision, arguing the Regents’ allowed the affiliation in violation of a 2005 Polytechnic board decision to remain independent.NYU’s consolidation effort--the school is now known as Polytechnic Institute of NYU--not only adds engineering to the university’s portfolio but provides a beachhead in Brooklyn, providing perhaps one-quarter of the real estate NYU needs to expand. The lawsuit, filed against both the Poly board and the Board of Regents, charges that the university's board failed to obtain an appraisal to establish the value of its real estate, air rights and other assets, a breach of its fiduciary duty.
State report lingers
Indeed, a report issued May 20 by State Sen. Kenneth LaValle, the chairman of the State Senate Committee on Higher Education, raised some serious questions about the deal, stating that in three instances the board did not act with the duty of care and/or loyalty required by a fiduciary, notably negotiations conducted in secret, the exclusion of dissident board members from working committees, and the failure to update a three-year-old appraisal of the university's valuable property in Downtown Brooklyn's MetroTech Center. (LaValle, oddly enough, released the report without an accompanying press release or comment.)
Posted by amy at 9:59 AM
September 12, 2008
A NEW Woman
Story Corps
Sherry Castro came to our Lower Manhattan StoryBooth through NEW Nontraditional Employment for Women, one of our many partner organizations in the city. Founded in 1978, Nontraditional Employment for Women is a nonprofit organization that trains women for skilled jobs in construction and other blue-collar industries. Most of the female hardhats at work today in New York City are NEW graduates.
Sherry has worn many (hard)hats in her field of construction. After graduating from NEW, she has worked as an operating engineer, welder, metal fabricator, and mechanic on developments and infrastructures throughout the city. Some of these sites include the foundation at the new Yankee Stadium, the Van Courtland Park reservoir, the Grand Concourse (a boulevard in the Bronx), an underpass on 161st Street, and the widening of a runway at JFK Airport.
For the past month, Sherry has been working as an oiler and operating engineer on the foundation for the new Brooklyn Nets stadium at the Atlantic Yards, a $4 billion mixed-use development project. As an oiler, Sherry greases the machines and performs maintenance and oil changes on them. As an operating engineer, she operates Earth-moving machines to drive piles (a type of deep foundation) for excavation. This means digging up to 50 feet into the ground and pulling boulders as big as cars out of Brooklyn soil!
Posted by lumi at 4:51 AM
August 27, 2008
Developers' Hazard: Legal Hardball
The New York Times
by David W. Dunlap
A recent dip into the archives of The New York Times unearthed an article on the effects of litigation on development in New York City, and interestingly, it features quotes from both Atlantic Yards (and then-Atlantic Center) developer Bruce Ratner and new Empire State Development Corporation CEO (and then-Boston development official) Marisa Lago.
Lawsuits are no longer last resorts. They are an integral part of the process. Litigation has altered the 42d Street redevelopment in Manhattan and the building of Atlantic Center in downtown Brooklyn; it has derailed other projects entirely, like Westway and Columbus Center, the previous proposal for the Coliseum site.
''It is almost impossible to finance a project when it's in litigation,'' said Bruce C. Ratner, president of Forest City Ratner Companies, which inherited Atlantic Center after the legal buffeting. ''Even if there's a remote chance that the plaintiffs will win, the banks are not going to lend the quantities of money required.''
NoLandGrab: Keep in mind that Bruce was saying this in 1996, when the economy was robust and the unforeseen global lending crisis was 11 years away.
There are cities, however, where land-use litigation is not commonplace. ''The ethos of suing on every project just hasn't occurred in Boston,'' said Marisa Lago, director of the Boston Redevelopment Authority and former general counsel of the New York Economic Development Corporation.
NLG: "Suing on every project" wouldn't be necessary if developers and economic-development officials would propose better-conceived projects, involve affected communities from the get-go, and eschew the use of eminent domain.
Posted by eric at 3:24 PM
August 22, 2008
Gehry Out as Architect of Theater in Brooklyn
The New York Times
by Robin Pogrebin
Sure, we were hoping to see something other than "Theater" in that headline, but this is an interesting story nonetheless.
The architect Frank Gehry will no longer be a part of the project to build a permanent home for the Theater for a New Audience in the BAM Cultural District in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, the theater’s founder said Thursday. But the announcement came as a surprise to Mr. Gehry, who said he wasn’t told of the change.
Mr. Gehry had collaborated with Hugh Hardy on the theater building’s initial design. Now Mr. Hardy will be the sole architect on the project, according to the theater.
There seems to be a little confusion, however, as to whether Mr. Gehry bailed, or was pushed out.
“Frank Gehry has said to us, ‘I’m sorry that I have to withdraw, but I’m a great fan of Hugh’s, and Theater for a New Audience is going to have a terrific theater.’ ”
But reached by phone on Thursday, Mr. Gehry said his exclusion from the project was news to him. “I didn’t even know they were starting over again,” he said. “I suppose they didn’t need two of us.”
“He’s quite adequate for the job without me,” Mr. Gehry added, referring to Mr. Hardy. “I would guess there are financial reasons for this.”
In response to the architect’s comments, the theater provided The New York Times with a copy of its correspondence with Mr. Gehry’s assistant, in which the architect was said to have approved the language in the theater’s statement. “Frank told me he was too busy and was unable to continue with the project and that he had to withdraw,” Mr. Horowitz said in a telephone interview. “We respected his wishes.”
Posted by eric at 10:24 AM
Forest City Closes $167M Financing for Build
GlobeSt.com
by Natalie Dolce
The headline seems a little truncated, but GlobeSt serves up a detailed report on the financing of Forest City's 80 DeKalb, including this quote from President and CEO Chuck Ratner regarding loan maturities:
"We continue to manage our maturities effectively, recycling capital from our portfolio where prudent to apply to other strategic uses," Ratner says in a prepared statement. "Financing continues to be available for well-conceived and well-sponsored projects and properties in solid markets with good demographics, both in our portfolio and in our development pipeline."
NoLandGrab: No doubt Brooklyn is a solid market with good demographics, but when it comes to Atlantic Yards, "well-conceived" does not apply.
Posted by eric at 9:52 AM
August 18, 2008
Powerful Harlem Church Is Also a Powerful Harlem Developer
The New York Times
by Timothy Williams
Forest City Ratner makes a cameo appearance in a NY Times story on the significant effect that the Abyssinian Development Corporation, the real estate off-shoot of Harlem's Abyssinian Baptist Church, is having on that neighborhood.
The corporation’s largest project to date has been Harlem Center, an $85 million retail and office complex on 125th Street it developed with Forest City Ratner. Businesses there include Marshall’s, Staples, H & M and a Washington Mutual bank.
NoLandGrab: Judging from that partial list of Harlem Center tenants, it's no surprise that some critics say that Abyssinian "has virtually ignored small businesses in favor of chain stores that have damaged the small-town character of Harlem." When you team up with national-chain proliferator Forest City, that outcome is pretty much inevitable.
Posted by eric at 11:16 AM
August 17, 2008
Not THAT Michael White
Noticing New York talks about the new federal courthouse on Cadman Plaza East and Tillary Street:
An article in the Brooklyn Eagle describes the plans for the courthouse as “star-crossed” and goes into a bribery scandal involving the general contractor. It reminds us that “A proposal to build it in the Atlantic Center, over the LIRR station, was rejected by federal judges who made it privately clear that this was too far away from the center of things in Downtown Brooklyn.” Tell that to Bruce Ratner the next time he misrepresents Atlantic Yards (which he wants to build more han 4 times as tall!) as being “in Downtown Brooklyn!” (See: Federal Courthouse Project Hits A Snag; New Contractor Sought by Dennis Holt, 03-05-2004)That same Brooklyn Eagle article tells us “One of Sen. Patrick Moynihan’s last acts was to attend the 2000 ribbon-cutting ceremony for the new building. Though physically frail, he gave a stirring speech on the value of public works, a sentiment rarely heard these days, and declared that this building would be memorable.” As many know, I am strongly advocating that we fittingly remember Daniel Patrick Moynihan by putting our resources into Moynihan Station, a “public work” like the courthouse rather than diverting them into Atlantic Yards. Atlantic Yards is not only NOT a “public work,” it represents something Moynihan fought against in his time. It was Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan who, in 1986, sponsored the insightful law that bans the use of tax-exempt bonds to finance sports stadiums and arenas which Bruce Ratner now seeks to circumvent.
Posted by amy at 11:00 AM
August 15, 2008
It came from the Blogosphere...
The Pressure Zone, stories 24 - 28: the whirlwind
NY Sun reporter Abe Reisman, who covers crime and emergencies for the paper and reported yesterday's story on the Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty's honoring of Bruce Ratner, posted a run down of his recent bylines:
"Developer Bruce Ratner Is Honored at Gala" (not technically part of crime / emergency beat, but i did it in addition to all that)
NoLandGrab: "not technically part of crime / emergency beat," but damned close.
Nets Daily, Mayoral Candidates Praise Ratner
Mr NYC, War Over Willets Point
Every year or two an epic battle between developers and citizens erupts in New York City. There was the battle over the West Side Stadium in 2005 (which was killed) and then there was fight over the Atlantic Yards development project in Brooklyn (which wasn't killed) in 2006-2007. Now, in 2008, Willets Point in Queens is the new front is this perennial struggle.
NLG: But AY hasn't not been killed yet, either.
QUEENS CRAP, Monserrate Announces Legislation to Restrict Eminent Domain
Queens Crapper posts the press release from Councilman Hiram Monserrate outlining the eminent domain legislation he announced yesterday.
Posted by eric at 10:02 AM
August 14, 2008
Councilman Proposes Law Restricting Eminent Domain
NY1
Just one day after crowds of supporters and opponents packed a public hearing on the rezoning of Willets Point, one local leader today will announce legislation challenging one of the biggest concerns surrounding the proposal – the possible use of eminent domain.
The city has said it would only be used as a last resort, but City Councilman Hiram Monserrate plans to announce legislation that would force the city to justify any usage of eminent domain.
He wants a definition of when exactly the city can declare a neighborhood economically blighted, as well as guarantees that any displaced business owners would be properly compensated. Monserrate is also introducing a resolution calling on state legislators to follow the city's lead.
NoLandGrab: City legislation would not affect eminent domain abuse in the footprints of Atlantic Yards or the Columbia University expansion. These properties are to be taken by the State of NY.
Posted by eric at 10:53 AM
A Confrontation Over the Future of Willets Point
The New York Times
by Fernanda Santos
Supporters and foes of the Bloomberg administration’s plan to turn gritty Willets Point in Queens into a $3 billion development of stores, offices and apartments faced off Wednesday in a confrontation that grew emotional and raucous at times.
...The hearing combined public testimony on Willets Point and two other rezoning projects, on the Lower East Side of Manhattan and at south Hunters Point, along the East River in Queens. Opponents of the Lower East Side and Willets Point plans protested outside the auditorium where the hearing was held through most of the day. Councilman Hiram Monserrate led two dozen opponents of the Willets Point proposal two blocks east, to a spot in Washington Square Park, to confront city officials holding a news conference there.
The opponents interrupted the news conference, which was organized by the city’s Economic Development Corporation, and drowned out advocates for the proposal, chanting “Justice for Willets Point!” and “Save Willets Point!”
The police told the city economic development officials that they could not remove the protesters, saying they had a right to be there, even if they were being disruptive.
NoLandGrab: The EDC couldn't force the removal of the protesters from Washington Square Park, but it remains to be seen whether or not they'll be able to remove them from Willets Point. One thing we're pretty sure about, though, is that this eminent domain-fueled war will see many, many battles before it ends.
Posted by eric at 9:08 AM
August 12, 2008
City Council members blast Willets Pt. plan
Crain's NY Business
by Daniel Massey
A day before a City Planning Commission hearing on the Bloomberg administration’s plan to remake Willets Point, a majority of City Council members sent a sharply-worded letter to the planning commissioner opposing the project.
In the letter to Commissioner Amanda Burden, 30 council members say they are in “absolute opposition” to the current proposal to redevelop Willets Point, citing concerns over eminent domain, affordable housing, displaced workers and traffic.
“Unfortunately, this is a product of a flawed process that has continuously ignored the requests of the community in pursuit of a top-down planning process that sets a dangerous precedent for large-scale development projects citywide,” the council members wrote in the letter.
...The signature drive was organized by the affordable housing group NY Acorn and is the second time in the last four months it has organized a majority of council members to write to a city official opposing Willets Point. Twenty-nine council members sent a similar letter to Deputy Mayor Robert Lieber in April.
This time, the council members say they will not support the plan unless eminent domain is taken off the table in negotiations with landowners; half of the 5,500 housing units are guaranteed to be affordable; a comprehensive relocation and compensation plan for small business owners and employees is put in place; and a community benefits agreement that includes traffic mitigation is implemented.
The city has said it will use eminent domain only as a last resort; its plan calls for 20% of the housing units to be affordable; it is working with LaGuardia Community College on a program to train the approximately 1,700 workers who will be displaced by the development; and it will require the developer to put $5 million into a traffic mitigation fund.
NoLandGrab: We applaud the efforts and actions of the Councilmembers who've taken a stand against eminent domain abuse, but we're compelled to point out a couple of things.
First, the "dangerous precedent for large-scale development projects citywide" has already been set by Atlantic Yards. In fact, had the Atlantic Yards plot never been hatched by Forest City Ratner, it's likely that the Willets Point plan, however heinous it may be, wouldn't have encountered such significant — and well organized — resistance.
Second, we have to admit we're curious about ACORN's role. Sure, their interest in the affordable housing makes sense, but based on their track record with Atlantic Yards, we have a hard time believing that they give a hoot about the use of eminent domain. Left to ACORN, that would surely be a bargaining chip happily traded for a richer mix of affordable units.
Lastly, we won't belabor the silliness of the city claiming that eminent domain will only be used "as a last resort." It was already put into use long ago as a negotiating bludgeon. We'll focus instead on the $5 million traffic mitigation fund. Shouldn't the mitigation of traffic be a pre-development requirement? The time to fix traffic problems is before they materialize.
Posted by eric at 4:35 PM
Why Not Add Atlantic Yards to the Agenda?
Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn
DDDB reacts to the City Planning Commission's nonsensical decision to cram three controversial rezoning hearings into one day and one auditorium with a suggestion:
While they're at it, since Atlantic Yards never went through ULURP—thus avoiding a public planning hearing in front of the planning commission or any planning body—perhaps they can add Ratner's project to the agenda.
NoLandGrab: Do you think the repeated scheduling of public hearings on controversial eminent domain-reliant development projects and rezonings in August (Atlantic Yards DEIS public hearing, August 23, 2006; Columbia University expansion ULURP hearing, August 15, 2007; Willets Point redevelopment, tomorrow) is just a coincidence? Or might they be timed to many people's summer vacations? Either way, the triple-billing is a creative new twist.
Posted by eric at 11:48 AM
August 7, 2008
Brooklyn Office Vacancy, Asking Rents Increase
The NY Observer
By Tom Acitelli
During the past few years, as the demand for Class A office space in Brooklyn has risen and fallen, Atlantic Yards developer Bruce Ratner has regularly reconformed the project according to the market.
It's hard to figure what to make of the news, reported yesterday by the NY Observer, that vacancies are up — but rents are, too:
[A] The report (PDF), from investment-sales firm Marcus & Millichap, forecasts a year-end vacancy rate of 10.5 percent, up from the 10.4 percent at the end of the second quarter on June 30.
As many as 2,000 office-based jobs in Brooklyn are expected to be eliminated this year, according to the report, mirroring the trend in Manhattan.
Meanwhile, the average asking rent for Brooklyn office space has increased in 2008. It was $27.58 a square foot by the end of the second quarter, up 5.1 percent annualy and 4.9 percent since January.
Posted by lumi at 5:41 AM
August 3, 2008
Urban Environmentalist NYC: R & E Brooklyn
Gowanus Lounge provides an interview with R & E Brooklyn owners Rolf Grimsted and Emily Fisher:
Q: If you got together with other small business owners in your community what would the hot topics be?Rolf: My number one topic is ways to retrofit and green the existing housing stock. I also have an idea about using tax incentives for building green. If the 421-a tax incentive and 421-b incentives were used for green building, the city would encourage new green building and the greening of existing homes, and we’d reduce our city’s energy consumption.
Emily: The ongoing boom in new development is a big topic, including the discussions on what’s going to happen to the Atlantic Yards site and how can that development potentially benefit our community and businesses?
Posted by amy at 11:01 AM
July 31, 2008
Relief is sought as building costs soar
MetroNY
by Amy Zimmer
The New York Building Congress, of which Forest City Ratner is a member, released a report stating that New York is "one of the most expensive places to build in America."
The report looks suspiciously like a plea for the City to cater to developers as it includes such remedies as rezoning “idle or derelict industrial land.” This sounds uncomfortably like the scheme used by the State for the proposed Atlantic Yards project, where a working railyard and surrounding neighborhood were labeled as "blighted" to allow a land grab by Forest City Ratner.
The report mentions specific projects that the construction industry would like to go forward:
Already such big projects as the Javits Convention Center and the Fulton Street Transit Center have been scaled back because cost estimates far exceeded original estimates. The construction industry is concerned considering other big projects on the drawing board — the Second Avenue Subway, World Trade Center, Moynihan Station and Atlantic Yards.
Posted by steve at 5:56 AM
July 27, 2008
Myrtle Ave. condo/supermarket project stalls, leaving just an empty space
NY Daily News
JOTHAM SEDERSTROM
The Myrtle Ave. project's crumbling comes as the shaky economy has sent shivers through the real estate industry and put other large city projects in jeopardy. In Brooklyn, the controversial Atlantic Yards and Coney Island projects have faced delays and reductions in size.Catsimatidis' project is facing the same fate.
"The economy soured, and he can't get municipal bonds to get the affordable housing," said Councilwoman Letitia James (WFP-Prospect Heights), an early supporter of Catsimatidis' project because of the affordable housing.
Posted by amy at 11:05 AM
July 26, 2008
Church vs. Commerce: Parishioners Try to Take the Brooklyn Flea Down
Racked has a full report from a very heated meeting about the Brooklyn Flea in Fort Greene. The only thing that seemed to bring the room together was an enthusiastic condemnation of Ratner's penchant for big box stores:
State Senator Velmanette Montgomery really stole the show, though, and got folks excited. "I fought against the stadium here," Montgomery said. "This is different. What is suffering in this city and state right now is small business. I'd rather support small businesses than Ratner," she said, and the whole room erupted in applause. "We have lost so many of our small businesses because we don't have the foot traffic...I want buses to stop and spend some money!" More cheering. "These big boxes are running us over!" The room went wild. Everyone can agree about that, right?
Posted by amy at 12:37 PM
July 24, 2008
Looking back at the unanticipated impacts of the Downtown Brooklyn rezoning
Today, Atlantic Yards Report crosses Flatbush to assess a recently released report about the real impacts of the Downtown Brooklyn rezoning.
It’s well-known that the 2004 Downtown Brooklyn rezoning resulted in some very different outcomes than expected, given that the hot residential real estate market, coupled with changes in the back-office needs of large companies in Manhattan, made it far more lucrative to build luxury housing (and hotels) than the office space (and jobs) that the rezoning was intended to foster.
A new report, Downtown Brooklyn’s Detour: The Unanticipated Impacts of Rezoning and Development on Residents and Businesses, prepared by the Pratt Center for Community Development for FUREE (Families United for Racial and Economic Equality), points out how much has changed in four years, raising concerns about the displacement of lower-income retail and residential tenants. It doesn’t suggest particular strategies, however. (Solutions aren’t simple; perhaps that’ll be another report.)
The report does remind us that an EIS (environmental impact statement) is hardly infallible, as we’ve also learned in the case of Atlantic Yards, where the EIS anticipated a ten-year project buildout that seems deeply divorced from reality.
Posted by lumi at 4:31 AM
July 23, 2008
Weiner Likes (Some) Mega-Development in Slow Economy
The Real Estate [NY Observer]
by Eliot Brown and Azi Paybarah
Representative Anthony Weiner, a mayoral hopeful, gave his support for a string of large development projects in the city today, saying they're important in a time of economic uncertainty.
"New York needs to continue to grow–I'm a pro-development guy," he said, speaking at a Crain's breakfast. "If you look at downtown, you look at West Side, you look at Penn Station, you look at Ratner, you look at these things–I think that you're going to see that I'm going to be advocating. I want them to be successful, particularly in this time of slow economic growth."
Then, hitting on his favorite theme, Mr. Weiner said the middle-class does not always see a clear, tangible benefit from the projects, adding, "It does create challenges that we have to solve."
NoLandGrab: In these tough economic times, there's nothing more important than shoveling scarce tax dollars at a basketball arena. Is it any wonder that middle-class New Yorkers — and upper- and working-class NYers, too — are having trouble seeing "a clear, tangible benefit" in that?
Posted by eric at 11:08 AM
July 20, 2008
Double Edge to Brooklyn’s Success
NY Times
PATRICK McGEEHAN
Brooklyn Brewery's Steve Hindy reaps what he helped sow: rising prices from the rezoning laws and out of scale projects he championed were a death knell to small, local businesses, including his...
Mr. Hindy said the company could expand its local production to more than 40,000 barrels a year, and more than double its current payroll of 35 people, if it found a space that was large enough. But that quest has left Mr. Hindy feeling unappreciated by city officials.He was a champion of the rezoning of Williamsburg and Greenpoint that Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg pushed through in 2005. But now he contends that the changes went too far by allowing a variety of nonindustrial uses of land in areas that are labeled industrial business zones.
...
“Once you name your company Brooklyn Brewery, you kind of take away the threat of moving to New Jersey,” Mr. Hindy said.
article
NoLandGrab: We venture to bet that more than one person would appreciate the irony of "New Jersey Brewery."
Gumby Fresh adds a sympathetic yet critical missive to the discourse, concluding in this thought:
But here's the killer line. "Some landlords are holding onto industrial property with the hope that it will be rezoned for residential buildings." So all Hindy's support has done is dump a windfall in the hands of condo developers with no interest in helping Hindy get what he wants. There's an easy moral to this story. The old lady and the snake.
Posted by amy at 11:46 AM
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.
Curbed.com, Yardsmania: It's Official!, Yardsmania: OK, So Now What?
The Real Estate, Tishman Speyer Win Not Quite Official
AP, via The International Herald Tribune, Developer Tishman Speyer to build skyscrapers, apartments on New York City waterfront
Posted by eric at 2:25 PM
March 25, 2008
Comparing Coney Island
Atlantic Yards Report
The Coney contrast: no eminent domain, "constant public input"
As Atlantic Yards has become the poster child for bad public process and inadequate urban planning, it's worth watching the city's posture toward other major development projects.
And the city is treading carefully in Coney Island, where a rezoning plan would avoid use of eminent domain, even though the major landowner in the amusement area, Thor Equities' Joe Sitt, so far has very different plans for his property and has not yet agreed to a suggested swap of city land to the west.
The standalone arena makes the Coney option look stronger
Ok, it's not on the city's radar screen, given other ambitious plans for Coney Island, but Forest City Ratner's intention to proceed with an Atlantic Yards arena and wait--perhaps for a very long while--before building office space and housing suddenly removed some major objections to the once front-burner plan to put an arena in Coney Island.
And the city's intention to press for express train service would remove another objection. That's not to say an arena is likely, but the discussion deserves a second look.
Posted by lumi at 4:22 AM
March 24, 2008
Voices: Brace for a new glut of office space
MetroNY
By Neil DeMause
Well, that was quick. In the one week since Bear Stearns suffered its total existence failure, stories of developers bailing on office-tower projects came fast and furious: First J.P. Morgan Chase rethinking its building on the former Deutsche Bank building site, then Bruce Ratner admitting his Frank Gehry-designed “Miss Brooklyn” skyscraper would be delayed indefinitely (though he insists he’s going ahead with the accompanying Nets basketball arena). Meanwhile, two major Manhattan developers had their stocks downgraded amid fears of a coming office glut.
It’s certainly a far cry from four years ago, when then-deputy mayor Dan Doctoroff announced plans for a staggering 28 million square feet of new office buildings — that’s seven World Trade Center towers — as part of a “Hudson Yards” development centered on a West Side stadium for the Jets and the Olympics. Today, it’s clear there will be no Midtown West — at most maybe it’ll be Chelsea North, if the housing market doesn’t collapse next.
Why should you care, unless you’re a developer?
...
These sorts of deals are sold as “public-private partnerships” — taxpayers prime the pump for developers. The problem is they shift the risk to taxpayers, who when the economy goes south are left holding the bag.
Posted by lumi at 4:26 AM
March 20, 2008
Planner Burden on balanced growth, community consultation, and "esthetic democracy" (in Brooklyn)
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder parses a two-year-old CUNY-TV interview with City Planning Commission Chairperson Amanda Burden in an attempt to understand how she looks at rezonings. This passage tells us just about all we need to know.
Burden: That's the thing. Any rezoning, to get it passed or done, has got to pass community boards and elected officials. So we have to build consensus. And the only way you can do that is by really showing people visually what they're going to get, and bringing in the stakeholders and getting them to feel invested in the plan. For instance, in Greenpoint and Williamsburg, here you had two miles of waterfront, it was fenced off, inacessible, derelict for decades. So to really get the community to not only understand the zoning that we were proposing, but to buy into that, we took the committee for open space of the community board there around to all waterfront parks in the city, and they chose the benches and the lights and the paving and the railing that's going to be on their waterfront. So this is really a plan that is created by the community. Otherwise we would have never have gotten it passed.
NoLandGrab: Oh, goody, the Community Board committee members appointed by the Borough President and Council Members get to pick the trim, while developers turn brownstones and warehouses into 30-story luxury condos. We love consensus!
The irony though, is that such meaningless input would be a welcome upgrade to the absence of a community role in shaping Atlantic Yards.
Posted by eric at 10:06 AM
March 17, 2008
Merger or consolidation? NYU’s absorption of Brooklyn’s Polytech is about engineering--and land
Atlantic Yards PolyTech NYU Report
Norman Oder takes a detour from the Atlantic Yards beat to analyze the purchase of PolyTech by NYU, which has all the trappings of a major real estate deal.
They’ve called it a merger, an affiliation, a joining of two institutions. But the planned--and nearly consummated--deal between Polytechnic University, a small engineering school at Brooklyn’s MetroTech that draws mainly on local students, and New York University (NYU), the ever-growing, Greenwich Village-based university with international reach, looks like a consolidation.
Given that NYU would ultimately absorb Poly with no money down, but, among other benefits, offer a loan based on Poly’s real estate--a provision barely discussed publicly--it also has elements of a leveraged buyout.
What does it have to do with Atlantic Yards and MetroTech developer Bruce Ratner?
Poly has signed a letter of intent regarding its air rights with developer Forest City Ratner, its MetroTech neighbor, but has not begun new buildings.
The deal is a source of contention at Poly, while a blip on the radar screen at NYU
Who wins?
Whether the revenue from Poly's air rights would support the engineering school remains unclear. Should it do so, the deal looks better for Poly. If not, the larger school, which has faced little internal controversy over the consolidation decision, may have achieved an ever better deal. But the consolidation is about more than revenue, so, assuming it goes forward, it may take years to assess the true value of the deal.
Posted by lumi at 4:50 AM
March 10, 2008
Six months later, where's Phase One redesign
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder reports on the latest obfuscations emanating from MetroTech:
Delays on the Atlantic Yards project apparently flummoxed New York Times architecture critic Nicolai Ouroussoff, who last September anticipated a redesign of the arena block in the fall.
And delays in another Forest City Ratner project, Beekman Tower, led Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver last week to query the company about the timetable for a promised school, leading to a non-answer from the developer.
...As the Observer reported, Silver recently sent a letter to Forest City Ratner expressing concern "that construction has apparently slowed at your new Beekman Tower site since you generously agreed to incorporate a new K – 8th grade public school into the base of that new building. As you know, the school is scheduled to open in September 2009.... A number of constituents and community leaders have contacted my office in recent weeks with inquiries regarding the progress of the Beekman Tower building."
He asked the developer for its "most up to date schedule for construction of the Beekman Tower and when you anticipate that the new school will be able to open."
FCR spokesman Loren Riegelhaupt gave the Observer a response: "We are very sensitive to the school overcrowding issues currently facing Lower Manhattan as it was the Speaker who originally raised the issue and it was at his insistence that we included the school in our project. We are continuing to work very closely with the Speaker and appreciate all of his efforts in helping to move the project forward as quickly as possible."
NoLandGrab: Translation: "It was the Speaker's idea to include a school in the project, not ours, so don't blame us if it doesn't get built."
Posted by eric at 11:49 AM
Influence peddlers cash in big time on Manhattan's West Side properties
NY Daily News
By Brian Kates
Politically wired influence peddlers pocketed more than $5 million from 2004 to last year from developers pushing plans to build a midtown metropolis on the borough's last major swath of available real estate.
The article focuses on Midtown Manhattan's Madison Square Garden, Hudson Railyards and Moynihan Station projects; however, Bruce Ratner's Brooklyn lobbying largesse receives a dishonorable mention:
All those projects are on the drawing board at the same time. They involve extensive land-use review, zoning changes and approvals from multiple city, state and federal agencies — and they all need billions more to meet expected costs.
That spells a bonanza for lobbyists.
...
Fried Frank, the law firm that lobbied for Atlantic Yards in Brooklyn and the new Yankee Stadium in the Bronx, was paid $339,190 to pull strings with the Planning Commission.
Posted by lumi at 5:06 AM
March 5, 2008
Bergen Tile is "just the spot," to be replaced by... ?
Atlantic Yards Report
It's just a matter of time before the retail frontages on Flatbush Avenue change significantly, right? The owners of the building housing Bergen Tile at the southeast corner of Dean Street and Flatbush Avenue are advertising the space for rent as "directly across the street from the new Nets arena at Atlantic Yards." (The building was sold in 2006, according to ACRIS.)
Now that's the plan, though, in a best-case scenario, the arena likely wouldn't open for three years. Still, as the brochure attached to the listing posted by Ripco Realty (yes, that's their name) shows, there are nearly 600 new condo units coming in the area, on top of the 6860 units--actually 6430, and almost certainly fewer, given the changes planned for Miss Brooklyn--planned at Atlantic Yards. The housing could take decades.
Note that the site outline in red suggests that the Bergen Tile building extends all the way from Flatbush Avenue well opposite Building 3, near the corner of Sixth Avenue.
Actually, the triangular plot doesn't go nearly that far.
Posted by lumi at 6:37 AM
March 4, 2008
DBP's Joe Chan: projects improve thanks to compromise
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder summarizes the Crain's NY Business interview with Joe Chan, the man who is charged with keeping the Downtown Brooklyn redevelopment on track (including Bruce Ratner's controversial Atlantic Yards project in Prospect Heights).
Posted by lumi at 4:59 AM
March 3, 2008
Unease Erodes Ambition in Real Estate
The NY Sun
By Peter Kiefer
Atlantic Yards is on the list of multi-billion-dollar projects that could be in trouble as the storm clouds thicken in the NYC real estate market:
Last week, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority said the price tag for the completion of the first leg of the Second Avenue subway line had ballooned to $4.35 billion from $3.8 billion. Critics are questioning whether Lower Manhattan transportation projects such as the Fulton Street Transit Center and the Santiago Calatrava-designed PATH Station are worth their soaring price tags, and the projects' elaborate designs are being pared down.
The planned redevelopment of Penn Station has a budget shortfall of at least $1 billion. A public spat erupted between city and state officials over Governor Spitzer's plan to scrap the expansion of the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center after cost estimates more than doubled to $5 billion, and last week one of the five original bidders in the proposed development of the Hudson Rail Yards project on Manhattan's West Side — Brookfield Properties — dropped out. A shortage of federal housing subsidies and ongoing litigation from resident groups is threatening Bruce Ratner's $4 billion Atlantic Yards project near downtown Brooklyn. The list of public and private projects on hold seems to grow on a weekly basis.
Posted by lumi at 5:06 AM
February 29, 2008
Editorial: Get Moynihan Station back on track
NY Newsday believes that during the economic downturn, there's one project that deserves saving and it's not Bruce Ratner's highly controversial Atlantic Yards:
Because of the down-trending economy and disagreement among principals, many of the city's ambitions seem to be crumbling: the Javits Convention Center expansion, Atlantic Yards, Hudson Yards. If there is one that deserves saving, it's Moynihan Station. State and city officials need to put their shoulders into this project and push.
Posted by lumi at 4:22 AM
February 28, 2008
The UNITY plan expands, and will be up for discussion
Atlantic Yards Report
The UNITY plan for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's Vanderbilt Yard was unveiled in September, the project web site was re-launched in mid-January, and there's a public meeting Saturday, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., to update people and seek further input on UNITY.
The discussion will broaden to more of the Atlantic Yards footprint rather than just the 8.5-acre Vanderbilt Yard.
...What's clear is that two very different visions have emerged. While the UNITY plan would add significant residential density (1500 units over eight acres would be 187.5 units/acre, compared to 6430 units over 22 acres, or 292 units/acre), it would concentrate the tallest buildings at the east end of the site, near Vanderbilt Avenue.
It would place a park at the congested intersection of Atlantic and Flatbush avenues, while Forest City Ratner's plan would have an Urban Room, which will serve as a subway entrance and an entrance to the arena and arena block buildings, while housing an atrium, retail, and Nets ticket windows.
NoLandGrab: Click here for more info regarding Saturday's workshop.
Posted by eric at 9:35 AM
February 23, 2008
Plan to Rebuild Penn Station Area May Be Close to Failure
The New York Times
by Charles V. Bagli
The sweeping $14 billion proposal to transform Pennsylvania Station and the district around it is in danger of collapse because of the softening economy, shortfalls in government financing, political inertia and daunting logistical problems, government officials and real estate executives involved in the project said this week.
...Some government officials and real estate executives are concerned that a slowing economy and the current state of the credit markets, where there is little money available for large real estate deals, could cause problems for both the sale of the railyards and the Moynihan project.
NoLandGrab: And what about New York City's other railyard deal?
Posted by eric at 3:27 PM
Downturn! Big D’Town project hits the brakes
The Brooklyn Paper
Dana Rubinstein
Last month’s abrupt shutdown of a major development project near Metrotech is a setback for planners’ lofty vision of a new, 24-7 business and residential mini-city in Downtown Brooklyn, said experts this week.John Catsimatidis, the owner of the Gristedes supermarket chain, who tore down a Laundromat, pharmacy and grocery store along two Myrtle Avenue blocks in preparation for a 660-unit, mixed-income residential development, has halted the project — temporarily, he says — blaming both the credit crisis and the lack of affordable housing bonds.
...
On the one hand, Catsimatidis could abandon the project’s 215-unit affordable housing component altogether and just build market-rate units, but then he’d also be passing up some tax incentives.
So is taking away a neighborhood's amenities and leaving a giant blighted hole keeping him up at night?
“We’re being a little extra cautious,” he said. “You wouldn’t want to jump in a swimming pool unless there’s water in there.”
Too bad neighborhood residents didn't have a chance to not jump in the waterless pool...
Posted by amy at 11:22 AM
February 16, 2008
Green arts complex neighbor to new Brooklyn Nets arena
Plenty Magazine
Lisa Selin Davis
On the busiest (and second most dangerous) intersection in my hometown of Brooklyn, NY—Flatbush and Fourth avenues—a mammoth development is in the works, one that should accommodate the hundreds of thousands of folks expected to migrate here in the next twenty years for our famously desirable lifestyle: the beautiful architecture, the community feel, the culture factory that is Kings County.Only problem: the Atlantic Yards’ level of influx—6,430 apartment and condominium units; 17 high-rise buildings; 336,000 square feet of office space, a 50,000-square-foot sports arena for the Brooklyn Nets (don’t worry—they’re still in New Jersey for now); 247,000 square feet of retail space; and a 180-room hotel—means the very lifestyle people are moving to Brooklyn in droves for will surely be squelched.
But Brooklyn is nothing if not resilient, and just a block away, an alternative development is forming. A 61-year-old Brooklyn native named Al Atarra—white Santa Claus beard, heavy accent—has decided to preserve his 45,000-square-foot Neoclassical building called the Metropolitan Exchange, resisting wooing developers in favor of realizing his own vision: a professional arts complex.
Only MEx, as this venture is called, is made of a very specific group of arty types: architects, urban planners, landscape architects, an architectural historian, and, sure, why not, a couple of developers, too—the good kind, who wish to ameliorate neighborhoods and not actually replace them completely. At some point, Atarra hopes members won’t just be renting office space but buying into a commercial co-op that will make the building a model for the world of real estate here.
Posted by amy at 11:44 AM
February 13, 2008
’Bilt to last
A mix of pioneers, beloved stalwarts and hot newcomers has transformed Prospect Heights’ Vanderbilt Avenue into a dining and nightlife hot spot. Take a tour of Brooklyn’s newest restaurant row.
Time Out New York
by Joshua M. Bernstein
A decade ago, Prospect Heights’ Vanderbilt Avenue was little more than an automotive speedway lined with liquor stores and barbershops. “There was nowhere to go after dark,” says Anatoly Dubinsky, owner of the pioneering Soda Bar. But since Dubinsky’s saloon opened in 2002, this street—only eight blocks long, from Atlantic Avenue to Grand Army Plaza—has blossomed into a bona fide destination.
NoLandGrab: "Bona fide destination?" But what about the blight? According to the Atlantic Yards Environmental Impact Statement, one-eighth of this sizzling stretch — the blocks on the west side of Vanderbilt between Atlantic Avenue and Dean Street — suffers from irreparable blight, and as such, is slated to be razed to make way for Bruce Ratner's megaproject.
Posted by eric at 5:10 PM
Pintchik development sites: the future face of Flatbush
Atlantic Yards Report
Last Thursday's New York Sun article about the Pintchik family of hardware store fame, headlined Brooklyn Family Sitting on $100M in Property, Air Rights, described big plans for the family's properties along Flatbush Avenue between Pacific Street and Grand Army Plaza, including new retail, rooftop additions and other expansions, then "as many as four new, mixed-use buildings on the sites of small commercial properties and lots along the avenue over the next three years."
And where might they be? The Sun reported: The family is planning a 22,000-square-foot retail space at one of the new buildings planned for Flatbush Avenue and Sterling Place, which could hold a large national tenant.
Photographer Tracy Collins has filled in the blanks regarding those development sites.
Posted by lumi at 4:47 AM
As Costs Grow, NYC’s Grand Redevelopment Plans Shrink
Associated Press, via Brooklyn Daily Eagle
By David Caruso
For a while, it seemed the sky was the limit for the grand public works that sprang off the drawing boards during New York’s recovery from the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.
Lately, though, soaring ambition has given way to hard reality.
...
Forest City officials have since sought to dispel any idea that the Frank Gehry-designed Atlantic Yards project is in trouble, saying the court filing was intended to persuade a judge to resolve the legal dispute quickly.Indeed, Richard Moore, a real estate analyst for RBC Capital Markets, said there have been no signs that problems in the financial markets will put a crimp in Atlantic Yards or other private development in the city.
Demand for new housing and office space remains high, he said, and banks are still willing to make loans to proven developers.
“The capital seems to be out there,” he said. “It is definitely more selective capital,” he added, but even in a recession it could take time for job losses and company downsizing to cool the market.
NoLandGrab: "The capital seems to be out there," doesn't "seem" to inspire confidence, and regardless, that's not what we're hearing. Capital has dried up and what little capital that's floating around can be had at a premium, putting the squeeze on megaprojects like Atlantic Yards.
Posted by lumi at 4:42 AM
February 7, 2008
Brooklyn Family Sitting on $100M in Property, Air Rights
The New York Sun
by Bradley Hope
Brooklyn residents know Pintchik's Hardware, which has been on the corner of Flatbush Avenue and Bergen Street since 1940, for the quirky messages on its scrolling digital sign, its free cappuccinos, and the life-size fiberglass cow outside its entrance. What they don't know is the Pintchik family is sitting on as much as $100 million of developable property and air rights, according to some brokers' estimates.
Activity in the area has picked up dramatically as a result of the Atlantic Yards development just to the north. Mr. Pintchik said he received 15 calls last week about one site in front of what is planned to be the new home of the Nets basketball team, Barclay Stadium.
"In all my years over here, I've never received 15 calls in a week," Mr. Pintchik said, adding that he sold three buildings to Forest City Ratner, which is developing the Atlantic Yards project. Property records show that the company received about $4 million for the properties, at 185, 189, and 193 Flatbush Ave.
It sounds like the properties that the Pintchiks plan to develop themselves won't quite stand out like "Ms. Brooklyn:"
Preliminary plans have already been drawn up for the buildings, which he said would be designed in a "seaport cast-iron" and "great brick" style.
"They will not be modern buildings," he said. "They will be crisp, with great light and air, but fitting the neighborhood."
NoLandGrab: The Pintchik family has been a bedrock of the local economy — and philanthropy — for decades. But did they have to help pave the way for Atlantic Yards?
Posted by eric at 10:55 AM
City study casts major doubt on state's AY parking availability estimates
Atlantic Yards Report
The Atlantic Yards Environmental Impact Study (EIS) authored by the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) claimed that there's plenty of on-street parking spaces available around the proposed Atlantic Yards site (for example: 47% occupancy on weekdays from 7 p.m. to 8 p.m.). Now, the New York City Department of Transportation has taken a look at this issue. Guess what -- it looks like the EIS is full of baloney.
A new city analysis has cast significant doubt on the Empire State Development Corporation's (ESDC) generous estimate, in the Atlantic Yards environmental review, of the availability of on-street parking in the vicinity of the project site.
It was hard for Brooklyn residents to believe the ESDC's claim (p. 12-20) that "[u]tilization of these on-street parking spaces was found to be approximately 65 percent in the 5-6 PM period, 47 percent in the 7-8 PM period, and 65 percent in the Saturday 1-2 PM period." ... The ESDC's response was essentially a variant on that famous Marx Brothers line: Who are you gonna believe, me or your lying eyes?
Concerning the State case brought against the ESDC, the court is forced to accept as fact whatever is presented in the EIS.
The court is not permitted to second-guess the agency or substitute its judgment for the agency. That sets a pretty high bar, since it essentially accepts an agency's response to evidence presented.
But what if another agency offers seemingly contradictory evidence? That might raise questions about the "hard look."
However, Brooklynites know how to call things as they see 'em, as evidenced by some of the responses to the EIS:
Two years ago you could find a parking space fairly easily in Fort Greene. Now people are afraid to drive because they would lose their parking space. The EIS states there is ample parking when this is simply untrue.
...
The DEIS suggests low 47 percent to 65 percent current utilization rates for on-street parking in near proximity to the proposed arena. These numbers are unrealistic. There is so little on-street available parking that there is competition for double parking spaces between church-goers and police and fire department workers. Availability has been worsened by overflow parking from the Atlantic Center Mall.
...
The DEIS woefully underestimates the existing capacity for on-street parking and incorrectly assumes the project will have little or no impact.
Posted by steve at 5:36 AM
February 6, 2008
New York to confront its economic fate
Crain's NY Business
Crain's editor Greg David predicts some of the fallout from the global economic slowdown and increasingly likely recession, including this one, which may or may not affect Brooklynites' most least-favorite project:
Expect dramatic cutbacks in budgets later this year as the governor and, to a lesser extent, the mayor try to catch up with falling collections.Construction jobs will start to decline as government money woes lead to delays and cancellations on public projects, and new residential projects are put on hold.
Posted by lumi at 5:22 AM
February 5, 2008
The ESDC won't ignore the market, in Manhattan, at least
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder points out ANOTHER example of how Bruce Ratner's controversial Atlantic Yards project is different from any other New York State-sponsored project:
When it comes to declaring parts of Prospect Heights blighted, the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) conducted no market analysis, as a lawyer for the petitioners challenging the Atlantic Yards environmental review pointed out in court last May.
And the Metropolitan Transportation Authority waited 18 months after city and state officials announced support for Forest City Ratner's developher as the Atlantic Yards developer to issue a Request for Proposals for the Vanderbilt Yard
When it comes to selling two parcels of land adjacent to the Javits Convention Center to raise money for Gov. Eliot Spitzer's budget, however, the ESDC wants very much to consider the market.
Click here to read ESDC chair Patrick Foye's strategy.
Posted by lumi at 5:08 AM
January 27, 2008
The closing of Fort Greene's 4W, the demise of Bogolan, and the AY effect
Atlantic Yards Report
The story of the closing of 4W Circle of Arts and Enterprise at 704 Fulton Street, a unique incubator for artists and craftspersons from the African Diaspora is an "end of an era" in Fort Greene, and I told a good piece of the story in an article a few weeks back the Brooklyn Downtown Star. (Today from 4-9 pm 4W is holding "The Circle is Unbroken Celebration, Celebrate 17 years of Ujamaa (Cooperative Economics), Pride, Ujimma (Collective Work and Responsibility) and the continuation of People Power.")
...
It's impossible to assess how all the merchants of Bogolan feel about Atlantic Yards, but not all share [Errol] Louis's optimism. [Selma] Jackson, [a co-founder of 4W] commented critically on the Atlantic Yards Draft Environmental Impact Statement:
For all the talk about what it will add to the community, including jobs, as a business owner I have seen very little benefit from the Atlantic Center development phase I or II. What it has done is decreased street parking for my customers, increased sanitation ticketing for small businesses—as one sanitation officer said to me “well the neighborhood has changed and we need to keep it clean”. Where was that philosophy when I opened in 1991? Why did it take until 2000 to be concerned about a “cleaner neighborhood? And finally it has given the landlords reason to increase the commercial rents based on the future potential of the neighborhoods, forcing small businesses out of the area now.
Posted by amy at 2:06 PM
January 25, 2008
Is NYC becoming a college town?
amNY
New York University, Columbia, John Jay, Hunter and Cooper Union are all mentioned as institutions looking to impose their will on the communities that surround them. To help make the point, the poster-child of bad development, Atlantic Yards, is used to illustration how much expansion these institutions desire.
Colleges and universities are forecasting unprecedented growth in the coming years, adding as much as 17 million square feet of space -- or more than either the World Trade Center or the controversial Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn -- and may begin to exert an even greater influence on the ebb and flow of life in the city.
Posted by steve at 4:41 AM
January 22, 2008
City Council bills would cost owners who warehouse property
Atlantic Yards Report
In November, I wrote about how Boston, unlike New York, has changed tax policies to give owners of vacant or abandoned properties not in tax arrears a reason to sell or build, and how Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer was pushing for new policies in New York.
Now, as the Daily News reported last Wednesday, such empty buildings north of 110th St. would lose a tax break under state law.
...
What might such changes have meant for the Atlantic Yards footprint? They would've provided some more revenue to the city, and might have pushed the owners warehousing property to sell or build. And such laws would've provided an alternative to declaring stagnant properties blighted, as the state has determined.In other words, eminent domain isn't the only tool to revitalize an area that has empty buildings or lots.
NoLandGrab: Interesting, though we're pretty sure that most ardent libertarian property-rights anti-tax activists are cringing at the notion of such legislation.
Posted by lumi at 5:09 AM
January 19, 2008
Boerum Hill Association: Replace Times Plaza — With a ‘Real’ Post Office
Brooklyn Daily Eagle
Mary Frost
After years of complaints about the Times Plaza Post Office, the Boerum Hill Association (BHA) is gathering hard data — via a survey — to take to the Post Office management and elected officials. The Times Plaza Station is on Atlantic Avenue between Third and Fourth avenues. Complaints range from misdelivered mail and undelivered packages to long lines and unprofessional staff. Many residents say that they try to avoid the Post Office altogether, using UPS or FedEx instead. Others get their packages delivered to friends in other neighborhoods.A statement sent to Boerum Hill Association members by Joel Potischman, vice president of the Boerum Hill Association, says, “BHA volunteers and many others have met with Times Plaza managers over the years [nobody seems to last long] and our elected officials. We are always promised improvements, but fixes, if any, are modest and short-lived.
“For this reason the BHA now demands that Times Plaza be replaced. The facility was outgrown decades ago, but because USPS only rents the space, they cannot make the changes necessary to run it efficiently. Continued neighborhood growth, plus Atlantic Yards, will only make the situation worse.”
Posted by amy at 11:38 AM
FROM THE BROOKLYN AERIE
Brooklyn Daily Eagle
David Weiss
In all the hullabaloo about Atlantic Yards, no one seems to remember that its developer — the Forest City Ratner Co. — was also the developer responsible for building One Pierrepont Plaza, Brooklyn’s first new office building in decades.
link
NoLandGrab: Although this is a lovely sentiment to look back on, several other developments were built in the interim that failed to impress the population and secured the reputation of the developer in the area as insensitive to the community and unable to stay in business without government bailouts.
Posted by amy at 11:23 AM
January 16, 2008
The Golden Age
High-Rise Residential Construction Keeps Going
New York Construction
By Alex Padalka
New York and the tri-state area are now feeling the impact of the national subprime mortgage crunch and slowdown in new home construction and residential high-rise projects, but the boom here is far from over.
Unlike the rest of the country, New York continues to attract buyers and renters alike at ever-increasing prices.
Don't worry, prices in Manhattan may have peaked, but the outer boroughs are still booming?
Pat Di Fillippo, executive vice president of Turner Construction of New York, says that while the condo market will continue to grow, Manhattan may be due for a correction. "Will the people in Manhattan wake up?,” he adds. “You can pay $2 million for a studio in Manhattan or get 3,000 sq ft somewhere else.
...
Forest City Ratner Cos.'s $4 billion Atlantic Yards project alone will bring 6,430 units spread across 15 high-rises in downtown Brooklyn, according to the latest plans.
Posted by lumi at 9:31 PM
Shopping in Brooklyn: A Shot of the Suburbs
Jaunted.com
On Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Terminal Mall:
Soon, it's going to be overshadowed by the looming Atlantic Yards stadium project, but for now, the Atlantic Avenue stop in Brooklyn means just one thing: a super-shot of suburbia in the midst of the city. Rather than go through another themed entry for our last Shopping in Brooklyn post, we had to give a shout-out to our favorite capitalist hot-spot east of Manhattan.
More than just a cluster of chain stores, Atlantic Terminal Mall is like walking through a virtual yearbook highlighting Brooklyn's population diversity.
...
People talk a lot about Brooklyn's diverse ethnic and racial populations living side-by-side, and it's true, we do live next to one another. The best place to check it out? Atlantic Terminal Mall.
NoLandGrab: Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Terminal suburban-style mall would more likely be served, rather than "overshadowed," by Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards arena (not "stadium") and sixteen high-rise tower project.
Posted by lumi at 8:53 PM
January 15, 2008
From $6 million to $120+ million: Newswalk and the evidence against stagnation
Atlantic Yards Report
How much has Brooklyn changed? On January 4, I pointed out a dramatic shift since the production of the documentary A Walk Around Brooklyn in 2000. The Empire State Development Corporation seems to think that the zone bordering the Metropolitan Transportation's Vanderbilt Yard would be stagnant absent the Atlantic Yards project, and state Supreme Court Justice Joan Madden didn't disagree.
The story of the luxury Newswalk building in Prospect Heights offers some useful context; in an interview taped 03/28/06 for Michael Stoler's CUNY-TV show BuildingNY, Shaya Boymelgreen, then partner in Leviev Boymelgreen, discussed how he paid $6 million for the former Daily News printing plant less than a decade earlier.
Posted by lumi at 5:29 AM
Student focus lenses on development
NY Daily News
By Joyce Shelby
High school seniors Sabrina Zahir and Margarit Cabral have discovered just how passionate folks in South Brooklyn are about neighborhood development.
"The developers want to come in to the area to change it and make luxury housing," said Margarit, 17, who attends the School for International Studies.
"But," classmate Sabrina, 17, added, "the community is not happy. They don't want these developers coming in. They're bothering them, taking their space.
About 400 teens from five local high schools have been documenting the impact of development in Gowanus, Coney Island and Williamsburg and at Atlantic Yards.
Posted by lumi at 5:25 AM
Do NYC's Developer-Community Deals Totally Suck?
Curbed.com
Community Benefits Agreements, those big documents that are "negotiated" between developers of mega-projects and the "community" around them come with every big development these days. Atlantic Yards had one. Yankee Stadium did too. The Columbia Expansion will have one. Basically, developers use them to trade things like promises of jobs and money for community groups for support from local organizations. So, what's wrong with them? People that follow CBAs as they're called say that New York City's, in a word, suck.
NoLandGrab: Developers use CBA's to divert attention from the fact that their projects' benefits to the community are dubious.
Posted by lumi at 5:16 AM
January 14, 2008
City’s brand of CBA bad for rest of the nation?
MetroNY
By Patrick Arden
Community benefits agreements have dampened opposition to projects elsewhere, but they’ve spawned controversy here as politicians have hammered out 11th-hour CBAs just before crucial votes.
This New York style of deal making worries California attorney Julian Gross. “The entire future of the community-benefits movement could be threatened by CBAs being sidetracked and taken over by developers and electeds who want to steer and channel the community participation,” he said.
...
“The whole thing works better democratically when electeds don’t try to pressure community groups to support projects based on the electeds’ views on what projects are good,” Gross said. When politicians are involved, critics charge, CBAs are weaker — not just in benefits extracted but also in legal protections.
Predictably, nothing has happened on the CBA for Columbia since the City Council approved the university's expansion plans last month.
Posted by lumi at 5:29 AM
January 9, 2008
Commercial market still strong ... for now
MetroNY
By Amy Zimmer
Though there's a lot of uncertainty in the NYC commercial real estate market, according to Cushman Wakefield executive Joseph Harbert, “Record asking rents and decreasing available space have given prospective tenants fewer options from which to choose.”
Could this be a boon to Downtown Brooklyn, where 1.6 million square feet of office space — including 336,000 square feet in the Atlantic yards project — is planned over the next several years? Not likely.
“It could become a viable alternative,” Harbert said. But “for advertising and media firms, this is their time to stay in Manhattan. I think they will try to stay in Manhattan.”
NoLandGrab: Why should Atlantic Yards developer Bruce Ratner worry? As with MetroTech, should the market for class A office space in Brooklyn fail to materialize, government agencies could always pick up the slack and move in, thus justifying the massive public subsidies Ratner projects always seem to consume?
Posted by lumi at 5:22 AM
January 8, 2008
So Long Telecom: 470 Vanderbilt Gunning for Residential
Brownstoner
After sitting almost-vacant for years, the Carlyle Group-owned Atlantic Telecom Center at 470 Vanderbilt Avenue in Fort Greene will be going residential if negotiations with City Planning conclude without a hitch. Although details are sketchy at this point, we're hearing that the D.C.-based private equity firm has recently brought in a new partner to reposition the property, which currently has some 700,000 square feet of unleased space.
NoLandGrab: Back in April, 2007, Norman Oder of Atlantic Yards Report published a 1/23/04-email from a Forest City executive Jane Marshall that reveals the development company's interest in expanding to 470 Vanderbilt.
Posted by lumi at 7:40 PM
January 7, 2008
Yankee Stadium Is Going Up, but Bronx Still Seeks Benefits
The NY Times
By Timothy Williams
When Atlantic Yards developer Forest City Ratner announced the Community Benefits Agreement for the company's controversial 22-acre megaproject, it was roundly criticized and held up as the example of what NOT to do when negotiating with "the community." Now, one local agreement is winning the race to the bottom:
Several years ago, as the Yankees negotiated to build a new stadium in the South Bronx, the neighborhood faced the realities of a massive construction project in its midst: parks would be closed and moved, traffic would be horrendous, life would be, for a while, a hassle.
So, as one way to make up for these inconveniences, the Yankees and elected officials signed a community benefits agreement. It required that the team would give roughly $1.2 million a year, starting when the work began, to various community groups through a special panel. The deal was similar to agreements in other major projects, like Atlantic Yards in Brooklyn and Columbia University’s expansion into Harlem.
But nearly 17 months after construction began, as workers race to complete the new Yankee Stadium by opening day 2009, none of that money has been distributed, and the group responsible for administering it has never met.
NoLandGrab: There are significant differences between the Community Benefits Agreements (CBA) listed above: the Atlantic Yards agreement was "negotiated" with handpicked groups, the Columbia University CBA was negotiated with a more diverse group of stakeholders but was still hammered out behind closed doors, and the Bronx CBA is widely considered to be a slush fund negotiated and "administered" by the Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrión Jr.
The Bronx WMD
TheEminentDomain.org
The new development-watchdog blog critiques The Times's report, and takes the paper to task for allowing the subject of its story to define the terms.
Kudos to the Times for reporting the story, but what’s up with this, in the second paragraph?: “The deal was similar to agreements in other major projects, like Atlantic Yards in Brooklyn and Columbia University’s expansion into Harlem.”
Similar how, exactly? Aha: Carrión and the Yankees called the deal a Community Benefits Agreement…and so did the groups negotiating in Brooklyn and Harlem. Ergo, the Times calls the Yankee Stadium agreement a CBA, too. Further down in the story, reporter Timothy Williams clarifies: “The agreement for Yankee Stadium was unusual, however, because it was not negotiated or signed by community members.”
Unusual. Note to copy desk: “Bogus” might be a better word. By its own admission, by calling the Yankee Stadium deal a CBA the Times is using a term, supplied by the subject of its story, that blatantly misrepresents the origins and purpose of the enterprise.
Posted by lumi at 4:55 AM
January 4, 2008
A Walk Around Brooklyn: the year 2000 seems like a different era
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder revisits the bygone year of 2000?
The acclaimed two-hour public television documentary A Walk Around Brooklyn was released in 2000, but a recent re-viewing shows it illustrating a different era, before Brooklyn crossed the rubicon of a red-hot real estate market (and, of course, before the 2003 announcement of Forest City Ratner's Atlantic Yards project, much less the opening of the developer's Atlantic Terminal mall, which came in 2004).
Posted by lumi at 6:07 AM
January 3, 2008
Critic Huxtable on West Side yards plans: New York sells itself short
Atlantic Yards Report
From the perspective of Atlantic Yards critics, the plan to develop the West Side yards (aka Hudson Yards) is inevitably superior, because it starts with an RFP rather than an anointed developer.
And indeed, Gov. Eliot Spitzer this week told the New York Observer: We are pleased with the bids as they came in—in terms of the magnitude financially, the scale of the proposals, the creativity, the involvement of some of our most prominent real estate companies and private-sector employers who want to site headquarters there. … It reflects and justifies our confidence that if we did an RFP [request for proposals] for that site, we could elicit great response.
But critics have already offered several cautions. In New York magazine, Justin Davidson warned that finance will trump design, and New York Times architecture critic Nicolai Ouroussoff called it a "grim referendum on the state of large-scale planning in New York City."
And yesterday, Wall Street Journal (and former New York Times) architecture critic Ada Louise Huxtable, in a review headlined The Hudson Yards Proposals: Plenty of Glitz, Little Vision, was harsh, writing that only two of the five design teams "appear to have thought about it beyond the standard investment model blown up to gargantuan scale." (She never wrote about Atlantic Yards.)
Posted by lumi at 4:38 AM
December 31, 2007
The tale of an ESDC non-correction
Atlantic Yards Report
Our Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) is hard at work making sure that Norman Oder's blog is correct. As for its own Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) for Atlantic Yards -- not so much.
On November 5, shortly after I posted a document I attributed to the ESDC that indicated that the reconstruction of the Carlton Avenue Bridge would take two years rather than nine months, I got a flurry of phone calls and e-mails from ESDC spokesmen indicating that I should correct my article, given that it was not an official ESDC document.
I did so, though the information--a summary apparently prepared by a Community Board after an ESDC meeting--was not inaccurate.
What was inaccurate was my interpretation that the duration of the bridge's reconstruction had just been announced. However, my error was based on an error in an ESDC document, which has not been corrected
It's swell that the ESDC is looking to be so helpful in keeping the Atlantic Yards Report accurate. If only it would be so careful with its own FEIS, where the error originated.
Though I had read many chapters of the FEIS to track any changes from the Draft EIS, I had not read the revised Chapter 17, which contains text regarding the schedule.
In fact, as an ESDC spokesman reminded me later that day in another flurry of messages, the revised chapter indicated that the time to reconstruct the bridge would be two years rather than nine months.
A correction was in order, I was told.
I agreed, but I was a bit ticked off--after all, I wouldn't have made my error had I not been misled by the ESDC's failure to update the construction schedule attached to Chapter 17.
We can only guess why the ESDC won't correct its own document, but one of Oder's guesses points to the pending lawsuit challenging the FEIS.
A correction might further confirm that the board members who approved the project were approving a flawed document, and might render the ESDC legally vulnerable.
Posted by steve at 7:33 AM
December 29, 2007
GL's 15 Top Brooklyn Stories of 2007
The Gowanus Lounge
The Gowanus Lounge lists the most important Brooklyn stories of 2007, a collection dominated by tales of Brooklyn real estate development. Number 2 on the list — the ongoing saga of Atlantic Yards.
2) Atlantic Yards. If 2006 was the year that this mega-project created deep divisions in Brooklyn, 2007 was the year of delays, new questions and construction prep work. Will 2008 be the year that ground is officially broken on the project that will change Prospect Heights, Park Slope, Fort Greene and environs forever? Or will a court decision, credit crisis-related issues and a softening real estate market throw more curve balls at this development? Stay tuned.
Posted by steve at 8:13 AM
December 28, 2007
Marty says he doesn't know why Doctoroff had second thoughts re AY
Atlantic Yards Report
The Brooklyn Paper's edited year-end interview with Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz includes most of what he says about Atlantic Yards, but a link to the full audio segment provides a tantalizing coda. In it, Markowitz tells editor-in-chief Gersh Kuntzman that he doesn't know why Deputy Mayor Dan Doctoroff acknowledged Atlantic Yards should have gone through the city's Uniform Land Use Review Procedure (ULURP) rather than the state review.
The answer, most likely, is that Doctoroff is having second thoughts about the procedure behind Atlantic Yards and Markowitz, at least publicly, won't allow such thoughts. Also, Doctoroff can afford to have some second thoughts; his departure comes as he has accomplished many of his goals, while Markowitz's highest-profile project, Atlantic Yards, remains slowed.
Check out Norman Oder's brief transcript of the Atlantic Yards portion of the interview here.
Posted by lumi at 4:41 AM
Balancing community input regarding the West Side yards
Atlantic Yards Report
They're discussing traffic and infrastructure and sustainability and open space before any developer is chosen for the West Side yards.
This goes well beyond the Atlantic Yards Community Benefits Agreement or housing advocate Bertha Lewis of ACORN candidly saying, "I can't do environment. I can’t do traffic."
And it's not a developer-funded poll, as with the New Domino development, that sets out a false choice between tall buildings with affordable housing and smaller buildings without it, without presenting the details of the project under discussion.
...
This doesn't mean community input will have a definitive impact. But it shows the difference between a competition, as with the West Side yards, and a project, as with AY and the New Domino, presented in an effort to gain state approval or a zoning change.
Posted by lumi at 4:27 AM
December 19, 2007
2007 in Downtown Brooklyn: The Year of the Skyscraper
High-Rises Become the Talk of the Town
Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Editorial
By Dennis Holt
As most people know, the Chinese calendar honors animals by naming years after them, although I’m not sure what the reason is.
It is possible that sometime in the future, someone will look back at developments in Downtown Brooklyn in 2007 and call this year the “Year of the Beanstalk.”
...
The plan that started the whole thing, in one sense, is “Miss Brooklyn,” the mixed-use tower designed by Frank Gehry for Atlantic Yards. The developer scaled the building back but, as several observers, have noted, no final design has been announced. Therefore, the tower may still get “up there” as far as height is concerned.
NoLandGrab: We love how Holt starts off the editorial explaining that he doesn't know why the Chinese calendar identifies each year with a different animal sign, but that doesn't stop him from talking.
Posted by lumi at 2:24 AM
December 17, 2007
Top Stories of 2007
Gotham Gazette
By Gail Robinson
Atlantic Yards ranked as one of the top stories in NYC in 2007, along with other mega-developments:
Despite Economic Jitters, Development Continues:
With Wall Street going through what is at best a period of "volatility" and low-income New Yorkers losing their homes because mortgage foreclosures, development continues in New York. As the year drew to an end, the Bloomberg administration announced its latest plan to develop Coney Island, the Atlantic Yards project wound its way through the courts, and Columbia's plans to dramatically expand its campus into West Harlem moved along the approval process.
Posted by lumi at 5:24 AM
December 14, 2007
Doctoroff’s Legacy: Pretty Impressive
Brooklyn Daily Eagle
By Dennis Holt
Finally, we've stumbled over an opinion piece extolling the virtues of outgoing Deputy Mayor Dan Doctoroff:
There are at least four major developments that bear Doctoroff’s fingerprints, including one that was on its way when he joined City Hall — Brooklyn Bridge Park. For some time now, his every major speech refers to the park early in his remarks. It is clearly the centerpiece of the overall plan for waterfront development. Doctoroff gave strong support for the rezoning of Greenpoint-Williamsburg and he also mentions that all the time.
He goaded everyone about the rezoning of downtown Brooklyn, and the press, led by our newspapers, have been recording this rather amazing flowering with consistency. No one can ever say this building or that one is Dan’s building, but it would not be using hyperbole to sweep one’s arm over all the new downtown Brooklyn and credit him for all of it.
And he is a strong supporter of Atlantic Yards, recognizing that underused space of this size, sitting where it is, cannot be left idle at this time in the city’s history. Although it didn’t start out this way, Atlantic Yards remains the largest single development for affordable housing in the city and will probably hold on to that claim for some time.
All these projects, including the much larger and more entangled ones in Manhattan, will get finished and they will look pretty much like what the published designs show them to be.
Posted by lumi at 5:03 AM
December 13, 2007
Reporting live from Development Hell
NY Press featured Deputy Dan, the overlord of Development Hell NYC, on this week's cover, accompanied by a couple articles, both of which mention Bruce Ratner's controversial Atlantic Yards megaproject.
DEVELOPMENT HELL
Dan Doctoroff exits as the city’s controversial planning czar, and talks with ANDREW J. HAWKINS about his legacy
And the Atlantic Yards project, controversial in its use of eminent domain, will produce a staggering 16 new Frank Gehry buildings and an 18,000-seat basketball arena.
One criticism of Lower Manhattan could certainly apply to Atlantic Yards:
But Doctoroff’s critics—and there are many—blame him for mismanagement, and fault the Bloomberg administration for ceding too much of the control over the area to Gov. Pataki (R).
Regarding displacement, Doctoroff also counters critics by using the Robert Moses-lite defense:
One statistic he is fond of quoting: 200,000 people were relocated by Moses, while only 400 residents and 700 businesses will have been relocated by Doctoroff.
NoLandGrab: Local vicitms of eminent domain will be cheered by the notion that they aren't being displaced by the worst abuser in NYC history. :-)
DID DOCTOROFF SELL NEW YORK'S SOUL?
Reporter Matt Chaban listened in on the Municipal Art Society's panel discussion covering the question "Has New York lost is soul?,” looking for clues of Deputy Mayor Doctoroff's influence:
While Atlantic Yards may have been largely under the purview of the state, [Ron] Schiffman [sic] believes the city was too complicit.
“He did not go to the badly designed projects like Atlantic Yards and Willets Point and press for change,” Schiffman [sic] said, a refrain that also echoes around Ground Zero, which languished for years while Doctoroff focused on the West Side.
Posted by lumi at 6:49 AM
Poll results for the New Domino poll don't add much insight, but still deserve scrutiny
Atlantic Yards Report
Reversing course, the developers of the proposed New Domino development in Williamsburg have released the poll (right; click to enlarge) on which they based some recent newspaper advertisements.
(I wrote Nov. 15 about managing partner CPC Resources' unwillingness to release the poll results; to its credit, CPC Resources did provide the results on Nov. 28.)
There's not much new, however. The questions and answers don't add to the unsurprising conclusion that residents in the area around the proposed New Domino site would accept increased density for increased affordable housing.
One thing the poll does prove is that, like Atlantic Yards developer Forest City Ratner, CPC Resources hired a "heavyweight consulting firm" to help "shape public opinion."
Posted by lumi at 6:05 AM
December 11, 2007
Bait-and-switch from the start? Ratner knew office space projections were bogus
Atlantic Yards Report
On the fourth anniversary of the public announcement of the Atlantic Yards project, Norman Oder examines the apparently bogus prediction, made in 2003, of 10,000 jobs created in 2 million square feet of office space for Atlantic Yards.
The 10,000-job figure couldn't have been correct from the start:
Industry standards would say that 2 million square feet could support something more like 7,100 jobs.
30% of the jobs would be new, the rest just moved from Manhattan to Brooklyn.
The market for office space was shrinking even as the project was being announced.
Don't take just anybody's word for it, check with Bruce Ratner from an interview on the Brian Lehrer Show in December 2003:
He told Lehrer, “It’s a very important project, we need housing in this city, we need office space, when the market comes back, for companies not to leave the city.” (Emphasis added)
The implication was that the market was already tanking. If so, why was the developer promising 10,000 jobs? Maybe because it’s a nice round number.
...
As for the timetable, Ratner told Lehrer, “And in about three to three-and-a-half years, I hope to have an arena up and the start of some residential development.” (Emphasis added)
No mention of office jobs.
The result: a project that is now primarily about condos, not jobs. And government agencies and local media were complicit in failing to take a hard look at Ratner's fanciful numbers. As Norman Oder puts it: "We got played."
Posted by steve at 8:07 AM
Daniel Doctoroff's Legacy
Gotham Gazette
By Tom Angotti
Mayor Bloomberg made the comparison between Deputy Dan Doctoroff and Robert Moses at last week's press conference announcing the Deputy Mayor's departure from city government. How do the two city planning czar's legacies compare?
Whatever Doctoroff’s accomplishments may be, the comparison to Moses is a stretch, and the talk of Doctoroff legacy premature by decades. Moses spent over half a century building public infrastructure while Doctoroff spent little more than a half-decade promoting mostly private commercial and residential development.
...
There is one major striking similarity between Moses and Doctoroff – they both claimed a monopoly on grand visions and overlooked the diverse ideas emerging from the city’s neighborhoods. Doctoroff reached out to civic leaders and neighborhood groups in a way that Moses never did. But rather than encouraging a two-way dialogue between City Hall and those who might oppose its decisions, Doctoroff's outreach usually resembled a public relations campaign to sell people on decisions that were already made. According to Greenpoint/Williamsburg community activist Phil DePaolo, when the city was pushing its waterfront zoning in that area, “Doctoroff met just with the groups that would get housing and not with others.”
NoLandGrab: Doctoroff might have gotten the strategy of meeting primarily with beneficiaries from Bruce Ratner, or maybe it's in a secret playbook somewhere.
Then there's the spectre of eminent domain and secondary displacement, which, like in the case of Robert Moses, could haunt Doctoroff's legacy for years to come:
By standing by without intervening, Doctoroff gave the city’s blessing to a number of major projects in which the Empire State Development Corporation, a state authority, promised to use its powers of eminent domain to bulldoze residential and industrial properties. Forest City Ratner’s Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn and the Columbia expansion in West Harlem are the most notable of these projects. In Willets Point, Queens, the city itself proposes to use eminent domain to displace 225 businesses and 1,800 jobs in favor of a hotel, convention center, and giant commercial and residential complex. Any claims that Doctoroff promoted development without displacement must ignore the secondary displacement that occurs when large-scale private development forces rents and property values so high that people cannot afford to stay in their neighborhoods.
Posted by lumi at 5:33 AM
Not Everyone is Sad to See Doctoroff Go
Runnin' Scared [The Village Voice blog]
By John DeSio
In the press conference announcing Doctoroff’s departure Bloomberg invoked the name of Robert Moses, the development bogeyman who has seen his reputation steadily decline over the years, to make a favorable comparison to his departing deputy. "Dan leaves an extraordinary record of accomplishment, and unlike Robert Moses, he worked with communities, not bulldozing over them," Bloomberg said.
But for the communities that faced off with Doctoroff during his tenure, this comment rings hollow.
“He was a bulldozer,” said Daniel Goldstein of Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn, the organization leading the fight to oppose the Doctoroff-backed Atlantic Yards proposal, which will create affordable and market-rate housing alongside a new basketball arena for the New Jersey Nets in Downtown Brooklyn, to be developed by Forest City Ratner. “Specifically, when it came to Atlantic Yards, Dan Doctoroff did not deal with the community at all, which means the administration didn’t either.”
Posted by lumi at 4:36 AM
December 7, 2007
Coney Island Intrigue
Kinetic Carnival blogger Omar Robau has been keeping an eye on State Senator Carl Kruger and his "politics of inclusion," which bears a striking resemblance to Bruce Ratner's neatly signed, sealed and delivered "community support."
As NoLandGrab readers will recall, Kruger, with B.U.I.L.D. President James Caldwell at his side, effectively scuttled a November 19th "Community Information Session" on the Mayor's Coney Island redevelopment plan.
Kinetic Carnival, All the Developer's Men
At last year's hearings on the Atlantic Yard project Kruger served the same function as BUILD, using his voice as a representative of Brooklyn community's to try to paint Ratner's project as a vehicle for helping Brooklyn residents. "We're not talking about the Nets Arena. We're not talking about Forest City Ratner," said Kruger, "We're talking about Brooklyn, we're talking about communities, we're talking about Brooklyn first." In reality, however, it was not the abstract ideas of 'Brooklyn' and 'community' that Kruger was advocating, but the actual construction of the neighborhood destroying Nets Arena by Forest City Ratner.
The Nov. 19th 'Community Information Session' on the redevelopment of Coney Island was in many ways identical to the hearing on the Atlantic Yards Development project. We have the same politician and the same sham 'community group' trying to portray the plans of millionaire developers as being in the best interest of the very neighborhoods which their development plans seek to destroy.
Robau's not so sure that Kruger really finds the City's version of Coney Island redevelopment so objectionable — rather, he suspects, Kruger is shilling for Thor Equities' Joe Sitt, as he explains in this follow-up post.
Kinetic Carnival, Kruger Paid For Coney Protest With Own Campaign Funds
It is unclear why Kruger remained quiet about this for so long. His silence only served to raise speculation that the protest may have been funded- directly or indirectly- by Thor Equities.
The Daily News got to the bottom of the funding question yesterday. Turns out it was Kruger himself who paid to bus in 400 "protesters," and outfit them in hats and other paraphernalia — all courtesy of his bountiful campaign warchest:
NY Daily News, State Sen. Carl Kruger paid for protest to target hearing on Coney project
"I paid for it all out of my campaign fund," said Kruger, whose move forced city officials to cancel the jam-packed meeting at Coney Island Hospital.
"I bought the hats, made the signs, printed the leaflets and paid for the buses. I financed the entire thing.
Kruger's largesse, however, may have violated campaign-finance laws. Oops!
It was unclear whether Kruger's expenditures violated state Board of Election laws, but a spokesman said the matter had not been investigated nor had a complaint been filed.
If a complaint were filed, "Sen. Kruger would need to explain how this expenditure is related to a political campaign or the holding of a public office," said state Board of Elections spokesman Bob Brehm.
Confused? So are we. But Bob Guskind at Gowanus Lounge may have it figured out.
The Gowanus Lounge, If Bruce Ratner Has Supported BUILD, Which Opposes the Mayor on Coney Island....
There is a strong sense that multiple threads trace back from this "opposition" to developer Joe Sitt and Thor Equities who may not quite be on board with the Bloomberg-Doctoroff vision of a Sitt-Free Coney Island amusement district. This school of thought believes that all Mr. Sitt needs to do is stall and hold up the process through the next Mayoral election and, then, plant the seeds for a mayor more in turn with the Thor Vision.
...Is a political debt being paid to the Southern Brooklyn politician that has anointed himself as the chief opponent of the Bloomberg plan? Does BUILD's lineage mean that a major Brooklyn developer, whose plan depends on deep public subsidies, is roiling the waters for City Hall in another part of the borough? It is all likely to become much, much more interesting.
Most interesting of all, perhaps, is the Senator's vociferous opposition to "back-door eminent domain," since he hasn't exhibited any qualms about Bruce Ratner's wrecking ball coming through the front door. And as Gowanus Lounge reports, Atlantic Yards critics aren't the only ones questioning Kruger's Libertarian conversion.
The Gowanus Lounge, Coney Island People Sending Emails to Sen. Kruger
For example, Coney Island USA's David Gratt:
But I am especially disappointed because while I was in the Bronx, fighting to keep the Yankees out of Macombs Dam Park (another potential example of “backdoor eminent domain”) your office was unfortunately silent. Why is this issue important to you now, when it was not before?
NoLandGrab: Why, indeed?
Posted by lumi at 5:09 PM
Doctoroff's resignation draws praise, but AY is conspicuously ignored
Atlantic Yards Report
So Deputy Mayor for Economic Development Dan Doctoroff, the city's point man for major projects like Atlantic Yards, will leave (see mayoral press release) to be president of Bloomberg LP, the company founded by Mayor Mike Bloomberg. The praise has been mighty--though a close look at Atlantic Yards might cloud some of his legacy.
Indeed, AY is conspicuously absent from the mayoral press release...
Posted by lumi at 4:34 AM
December 6, 2007
If You Win the Lottery, Where to Invest in Brooklyn
Brooklyn Daily Eagle
By Sarah Ryley
Timothy King, senior partner at Massey Knakal Realty Services, said if he won the $20 million lottery, he’d spend it all on property along Fourth and Atlantic avenues, and other would-be feeder streets to the Atlantic Yards arena and high-rise project. He said these are the strips that are going to really “pop” over the next few years because of that project, various rezonings that will bring higher density to the area, and high retail rents in adjacent strips.
NoLandGrab: Someone ought to tell Atlantic Yards suporter Bertha Lewis, Director of ACORN NY, that her anti-gentrification plan might not work.
Posted by lumi at 5:59 AM
December 2, 2007
In Brooklyn’s Badlands, the Coming of the Lattes
NY Times
SAKI KNAFO describes the gentrification of Fourth Avenue...
Finally, there is the prospect of the Atlantic Yards project stretching across a 22-acre site from Fourth Avenue east to Vanderbilt Avenue, a subject of much gloomy speculation.“We’re nervous,” said Ralph Andradez, 27, an unshaven barista at Mule. “We don’t want the street to become T.G.I. Friday’s.”
Posted by amy at 10:42 AM
December 1, 2007
The Brooklyn Brand to Expand
NY Press
Well, if you're also feeling the draw to Brooklyn, the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership is still accepting proposals for arts organizations who would like to relocate to the BAM Cultural District. That would be the hotspot in Fort Greene where the Mark Morris Dance Center and the BAM collective all roost, near the Brooklyn Academy of Music (approx. 150,000 sq ft of space for cultural use). This is not part of the controversial Atlantic Yards development, but of course it would be great to get in before all the rents rise and it'll be impossible to start a hip new performance art/gallery dance project for little people.
link
NoLandGrab: Maybe Amber Art and Music can apply...
Posted by amy at 9:43 AM
November 30, 2007
City's poor should be Job One
NY Daily News
Columnist Errol Louis
|
While the city's unemployment rate is under 5%, the rate for black New Yorkers is nearly 8%.
I can't think of a social problem in New York's black neighborhoods - drug abuse, shattered families, crummy housing, failing schools - that wouldn't improve by leaps and bounds with an increase in the number of parents holding solid, good-paying jobs with benefits and pensions.
That's why city leaders, from City Hall to the smallest neighborhood nonprofits, must seize on this unprecedented opportunity to open doors that will give low-skilled, lesser-educated New Yorkers a shot at some of the city's estimated 123,0000 to 175,000 construction jobs.
Here's where Atlantic Yards comes in:
There's rarely been a better time to attack the long, ugly history of nepotism and discrimination in the building trades.
At the same time that megaprojects are being launched around the city - from the new Yankee Stadium in the Bronx to Queens West, Atlantic Yards and the rebuilding of the World Trade Center area - the average construction worker is 40 years old, and 30,000 are expected to retire over the next 15 years.
The Mayor's Commission on Construction Opportunity, the Bloomberg administration's plan to help cure the construction jobs mismatch, is still in its early stages, boosting funding for training and apprentice programs and the newly created Queens-based High School for Construction Trades, Engineering and Architecture.
Posted by lumi at 5:07 AM
How to Deal with Urban Construction
Construction Next Door
The Cooperator
By Raanan Geberer
For large-scale construction projects like Atlantic Yards, the impacts of demolition and construction are supposed to be identified in the Environmental Impact Statement.
But what's supposed to happen and how are New Yorkers supposed to deal with hassle and noise from all the smaller projects that are popping up on the landscape?
Posted by lumi at 4:56 AM
November 27, 2007
Eagle Twofer: Real Estate Round-Up, November 26, 2007
Brooklyn Daily Eagle
By Sarah Ryley
link
City Council hopes to expand oversight on massive NYC building boom:
The City Council is proposing a new task force that would examine the impact that large, private development projects have on surrounding infrastructure, included those sponsored by the city and state, reported The New York Sun. Headed by Council Members Daniel Garodnick and Letitia James, a chief opponent of the Atlantic Yards arena and high rise project, the task force would examine impacts on traffic, schools and energy.
So the glass-walled arena and high-rises are only 20 ft. from Atlantic and Flatbush Avenues, what's the big deal?
The New York Times confirmed that the Atlantic Yards arena, renamed the Barclays Center, would be set back from Atlantic and Flatbush avenues only 20 feet in most places. The issue, brought up by opponents of the project as early as 2005 and the subject of a lawsuit, reemerged after Newark police decided two weeks before the grand opening of the Prudential Center arena to close adjacent streets during events because it was deemed too close at 25 feet.
Posted by lumi at 6:01 AM
November 26, 2007
New York’s Construction Boom Puts More Women in Hard Hats
The NY Times
By Annie Correal
In an article about the increasing presence of women on construction sites, Atlantic Yards is one of the poster-projects credited with projections of more to come:
The foothold that women have gained during the construction boom may expand in the coming years. Developers working on large projects at the World Trade Center site and the Atlantic Yards complex in Brooklyn are aiming to employ a work force that is at least 15 percent women.
Posted by lumi at 6:00 AM
Council's Role in Private Development To Expand
The NY Sun
By Benjamin Sarlin
NYC has been taking a build-it-now-fix-it-later approach to large-scale development projects, including Atlantic Yards, and their attendant impacts on the City's fragile infrastructure. The City Council is trying to get involved:
The City Council is seeking to expand its role in private development with a new task force to assess new projects' impacts on city infrastructure.
The infrastructure task force, headed by Council Members Daniel Garodnick and Letitia James, would report to the council on the projected effects, in areas such as traffic, telecommunications, and energy, of large-scale plans conducted by private developers, as well as the state and federal government. The task force could examine the redevelopment of ground zero, the Atlantic Yards project, the Second Avenue subway line, and the future development of the West Side rail yards. "There is no entity today that considers the impact on city infrastructure," Mr. Garodnick said in a phone interview. "We want to take a long view and see that our infrastructure keeps pace with our development plan."
Posted by lumi at 5:52 AM
November 15, 2007
In New Domino advertising, phantom poll claims support for... New Domino
Atlantic Yards Report
Mainstream media organizations help with polling if you're Ratner, but what if you're not a heavyweight developer?
It's doubtful that any other megadeveloper has outdone Forest City Ratner in the effort to sway public opinion on a controversial project. But the developers behind the proposed New Domino project in Williamsburg, CPC Resources (CPCR) and its silent partner, Isaac Katan, are pushing the envelope in one aspect of the hard sell.
They sponsored their own poll, then ran an advertisement (click to enlarge) based on the poll, offering the unsurprising conclusion that residents in the area around the proposed New Domino site would accept increased density for increased affordable housing.
Despite Norman Oder's repeated requests for the polling data, the developer has refused to release any details of the poll to Atlantic Yards Report.
Posted by lumi at 5:34 AM
Concerns Rise Over Brooklyn Boom
The NY Sun
By Michael Stoler
Everything's ducky in Downtown Brooklyn, according to Joe Chan:
The president of the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership, Joe Chan, said: "In the pipeline there are 56 projects which will develop a total of 14,300 residential units, including the Atlantic Yards project. Forty percent are slated to be condominiums, and the balance will be residential rentals. Today we are seeing some developers hedging their bets between condominiums and rentals. Of the 5,600 rental projects, approximately 3,200 will have an affordable component, the majority of which will be located in the Atlantic Yards."
The new apartments, Mr. Chan said, will "create a 24/7 environment and will help to diversify the retail environment and strengthen the local economy. In the long term, this will help the commercial market, and people's perception of downtown Brooklyn will change for the positive."
Others are less sanguine in the face of a credit crunch and an enormous amount of luxury market-rate housing in the pipeline.
NoLandGrab: Keep in mind that the energetic Chan was hired to sell this third iteration of the vision for Downtown Brooklyn, the first two being Ratner's MetroTech, which failed to deliver on economic promises, and Downtown Brooklyn Rezoning v.1, which has been tweaked since the demand for Class A office space in Downtown Brooklyn failed to materialize.
Posted by lumi at 5:24 AM
November 11, 2007
Anyplace, Brooklyn
NoLandGrab went a-walkin' this weekend to see what's happening in Downtown Brooklyn with the guidance of the Anyplace, Brooklyn audio walking tour. Even if you know downtown like the back of your hand, it's an interesting and meditative way to contemplate the make-up of the area and the changes around you. Compare and contrast the bustling Fulton Street with the desolate Ratner Metrotech. Experience navigating a giant construction zone. And sample the foods and goods of the local businesses while you still can.
TOURS IN NOVEMBER free and open to the public
Every Saturday in November noon - 2pm
1 hour tours start every 5 mins
WHERE TO GO Come to the public tables @ Willoughby and Adams Streets in downtown Brooklyn to pick up materials and begin the tour
WHAT TO BRING Bring a CD player or an mp3 player with the downloaded files
If you can't make it to the tour, you can check out Amy and Steve's flickr sets:
Posted by amy at 9:59 PM
November 10, 2007
The Blight and Plight of Condoburg
The Brooklyn Rail
B. Colby Hamilton interviews activist Phil DePaolo
At the corner of Withers Street and Union Avenue a massive empty lot has been left dormant since demolition began there nearly two years ago. Further into the heart of the neighborhood, at Union and Ainslie, a three-story skeleton is rusting away. What construction permit could be found indicated a start date of 4/14/04. Obscured by graffiti, the best I could make out as to when the project was supposed to be completed was also in 2004.There are more of these, all over the neighborhood, with the Finger Building standing among them as par exemplar. Lawsuits and city violations have left the status of that project in limbo. Phil is part of a group of community activists that are trying to get the entire project reduced in size or, better yet, shut down entirely. A hearing with the city’s Board of Standards and Appeals is set to determine the fate of the site on November 20th. The board, which primarily handles zoning variances and special building permits, has the power to force the building to halt at its current height or actually be reduced.
“We want the city to send a message to current and future developers,” Phil said, explaining the potential impact of the BSA’s decision. “When someone breaks the law, they should be punished. Considering the sort of development that will be going on in Coney Island and as part of the Atlantic Yards debacle, it’s important that the BSA does the right thing and makes development accountable to the community.”
Posted by amy at 11:44 AM
November 2, 2007
Is the New Domino AY the sequel? Not with ULURP, but...
Atlantic Yards Report
So, would the $1 billion, 11.2-acre New Domino project in Williamsburg really be an echo of Atlantic Yards? On the one hand, as I wrote, the fundamental issue is whether a developer can get a zoning change (ND) or zoning override (AY) to increase the value of development rights. And affordable housing is being used to justify the scale of the development and generate support from some neighborhood groups.
 |
On the other, the New Domino will go through the city's land use review process, which involves much more public scrutiny than the Empire State Development Corporation's fast-track process. Also, there would be deeper affordability, the preservation of a historic structure, and the open space plan, offering connections to the Williamsburg waterfront, likely wouldn't seem like the private enclave feared at the Atlantic Yards site.
Posted by lumi at 7:35 AM
November 1, 2007
DoBro promo vid
Fourteen high-rise towers and the 19,000-seat arena are missing from the rendering of Atlantic Yards in the new Downtown Brooklyn promotional video, narrated by actor Ian McKellan (sick, but it's true).
The NY Post has the exclusive on the promo vid and posted it along with an article by Rich Calder on the paper's web site.
The video opens with Atlantic Yards, which comprises nearly half of the "$9.5 billion in projects now in the works" in Downtown Brooklyn, only, the project is in PROSPECT HEIGHTS, NOT DOWNTOWN BROOKLYN (sigh, whatever).
Ironically, the video shows very little of Bruce Ratner's controversial Atlantic Yards project, probably in hopes of not freaking out the natives, who have been a little touchy during the past four years.
Here's a peek at what the video is missing.
Posted by lumi at 6:53 AM
October 31, 2007
AY, bringing you a better BoCoCa
The Brooklyn Daily Eagle brings us news that London's Daily Telegraph has declared that Manhattan is so passé and Brooklyn is, like, the new Manhattan. Key to generating that Manhattan-y feeling is Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards mega high-rise and arena project, which is fine if you want to live in "BoCoCa Rat-on."
“Manhattan is overhyped, overpriced and just plain over. BoCoCa is the new place to be — and to buy,” declares U.K. newspaper The Daily Telegraph in an article about Brooklyn’s increasing appeal to foreign buyers.
...
Boerum Hill, Cobble Hill and Carroll Gardens (also known as BoCoCa) are the neighborhoods most popular with European buyers, charmed by “the low-altitude architecture — you have a lot of sky here and by the sense of community,” said a Prudential Douglas Elliman vice president, Terry Naini. “You have the butcher’s shop down the street, for example, and it feels more familiar than going to a huge mall, which mostly these days is what Manhattan has turned into.”
...
Many people here would say Brooklyn’s now-coveted lifestyle is also being threatened by overdevelopment, unaffordable rents and mortgages, and the “chainification” that has already gobbled up so many Manhattan storefronts, culminating in a seemingly unfavorable transformation known as “Manhattanization.” Opponents of the Atlantic Yards basketball arena and 16 high-rise development point to that project as the ultimate symbol of this transformation.But the Telegraph said the project, and the planned Brooklyn Bridge Park, are bolstering BoCoCa’s housing market.
Posted by lumi at 8:30 AM
October 30, 2007
It came from the Blogosphere...
Pardon me for asking, A Must Read: Atlantic Yards And Bill De Blasio
The question we've been encountering on the street is, what do you think about de Blasio? Since the City Councilmember and candidate for Borough President has kept a pretty low profile during his two terms, people seem to want more info.
Norman Oder, author of the Atlantic Yards Report posted a very well written analysis of Bill De Blasio and his stand on Ratner's mega-project, affordable housing and over-development. A must read, especially since De Blasio just declared his candidacy for Borough President.
Daily Politics, Odds and Ends
The Lambda Independent Democrats voted unanimous in favor of a resolution opposing Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards project despite the fact that he is in talks to create a LGBT comunity center in Brooklyn.
NoLandGrab: "Despite?" We think Daily Politics meant "because" Ratner is trying to toss them a bone, unless they mean to imply that Brooklyn's LGBT community is ungrateful.
Daily Gotham, Lambda Independent Democrats: Just say "No" to Ratner and Noach Dear
At its meeting held October 22, 2007, Lambda Independent Democrats, Brooklyn's LGBT Political voice adopted a resolution opposing the Atlantic Yards Project of the Forest City Ratner Development Company.
The club also contined to express it's disappointment in the Brooklyn Democratic party's support for Noach Dear.
...
And for those who want to know about what Lambda has to say about Noach Dear, they were so incensed at the acceptance by Brooklyn's "Democratic" machine of this homophobic, unqualified hack as a judge that they issued a clear, public warning to all Democrats who endorsed him that Lambda will hold them accountable for their endorsement.
NoLandGrab: The one politician who holds the short end of the stick on both issues is Borough President Marty Markowitz, which does not bode well for his plan to run for Mayor.
Ohio Daily Blog, Congressman LaTourette Gets Blogger Fired From "Wide Open"
The Cleveland Plain Dealer bows to pressure from a Congressional Representative and fires one of the paper's team of political bloggers. This blogger had, "written extensively about LaTourette's 2006 re-election contest and... explicitly supported his challenger, law professor Lew Katz (D-Pepper Pike)." He "also wrote about... the suspicious connection between large amounts of campaign cash LaTourette received from the Ratner family of Cleveland, of the Forest City real estate empire, and their receiving an enormous contract to develop 44 acres of the Southeast Federal Center in Washington DC."
Save The Earth - All About Environment, Green Construction
Those who live and work near construction sites get the double whammy — noise and air pollution — and only their windows can save them:
Stein, who works on safety issues for his union, says his office at 90 Church Street is "surrounded by" pollution from construction. It is a problem that goes far beyond lower Manhattan.
From the proposed Atlantic Yards project in downtown Brooklyn to the water filtration plant in the northern Bronx, critics almost always complain not just about the project itself, but about the inconvenience, pollution, noise and dangerous accidents they will face during its construction.
Posted by lumi at 10:18 PM
October 28, 2007
City neighborhoods losing character to condos, chain stores
NY Daily News
MAGGIE WRIGLEY
Real estate is king in the new New York. Too many immigrants can't afford to come in. Too many longtime residents are driven out. We are losing our sky to a hideous skyline and our streets to a generic wash of prefab apartments, banks and storefronts.As Manhattan is squeezed, so suffer the outer boroughs. The Italians and Poles of Williamsburg and Greenpoint, Brooklyn, are dislocated by hipsters whose creative lives are emphatically commercial. Every possible place is built on, or up. The Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn promises the same on a massive scale.
article
NoLandGrab: Another case of future nostalgia - missing what we have before it's even gone. In the case of Atlantic Yards, which has not yet materialized, the process of loss can be stopped before it starts.
Posted by amy at 11:33 AM
October 27, 2007
Green roofs blocked by the historic and the new
The Wonkster
Several blocks away, elected officials just broke ground on an 80-unit residential development, but shadows from the planned buildings at the Atlantic Yards site would render the planned solar paneled roof unusable.Meanwhile, Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz praised Governor Eliot Spitzer for proposing new for global warming regulations and “for recognizing that with a little courage, being ‘green’ is much easier than people think.” But it can be harder with the conventions of the past and shadows from the new.
Posted by amy at 9:56 AM
October 26, 2007
Hipsters’ parents get rooms of their own
The Brooklyn Paper
By Mike McLaughlin
An article about the first hotel in N. Brooklyn in decades and the borough's hotel biz in general mentions Atlantic Yards:
“There was a wait-and-see attitude with Williamsburg, but now there’s a great need for a hotel, because of how hot it is,” said Robert Gaeta, general manager of Le Jolie and its more upscale sister hotel, the still-hasn’t-opened-yet Hotel Le Bleu on Fourth Avenue in Park Slope. ...
“I think if you look at the numbers, there is room for more,” said Gene Kaufman, the architect behind the Sheraton and A-loft hotels that are proposed for Duffield Street.Those numbers are based on the concerted effort to lure more business travelers and tourists away from Manhattan and into Brooklyn’s new meeting and event spaces.
“Atlantic Yards will lend itself to a need for more hotels,” said Gaeta.
Posted by lumi at 7:12 AM
October 24, 2007
Critic on Newark arena: "mostly what it is is marketing"
Atlantic Yards Report
During the past couple of weeks, comparisons have been made between the PruCenter arena in Newark, set to open this week, and the Barclays Center at Atlantic Yards, opening in 2009 if you believe in the tooth fairy.
Today Norman Oder examines a review of the new Newark arena, and explores the comparison between the two projects in an age in which architecture and marketing are about to merge.
In his review of the spiffy new Prudential Center in the 10/22/07 Newark Star-Ledger, headlined An arena for TV fans, Dan Bischoff suggests that it might be a very enjoyable place to see an event, but he doesn't lose sight of the bottom line:
He cites the 4,800-square-foot LED monitor in front of the arena's main window, and "733 plasma flat-screen TVs scattered about the place," helping patrons keep track of action and also order food and drink from touch screens. (Rendering from official site.)
Could the planned Atlantic Yards arena (aka Barclays Center) be any less about marketing, given the Nets' branding juggernaut and the plans for Times Square-like signage? We're not in (Brooklyn) Dodgerland any more.
"This is more of a residential district. This would not be Times Square," architect Frank Gehry told the Daily News in May. "The question was how do you create activity at game time and have it disappear."
Remember, he said last April:
It's obvious that buildings are becoming billboards, all around the world....[re AY] And it can be used for community issues, as well as advertising. It has a social function, if it's played right, it can be used for art...
Posted by lumi at 7:31 AM
Dirt Moves on Atlantic Affordable Green Project
GlobeSt.com
By Natalie Dolce
This article mentions that "Atlantic Terrace" is across the street from Bruce Ratner's controversial "Atlantic Yards" project, but does not mention that shadows from Ratner's highrise project scuttled plans to use solar roof panels.
Locally based Fifth Avenue Committee, the City Department of Housing Preservation & Development, Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz, council member Letitia James and housing advocates were all in attendance Monday for the groundbreaking of Atlantic Terrace. Atlantic Terrace will house 80 cooperative units, 50% of which will be sold to low- and moderate-income families and 25% of which will be sold to middle-income families.
...
According to Fifth Avenue Committee, Atlantic Terrace, which sits across the street from Atlantic Yards, will be Brooklyn’s largest affordable, green residential building.
Posted by lumi at 7:12 AM
October 23, 2007
SHADOWS ECLIPSE ECO APTS.
NY Post
By Rich Calder
A real affordable-housing project breaks ground, but without rooftop solar panels, thanks to potential impacts from Bruce Ratner's controversial Atlantic Yards high-rise megaproject:
Construction has begun on the biggest eco-friendly affordable-housing development in Brooklyn history - but it will have to be built without rooftop solar panels.
Atlantic Terrace, an 80-unit co-op aimed at middle- and low-income families, was supposed to have the energy-absorbing panels on its roof, but that plan had to be scrapped because of shadows expected to be cast over it by the controversial Atlantic Yards project.
"There is no question that the project across the street [Atlantic Yards] affected our project," said Michelle de la Uz, executive director of the nonprofit Fifth Avenue Committee, which is develop- ing the complex at South Oxford Street and Atlantic Avenue in Fort Greene.
"We would have loved to have had the solar roof, but it just didn't make any sense because of the shadows."
NoLandGrab: The Post locates the project "blocks" from the Atlantic Yards footprint, when in fact it is across the street.
She was joined yesterday by city and project officials during a groundbreaking for the green housing, called Atlantic Terrace, blocks from the 22-acre development site for Bruce Ratner's state-approved Atlantic Yards project, which calls for an arena and 16 towers designed by Frank Gehry.
...
A Ratner spokesman declined to comment.
Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn makes the point that this is only the latest environmental impact of Bruce Ratner's controversial Atlantic Yards project (and we're still in the pre-construction phase), and compares the mixture of affordable housing between the two projects.
MetroNY ran a short blurb about the groundbreaking, though there's no mention of Atlantic Yards impacts.
Posted by lumi at 8:40 AM
October 20, 2007
In The Shadow of Atlantic Yards
The Real Estate
Matthew Schuerman
Affordable, environmentally friendly apartments are about to go up on a former brownfield site near the intersection of Atlantic and Flatbush avenues.You think you know what we are talking about?
No, not Atlantic Yards, but rather the more modest Atlantic Terrace (above), developed by the nonprofit Fifth Avenue Committee in conjunction with MAP Development and Line Development. Back in November 2003, when the team first won the right to develop the site at Atlantic and South Portland Avenue, the 10-story, 80-unit cooperative was supposed to include solar panels to provide some of the energy for the residents. One month later, Forest City Ratner unveiled its plans for 30- to 50-story towers across the street to the south.
“The shadows that will be created by the buildings associated with Atlantic Yards made the use of photovoltaic panels (solar panels) inefficient,” Fifth Avenue Executive Director Michelle de la Uz said in an e-mail. But the architects were able to compensate in other ways, and the project will earn a gold rating from the U.S. Green Buildings Council. It will be, Ms. De la Uz said, “the largest affordable, LEED-certified green building in Brooklyn.”
Three-quarters of the apartments will be priced to be affordable for low- and middle-income families (compared to about 35 percent for Atlantic Yards). The project breaks ground Monday.
article
NoLandGrab: Can anyone say Solar Zoning? Apparently not since 1987...
Posted by amy at 11:23 AM
Unlike residential building, commercial construction boom expected to continue
Financial Week
Frank Byrt
A notable example of the booming commercial construction sector is New York City. The New York Building Congress, an industry group, said in its annual report on the city’s new construction outlook this week that developers will spend $83 billion on new projects over the next three years. Spending on new construction, which was a record $24.6 billion in 2006, will total $26.2 billion this year, $27.5 billion next year and $29 billion in 2009, according to the group.
...
Among the long-term construction projects seen contributing to the city’s growth are the redevelopment of the World Trade Center site, the Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn and new stadiums for the New York Yankees and the New York Mets baseball teams.
Posted by amy at 11:16 AM
October 19, 2007
The Great Green Way in DUMBO
The Brooklyn Paper
By Adam F. Hutton
Another building in Brooklyn is "going green," adding to the list of new project applications for LEED certification (emphasis added):
Galapagos Art Space — that hipster haven that has been Williamsburg’s home for outsider performance art since 2003 — is moving to DUMBO next year, and when it does, it’s going green.
...
More than 50 Brooklyn projects — including 15 buildings in the Atlantic Yards project — have registered for the Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design certification, including a planned 358-unit, market-rate apartment building at 184 Kent Ave. in Williamsburg and the NYPD impound lot at the Navy Yard.
NoLandGrab: Not to be a wet blanket here, but just because Atlantic Yards developer Bruce Ratner has applied for certification, it doesn't mean the buildings will complete the certification process.
According to NY Observer reporter Matthew Schuerman, in 2005, "The New York Times and its co-developer, Forest City Ratner Companies... decided that it is not worth the cost or the fuss to get certified—and that they can do just as well without them, according to the co-architect on the project, Bruce Fowle."
Posted by lumi at 8:09 AM
October 13, 2007
Residential Zoning Would Quadruple Prices, Creating Uncertainly Among Tenants
Brooklyn Daily Eagle
Sarah Ryley continues on the theme of artistic brain drain due to real estate prices in Brooklyn...
Bordered by the gentrified neighborhoods of Carroll Gardens, Boerum Hill and Park Slope, Gowanus has already proven to be a gold mine for a few lucky landowners, who recently sold to big-time developers like the Hudson Companies, Forest City Ratner, Toll Brothers, and the Lev Levine/Shaya Boymelgreen partnership.The rest are waiting until the Department of City Planning officially releases its rezoning proposal, expected to allow housing on many of the industrial blocks for the first time and more than quadruple the property values. Meanwhile, the uncertainty has created uneasy times for the manufacturing tenants and estimated 500 artists who rent space there, unable to sign long-term leases and unsure of where they would go next if forced out.
Posted by amy at 7:46 AM
October 12, 2007
2 Bdr Apts in Newly Renovated Townhouse
CityCribs.com
2 bedrooms, 1 bathroom, $1,300 / mth
Lovely 2 bedroom in newly renovated townhouse in historic Brooklyn neighborhood. Two units avaiable. Both feature high ceilings, open kitchens, new appliances, ceiling fans and sizeable bedrooms. Pre-war construction features seated windows, hardwood floors and decorative lighting. Top floor unit has a skylight. Each unit controls its own heat with individual thermostats. Available Now!
Be a part of the Brooklyn Renaissance! Live near Atlantic Yards, Brooklyn Nets and More! Minutes away from downtown Manhattan.
Serious applicants please call 718-501-9204 to schedule a viewing today.
NoLandGrab: By "More!" do they mean traffic, pollution, noise, construction debris and high-rises? Seriously, if Atlantic Yards is what really floats your boat, there are probably listings closer to the footprint.
Posted by lumi at 8:07 AM
October 9, 2007
City's Boom May Falter Over Costs
The NY Sun
By Julie Satow
New York City's building boom may be brought to a halt by something more mundane than monetary policy or global financial disruptions — it could be as simple as copper, diesel, and steel.
By the end of next year, the Producer Price Index for construction inputs — the price of materials that are used in a construction project plus the cost of diesel fuel — will rise by as much as 8% and continue to do so indefinitely, according to a report released yesterday by the Associated General Contractors of America. This is a drastic change from the previous 12 months, which saw construction inputs inch up just 1.6% for the year ending in August.
...
Higher prices for building materials, compounded by a weak dollar and problems in the credit market, could put in jeopardy some of the billions of dollars worth of development projects now under way in the city. Among these projects are the $3 billion expansion of the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, the $14 billion redevelopment of Pennsylvania Station and Madison Square Garden, and the $2 billion expansion of the no. 7 subway line.
NoLandGrab: Add Bruce Ratner's controversial $4-billion Atlantic Yards project.
Posted by lumi at 10:31 AM
October 7, 2007
Brooklyn Broadside: Downtown Projects, Taken Together,Would Equal a 474-Story Building
Brooklyn Daily Eagle
Dennis Holt
For the first time, Brooklyn is offering lots of views, most of which are simply stunning.In fact, if you add up the heights of the known development projects, excluding all of Atlantic Yards, we are building the equivalent, with 22 projects, of a 474-story building. Take that, Freedom Tower! And this staggering number of new residential floors does not include 14 other projects still in the planning stage, nor what may be built as part of Brooklyn Bridge Park. Nor, of course, does it include all the sky-reachers in Greenpoint and Williamsburg. This is strictly Downtown stuff.
article
NoLandGrab: Today, dear Reader, we thought we'd share with you the before and after photos of one of the new views in Brooklyn. Stunning, yes, but only in its resemblance to a prison cell. This new view resulted from a high rise luxury condo being built outside this NoLandGrabber's window...
Posted by amy at 9:43 AM
October 6, 2007
Borough of Writers: Q & A: Colson Whitehead
Brooklyn Daily Eagle
Brad Lockwood interviews author Colson Whitehead, who describes the beginnings of Brooklyn's creative brain drain:
To paraphrase one of your pieces, ‘Where is that crack house I should have bought?’
Right now it’s next to Atlantic Yards. So I guess Ratner should have bought it for a lot of money [laughs]. In ’93, at that point, there was a sort of mystique about black Fort Greene, bohemian center of writers and artists, Spike Lee, you know? And it was cheaper than Manhattan, so I went and I stayed. That’s where I came of age as a writer.How do you think development will impact Brooklyn’s literary scene?
I think people are writing and living in Brooklyn because it’s cheaper than Manhattan. But Park Slope’s now a very expensive place to live. Williamsburg is expensive. So, if I were starting out, where would I move? Sunset Park? Queens? The Bronx? Because the city is so expensive, it will determine where the next generation sets up shop.
Posted by amy at 10:53 AM
October 5, 2007
$weetest deal for Domino lobbyists
The Brooklyn Paper
The Domino developer laid on the lobbying pretty thick, but Bruce is still #1.
A development firm hoping to build nine luxury condo towers on the Williamsburg waterfront has paid lobbyists more than a half-million dollars to convince city officials to approve its plan.
Over the past two years, Community Preservation Corporation paid the firm Herrick Feinstein at least $537,000 to prod the city to OK the zoning change necessary to build the $1.2-billion, 2,400-unit project on an 11-acre Domino Sugar site currently set aside for manufacturing.
...
Those lobbying figures pale by comparison to Forest City Ratner, which spent more than $2 million to lobby state and local officials to support the Atlantic Yards project in 2006, state records show.
Posted by lumi at 8:45 AM
Changes Afoot at Grand Army Plaza
NY Sun
By Francis Morrone
Brooklyn's pre-eminent artchitectural historian takes stock of big changes happening at Grand Army Plaza. In his assessment of the Richard Meier building, branded "On Prospect Park," he imagines a more suitable setting and takes a swipe at Atlantic Yards:
Mr. Meier's building might be perfect elsewhere. Vanderbilt Avenue in Prospect Heights begins with a bang at Grand Army Plaza, then, several blocks on, at Atlantic Avenue, hits the Vanderbilt Yards, where Forest City Ratner intends to build its Atlantic Yards megaproject. At Vanderbilt and Atlantic, the rather breathtaking prospect of open yards ringed by big and sometimes beautiful reinforced-concrete industrial buildings suggests, as much as does the arch in Grand Army Plaza, that a certain kind of development take place. It strikes me that Mr. Meier's building, which partakes of an aesthetic in part informed by the structural frankness of early 20th-century "daylight factories," would fit splendidly into this context — were gorgeous (and enormous) buildings such as the Ward Bakery (1913) allowed to remain. (Ward is being dismantled right now.) Instead, Forest City Ratner insists on a freak-show ensemble of towers by Frank Gehry.
[Image http://www.onprospectpark.com/]
Posted by lumi at 6:43 AM
September 27, 2007
City Living: Prospect Heights, Brooklyn
amNY
By Patrick Verel
There's a big story today in amNY about Prospect Heights, the neighborhood that's being forced to host Bruce Ratner's controversial Atlantic Yards developement plan.
If Prospect Heights was ever in the shadow of Park Slope, its ritzy neighbor across Flatbush Avenue, those days are long past.
...
"It's the gold coast of Brooklyn, in a sense, with these institutions grouped together," [Ellen F. Salpeter, director of Heart of Brooklyn] said. "It has a diverse housing stock and an extraordinarily diverse group of residents, too. It weaves together a wonderful community."
But...
The looming Atlantic Yards project in the neighborhood's northeast [actually it's "northwest"] corner has the potential to upend sections of the neighborhood for years to come.
...
While taking a wait-and-see attitude on Atlantic Yards, Salpeter said she was confident that retail will follow the residential boom that has brought condos to once empty lots.The Buzz
There is no bigger issue facing Prospect Heights than Atlantic Yards, the Frank Gehry-designed development that is being spearheaded by Forest City Ratner.
One local cites Atlantic Yards for spurring development, though feelings are mixed:
Many new developments have sprouted up alongside car-repair shops on Washington Avenue, but he said the jury is out on the sale numbers there.
"A lot of that land was very cheap, and the people saw the dollar signs," he said. "They saw the Atlantic Yard project was coming, and they figured 'This is my time.' We're watching to see how it does; it's not quite the garden spot that everyone wants it to be."
NoLandGrab: From our vantage point, what's interesting about the article is that all the great stuff about Prospect Heights has NOTHING to do with Atlantic Yards — it could even be argued that the neighborhood is the antithesis of Bruce Ratner's megaproject. Also, many of the owners of the unique neighborhood amenities listed in the article are publicly opposed to the project.
Posted by lumi at 7:00 AM
September 24, 2007
Unity vs. Godzilla/Unidad vs. Godzilla
El Diario
The UNITY plan proposed for Atlantic Yards significantly raises the bar for the development of affordable housing. If New York City and state leaders are truly committed to this priority, they will champion the UNITY alternative to Forest City Ratner’s Godzilla-sized, ill-conceived, monster of a project.
UNITY—Understanding, Imagining and Transforming the Atlantic Yards—emerges from a collaborative planning effort facilitated by the Council of Brooklyn Neighborhoods. The plan calls for a legally-enforceable community benefits agreement with broad community participation.
El plan UNITY propuesto para Atlantic Yards eleva significativamente la barra para el desarrollo de vivienda asequible. Si la ciudad de Nueva York y líderes estatales están verdaderamente comprometidos con esta prioridad, capitanearán la alternativa UNITY para Forest City Ratner, tamaño Godzilla.
UNITY— siglas en inglés por Understanding, Imagining and Transforming the Atlantic Yards— (Entendiendo, Imaginando y Transformando Atlantic Yards) reemerge de un esfuerzo de planeamiento en cooperación facilitado por Council of Brooklyn Neighborhoods. El plan pide beneficios comunitarios que se hagan cumplir legalmente con amplia participación de la comunidad.
Posted by lumi at 8:21 AM
September 23, 2007
Frank Gehry to Have Prospect Heights Historic Dist. Neighbor?
Curbed
How Prospect Heights will look against the background of a future Atlantic Yards is anyone's guess, but there may be some comfort in knowing that the neighborhood will probably be a Historic District. Plans to create a Prospect Heights Historic District are apparently advancing and are said to be "at the top of the list" of ones being considered by the Landmarks Preservation Commission. The concern of residents behind the designation is that Atlantic Yards will create more development pressure in the brownstone neighborhood. Most of the land in the Atlantic Yards footprint isn't in the tentative boundaries of the district and there's no actual time line for creating it.
Posted by amy at 9:30 AM
September 22, 2007
Social Unrest on G Platform
Daily Intelligencer
Harlem: Columbia has bought a site to build new homes for people its expansion will displace, but the folks in question weren't consulted beforehand. [Columbia Spectator]
Prospect Heights: The hood may get landmark status, which some locals hope will protect against the ripple effects of the massive ongoing Atlantic Yards development. [Atlantic Yards Report]
Posted by amy at 9:58 AM
Sad irony on Duffield
The Brooklyn Paper
Forgive us if we didn’t celebrate alongside city officials at the ceremonial co-naming of Duffield Street as “Abolitionist Place” on Thursday. We couldn’t get past the irony.After all, Duffield Street is the same stretch of Downtown where the city plans to demolish a row of historic houses that may in fact be the area’s only link to the fabled Underground Railroad.
It is also the place where the city hired an outside consultant to whitewash the area’s history, and then accepted the report even though eight of the 12 peer-reviewers disagreed with parts of it!
...
But with empty symbolic gestures, real history gets forgotten. And when that happens, not only don’t we learn from past mistakes, but we start to believe that history doesn’t matter. Next thing you know, people don’t even blink when a developer, for example, insults his African-American neighbors by signing a multi-million deal to name a basketball arena after a bank that made fortunes on the slave trade, as Bruce Ratner did last year with Barclays.
Posted by amy at 7:53 AM
September 20, 2007
Promising prospects for Prospect Heights historic designation
Atlantic Yards Report
While Atlantic Yards devloper Bruce Ratner keeps his plan alive, the rest of Prospect Heights seems headed towards designation as a historic district:
The Prospect Heights Neighborhood Development Council (PHNDC), with the assistance of the Municipal Art Society, has been pushing for historic designation for the neighborhood, and the process looks promising, if hardly assured.
Mary Beth Betts, director of research for the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) said last night at a PHNDC meeting at P.S. 9 that, while, no timeline can yet be provided, "it's at the top of the list of [potential historic] districts that we're looking at."
...
As shown last night, LPC's Prospect Height survey map--not necessarily the boundaries of any historic district--was even larger than that considered by the MAS (below); it included most of the blocks bounded by Flatbush Avenue to the west, Dean Street to the north, and Washington Avenue to the east.Conspicuously absent was most of the Atlantic Yards footprint, including the Spalding building at the corner of Sixth Avenue and Pacific Street, a handsome condo conversion of a manufacturing building. Betts said that, because the footprint had been under environmental review, "we determined we were not going to include the Atlantic Yards area." (Actually, from the map shown to the group last night, it looked like part of Dean Street in the AY footprint was included.)
Posted by lumi at 3:21 PM
September 18, 2007
Comptroller wants to sink water park
metroNY
By Patrick Arden
NYC Comptroller William Thompson, an Atlantic Yards supporter, has emerged as a critic of the Randall's Island Water Park. At issue: failure to secure financing before the deadline, awarding "a sole-source contract for a large private development on public land," increasing costs, and a closed-door process. Go figure.
“The developer is in default,” wrote Comptroller William Thompson in a letter to Mayor Michael Bloomberg yesterday, eight months after the deadline had passed. “The process should be redone in a fair, open and competitive manner.”
Thompson had already called for the project to be reopened to bids. A “seriously flawed process,” he said, had led to a sole-source contract for a large private development on public land. The water park had also doubled in size and quadrupled in cost since the 35-year concession was announced by the Giuliani administration in 2000.
...
“The comptroller maintains that Parks’ actions are unconscionable and fly in the face of fair and open government,” [Thompson spokesman Jeff Simmons] said.
Posted by lumi at 8:25 AM
September 13, 2007
At One Hanson Place in Brooklyn, 360-Degree Top Floor Views Now Available
Brooklyn Daily Eagle
By Sarah Ryley
According to the developers of the landmark Clock Tower building, just a Ratner mall away from Bruce Ratner's controversial Atlantic Yards plan, the Ratner megaproject is having no effect on sales and will be a boon to the building, which now has units with a 360-view for sale:
Some have speculated that the impending construction of the Atlantic Yards arena and high-rise project across the street would hurt sales at One Hanson Place. Depending on the estimate, construction is expected to last 10 to 20 years. And once completed, the project’s flagship building, Miss Brooklyn, which is on the opposite corner from One Hanson Place, would be nearly as tall.
But Perry said only two of the units that would primarily face Atlantic Yards haven’t sold yet — she explained that most of the units are so high that their views would be relatively unaffected.
“I think [Atlantic Yards] will have a positive impact — more amenities, more life. There are a lot of things that are happening in the area that are positive,” she said, listing off new developments from Atlantic Yards to the BAM Cultural District, and the vibrancy of existing neighborhoods like Fort Greene. While the initial construction happening in the area may be a nuisance, Perry said buyers see that “there’s a greater positive on the other side.”
Posted by lumi at 8:39 AM
September 12, 2007
Making Decision to Buy--AY issue (sorry)!
Brownstoner Forum
One soon-to-be brownstoner is wringing his or her hands over the Atlantic Yards effect:
Ok--I've read and re-read most of the Atlantic Yards debates on this board. I am not a Brooklynite and hence do not know the borough that well. My family and I are in the decision stage and are considering making an offer on one of 2 places: the first in Ft. Greene, close to St. Felix & Lafayette. The other is in Prospect Heights, near St. Marks & Carlton Ave. The houses and prices are similar, so I'm now just worried about location. I can't stress enough how much of a financial strain this purchase will be for us. We've been saving for years for the down payment. We also plan on staying a very long time, so this is not a flip.
I was wondering if anyone could offer some genuine and uninterested advice on which of the 2 locations might be better, and if they'd be affected by the Atlantic Yards project in the long-run. I am terrified of this impending purchase and would sincerely welcome your thoughts.
Posted by lumi at 7:18 AM
September 5, 2007
Despite Credit Crunch, Construction Spending Grew in July
The NY Sun
Spending on construction of nonresidential buildings grew in July despite the credit woes that have dragged down construction of homes for the 17th straight month, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau released yesterday.
...
From June to July, nonresidential spending increased 0.6%, to $346 billion. But while nonresidential construction spending showed no drop, residential spending plummeted 1.5%, to $534 billion, over the same period. Compared with July 2006, residential building construction spending has decreased 16.1%.New York City's nonresidential construction spending is likely stronger than the national average because of large infrastructure projects like the two baseball stadiums going up in Queens and the Bronx, as well as mixed-use developments like Atlantic Yards in Brooklyn, Mr. Simonson said.
Posted by lumi at 8:35 AM
NYC: JUST ANOTHER BANANA REPUBLIC
The city is different than it used to be, and you're probably not benefiting from the changes, says a well-known labor writer in his new book
City Limits
By Eileen Markey
From Welfare State to Real Estate: Regime Change in New York City, 1974 to the Present, by Kim Moody, The New Press, $26.95.
It’s a rare occurrence these days that something called a “welfare state” is remembered fondly, but Kim Moody does just that in this analysis of a generation of fiscal and economic policy in New York City. In this thoroughly researched and enlightening book, Moody argues New York was the target of a "structural adjustment program" established when business elites grabbed the reins of governance during the fiscal crisis of the 1970s.
In "Welfare State," Moody, a labor economist and activist who taught labor studies at Cornell University and is now a research fellow at the Centre for Research in Employment Studies at University of Hertfordshire, finds a telling connection between the global financial capital and developing countries.
...
Ever since the Financial Control Board in 1975 imposed “fiscal discipline” on a city that had been operating like a western European social democracy, New York has been run for the benefit of big business, Moody contends. This movement is most dramatically exemplified by the scourge of “developmentalism,” in which city government functions are sublimated to the priorities of mammoth development projects, á la the once and future World Trade Center, Atlantic Yards and the far West Side. The city pays wealthy corporations to stay in the city, builds them new campuses, and in the process makes the city harder for the rest of us to live in. In Moody’s analysis, what he calls the "crisis regime" of the 1970s – followed by permanent quasi-public fixtures like the Partnership for New York City, Empire State Development Corporation and others – redistributed economic resources to Wall Street and away from social-democratic services like the higher-ed-for-all CUNY.
NoLandGrab: This is telling; keep in mind that Bruce Ratner and many of his top executives, including the recently deposed Jim Stuckey, got their starts, and were shaped by their experiences, in City government during this era.
Other reviews of "From Welfare State to Real Estate:"
Brooklyn Rail
In These Times
Socialist Worker Online
Posted by lumi at 7:37 AM
September 4, 2007
The Coney contrast: the city sticks to its guns, challenges developer
Atlantic Yards Report
It's a tale of two cities — the Bloomberg administration bends over (backwards) for one developer while keeping another in a headlock:
On Sunday, I caught the annual “State of Coney Island” address, delivered by Dick Zigun, the unofficial mayor—“I’m not a real mayor; the truth is, I’m an arts guy”—of the amusement zone, the founder of Coney Island USA, the organization that sponsors the Mermaid Parade and the Sideshow and the Coney Island Museum, maintaining and advancing the district's raffish spirit.
Zigun’s speech at the museum, preceded by a rendition of Amos Wengler’s song “Save Coney Island,” came as the future of the amusement district is very much up in the air, as developer Joe Sitt of Thor Equities has purchased about three-quarters of the central area, and has proposed putting lucrative residential units (originally condos, now apparently time-shares) near the beach as part of a ten-acre amusement and entertainment project.
The city has said no; next season could leave much of the amusement district razed and boarded up; meanwhile, a land swap, in which Sitt instead got city land west of KeySpan Park, is under discussion.
For Atlantic Yards watchers, it was stunning to notice:
- city government hailed
- a city plan adhered to (so far) rather than bent for a developer
- a developer denounced as duplicitous by a person of authority.
Posted by lumi at 11:39 AM
Fumble in the Bronx
MetroNY
By Patrick Arden
Here's a cautionary tale about how promises to the community can fade after the deal is sealed and construction commences:
Bronx politicians liked to tout the community partnership agreement they hatched with the New York Yankees 17 months ago, especially when they had to respond to criticism over the team’s taking of public parkland for a new stadium.
Central to that deal was the promise of an annual $800,000 for Bronx nonprofits over the next 40 years. Critics labeled this a “slush fund,” because the money would be doled out by a new not-for-profit staffed by representatives of Bronx elected officials, and it didn’t have to be spent in the affected community. The funds were to start flowing, the agreement said, “upon the commencement of the construction.”
So imagine the surprise of Geoffrey Croft last week, when he discovered — one full year after the stadium’s groundbreaking — no such not-for-profit has been registered with the state yet, and no funds have been disbursed.
“The parks were taken in eight days without one public hearing,” complained Croft, president of NYC Park Advocates. “The Yankees wasted no time in seizing the public’s land, but they’re in no hurry when it’s time to pay up.
NoLandGrab: As in the case of the Atlantic Yards "Community Benefits Agreement," the politicians who cite the Bronx "community partnership" like to remind folks that it is "legally blinding binding."
Posted by lumi at 6:55 AM
August 30, 2007
Attacking Overdevelopment on Several Fronts
Brooklyn Downtown Star
By Shane Miller
City Councilman Bill de Blasio and Congressional Representative Yvette Clarke speak out against overdevelopment (really).
Downzoning? Landmarking? Moratorium on all new construction? Yes, yes, and yes, say residents of Carroll Gardens.
Such was the general consensus at a town hall meeting hosted by Councilman Bill de Blasio, which saw upwards of 100 people pack into Scotto Funeral Home on 1st Place last Thursday evening.
Though the two supporters of Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards, the historically dense ode to overdevelopment, don't see a connection between overdevelopment in Carrol Gardens and the Gowanus Canal area and overdevelopment just a few blocks over in Prospect Heights, the people who live here do:
Marlene Donnelly of Friends and Residents of Greater Gowanus (FROGG), for instance, would rather see the area along the canal restored to a natural wetland state. Donnelly worries that more development, along with the proposed Atlantic Yards project, will only tax the canal further, and that the areas around the Gowanus Canal are being rezoned to facilitate a downzoning of the greater Carroll Gardens area.
Posted by lumi at 6:59 AM
August 28, 2007
"Owner Use," gentrification and Atlantic Yards
One block from Bruce Ratner's controversial Atlantic Yards project, the "owner use" clause has pitted rent-stabilized tenants against their new landlords. The Fifth Avenue Committee, South Brooklyn Legal Services and local politicians pitched in to help the tenants stay put at a rally this past Sunday.
One question on people's minds is whether or not the Atlantic Yards plan warps the neighborhood's real estate market — or was it already a fait accompli?
Village Voice Blog, Block Party Against Brooklyn Owner-Evictions
The answer for four families who live in rent-stabilized apartment at 533 Bergen Street would appear to be no as they are fighting eviction proceedings brought by the new owners of their building. The new owners of the four-story building—who purchased it for $866,000 in March of 2006—are seeking to evict the tenants under the owner-use clause of the state rent stabilization law, which says building owners can remove rent-stabilized tenants when they want a unit for themselves or a family member.
Atlantic Yards Report, The “owner-use” eviction controversy comes to Prospect Heights
As property values skyrocket in New York, the cheapest—though perhaps not the least risky—route to a substantial living space may be the use (or exploitation) of the “owner-use” clause in state rent regulations, which allows landlords of rent-stabilized buildings to take “one or more apartments” for personal use.
And that’s the issue on Bergen Street in Prospect Heights, where dozens of neighbors, along with some elected officials, on Sunday protested plans by the new owners of 533 Bergen to use five of eight apartments for their family, thus evicting rent-stabilized tenants from four railroad apartments, each averaging not much more than 800 square feet.
Posted by lumi at 8:58 AM
August 27, 2007
Cracks are starting to appear in office rents
Crain's NY Business
By Theresa Agovino
The credit crunch that is roiling the stock market, paralyzing merger and acquisition deals, and stalling building sales is also slowly chilling Manhattan's hot commercial rental market. The financial services sector--the key driver of lower vacancy rates and higher rents in recent years--accounts for about one third of the space leased in Manhattan. There's now concern that firms will slash staff and relinquish space.
...
Most vulnerable to a downturn: those buyers who have paid staggering sums for office towers and need continuing substantial rent increases to be able to refinance or meet their debt obligations.
NoLandGrab: Since we first began tracking Bruce Ratner's controversial Atlantic Yards plan, we've kept an eye on the market for Class A office space in NYC, which was depressed when the project was first announced, but then rebounded during the past couple of years — except in Brooklyn, where Ratner has been trying to remarket his MetroTech complex to the trend-setting creative-services industries.
Any shake-up in the market in Manhattan could keep prices depressed in Brooklyn, but, more importantly, a sustained credit crunch would affect Ratner's ability to secure financing and affect his bottom line for the reasons stated above in the Crain's article.
Posted by lumi at 7:26 PM
It came from the Blogosphere...
Curbed.com, Markowitz to Two Trees: Love Ya, But...
The Brooklyn Paper reports that Markowitz has come out against Two Trees' plan to build a six story annex on a neighboring parking lot, because the proposal is 10 feet too high for the existing zoning within the Cobble Hill Historic District. Said Markowitz (who has granted other exceptions on the site): "Should this intrusion be granted, it would set a precedent for other sites throughout the entire district to seek such an exception.” Of course, Markowitz's flip-flopping on such issues gives the Brooklyn Paper the perfect excuse to trot out a highly entertaining Marty Markowitz/Atlantic Yards op-ed that's sort of a greatest hits of complaints about the project. From off in the distance, a single "Oy vey!" is heard.
Stay Free Daily, History Is Coming Soon!
OK, this post has nothing to do with Atlantic Yards, but in real estate, truth is stranger than fiction.
Brownstoner, Tenants Fight Eviction on Bergen Street
B'stoner reports:
A Prospect Heights block party yesterday had homemade food, loud music and a louder message: “Good neighbors do not evict neighbors.” The Fifth Avenue Committee-organized event was aimed at drawing attention to the plight of four rent-stabilized tenants facing eviction from 533 Bergen Street, and it highlighted bubbling tensions over affordable housing, gentrification and Atlantic Yards.
onboardBlast, New York City Construction Boom
Given that there is currently a construction boom of large scale public and privately funded projects in the NYC metro area – stadium plans for the Yankees and Mets, the Atlantic Yards and Ground Zero – what will become of the Real Estate market in New York City with the recent national mortgage and lending scare?
From the national perspective, New York is in a bubble compared to the rest of the country’s Real Estate decline. However, if the current construction boom with funding focused from several public and private lenders is unable to complete even large scale projects in an effective and efficient time schedule – what additional effect will this have on the homeowners market?
All of the major public projects mentioned underway are finding that their original construction budget estimates have dramatically fallen short of the actual costs to build in New York today.
Posted by lumi at 6:47 PM
August 25, 2007
Rally and Block Party In Brooklyn Against Evictions
NYC Indymedia
Owner-use evictions, which are on the rise in Brooklyn, especially in the shadow of proposed development at Atlantic Yards less than a half-mile from 533 Bergen, are based on a provision of New York State rent laws which allows landlords to evict rent-regulated tenants to reclaim units for themselves or their family members—without any limit as to how many units are cleared. So-called “owner-use abuse” is also often exploited in order to de-stabilize rents and convert units to market rates. “Over the past year or so, our office has seen a sharp increase in ‘owner use’ eviction cases” says Brent Meltzer, an attorney with South Brooklyn Legal Services who is representing one of the threatened households. “These landlords are not content with taking just one apartment and often seek to displace an entire building full of rent stabilized tenants”.
Posted by amy at 12:24 PM
August 22, 2007
CBAs head to head: Columbia vs. Atlantic Yards
Atlantic Yards Report
Another AYR must-read: Norman Oder compares the Community Benefit Agreement negotiating process for Atlantic Yards with Columbia University's expansion plan:
And it’s flawed in comparison to the CBA planned for Columbia. The new West Harlem Local Development Corporation includes members of Community Board 9 and project opponents, who were conspicuously absent from the Atlantic Yards CBA. The LDC has been criticized for not allowing public comment at meetings and that seems to be a significant flaw. Even so, it is far more transparent than the behind-closed-doors Atlantic Yards CBA. Jordi Reyes-Montblanc, chair of CB9, famously said last year that “We are avoiding the Brooklyn model,” seeking a wider coalition.
The West Harlem LDC is funded not by the developer but by a quasi-public entity. As City Limits reported:
The New York City Economic Development Corporation provided $350,000 and a professional mediator, John Bickerman, to facilitate negotiations.
Posted by lumi at 9:16 AM
Deutsche Bank fire: Your public authorities at work
Duffield St. Underground examines the role and failings of those quasi-governmental corporations called "public authorities:"
Public authorities, which include the ESDC and the New York City Economic Development Corporation (EDC), were created to cut through the red tape that prevents development. That's all well and good, but the case of the Deutsche Bank Fire, that manifested into a disconnected water standpipe.
Public authorities have been failing to address environmental concerns in various ways in various projects. At the proposed Atlantic Yards development, where the ESDC is nominally the lead developer, the collapse of the parapet of the Wards Bakery led to promises of an Ombudsman... which never materialized. In Harlem, a judge recently ruled that there appeared to be collusion between the ESDC, AKRF and Columbia University.
The controversy over environmental oversight in the Downtown Brooklyn redevelopment plan includes another aspect of what the state defines as "environment," namely historic resources. The experts hired by the EDC through its contractor AKRF came to the conclusion that the Duffield Street homes should be preserved, but the EDC ignored their advice.
These are just part of the problems of public authorities like the ESDC.
Village Voice columnist Michael Clancy published a list of questions on the Voice's blog that must be answered by the investigation into the Deutsche Bank fire, including these two in regard to oversight and community input:
How is that two firefighters are dead because a standpipe wasn't working or wasn't installed properly in a skyscraper that was being demolished? How could that come to be?
How is that downtown residents had raised questions about fire safety and toxicity at the former Deutsche Bank building for years, yet there was no comprehensive fire prevention or fire safety plan in place despite all the assurances from officials?
NoLandGrab: Clancy's questions illustrate how lack of coordinated oversight is a systemic problem with public authorities (maybe that's why Bruce Ratner took the lead to authorize the permanent closing of 5th Ave north of Flatbush in April) and how public input takes a back seat to the goals of the project.
Posted by lumi at 7:35 AM
August 16, 2007
For Columbia expansion in W. Harlem, a tougher road harvesting community support
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder, who made it to last night's Manhattan Community Board 9 land-use committee hearing on the Columbia University expansion plan, draws some comparisons with Atlantic Yards. Though he admits that he can't cover the topic in his usual mad-overkilling style, he has a pretty damn good synopsis of the plan and the most controversial issues:
There are some curious contrasts and commonalities between Columbia University’s proposed expansion and Forest City Ratner’s Atlantic Yards plan, and they became clearer last night at a raucous public hearing held by Manhattan Community Board 9 regarding a rezoning for Columbia’s project, which would mainly occupy an area bounded by Broadway and Riverside Drive between 129th Street and 133rd Street. (Photos by Jonathan Barkey)
I only spent an hour at the hearing, so, just as I’ve criticized the press for missing aspects of the Atlantic Yards story, I’ll admit I can’t yet do the Columbia controversy justice. I’m still reading about it all.
NoLandGrab: Seeing how we were locked out of the hearing for an hour and a half, Norman witnessed nearly everything we missed, including David Dinkins getting booed by his base when he introduced Columbia President Lee Bollinger.
Posted by lumi at 10:04 AM
August 11, 2007
Brooklyn Broadside: Development of the 'New Brooklyn' Continues
Brooklyn Daily Eagle
Dennis Holt writes about the 'New Brooklyn' of high rise buildings and that newcomers don't care about how dull the street their new building is on (he uses Lawrence Street as an example.) This is definitely true, but what Holt is missing is that the old-timers would not be mourning the loss of the old streets, but the loss of communities. Someone moving to a dull street who was lured in by a subzero fridge is not likely to participate in street level community activities, (as there probably are none) except for stopping by the closest Starbucks. This does not a 'neighborhood' make.
Some people have been moaning about the “Manhattanization” of Brooklyn, but that is an overblown concern, with one exception. The streets of Downtown Brooklyn to a newcomer don’t mean as much as they might to an old-timer.To the newcomer, it’s not the street so much as what’s on it — what kind of apartment building with what kind of views.
This week, Linda Collins reported from a web site report that the Clarett group would build a 51-story apartment building on Lawrence Street in the MetroTech complex. This prompted some blogger to snort, “Who wants to live on Lawrence Street” Lawrence Street may not be factor at all — it’s what the new building looks like, how the living accommodations are created, what it’s close to, and what kind of views are there.
Posted by amy at 10:14 AM
August 7, 2007
Beyond gentrification: the contributing factors to the housing crisis
Atlantic Yards Report
The next installment of what seems to be a series on gentrification:
Gentrification is one of several forces limiting the availability of affordable housing, as Brad Lander of the Pratt Center for Community Development explained at a discussion held in June 2006 on housing displacement, sponsored by the Center for the Study of Brooklyn. (The issue persists today, so his slides--some of which I've reproduced--and explanations remain pertinent.)
Lander cited several factors contributing to a "broad housing crisis": a "broad shift from a manufacturing economy to a service economy," along with "substantial immigration leading to rising population," all pressuring a constrained housing supply.
Posted by lumi at 7:36 AM
August 6, 2007
Colleen Kane, Writer and Former Senior Editor of Playgirl Magazine
Gothamist
Colleen Kane sits down with Gothamist before splitting for Baton Rouge. When the former editor of Playgirl thinks about Bruce Ratner, it's not what you'd expect:
Given the opportunity, how would you change New York?
I resent that New York has become a playground for the super-rich. Not only to the typical extent of the rich having the biggest apartments and all that usual claptrap, but the rich are changing the skyline of the neighborhoods where they previously did not want to be, with these luxury condos that stand out like sore, rich jerkface thumbs. It seems like the regular slobs now have a harder time making it than usual, because the real-estate market is getting more and more out of hand, and the local arts community is suffering as a result. Just look at the recent closures of Tonic, Sin-e, Collective: Unconscious, etc. So what I would change is, POP! I’d burst that pesky real estate bubble. The meek shall inherit a loft in a desirable area for reasonable rent! I would also like to reroute all the traffic that will come to the planned Nets arena in Brooklyn to park on Bruce Ratner’s personal grounds.
Posted by lumi at 8:53 AM
There Goes the ‘Hood: a nuanced take on gentrification
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder considers the impacts of gentrification as discussed in Lance Freeman's "There Goes the 'Hood."
The final stop on the [house] tour was in the southeast portion of Clinton Hill, not far from the official (though shifting, in the eyes of some real estate promoters) border with blacker, poorer Bedford-Stuyvesant. Nearby, outside a laundromat on Fulton Street, a black woman and a black man, middle-aged and apparently working class, were having a conversation loud enough to overhear.
W: I’m not coming back. They assholes.
M: People that work here?
W: No. The others. They new to the neighborhood and they acting like we visiting.
The racial identity of their antagonists was unclear, but the class identity was not, and the episode encapsulated some tensions explored by Lance Freeman, a Columbia University academic, in his 2006 book, There Goes the ’Hood: Views of Gentrification from the Ground Up, based on interviews in two mostly-black neighborhoods, Harlem and Clinton Hill, where in recent years higher-income residents, black and white, have moved in.
Posted by lumi at 7:51 AM
August 3, 2007
It's a Great Time To Be a Union Worker
Gothamist
Via Curbed, the Lower Manhattan Construction Command Center put together an interesting presentation outlining logistics of downtown projects as well as projects in the region (here's a PDF). The logistics issues are concrete, steel, and labor demand, as well as worker transportation and security.
There are some great graphs that show how many projects, including the World Trade Center, East Side Access, MTA projects, the Atlantic Yards, etc., will all compete for materials and labor. With a limited supply of good union labor, we predict that it will be even harder to find competent workers and finish projects on time.
NoLandGrab: The large hot-pink/fuchsia band is Atlantic Yards — click to enlarge.
As we posted earlier, Errol Louis says that now is the time to train for a union job.
Posted by lumi at 10:31 AM
Boom Time
Our Time Press
Errol Louis notes that NYC has entered a phase of historic growth and that now is the time to get in on the ground floor for those looking for work:
According to a recent story in The New York Sun, the New York Building Congress is reporting that spending for construction in New York City could reach $25.6 billion this year, beating the 2006 record of $24.6 billion.
That translates into an estimated 121,800 construction jobs in New York City as of April this year — 6,100 more than existed a year earlier and way up from the 109,200 construction jobs in the city in 2004.
And we’re just getting started on mega-projects like Atlantic Yards, a wave of skyscrapers and hotels in downtown Brooklyn, the new Yankee Stadium, the expansion of Columbia University into West Harlem and conversion of the old Domino Sugar factory in Williamsburg into a residential complex. It will take decades to build these projects, meaning it’s not too late for people with no construction experience or training to get in, literally, on the ground floor.
Posted by lumi at 9:59 AM
The Coming Death of Smith Street
Brooklyn Daily Eagle
In an article about the shifting sands of the NYC commercial real estate market and its effects on neighborhood specialty stores and restaurants, Henry Krogius calls on "Bruce Ratner to serve the people of Brooklyn," and we don't think he means serve in the Twilight Zone-way:
That is why, as has been argued in this space before, if Bruce Ratner really wants to serve the people of Brooklyn through Atlantic Yards, he should set up a way for individually owned specialty shops and restaurants to occupy ground-floor spaces throughout the project.
NoLandGrab: Would that satisfy Ratner's goal of maximizing profit for shareholders, and would hipsters and insiders who seek regional flavors be caught dead inside of a shopping gallery or mall?
Posted by lumi at 9:08 AM
August 2, 2007
Vito Lopez invokes Jane Jacobs, says New Domino should be scaled down
Atlantic Yards Report
Here's a good joke: the local political big-wig who inserted a special give-away for Bruce Ratner in the 421-a reform bill is criticizing the scale of the New Domino plan and is channeling Jane Jacobs. And why not — who knew that Norman Oder would have time to pay attention?
Today's follow-up on the New Domino hearing testimony is the third in a series of articles on the new plan.
Posted by lumi at 9:08 AM
July 27, 2007
Real Deal on Prospect Heights: new condos, fluctuating prices
Atlantic Yards Report
An article in the July issue of The Real Deal, headlined Mixed prospects for Prospect Heights' new developments: Atlantic Yards plan attracted new condos, but sales at some falter, offers a mixed report on the "Atlantic Yards effect."
Will there be a glut of new condos on the market in Prospect Heights?
What about the premium price tag for the privilege of living in a starchitect design condo? Or, will living over an arena make buyers think twice?
Posted by lumi at 7:29 AM
July 19, 2007
Revamping Empire State Development: stop playing politics, says report
Several readers sent in the link for an article in The NY Sun about the release of a report on the Empire State Development Corporation. Since the article didn't contain anything pointing to Atlantic Yards or the process for approving development projects, we left it on the cutting room floor until someone had actually read the report.
Guess who read it first (again).
From Norman Oder's Atlantic Yards Report:
The focus, in press coverage, was on technical fixes and a failed job-creation program. Only a close look at the report shows that, in key places, the analysts blame certain ESD/ESDC failures on "political patronage," "political convenience," and the "practice of favoring political over economic criteria."
In other words, a report commissioned by the administration of new Gov. Eliot Spitzer, a Democrat, takes strong issue with the practices of ESD/ESDC under longtime Gov. George Pataki, a Republican.
The report doesn't mention Atlantic Yards, but there's certainly evidence that the ESDC's board, which I described as "team players and big donors," didn't closely scrutinize the project when it was approved last November.
Posted by lumi at 9:03 AM
July 17, 2007
Revolving door: consultants AKRF and Habib worked for Ratner, then ESDC
Atlantic Yards Report examines the revolving door between local and state government and development consultants.
Here it is apparently OK for:
1) a developer (in this case Forest City Ratner) to hire consultants (in this case AKRF and Philip Habib and Associates) to advise on a development plan
2) those consultants to later evaluate the environmental impact of that development plan on behalf of a state agency, the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC)
3) that agency to pursue the potentially conflicting goals of fostering economic development and evaluating the environmental impact of such development, and
4) the consultants' work for that agency be reimbursed by the developer.
Until recently, the courts didn't see anything wrong with consultants advising both the developer and government. But the judge in a lawsuit filed by groups in West Harlem ruled differently.
NoLandGrab: The relationship is only troubling when one assumes that the government is supposed to be acting in the interest of its citizens, not developers. If courts start taking good-government crybabies seriously, then nothing would ever get built anywhere, right?
Posted by lumi at 10:17 AM
July 13, 2007
Is Kohen Ridge Ratner?
The Brooklyn Paper
By Matthew Lysiak
Bruce Ratner and Atlantic Yards have become the measure against which all other developers and projects are compared in Brooklyn.
Developer Andrew Kohen wants to build a new Home Depot and hundreds of units of housing along a vacant Bay Ridge railyard, but faced an Atlantic Yards–sized backlash from local preservationists and Community Board 10.
In fact, Bruce Ratner’s taxpayer-underwritten antics have inspired an uprising by community boards against developers.
Locals fear that Kohen’s ambitions are too large for the surrounding area’s infrastructure and that the developer is more concerned about his wallet than the interests of the community (sound familiar?).
Of course, Kohen isn’t Bruce Ratner and Home Depot isn’t Atlantic Yards. In fact, in many ways Kohen is the anti-Ratner...
NoLandGrab: Rightly or wrongly, Atlantic Yards has become the posterproject for development run amok: every developer who pretends to "listen to the community" is a "Ratner" and every project that's out-of-scale is an "Atlantic Yards."
Frustration with the Atlantic Yards "done-deal" behemoth and all of the other changes in the neighborhood over which residents have no control may be causing knee-jerk reactions to anything new and different.
At this point, neighborhoods in Brooklyn are experiencing such rapid change that once-stable communities are observably under stress and communities that have been demanding change for years, even decades, fear being left out of the conversation.
Posted by lumi at 10:10 AM
July 12, 2007
As Buildings Rise, Construction Salaries Follow
The NY Sun
By Grace Rauh
An article about one reason construction costs for projects like Atlantic Yards are rising:
The city's latest building boom is giving some carpenters, electricians, and other construction professionals extra cash to pay for new homes, cars, and renovation projects.
...
The work is not expected to stop anytime soon. The construction industry is about to feel the effects of the onset of dozens of projects, both public and private. The World Trade Center site in Lower Manhattan, the Atlantic Yards in Brooklyn, and the new Yankee Stadium are just a few in the pipeline.
NoLandGrab: The article describes the commutes of two construction workers, who both — unsurprisingly — arrive at their work sites by public transportation.
Ratner's claim that the entire footprint of Atlantic Yards must be razed to accommodate temporary surface parking for construction workers is deceptive. Note that there is no such accommodation for projects elsewhere in the city and, as Ratner likes to remind folks, the Atlantic & Flatbush station, a hub connecting the Long Island Railroad to 11 subway lines, is very accessible.
Posted by lumi at 9:19 AM
July 9, 2007
Déjà vu in West Harlem
If 90-degree weather on the day of a special summertime Community Board meeting isn't enough to give Brooklynites who have been following Atlantic Yards a serious case of déjà vu, how about the news that the NAACP is coming out in support of Columbia University's expansion plans, citing "thousands of jobs" (see, NY1, NAACP Official Approves Columbia Expansion?
A couple of activists from the Atlantic Yards fight headed down to Reade St. this morning to express sympathy and support for the West Harlem groups fighting Columbia University's bid to use eminent domain to kick off its expansion plans.
The NY Sun had a pretty good article summarizing the issue, "Columbia Expansion Plan Debate Will Intensify."
Columbia's plans come straight out of the developers' playbook, and will be very familiar to those who have been paying attention to Bruce Ratner's political and public relations strategy. Here's how they compare:
TACTIC |
Bruce Ratner, Atlantic Yards |
Columbia University, West Harlem Expansion |
PUBLIC HEARINGS HELD IN THE SUMMER, when Community Boards are not in session, over objections of local politicians and community groups. |
Summer of 2006, as required by the State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA) |
Summer of 2007, as required by the NYC Uniform Land Use Review Procedure (ULURP) |
DEVELOPER-DRAWN FOOTPRINT TO BE DECLARED "BLIGHTED" |
Blight study completed |
Currently being studied |
CONDEMNATION BY THE EMPIRE DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION |
A lawsuit concerning the constitutionality of the ESDC's use of eminent domain to benefit one pre-determined private developer is headed toward an appeal in the Second Circuit |
The ESDC is coming in to only do the condemnation, even though the project is undergoing the city review process. |
DEVELOPER SHOWCASING SUPPORT FROM THE MINORITY COMMUNITY |
Reverend Al Sharpton |
Hazel Dukes, NAACP |
CONSULTANTS AKRF GIVE DEVELOPERS THE ADVANTAGE |
AKRF compiled the Atlantic Yards Environmental Impact Statement |
A lawsuit revealed that AKRF was the consultant to Columbia University AND the ESDC, resulting in the forced release of documents by the courts. |
| There are ALTERNATIVE PLANS | UNITY Plan |
179-a community-based and community-supported plan |
Posted by lumi at 2:55 PM
June 29, 2007
To get Coney job done, Sitt looks to Ratner’s playbook
The Brooklyn Paper
More pages from the "Ratner Playbook:"
Coney Island developer Joe Sitt is now hawking a “binding agreement” with local leaders to make his $1.5-billion amusement and hotel fantasyland become reality — hinting this week at an Atlantic-Yards-style solution to his ongoing problem of gaining support for the glitzy proposal.
NoLandGrab: First developer Sitt tried the deceptive-brochure page from the playbook. When that didn't work, he geared up to try the CBA strategy.
What developers like Sitt fail to realize is that Bruce Ratner's playbook is a CONCERTED strategy that works as a SCREEN for the support he had already lined up.
In reality, participants in negotiations for a Coney Island CBA may have the opportunity to follow the example of the Staples Center CBA in LA, which was the template for such community negotiated agreements before Ratner co-opted the strategy. In the Staples agreement, the pact was negotiated as a whole by community groups who agreed to stand together to represent the interests of individual groups.
Another agreement that may interest community leaders in Coney Island is the Milwaukee agreement, which used the Staples-agreement coalition as a working model and became truly legally enforceable when the City included many of the agreed-upon items in their rezoning of the project area. By not implementing the Ratner affordable-housing agreement in a rezoning of the Atlantic Yards project footprint (the zoning is being superceded by a State takeover), local and state governments have ensured that the only way to enforce the Ratner agreement is for the signatory, ACORN, to sue.
Posted by lumi at 8:26 AM
June 26, 2007
Downtown Brooklyn Building Boom
There's a lot of buzz these days about the building boom in Downtown Brooklyn, which as these two articles make clear, is in addition to Bruce Ratner's mammoth Atlantic Yards project.
NY Post, BOOM ON FLATBUSH
The north end of Flatbush Avenue is slated to see more real-estate development over the next five years than nearly any other slice of the Big Apple - even without Atlantic Yards.
More than $3.1 billion worth of construction projects is in the works for the nearly one-mile stretch running south from the Manhattan Bridge in DUMBO to the Williamsburg Bank tower in Fort Greene, according to data provided by the city's Downtown Brooklyn Partnership.
WNYC Newsroom, $3 Billion Building Boom on Brooklyn's Flatbush Ave.
From the Manhattan Bridge to the just south of 3rd Avenue - Flatbush Avenue is expected to get 4400 new residential units, 645,000 square feet of new shopping and 190,000 square feet of office space. The biggest project is a $750 million plan to renovate the Albee Square Mall into 900 apartments and 600,000 square feet of stores and offices.
The list of construction does not include the $4 billion Atlantic Yards development - that includes a new basketball arena for the New Jersey Nets.
NoLandGrab: That's $7.1 billion being poured into our little neck of the woods, folks.
Posted by lumi at 7:09 AM
June 25, 2007
Esteemed scholars discuss need to re-think development in Brooklyn
Courier Life Publications
By Joe Maniscalco
At a panel discussion on development in Brooklyn last week, "Atlantic Yards" was mentioned as an appropriate site for real affordable housing, and one panelist warned that more Brooklynites could be affected by eminent domain.
[Mark Naison, professor of American Studies & History and director of the Urban Studies Department at Fordham University] said he’d like to see nothing but affordable housing at Atlantic Yards and the new buildings going up on 4th Avenue.
Even those who own their own homes aren’t safe from the current course of development.
“Economic development is now viewed as a public good,” said [Lance Freeman, associate professor of Urban Planning at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning & Preservation]. “So what’s to stop the government from taking your property and giving it to someone else for what’s viewed as a higher or better use?”
Posted by lumi at 10:41 AM
West Harlem (Atlantic Yards redux)
An account of last week's press conference held by the Coalition to Preserve Community gave us a serious case of déjà vu.
Apparently, Columbia University and its lobbyist Bill Lynch have learned from Atlantic Yards that packing hearings with supporters to keep community members out and saddling the community with a massive Environmental Impact Statement in the middle of the summer, when Communtiy Boards are not in session, is definitely the best way to go:
The Coalition to Preserve Community held a spirited press conference and protest outside of the City Planning Commission offices this past Monday calling for a rescheduling of the certification ULURP process until the end of summer.
Once inside, it was a different story. Columbia stacked the hearing room with its employees so few community members could attend the hearing. There were probably as many people from Bill Lynch's lobby organization than community residents. Some protest attendees were discouraged and left, but many waited outside, filling up a holding room and listening to the hearing on loudspeaker.
They were of course unable to view the presentation. This was typical of the "railroad approach" being used by Columbia and city planning as articulated by a contingent of clergy including Rev. Earl Kooperkamp, of St. Mary's Church, and Rev. Dean Parks Morton, formally of St. John the Divine, who spoke at the press conference.
Despite the Coalition's outreach attempt to reach out by letter to the Mayor and all elected officials inviting them to join, not one attended the press conference to call for a rescheduling. State Senator Bill Perkins was the only one to write a letter requesting a Fall ULURP process. Community Board 9 and the West Harlem Local Development Corporation also sent letters to City Planning and Columbia asking for there not to be a disenfranchising summer review process.
The Columbia strategists have determined that the trade off between the terrible publicity they will get by this railroad job (they have been asked NOT to have a summer ULURP process for 3 years), was something they could live with since the momentum in the community against them is growing by leaps and bounds as the eviction policy which is at the groundwork of their plan becomes more and more evident.
If the the elected officials had joined the community and made a strong demand, we would not have had to deal with answering a 2700 page Environmental Impact Statement in July and August. Bill Lynch is doing his job, but we shall not be moved.
Coverage:
The Indypendent, West Harlem Takes on Corporate U.
NY1, Columbia University's Proposed Expansion Comes Under Fire From Activists
Posted by lumi at 7:53 AM
June 19, 2007
Mixed-Rate Building Next to Atlantic Yards
Brownstoner
 |
The New York City Housing Development Corporation, which provides debt financing for affordable housing, announced a slew of new projects around the five boroughs last week, including one that will be in the shadows of the Atlantic Yards project.
NoLandGrab: SOME BACKGROUND
Solar Dreams Denied
Though some folks are just waking up to the fact that "a new 10-story co-op with 80 low-, middle- and market-rate apartments will be built on the vacant lot at 669 Atlantic Avenue between South Portland Avenue and South Oxford Street in Fort Greene," readers of The Brooklyn Paper will recall that the Fifth Avenue Committee announced in February that it would have to abandon its plans for a solar-paneled roof because Atlantic Yards high-rises would leave the site in near-constant shadow (see, Ratner’s shadows end solar power dream).
Big Picture: HDC Financing
A Brooklyn Daily Eagle story on the HDC financing makes an important point about the HDC's financing approval for projects including Atlantic Terrace (see, "HDC Provides $320 Million For Affordable Housing, $76 Million for Brooklyn"):
But with the approvals announced this week, the HDC also said it would not be able to finance any further low-income, mixed-income or 80/20 housing until January unless state or federal officials took action to replenish the agency’s supply of private activity bond volume cap.
The Atlantic Yards Effect
Norman Oder has been covering the issue and informed readers that "this year the agency was assigned $195 million in volume cap, and expects it to be depleted by the end of June, according to HDC spokesman Aaron Donovan."
Oder points out that this has a dual effect on Atlantic Yards and the market (see, "Huge deficit in tax-exempt bonds suggests Atlantic Yards delay"):
[Atlantic Yards] faces a significant hurdle over which the agencies had no control... units [already in the pipeline] precede the 2250 units promised for Atlantic Yards, involving $1.4 billion in bonds, a figure developer Forest City Ratner and government officials didn't reveal until after the project was approved.
In the city’s pipeline alone, there’s $1.8 billion in projects, which precede the yet-unrequested $1.4 billion for Atlantic Yards. Given the scarcity of city funding for such developments, some affordable housing supporters have begun to express dismay that Atlantic Yards would suck up a significant portion of the pool.
Posted by lumi at 9:04 AM
Coney Island Condo Plan Killed, Hotels Proposed Instead
Commercial Property News
By Eugene Gilligan, Senior Editor
An article about Thor Equities's change of plans for its Coney Island redevelopment proposal includes this bit about hotels in Brooklyn, with an interesting characterization of Atlantic Yards:
In fact, hotel development in Coney Island is in keeping with the increased level of hotel construction in Brooklyn, as the borough has seen an increased level of hotel development in recent years, McConnell said. He predicted that Fourth Avenue in Brooklyn, near the gigantic Atlantic Yards mixed-use development, should see more hotel development in the future.
NoLandGrab: A year ago, it would have been unthinkable that any reporter would characterize "Atlantic Yards" as "gigantic," even though it is the largest single-source private development in NYC history, and would be the densest residential community in the nation by a long shot.
Posted by lumi at 8:44 AM
June 17, 2007
Downtown Development: Atlantic Yards Is Still the Largest Project on the Table
Brooklyn Daily Eagle's Dennis Holt writes a fun-filled diatribe "on the summary documentation by the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership on the development projects planned for Downtown Brooklyn."
The Neighborhood Retail Alliance eats up his previous editorial about what the opposition did wrong.
Knowing Bruce Ratner as well as I do (since I work for him on this development), I know that he was ready to listen to anyone who was willing to be reasonable.
rea·son·a·ble: (adjective) the ability to be blindly agreeable to anything that Bruce Ratner says without asking for supporting evidence
Posted by amy at 9:08 AM
June 15, 2007
THE WORST OF 'TIMES'
NY Post
By Steve Cuozzo
A Post columnist takes the Gray Lady to task for its Lower Manhattan real estate coverage, and wonders if stifling the competition had anything to do with the culture of gloom. It might, when your business partner, Bruce Ratner, has 28 floors to fill:
Today, of course, companies and residents are moving into lower Manhattan as fast as new buildings can open their doors. Stores and restaurants are clamoring to join the rush.
No thanks to the Times. But what prompted its effort to finish off downtown for good?
Just maybe an institutional wish to stifle competition for the top half of the Times Co.'s new Eighth Avenue headquarters, where its development partner, Bruce Ratner, had 27 floors to fill.
Only when Ratner began landing tenants did the Times finally start covering Ground Zero more responsibly.
NoLandGrab: At the very least, as in the case of the Times's Atlantic Yards coverage, it requires that the paper cover the issue more "responsibly."
Posted by lumi at 6:54 AM
June 13, 2007
Boombox: race, class and real estate
Atlantic Yards Report
Even when it comes to light reading, Norman Oder's summer reading list focuses on stories about gentrification, land use, rapacious developers, etc. (see, "Dark Lady: when it comes to a stadium, follow the money")
Today, the Mad Overkiller reviews "Boombox," a story about race and class, set in pre-House-of-Detention-closing Brownstone Brooklyn:
Thinking about Boombox's central conflict, Grace raises the question, in an unspoken message to her white neighbors, that lingers for anyone--including those exercised about Atlantic Yards--who must pick and choose their issues: “Is this what you choose to get upset about, when just around the corner there is a giant housing project sinking under the weight of poverty and crime and your neglect?… Who is organizing about that?”
Posted by lumi at 9:37 AM
June 10, 2007
No masala bagels here
Sepia Mutiny was excited by the coverage of the Arena bagel controversy, but less for what was said than for what was not said:
My favorite aspect of this story — as reported by the Grey Lady — is that Agarwal’s ethnicity is never alluded to at all. It’s simply about how he, as a businessman from outside the neighborhood, goofed up in naming his bagel shop “Arena Bagels and Bialys”
...
In this case Aggarwal screwed up because he’s an ousider, but by outsider the journalist means a businessman from Queens rather than an immigrant, a brown-man, or even a non-Jew. It’s just good local reporting.
link
Now if the Grey Lady would only accurately cover some other outsider that screwed up...
Posted by amy at 10:41 AM
June 8, 2007
Downzonings, density, and context
Atlantic Yards Report examines density's delicate balance.
In a city that's planning for increased density, many neighborhoods are being downzoned or are getting caps on their zoning. Could that increase pressure for extreme density in areas being rezoned, or in the case of Atlantic Yards, where zoning is being superceded?
Posted by lumi at 8:32 AM
June 6, 2007
Bill DeBlasio's Smith Street Protest Against Scarano
Pardon Me For Asking
Someone turned Councilmember Bill de Blasio's protest against one evil overdeveloper into a protest against another:
But the entire protest in my opinion was a well orchestrated way for Bill, the Council Superman to get some brownie points as a protector of Brownstone Brooklyn. I am sure some people bought it. However, it was very funny to see a group against the Atlantic Yards Project holding up big signs stating that " Bill De Blasio Loves Ratner" and "Bill DeBlasio Loves The Atlantic Yards Project."
Posted by lumi at 10:33 PM
June 5, 2007
On "Illegal Construction"
From Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn:
Councilmember Bill de Blasio has been promoting the protest below for the past week. While we congratulate Mr. de Blasio for standing with his constituents in Carroll Gardens and standing up against "illegal construction," we call on the Councilmember to stand up to all illegal construction (not just in his district) and revisit his unconditional support of the "Atlantic Yards" project bordering his district. (Illegal-demolition, allegedly illegal-environmental review, allegedly illegal-eminent domain, unsafe-parapet collapse and the whole thing is a state override of the City Charter and local zoning codes and regulations.)
What follows is the Councilmember's protest announcement that landed in our in box:
Join Councilmember Bill de Blasio and Stand up Against Illegal Construction!
Wednesday June 6, 2007 at 12:30PM
In front of Robert Scarano's latest project
360 Smith Street, Brooklyn
(Smith Street at 2nd Place)
Posted by lumi at 1:33 PM
June 3, 2007
Bagels, Bialys and Raspberries
New York Times covers the ever pressing issue of the "Arena Bagels" controversy. Although NoLandGrab was possibly guilty of being the first to publicly comment on the ironic name, it was rather unexpected to find an entire article dedicated to this topic in the Times. The opposition to the ARENA is the story. Opposition to ARENA BAGELS is just a silly side effect. To make it even sillier, the owner of the formerly Arena Bagels offers up his next Onion-esque naming idea for the store:
What will the new name be? Mr. Aggarwal is not 100 percent sure, but he is considering removing the “n” and calling the place Area Bagels and Bialys. The cost of this lesson learned about Brooklyn: $1,000.
Note to Mr. Aggarwal: If you really want to be popular with the locals, why not try "No Arena Bagels"?
Posted by amy at 11:04 AM
June 1, 2007
The unexpected housing boom in Downtown Brooklyn, some curious statistics, and an Errol Louis misreading
Atlantic Yards Report takes a look at the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership's latest effort to promote the Downtown Brooklyn plan (which mysteriously now includes "Atlantic Yards" in the "under construction" category); reviews this week's article in the Village Voice, which illustrated some of the problems with the implementation of the plan; and examines Errol Louis's column touting the plan's benefits.
Posted by lumi at 10:49 AM
Yes, in my backyard
Atlantic Yards is one plan that will boost jobs & housing downtown
NY Daily News
By Errol Louis
Louis gets his pot shot in at Atlantic Yards opponents and then waxes poetic about the Downtown Brooklyn plan:
Almost lost in all the hoopla over Atlantic Yards - the junk lawsuits, futile protests and other antics of the project's publicity-hungry opponents - is the fact that an even larger, more dramatic cluster of homes, office towers and hotels is already rising a mile away, in downtown Brooklyn.
...
The explosion of new development, set off by a sweeping rezoning approved by the City Council years ago, will alarm those who'd like to freeze the area's rent, income, building heights, shopping choices and quality of life where they are right now.But those seeking more for themselves, their families and their neighbors should view the coming boom as a shot at jobs, housing and business opportunity.
Louis continues by listing projects he deems beneficial, but misses an important point: the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership was created to get the Downtown Brooklyn Plan back on track, since "the commercial expansion that was envisioned has not happened." (See, NY Sun, October, 2004, Partnership Working To Revitalize Downtown Brooklyn")
Posted by lumi at 10:38 AM
‘A war for space’
Panels mull Harlem development
MetroNY
By Amy Zimmer
The First Annual Harlem Anti-Gentrification Conference, sponsored by the Harlem Tenants Council, has been in the works for more than six months.
It will feature such panels as “An analysis of race, class, gentrification and the necessity for mobilized resistance.” Speakers will include activists from Williamsburg and from Atlantic Yards foe Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn, as well as organizers from Chinatown and scholars such as Neil Smith, director of CUNY’s Center for Place, Culture and Politics. It will also tackle Columbia and the university’s “adversarial and managerial relationship” to the Harlem community.
According to the Harlem Anti-Gentrification Conferece Agenda, Isabel Hill's documentary "Brooklyn Matters" will be screened this afternoon:
4 to 6 PM: Documentary Film and Discussion: "Brooklyn Matters” an insightful documentary that reveals the fuller truth about the Atlantic Yards proposal and highlights how a few powerful men are circumventing community participation and planning principles to try to push their own interests forward. Produced and Directed by Isabel Hill. Discussion after screening. Invited: Isabel Hill
Posted by lumi at 8:36 AM
May 31, 2007
REITs Pouring Investment Into Dense Urban Corners
NY Sun
By Michael Stoler
If you've been wondering what's fueling NYC's current real estate boom, you might want to read about REITs.
We stumbled across Stoler's column because of a quick reference to the Target in Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Terminal mall, located across the street from the footprint of his Atlantic Yards proposal. Stoler conflates the two projects and calls the existing mall "Atlantic Yards":
The majority of real estate leaders agree that New York City has a dire need for additional retail, especially in urban sections of the boroughs. Some of the highest retail sales per foot have been recognized in urban areas such as Harlem and in the Bronx for national and local retailers. For example, one of Target’s highest revenue stores in the nation is located in Atlantic Yards in downtown Brooklyn. The highest grossing Pathmark in the chain is located on 125th Street and Lexington Avenue and the second is at 146th Street and Bradhurst Avenue.
Posted by lumi at 6:53 AM
May 30, 2007
On the Outs in Brooklyn
The city's complicity behind the borough's soaring eviction rate
The Village Voice
While Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards megaproject and the insta-towers popping up across Williamsburg have gotten more attention, an equally big land rush is stalking downtown Brooklyn in the wake of a rezoning approved by the city in 2004.
If you've got the time, check out this important article by Neil deMause about evictions of small businesses in Downtown Brooklyn and the Duffield St. land grab, both brought to you by the Downtown Brooklyn Plan rezoning.
Turning Brooklyn's low-rise downtown into high-priced towers wasn't the original idea. "There was no constituency that had a vision of downtown Brooklyn as a high-rise bedroom community," notes Robert Perris, the district manager of Brooklyn's Community Board 2, which covers Brooklyn Heights, downtown, and Fort Greene. "Even people that were pro–economic development are disappointed that what we've gotten instead are 40-story residential buildings."
Even more disappointed, needless to say, are those who'd staked their futures on being a part of a newly energized downtown, only to find themselves staring down the barrel of a new Chelsea.
"We moved to this neighborhood when there were crack vials on the floor," Aviva Jakubowitz of Track Data Corporation testified last Tuesday at a city hearing on the fate of the block that contains her company's offices, as well as the Duffield Street Underground Railroad houses. "Now, finally, the neighborhood has changed, and the city wants to take our property by eminent domain."
...
The Department of City Planning's webpage on the downtown Brooklyn redevelopment plan declares that its goal is to "serve the residents, businesses, academic institutions, and cultural institutions of Downtown Brooklyn and its surrounding communities." The city's actual environmental-impact statement for the rezoning plan, though, was more blunt, saying that while current businesses would be displaced, they would not be "significant" losses because "they do not have substantial economic value to the City, they do not define neighborhood character, nor do they belong to a special category of business that is protected by special regulations or publicly adopted plans."
...
It's a scenario that, planning experts say, points out one of the main flaws with the city's rezoning process: With public discussion limited to the advisory vote of the local community board, it takes an extraordinarily committed organization of local residents to get the city to veer from its declared path. And even then, the appointed community boards are no guarantee to represent the community—as residents of Brooklyn's Board 6 found out last week when nine members were purged by their political patrons for voting against Atlantic Yards, and the Bronx's CB4 saw last year in a similar purge over the new Yankee Stadium plan.
Posted by lumi at 8:00 AM
May 25, 2007
$10 Billion in 10 Years for A New Downtown Brooklyn
Over 14,000 New Apartments, 1,250 Hotel Rooms Are Coming
Brooklyn Daily Eagle
By Dennis Holt
About $10 billion will be spent in the next 10 years to build a new Downtown Brooklyn, an unprecedented amount of money. The new Downtown will be developed at a pace never experienced before in this borough.
...
This information and detailed project summaries have been compiled and made public by the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership, formed last year by the city to coordinate and oversee all current or planned building activity in the area.The partnership, headed by DUMBO resident Joe Chan, has also produced an informative, expertly created map of Downtown Brooklyn. The map is color coded, and will become a much-sought-after item.
The Atlantic Yards project is, of course, included in the totals. While Atlantic Yards will cost about half of the total dollar amount for Downtown, its housing component will provide only 30 percent of all the units to be built there, and its total square footage is only about 38 percent of the Downtown total. There are four reasons for the magnitude of all of the development activity. One is that previous projects, like MetroTech, have demonstrated that Brooklyn is a viable business center. Another draw is the plan for a cultural center, which has drawn the strong support of the city. A third is the recent rezoning of Downtown Brooklyn, which made it practical for developers to plan for development with confidence.
The fourth reason is the proliferation of high-rises with spectacular views, not so frequent in Manhattan anymore. This has come as a surprise to many people who are used to brownstones as the area’s main draw, and is a joy to residential developers.
NoLandGrab: Holt seemingly mocks Atlantic Yards critics by stating "of course" Atlantic Yards would be included in the totals outlined by the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership. The effort to locate the project in "Downtown Brooklyn," when it would commonly be called Prospect Heights, has been a PR construction, led by Ratner, designed to rebrand the site as part of the Downtown area.
How Atlantic Yards, which is a State project, ended up under the auspices of the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership, which is a City program, is a mystery.
In addition, to call Forest City Ratner's MetroTech a "viable business center" is a stretch. Because vacancies are up, the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership is currently working with Ratner to rebrand the MetroTech highrise office park as a potential site for the creative industries. Since the largest tenant in MetroTech is the City of New York, the complex is a "viable center" to which city offices can be moved when the project fails to attract "viable businesses."
Posted by lumi at 7:04 AM
Fulton Mall’s lease-to-buy plan
MetroNY
Forest City sold its lease rights to the "Gallery" on Fulton St. to developer Joseph Sitt back in 2001. Now the company is probably kicking itself for losing the opportunity to get in on another boondoggle:
Back in 2001, developer Joseph Sitt bought the long-term lease on what was then called the Gallery at MetroTech from Forest City Ratner for $25 million. Sitt, whose Thor Equities is looking to transform Coney Island into an upscale destination, renamed the building the Gallery at Fulton Mall and promised to turn it into an Italian palazzo, complete with tuxedoed greeters and national chain stores.
That dream was never realized, but the city did rezone the area in 2004 to encourage larger commercial development. In February, Sitt sold his lease to Albee Development LLC for $120 million.
Albee Development plans to tear down the building to put up a high-rise housing, hotel, retail and office complex. Twenty percent of rental units will be affordable to tenants of moderate income, an arrangement that would have been mandated anyway under the proposed rule changes to the 421-a tax abatement program, which the project is tapping into.
The city has approved $3.2 million in tax breaks, and after 25 years Albee Development will have the option to buy the property outright for $20 million.
The city is touting "job creation," but small businesses are losing out on the deal.
NoLandGrab: Which makes us wonder, is it some sort of law of nature that real jobs figures always fall way short of projections?
Posted by lumi at 6:57 AM
Spitzer unveils Authority plan
NY Newsday
By James T. Madore
Gov. Eliot Spitzer unveiled a proposal Thursday for greater oversight of public authorities, but sponsors of a similar bill already moving through the legislature said their plan would better combat abuses.
Spitzer wants to recast the Authority Budget Office as the Independent Office of Public Authority Accountability, with power to scrutinize hundreds of authorities statewide, including the Long Island Power and Metropolitan Transportation authorities.
Spitzer also called for more accountability from authority boards, and a restructuring of the Public Authorities Control Board by adding a representative of the state comptroller and eliminating the requirement that votes be unanimous before action can be taken. The five-member board has sparked controversy by approving the Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn but nixing a West Side stadium in Manhattan.
The Governor's plan lacks teeth compared to legislation just adopted by the State Senate:
That bill would give subpoena power to the Authority Budget Office, require authorities to submit some contracts for review by the comptroller, limit borrowing and seek legislative approval before creating subsidiaries. None of those provisions are in Spitzer's legislation.
"There is less accountability than what we are offering," Flanagan said. "They [the governor] just aren't interested in real reform."
NoLandGrab: Amongst good-government advocates, Atlantic Yards is considered one of the best reasons for public authorities reform. The run up to the approval of the project included the MTA's granting of development rights for the railyards to the low bidder, Forest City Ratner, and the project's financing being approved by three men in a room. None of the above (except Forest City Ratner, presumably) ever saw a real business plan for the project.
It's hard to know if the Governor's suggested reforms would have changed anything in the past three years. The State Comptroller could have taken a hard look if he wanted; the MTA justified the bid by considering "track improvements" (the tracks wouldn't have to be "improved" if they didn't have to be moved to accomodate an arena); and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver declared he was satisfied with the numbers from KPMG's report, even though the report fell well short of being a real financial plan.
Posted by lumi at 6:27 AM
May 22, 2007
Breaks for Big Business
Gotham Gazette
By Steven Josselson
JP Morgan Chase is negotiating some goodies with NY City for the privilege of building their new headquarters at the site of the old Deutsche Bank building.
The current standoff between the city and JP Morgan Chase is just the latest example in a long running policy debate. Are tax breaks for big corporations a wise investment to keep jobs, businesses and tax revenue in the city? Or do they amount to corporate welfare?
Despite its hard-line stance, the Bloomberg administration has an impressive corporate-welfare track record, which includes Bruce Ratner's controversial Atlantic Yards project:
"We have basically ended the era of corporate welfare, basically paying people to stay," Deputy Mayor Daniel Doctoroff said in 2003. Doctoroff’s boss – Bloomberg – said, "Any company that makes a decision as to where they are going to be based on the tax rate is a company that won't be around very long."
Despite this rhetoric, Bloomberg has agreed to large subsidies for new stadiums for the Yankees and Mets, and the Atlantic Yards project. He has also given tax credits to large corporations like Time Warner, Hearst, the New York Times, Bank of America, Pfizer, Aon and the Bank of New York.
NoLandGrab: One corporate payoff that didn't make the roster in this article was the Chase-MetroTech deal highlighted in a recent MetroNY piece (Report: City gave breaks to firms that cut jobs):
In one example, the city IDA granted $212 million in assistance to JP Morgan Chase in 1989, in part to build 3 and 4 Metrotech in Brooklyn. Security guards there make as little as $17,680 a year. Due to a series of mergers and acquisitions between 1995 and 2004, the company laid off 13,000 workers, but it will continue to claim tax exemptions through 2014.
FYI: MetroTech was built by Atlantic Yards developer Forest City Ratner.
Posted by lumi at 9:00 AM
May 17, 2007
It came from the Blogosphere...
Frank Lynch's Flickr, The Frog God
There's a story behind a seriously buff frog, though alas, he can't protect all of Brooklyn from Ratner.
Gentrification in Brooklyn : A Home for Everyone, "Bushwick has become the place with a question of ownership"
A new blog has a serious article about gentrification issues in Bushwick. Ft. Greene resident and Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn Advisory Boardmember Sean Elder attempts to offer a balanced view on gentrification in his own neighborhood.
Urbanseashell — a collection, 2nd Annual Brooklyn Blogfest 2007—A Success!
From Lisa di Liberto's take on last week's Brooklyn Blogfest:
As Louise [Crawford] said it is great to actually meet other bloggers face to face which is what sparked this event. Eric McClure, the Atlantic Yards Campaign Coordinator introduced himself to me during the sponsored festivities afterwards. I post information he emails out to his list in order to further spread the awareness of the Atlantic Yards issue. Eminent domain can affect anyone anywhere. Lumi Rolley of No Land Grab was one of the featured speakers. We met each other as well and Lumi links to my blog when I post Eric's information. It was a pleasure to meet them both. In addition to which I met a lot of great people that evening.
NoLandGrab: For those of you who know Lumi and Eric, you'd think that they'd find a more efficient way to share information on Atlantic Yards activities than through di Liberto's blog.
iloveBrooklyn.com, Blogging and Community
I-heart-Brooklyn-dot-com thanks Bruce for making us bloggy in their Blogfest wrap-up:
According to Outside.in, a neighborhood blog aggregator, Brooklyn is the bloggiest neighborhood in the country. Whoot whoot!! We can all thank Bruce Ratner and his grandiose Atlantic Yards scheme to make as much money as possible at one time for that, but I digress.
Knickerblogger, The "New" ESDC- Business As Usual
One blogger's reaction to the Empire State Development Corporation Downstate Chairman's claim that taxpayers, "don’t want us to give money to companies that don’t create jobs, or to corporations that don’t really need our help."
As for his 'trickle down' economics, newsflash: business are leaving new york because of the high tax burden. When you give tax breaks and subsidies to certain companies to others at the expense of others, the others will leave if they can.
People With Ideas, at mefedia.com, Brooklyn Blogfest 2007
What makes Brooklyn bloggers different?
Many of the blogs also express the creative energy and unique beauty of Brooklyn, an aesthetic that is influenced by the heavy industry of the past, the classic beauty of the stone architecture, the many natural spaces, and the constant ebb and flow of development and gentrification. The primary issue of the day is the massive increase in real estate development that is occurring, specifically Bruce Ratner’s Atlantic Yards project, which will massively change Brooklyn in one fell swoop.
Posted by lumi at 6:14 AM
May 2, 2007
Dean Street, Brooklyn
From Brit in Brooklyn:
A push-bike ride down Dean Street last night, near the Atlantic Yards development footprint.
Posted by lumi at 9:51 AM
From UDC, rebuilding slums, to the ESDC, which "loves business"
Atlantic Yards Report
Boldly going where no journalist has gone before, Norman Oder looks into the history of the Empire State Development Corporation.
Amid all the arguments about the Atlantic Yards project, perhaps the most fundamental issue has never been raised. The Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC), in its original conception, was never intended to manage projects like Forest City Ratner's 22-acre megadevelopment of mostly luxury housing in the center of a rising real estate market.
That may not affect the legal cases, but the historical context is vital: the ESDC, founded as the Urban Development Corporation (UDC) in 1968, was granted "truly amazing powers" (in planner Alex Garvin's description) to override zoning and exercise eminent domain as a response to urban riots and what were commonly referred to as "slum conditions." (Graphic from Rutgers project on riots.)
Today, more than a quarter-century later, those goals have broadened, as the UDC grew to emphasize economic development as part of its mission and in 1995 formally began doing business as the ESDC, which incorporated other agencies.
The history gets a neat switch in legal papers filed in the Atlantic Yards eminent domain case. The original legislative effort to encourage "maximum" private participation in ESDC projects, cited as justification for embracing Forest City Ratner's Atlantic Yards plan without a look to rivals, was hardly focused on developments like Atlantic Yards.
Rather, it was intended to get the private sector to finally invest in the low- and middle-income subsidized housing. (Atlantic Yards would contain some of both, but they're hardly the raison d'etre.)
Moreover, the ESDC practices a neat maneuver in its legal papers. It credits a state appellate court decision as stating that the ESDC's “primary mission . . . is to encourage economic investment." A closer look shows that the language comes directly from the ESDC's own web site and in some ways distorts it.
Posted by lumi at 9:44 AM
April 26, 2007
Blight Me: Is "Developer Blight" a New Brooklyn Tactic?
Gowanus Lounge
The other day, protesters were out on Flatbush Avenue to speak out against the "premature demolition" of buildings in the Atlantic Yards footprint by Forest City Ratner. On Sunday, we gazed at the big lot at Bedford Avenue and N. 3rd Street in Williamsburg that is half empty and has had a half-demolished building for almost a year. On Saturday, we were wandering around Coney Island, shooting photos of a huge fence erected by Thor Equities.
...
It's not hard to imagine that one of these orgies of premature demolition won't leave beind a wasteland....
GL mentions Edgemere as a point of reference.
Posted by lumi at 10:05 AM
Scamming redevelopment
With little oversight, local redevelopment agencies seize private property and spend tax dollars to subsidize developers.
LA Times, Op-Ed
By Doug Kaplan
Everyone does it!
IN CALIFORNIA last year, redevelopment agencies spent more than $5 billion. They consumed almost $3 billion in property taxes. They forced people from their homes and businesses. And what vital service did they provide? They built shopping centers.
And here's the developers' dirty little secret:
Developers don't demand subsidies because they need them; they demand subsidies because they are there for the taking.
What if I'm wrong? Then redevelopment officials should still ask themselves — or better yet, they should ask the voters — how the public expects its tax dollars to be spent. Does it want more fabulous shopping centers and ever grander avenues? Or, for example, would it prefer better neighborhood schools?
Redevelopment is unwise, unjust and unnecessary and should be repealed before billions more dollars are wasted on public subsidies for private developers who — trust me — don't need the money.
He ought to know:
DOUG KAPLAN is a Northern California developer and former school board trustee. He lives in Aptos.
Posted by lumi at 7:33 AM
April 17, 2007
It came from the Blogosphere...
¡THE JESTAPLERO!, Guest Blogger: Scott M.X. Turner from Fans for Fair Play
Acknowledging that it's time to retire Shea Stadium, Fans for Fair Play's Scott Turner explains why the new Mets ballpark is still a bad deal for you and you and you. Before the handy-dandy bulleted list of things wrong with the new stadium, Turner airs some naming-rights dirty laundry, where Bruce Ratner come out smelling the worse.
Nets Daily, The first glimpses of the inside of the New Jersey Nets Barclays Center in Brooklyn will be available this fall
The blog for the NJ Nets fingers NoLandGrab as their source for an article that's subscription only on the Crain's NY Business web site, claiming it was, "Retrieved from nolandgrab.org."
NoLandGrab: Wha? It's our fault that Bruce Ratner's team blog posted the Crain's article? There's a big difference between distribution for educational purposes vs. PR and marketing. And what's up with no link? Where is the love?
The KnickerBlogger, 20 questions, One Response
The one response to The Brooklyn Paper's 20 Questions which remain unanswered by Forest City Ratner:
The predicted response "no comment" - why is it a major corporation taking BILLIONS from taxpayers, stealing people's property, and aggressively proposing an ill conceived project can get away with ignoring any public scrutiny? This is one of the strangest mysteries of this whole debacle.
The Knickerblogger, Frank Gehry, Gimmick Artist
Nothing gets under "Knickerblogger's" skin like Frank Gehry:
Even if Gehry's designs were not silly gimmicks, they have reputation of impracticality - one building at a college in Ohio became a hazard during snow falls, another, in Los Angeles, created deadly 140 degree + temperatures...do we really want an aging architect who doesn't think about snow in Ohio or sun in California to design the largest building in Brooklyn, over a major transportation hub? There is a simple mathematical equation you can map out - the close one is to the project the more they oppose it - the people who are not effected or stand to profit from it, support it. As with the war in Iraq- those who don't have to pay the consequences support it.
NoLandGrab: In addition, the Ohio sliding-snow building at Case Western Reserve University was the same one where a gunman remained at large for seven hours partially because the cops were baffled by the building's labyrinthian interior, just another one of Frank Gehry's unintended-consequence-turned-adverse-environmental-impact.
Daily Intelligencer, Après le Deluge
The Monday morning headline wrap-up included the MetroNY coverage of the rally against demolition of the Ward bakery.
Terrible rain and wind didn't stop 200 anti-Ratner activists from making it to a rally protesting planned demolitions at the Atlantic Yards site. The developer is taking out several buildings to create a seven-acre, 1,600-car "temporary" parking lot. [MetroNY]
to the barricades, Wednesday Protest
Mayor Bloomberg and Governor Spitzer are allowing these demolitions to proceed before the project has been shown to be either legal and financially viable. Keep in mind, that though some demolitions may be start, there is an eminent domain lawsuit in federal court, challenging the abuse of eminent domain for "Atlantic Yards," alleging that its use violates the United States Constitution.
If that lawsuit succeeds, it will make it impossible to build the arena, or the skyscraper-laden superblocks planned by the developer.
Come out Wednesday morning to demonstrate your opposition to the premature demolition of these buildings and to laying waste to our community before it has been determined whether or not the project can be built as proposed.
Posted by lumi at 7:02 AM
April 16, 2007
Sale of Albee Square Mall Could Mean Big Changes
The Brooklyn Daily Eagle
By Dennis Holt
Last week we linked to news of a Forest City alumnus who is in some hot water for political contributions in San Francisco.
This week, a local Forest City Ratner alum is heading a team in the purchase of the Albee Square Mall (emphasis added):
Although no official statement has yet been made, it clearly appears that Thor Equities, owned by Joseph Sitt, has finally sold its very coveted property in Downtown Brooklyn to a new development team.
One of the principals is Paul Travis, who was an officer with Forest City Ratner when developer Bruce Ratner first came to Brooklyn to build One Pierrepont Plaza and then MetroTech.
The site is the former Albee Square Mall at the eastern end of the Fulton Mall, where the biggest store is Toys ‘R’ Us and which has had three different names (including the Gallery at MetroTech) in the past 15 years.
Families United for Racial and Economic Equality (FUREE), a group which has also been fighting to save historic homes on Duffield Street from eminent domain condemnation, opposes the sale:
A group called Families United for Racial and Economic Equality (FUREE) has said it will testify at hearings held by the city’s Industrial Development Agency in Manhattan and also will hold several anti-Wal-Mart street rallies.
The group is also protesting the potential shutdown of the current mall, which has many popular small-business tenants.
Posted by lumi at 8:49 AM
April 13, 2007
Demolitions in the shadow of Atlantic Yards
Atlantic Yards Report
An analysis of demolition permits filed and socio-economic conditions in Prospect Heights challeges Ratner's contention in "the Atlantic Yards Final Environmental Impact Statement that the Atlantic Yards site would likely remain unchanged without the new project."
The pressure on development in Prospect Heights, cited yesterday in discussing the proposed Prospect Heights Historic District, is made clear in some new maps produced by the Municipal Art Society (MAS), which track demolition permits issued in 2006.
One map (excerpt at right) charts the permits against recent rezonings. The darker the shading, the more intense the number of demolition permits. Clearly, there are strong trends toward demolition and new construction in eastern Prospect Heights and western Crown Heights, notably around the Washington Avenue corridor just east of the Atlantic Yards site.
(The cluster of demolitions in the western segment of the Atlantic Yards site likely had much to do with demolitions conducted by Forest City Ratner. The Atlantic Yards site, in blue, is not a rezoning but a state development plan.)
Posted by lumi at 9:58 AM
April 11, 2007
Brooklyn Heights and the beginning of historic preservation
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder visits an exhibit at the Brooklyn Historical Society and reflects on the history and role of the preservation movement in NYC and how it hangs in the balance with the forces of "progress."
A new exhibit at the Brooklyn Historical Society, Landmark and Legacy: Brooklyn Heights and the Preservation Movement in America, traces the important story of the first historic district: Brooklyn Heights. (Charleston, SC, New Orleans, Washington, DC, Santa Fe, Boston, and others had previously established such districts, requiring landowners to maintain the external appearance of their buildings. Later, federal and state tax credits were established to ease the potential burden on owners.)
As co-curator Francis Morrone writes in the exhibit text:
...
The Brooklyn Heights Historic District changed New York forever. To say that is not an exaggeration. During decades in which the press said there was an "urban crisis," when ideas like "planned shrinkage" were discussed in high places, when pundits said the American city was an anachronism, when crime and housing abandonment dominated people's perceptions of New York, the preservation movement gave New Yorkers a new sense of their city's virtues -- something in which to take pride, and with which to make us fall in love with the city all over again.That's meaningful, because, as I've noted, the Draft Environmental Impact Statement for Atlantic Yards downplays the role of historic preservation in the Brooklyn neighborhoods surrounding the proposed site, even though a 1974 city study acknowledged “reviving brownstone residential neighborhoods” nearby a possible arena site at the corner of Atlantic and Flatbush avenues. (Morrone has joined the Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn advisory board.)
Posted by lumi at 7:36 AM
Ian Schrager: Viewing Studio 54 From Age 60
The man who forever placed ‘boutique’ before ‘hotel’ talks about his High Line plans, Brooklyn dreams, and why he wouldn’t mind selling One Madison’s clock tower
The NY Observer
By Max Abelson
It's hard to imagine two developers whose personal styles are more unalike than Ian Schrager and Bruce Ratner, which is why we nearly fell off the chair when Schrager mentioned "you know who."
What Brooklyn neighborhood excites you most as a potential place to work?
Williamsburg, I suppose, or even downtown Brooklyn, where Bruce Ratner is doing a lot of work; around B.A.M. [the Brooklyn Academy of Music]—I have been asked to do a couple projects over there. I am thinking about it, but there is only so much you can do …. I haven’t been entertaining offers about doing anything in New Jersey yet, but I might if the right project came along.
NoLandGrab: Phew, we felt better after Schrager clarified "Downtown Brooklyn" to mean "around B.A.M.," because only Forest City Ratner executive Jim Stuckey seems to think that Brooklyn's hipness translates to Downtown Brooklyn, which is dominated by Bruce Ratner's hulking souless MetroTech office campus.
Posted by lumi at 6:40 AM
April 6, 2007
Renewed Call for Prospect Heights Historic District
Gothamist
By Jill Priluck
Bruce Ratner’s mega-project isn’t only a catalyst for lawsuits. It’s also behind a push to create a historic district in Prospect Heights. “I think with the Atlantic Yards happening, there’s a real urgency to get it designated,” Municipal Art Society fellow Lisa Kersavage told Gothamist. “The development pressures are increasing dramatically.”
FUN FACTS:
Did you know Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards plan is in Prospect Heights, not Downtown Brooklyn?
577 Carlton is one short block away from the Atlantic Yards footprint.
Posted by lumi at 8:03 AM
April 4, 2007
Gag Me: Why Do Mr. Sitt and Mr. Ratner Like Silence?
The Gowanus Lounge
As anyone who's been following the Thor Equities Coney Island saga or the earlier Forest City Ratner buyout of property owners in the Atlantic Yards footprint, confidentiality clauses are the latest fashion accessory in development deals. The new issue of the Real Deal offers a nice picture of the trend:
Thor offered its tenants in Coney Island the opportunity to stay on for one year. In return, the business owners must remain silent about redevelopment efforts that "may generate opposition from other landowners, businesses and certain members of the public" for four years after signing...Violators would pay $10,000 to Thor for each infraction.
The developer says the gag rule is necessary not to keep tenants from speaking out, but to protect confidential information.
NoLandGrab: What's especially fun about Ratner's gag order is that sellers, when called upon, must also state publicly that they were "fairly treated" (or is it "treated fairly?") by the developer. These public displays of affection are kinda reminiscent of McCarthy-era loyalty oaths.
Posted by lumi at 8:57 AM
April 1, 2007
Sunday Comix
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Posted by lumi at 10:00 AM
March 30, 2007
PRESS RELEASE: Richard G. Leland to Join Fried Frank’s Real Estate Practice
BusinessWire.com
Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson LLP announced today that Richard G. Leland will be joining the firm as a partner in the Real Estate Department, resident in New York. He joins Fried Frank from Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel LLP, where he was chair of the Environmental Department.
Mr. Leland is an environmental lawyer and litigator, specializing in the environmental aspects of real estate development and land use. His clients include real estate developers, non-profit organizations, and public authorities. He has represented New York State in the nation’s first privatization of a federal and state owned airport in upstate New York and has assisted major New York City developers, cultural, and educational institutions in environmental impact reviews for real estate developments. He presently represents Forest City Ratner in connection with litigation relating to the Atlantic Yards Development in Brooklyn, Columbia University in connection with a major expansion and the joint venture between The Related Companies and Vornado Realty Trust that is the designated developer for the Moynihan Station project in connection with environmental reviews of that project. He has also represented developers, municipalities, and public authorities in a variety of zoning matters and litigation arising from zoning determinations in suburban counties in the New York metropolitan area.
Posted by lumi at 6:36 AM
March 29, 2007
Buying a Billionaire?
The Wonkster
Compiled by Gail Robinson
Yesterday NY Observer reporter Matthew Schuerman revealed that Bruce Ratner donated beaucoup bucks to a foundation that is near and dear to the Mayor's heart, as his Atlantic Yards project was being considered for large direct taxpayer contributions on top of a bevy of subsidies.
The Wonkster notes that this is just the latest notch in City Hall's shakedown of the private sector in what is starting to look like a pay-to-play scheme.
The conventional wisdom has long been that Mayor Michael Bloomberg remains immune to the blandishments of special interests, since he is too rich to be bought. And certainly the mayor has not needed a penny of campaign contributions to finance his $70 million plus election campaigns.
But does that mean money is not one way to this man’s heart?
Forest City Ratner, developer of Atlantic Yards, gave between $450,000 and $1 million to a “nonprofit closely associated” with Bloomberg, just as the debate over the controversial megaproject was heating up, Matthew Schuerman reports in today’s Observer. The firm’s Bruce Ratner is a registered lobbyist, and according to Schuerman, “The donation came six months after a meeting with Mr. Bloomberg and Deputy Mayor Patricia Harris that… Ratner reported was a lobbying contact—although the parties now dispute that it should have been characterized as such.”
...
This is not the first time the issue of contributions has arisen. When Bloomberg and his Deputy Mayor Dan Doctoroff were still fantasizing about New York as the site of the 2012 Olympics, businesses gave millions to NYC 2012. Although WNYC could not find a “quid pro quo,” its Andrea Bernstein reported at the time, “Some donors… told us they felt they HAD to give, but they didn’t want their names used for fear of souring city business deals. One businessman said Doctoroff told him – after a city hall meeting on a non-Olympics-related matter, that he’d hear from Jay Kriegal, executive director of NYC2012. He did, and he gave a six figure contribution.”
Posted by lumi at 8:26 AM
Roman Holiday
New York's ambassador lives high, large, and loose
The Village Voice
An article by Tom Robbins compiles a litany of travel and dining expenses racked up by the former head of the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC), Charles Gargano, the pal of former-Governor Pataki who led the quasi-governmental corporation while it sought approval of Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards plan.
With just two months to go in his job as the state's economic development czar, Charles Gargano hopped on an Alitalia Airlines flight last October 20 and flew to Rome. His ticket included an open return, from Rome's Da Vinci airport to JFK. The cost, $3,579, was billed to Gargano's state-supplied corporate American Express card.
...
The only explanation offered was a one-line entry from his secretary to the accounting department: "This charge is for airfare to Italy for last minute request for Chairman to speak at an event."What event? Whose request? Officials say they don't have a clue.
...
In September 2005, while Gargano was traveling with Pataki on a trade mission to China, he took a side jaunt to Helsinki to visit real estate tycoon Earle Mack, a major Pataki campaign contributor who had recently been named ambassador to Finland by President Bush. The $1,496 cost was justified, his secretary wrote, since Gargano was "addressing potential investors in New York State."Back in New York, Gargano liberally used his corporate AmEx card to pay for meals at many of the city's poshest dining establishments—rarely explaining why.
NoLandGrab: Those who are following "The Ambassador's" post-ESDC woes will recall his other ethical lapses: a visit to a port contractor in Red Hook and how the ESDC paid the rent on nephew Frank Gargano's headquarters.
Gargano is also the guy who promised that financial information concerning Atlantic Yards would eventually be forthcoming, in an interview with New York Voices (transcript, Atlantic Yards Report):
Q: Some individuals--lawyers, some journalists--want to know exactly how you came up with the figures, of the gains and losses, and they've even filed under the Freedom of Information act, but the [ESDC} has refused...
A: Well first of all, what they are looking for is internal documents, working documents... Completed documents, once the project is approved, once we have completed the negotiations with the developers, they will all be public record.
Yesterday, The NY Sun reported that Forest City Ratner never provided such documents to the State, which contradicts the assurances given by Gargano. Hence, our enduring interest in the fate of "The Ambassador" Charles Gargano.
Posted by lumi at 7:18 AM
March 21, 2007
It came from the Blogosphere...
The Gowanus Lounge, Ratner Beats Steinbrenner: He's Third in '06 Lobbying Spending
GL's observation on Ratner's outstanding ranking in the 2006 lobbyist report:
No. 3, however, turned out to be Bruce Ratner, who spent $2.11 million. Meanwhile, No. 8 was the New York Yankees Partnership, which was looking for state assistance to build a new baseball stadium. Mr. Steinbrenner spent $1.1 million on lobbying, one of the rare instances when he was outspent by another team.
KINETIC CARNIVAL, The 'Mix-Use' of Rides and Condos
[Brooklyn Daily Eagle reporter Sarah] Ryley also elaborates on the disclosure of Lola Staar's Dianna Carlin as the originator of the newly emerged group "Save Coney Island"
In a limited way, her newly formed group is Coney Island’s version of Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn (DDDB), the more established group that has recently offered Carlin its expertise from years of fighting the approved Atlantic Yards project.
eOculus, Balancing Great American Cities: Its Form AND Content
[Jane] Jacobs’s observations are increasingly lost as her ideas are appropriated “to sell large, top-down projects,” explained Ronald Shiffman, FAICP, Hon. AIA, Professor of Urban Planning at Pratt Institute. He cited the Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn and Columbia University’s Manhattanville expansion as examples of this.
The Daily Gotham, We Give Ratner the Atlantic Yards Land for Free
If you wanted to buy some land to develop for your own profit, would you expect taxpayers to pay the entire bill for you? Well, if you are a law school buddy of Pataki, that is exactly the sweet deal you could get while Pataki was Governor...and the exact deal Bruce Ratner seems to have gotten with you and me footing the bill.
...
Ratner's $100 million bid was finally accepted, part of the controversy where the low bid of a friend of then Governor Pataki was accepted over a higher bid. Now we learn that the city is planning to pay for the entirety of this land purchase?Corruption runs deep in New York.
The Knickerblogger, Architect of the Idiocracy
We know [Ratner] has a penchant for choosing bad designs, and in an added twist he's chosen fashionable but impractical Frank Gehry - one of the most environmentally unsound architects practicing today.
Free Republic, Barclays Bank Boycott To Protest Eminent Domain Abuse
From comments on the NY Libertarian Party's press release declaring a boycott of Barclays Bank (the bank must be used to it by now):
Huh? WHAT "eminent abuse scheme of Brooklyn's Atlantic Yards."? Is this explained above? My aging eyes and inability to stay focused must be failing me again! My apologies, but is it there? If not, are we supposed to know what that was all about?
Sugar Hill Harlem Inn, "All the news that is unfit to print"
A blogger suggests that The NY Times cover itself and the Times Tower, built and co-owned by Bruce Ratner. Details from the lease on file with the SEC bars nearly all uses of a populist or middle-class nature, making one wonder how they managed to justify the taking of private property as a public use.
Knickerblogger, Banana Republic, It Ain't Just A Clothing Label
On Ratner's big tab spent on lobbyists:
I am sure glad Bruce Ratner assured us that he doesn't contribute to politicians to avoid the appearance of impropriety, otherwise we might think something was amiss.
NoLandGrab: Bruce Ratner's projects are probably so great that they would be approved on their own merit, but in a "banana republic," this is just the cost of doing business... and speaking of Banana Republic...
Other retailers signing leases for space at [Bruce Ratner's] Ridge Hill Village include apparel chains Banana Republic and New York & Company.
Posted by lumi at 6:47 AM
March 20, 2007
The AYE on two Carlton Ave townhouses
One Hanson Place
Residents in Ft. Greene, Prospect Heights and Park Slope are looking for signs of AYE: that's the Atlantic Yards effect.
It appears there's a special challenge in selling real estate in the shadow of Atlantic Yards:
In other times, this two-family would most likely have garnered an added premium, but the spector of the AYE may have tempered the asking price just a bit.
Posted by lumi at 8:48 PM
March 16, 2007
Boymelgreen: No new Brooklyn projects — for now
The Brooklyn Paper
By Dana Rubinstein
In the Brooklyn Developers Hall of Shame, Boymelgreen is seated with other heavyweights like Bruce Ratner and Robert Scarano. Boymelgreen's m.o.: to increase his margins by hiring non-union labor (in this respect, the Brucester looks like a saint in comparison). Boymelgreen's latest controversy came to a head last week when he got burned in court for colluding with Bruce Ratner to double-cross Atlantic Yards' footprint property-owner Henry Weinstein. [Is there no honor amongst developers???]
The Brooklyn Paper has extensive coverage of Boymelgreen this week, who, "Unlike Bruce Ratner... had the guts to sit down with The Brooklyn Paper and share his vision." One important theme is the glut of luxury condos on the market in Brooklyn:
Brooklyn’s luxury condo boom is petering out — at least according to one of the borough’s biggest developers.
Real-estate tycoon Shaya Boymelgreen told The Brooklyn Paper last week that won’t start any new Brooklyn projects until the glut in luxury condos dissipates.
NoLandGrab: If a luxury-condo glut materializes, what does that portend for Bruce Ratner's luxury-condo portion of the Atlantic Yards plan? Remember, Ratner claims that the historic residential density of the project is the result of having to build luxury condos to cover the "affordable" housing.
Unlike Boymelgreen, when Ratner's projects stagnate, some government entity usually picks up the slack. Boymelgreen's predictions, in the wake of the approval for Atlantic Yards, should concern taxpayers who are fed up with subsidizing Bruce Ratner.
Posted by lumi at 8:48 AM
Prices up, but not as much
The Brooklyn Paper
Apartment prices in many Brooklyn neighborhoods are up, but not as up as they were a year ago, according to a new report from the Real Estate Board of New York.
Posted by lumi at 8:43 AM
Coney Island Issue Reaching Critical Mass?
Gowanus Lounge
Though Coney Island developer Joseph Sitt has employed many of Bruce Ratner's PR tools, the junior developer didn't really do his homework. The community is on the verge of forming organized opposition to his plans for Coney Island and Sitt has tossed out the Ratner playbook, trying to muscle the political establishment through curious press rants.
Posted by lumi at 7:37 AM
March 15, 2007
March Radness: 64 Teams, So Many Shining Moments
From East Village Idiot via Curbed.com
This might be Brooklyn's jump-the-shark moment, when nearly every neighborhood can be distilled into a simple real estate conflict complete with a hipster, subway or mommy mascot.
East Village Idiot gives props to Ratner by making him the third seed. At least 14-seed DDDB is still in the game.
Posted by lumi at 6:58 AM
Residents Rejoice After High-Rise Sunset Park Development Is Blocked
NY1
Local group successfully beats back overdevelopment in their lowrise neighborhood and vows to keep fighting.
Residents rejoiced Sunday after blocking the construction of a high-rise apartment building in their low-rise neighborhood in the Sunset Park neighborhood of Brooklyn.
...
"I think that when the community come united and unified against a project with the same objectives they know they can accomplish a lot,” said Brooklyn Assemblyman Felix Ortiz.The group says it plans to keep fighting what it calls "out of context development" in Sunset Park.
NoLandGrab: People in Prospect Heights and Ft. Greene scratch their heads when everyone rejoices when neighborhoods like Sunset Park and South Slope beat the developer creep, when at the end of the day Prospect Heights and Ft. Greene remain fighting alone against the densest residential project in the nation.s history.
More proof that ALL politics is local.
Posted by lumi at 6:43 AM
March 7, 2007
Sitt Buckles Into Coney Rollercoaster
The NY Observer
By Matthew Schuerman
Thor Equities developer Joseph Sitt's recent setbacks for his vision of Coney Island redevelopment illustrate that nobody does it better than Bruce:
In some ways, Mr. Sitt jumped into the game too late to replicate the way another Brooklyn developer, Bruce Ratner, convinced the city and state to support a sports arena right next to a massive apartment village. Mr. Ratner saw a desolate rail yard in central Brooklyn and used it as a wedge to create an eight-million-square foot development. Mr. Sitt began buying property only four years ago, after the city constructed a minor-league baseball stadium and had already made its mind up to forge a community-led master plan for the neighborhood.
On the other hand, Mr. Sitt—unlike Mr. Ratner—never needs to use eminent domain. He has spent $150 million buying out dozens of landowners, according to reports, prying heirlooms from the families which created Nathan’s Hot Dogs and brought the Ferris wheel to New York City with the promise that he would put them to worthy use. After flipping land west of Keyspan Park to a residential developer for $90 million, Mr. Sitt is left with the four-block area next to the Cyclone roller coaster, the so-called amusement core.
Posted by lumi at 7:35 AM
March 5, 2007
Breaking Ground
Gotham Gazette
New York City is in the midst of a construction boom, say city officials and representatives from the building industry. The city is issuing residential building permits at near record numbers and a recent wave of mega projects, such as Atlantic Yards (see related story), approved by city, state and federal agencies marks the city's most ambitious economic development agenda in decades.
Related story, Atlantic Yards: A “Done Deal?”, by Tom Angotti
The article lists all of the reasons that New Yorkers think Atlantic Yards is regarded as "just a harmless piece of Manhattan-like development" and is probably "a done deal" and then embarks on a more fact-based review of where the project really stands:
But a new film, Brooklyn Matters, uncovers a deepening vein of displeasure with the project that spans a wide political spectrum, in Manhattan as well as Brooklyn, among community leaders and urban planners. In addition to the “resignation and bitter apathy” referred to by Brooklyn resident Jennifer Egan in her recent New York Times op-ed essay, there seems to be a warehouse of active resistance and also a minefield of new obstacles. Three new lawsuits against the project will tie the project up for a while. The Spitzer administration is looking closely at this and a host of other Pataki deals that left mushrooming public costs. Critics are attempting to expose the affordable housing package as something of a front for what they say is really a massive luxury project. And now community groups are working on expanding their own plan for the area that sets aside Ratner’s vision.
Posted by lumi at 10:43 AM
February 24, 2007
Developer Strikes Deal for Brooklyn Mixed-Use Project Site
Commercial Property News joins the club of media outlets mislabeling Prospect Heights as Downtown Brooklyn:
Taking a step toward a major Brooklyn mixed-use project, a development team of Acadia Realty Trust, P/A Associates, and Paul Travis of Washington Square Partners confirmed today that it has reached a $120 million agreement with New York City to acquire the leasehold interest in two properties slated for the future site of a 1.6 million-square-foot development.The proposed project, dubbed The Center at Albee Square, would be the first major commercial development to move forward since Downtown Brooklyn’s rezoning in 2004, the developers have said. Located at the western end of the Fulton Street Mall area, a major Downtown Brooklyn shopping district, the project would rise on the current site of The Gallery at Fulton Street and an adjacent parking structure.
The Albee Square project would also be a key investment in Downtown Brooklyn, whose largest and most controversial project is Forest City Ratner Cos.’ planned 22-acre, 16-building mixed-use development highlighted by a new sports and entertainment arena.
Posted by amy at 10:24 AM
February 22, 2007
Not lost in gentrification
Artists make sure Brooklyn’s landmarks — and diversity — aren’t forgotten
MetroNY
By Nana Ekua Brew-Hammond
An artist who grew up in Brooklyn contemplates the changes in the borough that used to be his canvas and now is his subject:
“When I was growing up, there certainly weren’t places to show work,” [Adam] Suerte says. Now, instead of trooping his canvases to Manhattan galleries and art dealers, he can show his pieces at neighborhood spots such as two-level nightclub Sputnik, where he, photographer Keith Thomson, satirical cartoonist Willy Paredes and comic artist Omar Sanchez will be displaying their work in conjunction with BAM’s “Brooklyn Next” music festival. Paredes’ band Pagoda will perform before ceding the sound system to DJ Premier.
But on the other hand, with Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz petitioning Mayor Bloomberg to tear down the Brooklyn House of Detention and developer Bruce Ratner’s plans to build 16 high-rises and an 18,000-seat basketball stadium for the New Jersey Nets, the Brooklyn that Suerte grew up tagging as a young graffiti artist and then documenting in paintings is slowly disappearing.
“You can see the clock tower … Chrysler Building and the Empire State Building all in one shot,” Suerte says of a view from Atlantic Yards where Ratner intends to erect the stadium. “It’s amazing, and it’s going to be gone.”
Posted by lumi at 7:30 AM
Challenging development, when you can afford a full-page ad in the Times
Atlantic Yards Report
"Why, now, is the government planning to pay for the construction of an overly expensive design to be occupied by government agencies at overly expensive rents, all at the expense of taxpayers' money which could be put to better uses?"
So asks the Continuing Committee for a Reasonable World Trade Center, in a full-page ad on p. B10 of yesterday's New York Times. That committee, run by "the developer Douglas Durst and the real estate investor Anthony E. Malkin" (in the words of the 2/13/07 New York Times), clearly reflects some self-interest.
It makes you wonder: what if some other developers felt threatened by the Atlantic Yards project? Might they be reflecting both self-interest and the public interest?
Posted by lumi at 7:18 AM
February 16, 2007
The Difference a Governor Makes
The Real Estate Observer reporter Matthew Schuerman is noting that they are singing a new tune at the ESDC:
The Empire State Development Corporation used to send out meeting notices to the press that read:
Meetings are open to the public for observation, but not for direct participation.
Earlier this week, the state economic development agency sent out one for Thursday morning's board meeting--the first under Gov. Sptizer's co-chairmen Patrick Foye and Dan Gundersen--that read:
The meeting is open to the public for observation and comment.
And indeed, before every vote, Mr. Foye would ask if the public had any questions. For an agency that had gained a reputation as one of the more inscrutable deliberative bodies, well, that's worth a blog post at least.
Also, Mr. Foye said he would try to attend the public hearings on ESDC projects in person as much as possible.
NoLandGrab: Board members taking questions from the PUBLIC? A board chairman attending hearings?? Let's not get crazy.
Seriously, it's too bad that Governor Spitzer couldn't postpone the approval of Atlantic Yards so that it would fall under his administration (cough, cough).
Posted by lumi at 1:33 PM
February 15, 2007
Mr. Bollinger's Battle
The NY Observer
By Matthew Schuerman
Columbia University is planning to expand into West Harlem, but community groups want assurances that the plan would benefit the community (you know, the community not cleared away by eminent domain).
Reporter Matthew Schuerman, who has been staying on top of the issue of Community Benefits Agreements (CBA) throughout the city, sits down with some of the players to try to get the story of how a Columbia University-West Harlem CBA might take shape:
Finally, after months of preparation, the negotiations for the community-benefits agreement began last month. Once completed, the C.B.A. may set a precedent for all other large real-estate projects in New York City, a precedent which, based on the way it has evolved so far, would be much more rigorous than those already established in the Bronx or Brooklyn.
Or it could provide more evidence that negotiations like this, outside the halls of government, come to no good.
Would Bruce Ratner's "historic" CBA in Brooklyn serve as a role model?
WHEN THE COMMUNITY BOARD STARTED TO FORM an entity that would negotiate on West Harlem’s behalf, one thing was certain: Harlem didn’t think much of the community-benefits agreement for Atlantic Yards, in which developer Forest City Ratner negotiated directly with nonprofits that would end up making money from the agreement.
“Ratner and the city got together with one big, national not-for-profit and a set of local sycophants and put something together which doesn’t seem to have satisfied too many people, except for those who are benefiting directly from it,” Mr. Reyes-Montblanc, the chairman of Community Board 9, said.
What about eminent domain?
The community board is struggling to maintain a united front against the use of eminent domain—the government’s right to take private property, with compensation for the owner, so long as it goes to some sort of public use, with “public use” being variously defined. Tom DeMott, a former post-office employee who is a tenants’ representative on the development corporation’s board, fears that the involvement of elected officials may dilute that resolve, even though they profess solidarity.
Posted by lumi at 7:31 AM
February 14, 2007
Development Dons
The Village Voice, The Magician's Nephew
The goods on Gargano: A seamy tale of nepotism on the Brooklyn waterfront
By Tom Robbins
How Pataki's economic development boss kept it all in the family when he paid a visit to a Brooklyn port operator.
The NY Observer, Modern-Day Robert Moses
Reporter Matthew Schuerman has a sit-down chat with our Local Development Don for the weekly paper's "Location" column:
Location: Well, what do you think about that? Atlantic Yards, in particular?
Doctoroff: I think in that case there was an enormous level of community input. There were hundreds of meetings and enormous outreach to community leaders. The difference was that it was not submitted to a vote of the City Council. In that case, you had a local Council member who was not in favor. On the other hand, you had the majority of the Council—I can’t say this with 100 percent certainty—that wants it.
The Council shows deference to the local Council member, but it has also demonstrated an ability to see needs of citywide import and to respond accordingly. I don’t think the response would’ve been any different.
Doctoroff also stresses the City's interest in redeveloping the Brooklyn waterfront, which doesn't bode well for the port operator who told his story to the Voice.
Posted by lumi at 8:46 AM
It came from the Blogosphere...
The Brooklynian, AY Footprint Purchase
"Haddock" falls in love with a brownstone adjacent to the 22-acre Atlantic Yards footprint. Is there a fire sale on property right next to the footprint? Should he go for it? Will living next to a construction zone wasteland for 10 years be a hardship? Or will having an arena in your backyard actually increase your property value?
New York Mag: Daily Intelligencer, Who's Afraid of Brooklyn Redevelopment?
The great thing about the Atlantic Yards imbroglio is that, while everyone's busy yelling about that, other developers can do all sorts of things right next door... And now, with very little fanfare, a deal has been reached to erect one of Brooklyn's tallest buildings mere blocks from the epicenter. Where, you ask, will it go? Let's see how to break this to you. Remember Fulton Mall? Excellent. Now forget it.
Steamboats Are Ruining Everything, Illustrating the Underbelly
A photo of the "underbelly" of an iconic Brooklyn bridge illustrates why Bruce should be banned in Brooklyn.
Don't worry, it's just "Dreadnaught" has an itchy trigger finger this week aimed at Bruce Ratner: Atlantic Yards Litmus Test
The ESDC claimed it would create a 'dramatic skyline' yet not once, in the multiple 'liar flyers' mailed out to Brooklynites, did forest city ever show the buildings. Why?
Noise and Light aren't just aesthetic issues
Dreadnaught references the Wikipedia article on noise pollution to illustrate that noise and light isn't just about "ambience."
It's Just One Guy
What's the point of having an eminent domain clause in the Fifth Amendment of the US Constitution, when politicians and developers are going to do what they want anyway?
Our laws exist exactly to protect people like Daniel Goldstein from Bruce Ratner. Our laws and values have been so distorted, so warped that even politicians and in some cases, judges have lost sight of this....but once you have justify taking land because it will benefit some abstract greater good, or that a groups benefits are more important than an individual's rights, that becomes the justification for taking. In other words, developers will set up a pre-text of public benefit, and literally no home is safe.
Posted by lumi at 7:56 AM
February 10, 2007
In Coney Island, developer learns from Atlantic Yards
Atlantic Yards Report looks at Thor Equities' Joe Sitt's PR blitz on proposed Coney Island redevelopment:
As Gowanus Lounge blogger Robert Guskind has ably pointed out, the developer apparently sent a mailer from a seemingly grassroots group, The Future of Coney Island. As with a Forest City Ratner brochure, the list of issues for respondents to cite could only serve the developer: "Yes, my community needs jobs."As Guskind wrote, "The promo mailer says nothing about housing or highrises, both of which are controversial parts of Thor's plan." It's reminiscent of the Atlantic Yards mailer last May that curiously contained no towers but asked residents what aspects of the project interested them.
Posted by amy at 12:01 PM
February 9, 2007
Whose Downtown is it anyway?
Brooklyn Paper
Everyone is sick of Prospect Heights being mistakenly called Downtown Brooklyn in various media, but it is definitely worth a look at what is actually going on in the actual Downtown Brooklyn:
The City Council unanimously rezoned Downtown Brooklyn in 2004 to bring in high-rise office towers and sleek new residences.It’s happening already. So congratulations to our esteemed councilmembers. But in a severe case of shortsightedness, the rezoning is killing the small businesses that already existed in the area. Now, the buildings on the side streets — Lawrence, Willoughby, Duffield — are being bought up one by one and torn down to make way for something “better.”
...
Joyce Kiehm’s wig shop has been on Lawrence Street since 1986. She emigrated here from Korea, started her own business and played by all the rules.“I don’t know what’s going to happen to me,” said Kiehm, who has two years left on a lease that most experts say will never be renewed, even if she could afford the inevitable rent hike.
The upzoning for "upscaling" doesn't stop there. Nik Kovac reports for Brooklyn Downtown Star:
House-Turned-Museum Still Faces Wrecking BallGiven the necessarily underground nature of the Underground Railroad, it was hard at the time and it's even harder now to discern exactly what was going on: to know which escaped slaves were hid where. "That just burns me," admitted Chatel, "when people say there's no evidence. It was a secret society!"
The reason it burns Chatel so is that the city wants to demolish her historic house to build a ramp into a hotel and underground parking garage - part of the redevelopment and rezoning of Downtown Brooklyn passed by the City Council in 2004. The case of Chatel's home and its three abutting rowhouse neighbors was referred to the Landmarks Commission by the Council back then, and is still officially under investigation.
As with the Atlantic Yards proposal, this plan is not a done deal. Join the band Kakande this weekend for a fun fundraiser:
African Music Returns to the SafehousesWe'll rock your socks off with lush classical West African melodies from the Mande Empire, and you will get to hear stories of how the former owners of the building resisted legal slavery in the United States.
Just to be clear: February 10 will not be a regular performance in a regular club. This is their home and gathering spot/hair salon that New York City wants to destroy to make an underground parking lot. The details are shocking, but we're standing up to the City's bulldozers with our own musical bulldozers.
Here are the details:
Kakande
High-Energy Classical West African Melodies
with Famoro Dioubate
Saturday February 10
9 pm
227 Duffield Street
(between Fulton & Willoughby in Brooklyn)
$8 suggested donation
Take the 2/3 to Hoyt or the M/R to Lawrence
Posted by amy at 9:06 PM
Ratner’s shadows end solar power dream
The Brooklyn Paper
By Ariella Cohen
Bruce Ratner’s Atlantic Yards project would cast such long shadows that the architect of a housing complex being built across the street has scraped a plan to heat his building with solar power.
“It’s just not an option for a building that will be in substantial shade all year round,” said Magnis Magnusson, who is designing the 80-unit “Atlantic Terrace” building that will rise next year on Atlantic Avenue at South Portland Street — across the street from Ratner’s proposed 16-tower mega-development.
Magnusson, who is working with the non-profit Fifth Avenue Committee development group, said he harbored his green dream until the state approved Ratner’s 30- to 50-story towers this winter.
“If the towers had been reduced to 20 or 25 stories, it would have been possible,” he said.
...
Forest City Ratner did not return a call for comment.
NoLandGrab: Ft. Greene residents have warned that potential solar energy is a resource that should be considered in the Atlantic Yards Environmental Impact Statement. As reported by Norman Oder in Atlantic Yards Report, the Empire State Development Corporation dismissed all related concerns and stated, in regard to the Atlantic Terrace project, that "the incremental shadows are of short duration and do not cover the entire space."
This disappointing development demonstrates how Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards plan is already adversely affecting the surrounding neighborhoods. These are not just complaints from cranky Brownstone Brooklynites, either — the Fifth Avenue Committee has a long track record of building and managing affordable housing in Brooklyn.
Posted by lumi at 10:53 AM
February 4, 2007
Looking for Something That Merits the Trump Name in Brooklyn
Curbed
Donald Trump is apparently looking at going back to his Brooklyn roots. He expresses what seems to be Ratner Envy to a magazine called City Scoops:That Ratner project is very interesting and a huge undertaking. Brooklyn is now a very viable market … and we think that there is potential for us there. Maybe not now, but down the road. Something along the waterfront would be great.No need to run for cover yet, though. He says that he hasn't seen any projects in Brooklyn "that would merit the Trump name so far.”
Posted by amy at 11:36 AM
February 2, 2007
Shirtspotting
Shahn Anderson sports Brooklyn's hottest T, proving that responsible development does the body good and is oh so sexy!
Check out the story about how Shahn stepped in to help save Broken Angel:
The Real Deal, Broken Angel goes condo in changing Clinton Hill
Brownstoner, More Details on the Broken Angel Project
Posted by lumi at 10:34 AM
Why they lie
The Brooklyn Paper explains why NoLandGrab can't even squeeze in a vacation, much less retire:
Lately, it seems that no matter which development story we cover — Atlantic Yards, the so-called “Brooklyn Bridge Park,” the redevelopment of Coney Island — one common theme emerges.
Developers don’t tell the truth.
And the simple reason is that they don’t want you — the taxpayers who subsidize most development going on today — to know how much of your money they’re taking.
We write about this subject a lot, but it bears repeating because the lies and subterfuge blinds many of our readers to the hidden costs of some of Brooklyn’s biggest projects.
With Atlantic Yards, developer Bruce Ratner once boasted that his project would generate $100 million in tax revenues for the city every year for 30 years. That figure is now down to $15 million. Fifteen million! That’s coffee money for a city with a $57 billion annual budget.
The city once said it would only spend $100 million on “infrastructure improvements” at the Atlantic Yards site. That figure is now $205 million — and the mayor told our reporter this week that the final figure will be higher.
Posted by lumi at 8:15 AM
January 26, 2007
Call it Harriet Tubman Park
The Brooklyn Papers, Editorial
In light of the fact that Ratner failed to celebrate Brooklyn's heritage by naming a new Nets arena after Jackie Robinson, the Papers calls on officials to do the right thing and name the Brooklyn Bridge Park for Harriet Tubman.
Harriet Tubman was a modern-day Moses. An escaped slave, she returned repeatedly to pre-Emancipation Maryland to rescue, by her estimate, 7,000 slaves. She later became a spy for the North during the Civil War and even helped plan a raid that freed 750 more human beings.
The naming of “Harriet Tubman Park” would not only raise the profile of this great American hero, but also undo some of the damage Ratner has done with his insensitive partnership with a bank founded on profits made from the blood of the human beings Tubman devoted her life to saving.
Posted by lumi at 8:02 AM
January 22, 2007
Robert Moses's Vision of New York
NY Sun
By Francis Morrone
In 2007, the world regards New York as a major urban success story. Five years after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, with construction booming all around the city, and with large-scale development projects such as the Atlantic Yards in the works, a re-evaluation of Moses's legacy seems in order. And that's just what we're getting at the month's end when the Museum of the City of New York, Columbia University, and the Queens Museum team up for a major exhibition, " Robert Moses and the Modern City."
One of Brooklyn's preeminent architectural historians has a second look at the legacy of Robert Moses and tips his hat to the masterbuilder's waterfront plan:
Nowadays a New Yorker can take the R train to Bay Ridge, enjoy a lovely dinner in one of that neighborhood's many good restaurants, then sit dreamily on a Shore Road bench watching the lights of the [Verrazano] bridge twinkle in the dusk. That perfect New York evening is ours in part by way of Robert Moses.
NoLandGrab: Despite Moses's intention to turn the south side of Long Island into a destination for public recreation, the BQE and Belt Parkway separate many neighborhoods from direct access.
During Moses's time, planning was centered around automobile infrastructure — today new construction and large projects are focused on building more housing, where, surprisingly, many of Moses mistakes are being recreated, as exemplified by the Atlantic Yards superblocks. The planned condos at the entrance of the Brooklyn Bridge Park in many ways are a throwback to the highways and parkways built by Moses that separate waterfront recreation from adjacent neighborhoods.
Posted by lumi at 7:40 AM
January 20, 2007
Wacky ‘Angel’ builder will work with wackier developer
Brooklyn Paper
New Broken Angel developer gets a dig in at Gehry while supporting actual Brooklyn architecture:
The artist who created the Department of Building’s most-hated — and Clinton Hill’s most-beloved — building could soon be bringing his artistic vision (and code violations, critics say) to a wider audience.Broken Angel creator Arthur Wood, and his new business partner, Shahn Christian Andersen, want to do more than just rebuild Wood’s Downing Street ziggurat — the building out of which Wood was hauled by the NYPD last year because it had so many structural flaws.
“I plan on using him to design my future developments,” said Andersen, who has rebuilt or developed about a dozen buildings in his six-year career.
...
“I expect it to look more creative than anything Frank Gehry has done in 30 years,” he said.
Posted by amy at 1:24 PM
January 17, 2007
Hotels grow in Brooklyn
MetroNY
By Amy Zimmer
“With the pullback in the residential market, many people are looking to hotels,” McConnell said. “We’ve seen at least half a dozen national hotel players coming to New York to look at Brooklyn.”
NoLandGrab: Not to be left out, Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards has been morphing on the drawing board during the past three years to conform to real estate trends in Brooklyn.
First there were millions of square feet of office space, which, as in the Downtown Brooklyn plan, changed to luxury condos. The trend has moved away from luxury condos to hotel rooms, and Ratner has already adjusted Atlantic Yards in lock step.
Posted by lumi at 8:55 AM
$700M PARK FLAP
PATAKI PALS CASH IN
NY Post
By Rich Calder
Lookie! Bruce Ratner isn't the only Pataki pal to cash in on a big development project sponsored by the Empire State Development Corporation:
A development team with close ties to ex-Gov. George Pataki stands to rack up nearly $700 million in gross revenue by selling more than 400 luxury condos to be built within the state-planned Brooklyn Bridge Park, The Post has learned.
The potential gold mine has opponents fighting to keep high-rise housing out of the proposed 85-acre waterfront park in Brooklyn Heights, charging that developer Robert Levine and partners just might have pulled off the deal of the century.
Terms of the Levine deal with the Empire State Development Corp. in 2004 - when Pataki controlled it - are outlined publicly for the first time in a legal notice for a hearing on the project, to be held Jan. 29.
The document has the ESDC envisioning Levine's development reaching at least $674 million in sales before expenses.
Here's another similarity to Atlantic Yards — both projects skip local land-use review by going through the less-stringent (and at times tragi-comic) State review process:
By going through the ESDC, Levine can circumvent the time-consuming and costly process of obtaining a zoning change through the city to build condos.
NoLandGrab: We're still waiting to hear a decent explantion as to why the Brooklyn Bridge Park must be self-sustaining (isn't that what our tax dollars are for?), while Bruce Ratner gets more than a billion dollars in subsidies for his private Atlantic Yards plan.
Posted by lumi at 8:32 AM
January 15, 2007
BROOKLYN BOOMING
MEGAPROJECTS KEEP REAL-ESTATE MARKET SIZZLING
NY Post
By Rich Calder and Patrick Gallahue
A brief overview of Brooklyn's booming real estate market includes this description of Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards plan, which should make The NY Times blush*:
Bruce Ratner last month received final state approval to break ground on the largest development project in Brooklyn's history: a $4 billion plan to build an NBA arena and 16 skyscrapers along the Prospect Heights/Fort Greene border.
* Yesterday, The Times located Atlantic Yards in "downtown Brooklyn" in a story about the NJ Nets.
Posted by lumi at 8:45 AM
January 10, 2007
Earplugs, Anyone? Selling In Atlantic Yards’ Shadow
The New York Observer
Losing the sunsets and a decade-plus of construction was reason enough for Jacob Septimus and Jan Lattey to sell their homes and leave Prospect Heights. Here are some others:
Then, as the arena, the train yard and five other commercial and residential buildings get underway late next year, as many as 470 trucks will make deliveries each day during the peak period, in winter 2009, according to the final environmental-impact statement issued in November. An average of once or twice a week, workers would be on the job until 11 p.m. For 10 months, one of the lanes of Atlantic Avenue would shut down. Side streets would close for longer periods, some of them forever. The levels of fine particulate matter—soot and dust—would exceed the threshold level that the Environmental Protection Agency considers dangerous to human health along two different stretches around the construction site (including down the street from Newswalk) for year-long periods.
Observer reporter Matthew Schuerman takes a look at how Atlantic Yards is affecting residential sales in the neighborhood.
Posted by lumi at 9:22 AM
January 9, 2007
Spitzer aides plan to review big projects
Spitzer aides plan to review big projects
ESDC's new chiefs promise to overhaul agency; star-studded panel to court execs
Crain's NY Business
By Erik Engquist
Gov. Eliot Spitzer's new economic development team is embarking on an overhaul of the Empire State Development Corp., beginning this week with a hard look at every pending and recently approved project.
The agency's new leaders will review the subsidies involved and hold the developers accountable for any promises to create jobs. Their study will last for three to six months and will cover Moynihan Station, Atlantic Yards and the World Trade Center, as well as smaller projects. Older deals will be examined to determine what has worked and what hasn't. The agency is under pressure to maximize its financial impact, since it is running a deficit and faces tight fiscal constraints imposed by Mr. Spitzer.
In addition, ESDC is exploring whether it can undo a controversial deal that would move the agency downtown. Patrick Foye, the agency's new downstate chairman, is looking to see if the state can get out of a contract under which it sold its office at 633 Third Ave. and bought an office condo at 125 Maiden Lane.
Mr. Foye and Avi Schick, ESDC's new president and chief operating officer, say their success will ultimately be judged on how much private investment in New York they can generate. To that end, they are assembling a star-studded task force to pitch New York to prospective investors. It will consist of Mr. Spitzer, Sens. Charles Schumer and Hillary Clinton, state Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver.
"Our goal is to be quick and nimble and smart, just as corporate America is," says Mr. Foye. "What we expect in return is that businesses and investors live up to the spirit and letter of the deals they make."
Mr. Schick suggests that the combination of celebrity and political muscle will make a compelling case to businesses, though he admits that scheduling all five task force members for meetings could be tricky.
The governor, at least, is on board. In an interview last week, Mr. Foye whipped out his PDA and found an e-mail he sent the governor at 6:33 that morning asking him to meet with a manufacturing business contemplating a venture upstate. Mr. Spitzer agreed in a return e-mail at 6:47 a.m.
"The governor has an incredible energy level, as we all know," says Mr. Schick.
The officials intend to use the governor's cachet and his plan to reform state government to attract stars from the private sector to fill 10 or 20 senior positions. "If you're smart, you're aggressive and you're hungry, and you want to make deals for the state of New York, we're looking for you," says Mr. Schick. With a smile, he acknowledges one downside: "You'll make less money for a few years."
Indeed, with the governor vowing to rein in spending and not raise taxes, it's going to be a tight budget year for the agency, which will run a $20 million deficit for the fiscal year ending March 31 and projects $30 million in red ink for next year. "It's imperative," says Mr. Schick, "to be smart and brutal on costs."
Another aim is to improve the agency's promotion of minority- and women-owned businesses, which has been criticized. The five-person staff devoted to that cause will be expanded, Mr. Foye says. He would not say by how many people but revealed that it would be a large percentage increase.
Another change will be in the way ESDC deals with the media and the public. Its reputation for secrecy — keeping meeting agendas under wraps until the last moment — does not fit in with Mr. Spitzer's pledges of transparency. "We're aware of the unhappiness with the openness here," says Mr. Foye. "The current approach has been less than optimal."
Despite his push for change, Mr. Foye declines to criticize Charles Gargano, his predecessor. The new chairman says that Mr. Gargano was helpful during the transition last month, and praised ESDC's work on Times Square, new stadiums for the Yankees and Mets, Moynihan Station and Harlem projects.
Assemblyman Richard Brodsky, a longtime ESDC watchdog who met with Messrs. Foye and Schick last week, says they will give the agency a much-needed transformation. "I can't convey what a relief it is to talk to people whose intelligence and integrity just shine forth," the Democrat says.
Mr. Brodsky has held hearings and uncovered documents that he says show the agency did not follow the law when it sold 181,000 square feet at 633 Third Ave. to Time Equities for $100 million and nearly simultaneously paid $62.5 million to the same company for 165,000 square feet on Maiden Lane. ESDC signed a short-term lease to remain at 633 Third Ave. while it makes $25 million in improvements to the Maiden Lane space.
Time Equities CEO Francis Greenburger says he is willing to continue leasing space on Third Avenue to ESDC, but that 125 Maiden Lane now belongs to the state.
Posted by lumi at 8:34 AM
January 8, 2007
Development Spreads To Brooklyn’s Fourth Ave.
The NY Sun
By Paul Lukas
An article about changes on Fourth Avenue cites the new bars and cafes:
Several pubs and cafes have opened on Fourth Avenue recently. More are expected soon, as Park Slope’s inexorable wave of development, having exhausted the possibilities on Fifth Avenue, now is moving to Fourth. Other factors are contributing to the avenue’s potential makeover: Up and down the strip, new high-rise condominium buildings — the result of a recent zoning change — are under construction. Meanwhile, the looming prospect of the Atlantic Yards sports arena project suggests the trend of new food and drink venues is just getting started.
Ratner cheerleader consultant Richard Lipsky from the Neighborhood Retail Alliance adds:
Once the AY project really begins to take hold it will inevitably boost, as we have predicted, the area's small neighborhood businesses and enhance property values all over the Slope's southern boundaries.
But don't worry, according to Bruce Ratner's Environmental Impact Statement, the project won't cause a net change in the socio-economic make up of the neighborhood.
Posted by lumi at 9:13 AM
January 5, 2007
After Blocking Tower, Neighbors Recoil at Void in Hell’s Kitchen
The NY Times
By Charles V. Bagli
Here's an interesting article about what happens when a project is blocked in Hell's Kitchen after demolition of existing structures has been completed. No wonder neighborhood folks are nervous about Ratner's vow to begin site preparation before the legal cases have been settled.
Community groups in Hell’s Kitchen fought one of the city’s most powerful developers to a standstill a year ago, blocking his attempt to build a 60-story tower over a new home for Cirque du Soleil.
Since then, neighbors have complained that the rubble-strewn, 1.5-acre site on 42nd Street, between Dyer and 10th Avenues, has become a breeding ground for mosquitoes in the summer and cockroaches, rats and other vermin year-round.
In the latest skirmish, Fred Papert, who built Theater Row nearby, filed a lawsuit yesterday against the developer, Stephen M. Ross, chief executive of Related Companies, saying the site had become an eyesore.
Posted by lumi at 6:45 PM
January 3, 2007
Two realities in Fort Greene
Atlantic Yards Report has a short item about the gap between two communities in Fort Greene. Could a rising homicide rate illustrate the growing divide caused by new development pressures?
Posted by lumi at 8:05 AM
December 30, 2006
From green to grim
Courier-Life
David Chiu
The Atlantic Yards development will cast shadows over a longtime community garden, a state report has found, confirming fears of local residents concerned their oasis will lose sunlight.“It will change forever how we are able to garden here,” said Jon Crow, coordinator of the Brooklyn Bears Pacific Street Community Garden since 1985, and an opponent to the development.
Two of the planned buildings at the center of the $4.2 billion Nets arena complex — the so-called Miss Brooklyn tower and a 247-foot structure — will cast shadows across the garden in the morning, the final environmental report by the Empire State Development Corporation found.
Shadows will loom from 20 minutes in the winter to up to four hours in the summer, the report said, cutting off vital sunlight for the garden’s vegetables, trees and flowers, volunteers contend.
Posted by amy at 11:45 AM
December 21, 2006
"Shoot Hoops, Not Guns": the transformation of Flatbush begins
Atlantic Yards Report
Call it a sign of the times. On the south side of Flatbush Avenue just north of Bergen Street, where a dignified but none-too-special coffee shop called The Silver Spoon operated since 1980, the successor in that space is more brash, bringing orange neon--quite bright at night--and pointing to change in a neighborhood-y retail stretch.
With its nod to basketball, High Stakes Cheese Steaks, which opens on Friday (according to a sign I saw last night) may seem early, but the owners can't be the first to consider the advantages of being situated both on the border of a dense row-house neighborhood (Park Slope), and half a block from the planned Atlantic Yards site.
Posted by lumi at 9:30 AM
December 15, 2006
Developers abandoning condo deals
Flagging market has owners converting to hotel projects as demand soars
Crain's NY Business
Here's more evidence that there isn't a market for hi-end starchitect-designed high-rise condos, so why are we giving Bruce Ratner free rein to build with impunity?
For the past two years, the Chetrit Group has been moving full-steam ahead with plans to convert the Empire Hotel into 125 luxury condominiums. But now that fast-paced condo sales have braked, the developer is switching gears and repositioning the dowdy building across from Lincoln Center as a 440-room upscale hotel.
More developers are finding that the speediest exit strategy from the faltering condo market is to sell their projects to hotel operators anxious to expand in New York. In some cases, developers have tried to market their projects to condo buyers first but end up choosing to cash out quickly because of sluggish sales. Others, like the Chetrit Group, are making the move even before they begin marketing. The company did not return calls for comment.
Posted by lumi at 5:37 PM
December 14, 2006
One Small Step For Stopping Over-Development
Brooklyn Downtown Star
By Phil Guie
The New York Community Council has a lot of work ahead, and not much time to get it done.
As such, the group spent its inaugural session outlining activities for the next few months, during which time they intend to mobilize against perceived over-the-top development.
While most attendees at last Wednesday's meeting on East 4th Street in Cooper Square represented Manhattan's Lower East Side, a few Brooklynites turned up to show outer-borough solidarity. They included Lucy Koteen and Daniel Goldstein of Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn (DDDB), which is currently fighting the Atlantic Yards Project in the downtown area, and of course, Williamsburg resident Philip DePaolo, who started the community council.
Posted by lumi at 7:07 PM
City in Talks on Future of Big Site For Building in Downtown Brooklyn
NY Sun
By David Lombino
An article about a $500 million mixed-use project being planned for Downtown Brooklyn (the real Downtown Brooklyn, not "Prospect Heights") references changes in the real estate market and Atlantic Yards:
About two years ago, the Bloomberg administration passed an ambitious rezoning plan for downtown Brooklyn, currently the third largest commercial district in the city, that envisioned as much as 5.4 million square feet of new commercial space and about 1,000 new units of housing, mostly along Livingston Street. While the market for new commercial buildings is red hot in Midtown Manhattan, no private developer has ventured into downtown Brooklyn since the rezoning to build a large office building.
Nearby, at the planned $4 billion Atlantic Yards project in Prospect Heights, developer Forest City Ratner drastically cut back on plans to build office space, and increased the number of planned apartments.
Posted by lumi at 8:03 AM
December 13, 2006
BREAKING: 70 Lefferts Place Landmarked!
Brownstoner
LPC unanimously approved designating 70 Lefferts Place a NYC individual landmark today. The developer even said, at the public hearing, that he was willing to work within the existing structure to develop condominiums in an adaptive reuse manner.
NoLandGrab: Residents of Clinton Hill have been holding their breath over this one. Many neighborhood activists have been doing double time, working on saving 70 Lefferts Place while trying to save their neighborhood from the impact of Atlantic Yards overdevelopment.
Several of their questions and concerns overlap with the Atlantic Yards fight: * Will the developer listen to the community? * What about adaptive reuse of a historic building? * Can the local elected officials broker a deal satisfactory to all? * Can potential landmarks be saved from the latest wave of outer-borough development?
Congratulations to all involved for their sympathy for their neighborhood and their hard work on this issue.
Posted by lumi at 8:30 AM
December 12, 2006
Cons
From Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn's web site:
The Times' Sunday real estate section highlights a condo for sale (link) at $800 per square foot in the Newswalk building right smack in the middle of the BLIGHT known as the "Atlantic Yards" footprint. Looks like even the Times considers the potential project the actual blight:
...PROS: With floor-to-ceiling windows and views of treetops, church steeples and the Statue of Liberty, this apartment has a fully updated kitchen and bathroom.
CONS: Although the apartment faces away from the new Atlantic Yards development area, the building is near the construction site.
PRO: The Atlantic Yards plan hasn't been officially approved, so the "construction site" does not yet exist.
CON: If AY is built, the view of the Statue of Liberty will be replaced by views of the arena and several highrise towers (oh, well).
Posted by lumi at 11:55 AM
The Big Apple, Getting Bigger, Sets New Goals
The Big Apple, Getting Bigger, Sets New Goals
The Wall St. Journal
By Alex Frangos
Mayor Bloomberg is about to unveil a new initiative to handle a projected population growth in NYC of about 1.3 million additional residents during the next 25 years. This means increased density and smart growth.
How the mayor goes about it could mean the difference between reaching the City's goals or not:
Some infrastructure dream projects are closer to breaking ground than ever, including new rail tunnels connecting Long Island and New Jersey to Manhattan and a new subway line for Manhattan's East Side. A rebuilt Pennsylvania Station project could include the construction of two rail terminals, a new Madison Square Garden arena and five million square feet of office and retail space. The so-called Atlantic Yards development in Brooklyn, though mired in controversy, would include a basketball arena and over a dozen skyscrapers filled with apartments and offices.
Mayor Bloomberg's goals will emphasize building infrastructure such as tunnels, power plants, schools and affordable housing, while sustaining drinking water supplies, reducing congestion and commute times, increasing sewage-treatment capacity and tackling air quality and greenhouse-gas emissions in a time of rising electrical demand.
...
To be sure, New York City's plans could run into problems. Mr. Bloomberg's quest for a massive stadium in Manhattan failed, after opponents argued they would alter the city's character and encroach on existing businesses. Redevelopment at the World Trade Center site has only recently begun amid considerable uncertainty, more than five years after the Sept. 11 attacks. Efforts to attract businesses to secondary centers such as Long Island City, Jamaica, and Brooklyn, have met mixed results.The Atlantic Yards development in Brooklyn, run by Forest City Ratner Cos., a division of Forest City Enterprises Inc., could be a preview for those fights. It is slated to use eminent domain, a hot button topic with residents. A vocal opponent of the plan, Daniel Goldstein of Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn, hopes the mayor's long-term vision changes the way the city approaches megaprojects. He says the city needs to plan projects from the ground up, rather than to follow those that are "developer driven."
article (subscription only)
Posted by lumi at 10:18 AM
December 8, 2006
Spitzer Said to Pick Next ESDC Chair
You gotta love the blogosphere.
We are posting that Matthew Schuerman from The Real Estate Observer posted that:
Newsday's Errol Cockfield and the Daily News' Ben Smith are reporting that Patrick Foye, the president and chief executive of the United Way of Long Island, will be Eliot Spitzer's pick to chair the Empire State Development Corporation--the first time in 20 years that the post would not be held by a fundraiser for whomever is Governor.
Posted by lumi at 7:01 AM
December 5, 2006
HOW TO MEDIATE MANHATTANVILLE: A NEW NEGOTIATING PARTNER IS BORN
A different kind of local body, created to help shape Columbia University’s development plan, could become a “community benefits” trendsetter.
City Limits.org
By Jimmy Vielkind
The West Harlem Local Development Corporation, is unique. It is not directly involved in building affordable housing or creating jobs, but rather with negotiating and enforcing a community benefits agreement with Columbia University as the school pushes to build a new campus on a 17-acre site just north of 125th Street. In the past few years, community benefits agreements have emerged as vital to large development projects in New York, and this LDC was formed in an attempt to answer the question of precisely who in a given community should sit across the negotiating table.
Atlantic Yards Report follows up on the City Limits article in a post which compares the West Harlem effort to Ratner's CBA.
The city seems to be learning that community groups in such negotiations need some juice. City Limits reports:
City officials have encouraged the dialogue. The New York City Economic Development Corporation provided $350,000 and a professional mediator, John Bickerman, to facilitate negotiations. There is no formal place in current review processes for a community benefits agreement, and Mayor Bloomberg has not consistently supported such agreements.
There was no such formal and financial backing for the Atlantic Yards CBA. Indeed, the city is continuing to rethink the CBA concept. So much for the model that supporters proclaim.
Posted by lumi at 8:01 AM
December 2, 2006
BID Is Blah to Some
Courier-Life
Stephen Witt
“In the last five or six years, my real estate taxes have gone up 50, 60 percent,” said Thomas Clara, who owns five buildings along Livingston Street between Nevins and Bond Streets.
Clara, along with another landlord, Hira Amrik, said that even if they were to pass the minimum $2,400 annual BID fee per building to tenants, it would be a hardship.
Some of these tenants are small business owners such as hair braiders and tailors, and they worry that the BID means a Starbucks will soon replace them, Amrik said.
...
Among the corporate names that have properties within this proposed BID include Forest City Ratner, Two Trees Management and Con Edison.
Posted by amy at 10:23 AM
November 30, 2006
Newark City Hall Receives Subpoenas Over Land Sales
If Bruce Ratner wanted a free ride, he should have sowed some seeds in Newark.
From yesterday's NY Times:
Federal agents investigating the finances of the administration of Newark’s former mayor, Sharpe James, have subpoenaed City Hall for records on the discounted sale of city properties to some of his closest supporters, people who have seen documents related to the inquiry said on Tuesday.
NoLandGrab: Though he was the lowest bidder, Bruce Ratner has struck a deal for the railyards for well under market value. He also secured the rights for the Atlantic Terminal building from the MTA for free. But unlike in Newark, these deals are legal(?).
Posted by lumi at 10:22 AM
November 29, 2006
Is Coney Island the New Atlantic Yards and Joe Sitt the New Bruce Ratner?
The Gowanus Lounge is bristling at the notion of building Brooklyn from scratch (we're envisioning Disney redeveloping the Gowanus Canal):
The moment we saw the item late yesterday afternoon about the sale of Astroland to Thor Equities we realized why we started doing a "Coney Island Deathwatch" months ago: because Thor's plan is to erase virtually every element of Coney Island's past and to rebuild it from scratch.
With the sale of Astroland to Thor Equities, the massive Coney project is starting to look like the new Atlantic Yards and, inevitably, developer Joe Sitt is looking like Nouveau Ratner. The only thing missing is the Empire State Development Corp., but the Coney Island Development Corp. may yet prove itself to be a spiritual equal.
NoLandGrab: Thor Equities big move to gobble up as much of Coney Island as possible for redevelopment explains why, despite the fact the location would make a great site for a new Nets arena and that local politicians and even Bruce Ratner initially thought so too, the subject has been taboo.
Of course, if they had to, the government could use eminent domain to take land from Thor, but why bother when you can just take property from the little guy.
Posted by lumi at 10:53 AM
November 21, 2006
Track record and condo glut?
One of the most serious marks on real estate developer Forest City Ratner's track record in Brooklyn is that when Forest City projects don't pan out, NY State or City steps in to bail out their pal Bruce Ratner.
Metrotech was supposed to stem the tide of corporate flight to New Jersey, yet the largest tenant is the City of New York (glad we managed to keep those jobs in NYC). When the Atlantic Center Mall had trouble keeping an anchor tenant, enter the State of New York, which is now the mall's largest tenant.
That's why large reversals in market conditions make Bruce Ratner's critics nervous. Atlantic Yards was initially supposed to be a boon to Brooklyn, bringing more jobs to the borough. The Downtown Brooklyn plan's prediction of significant demand for commercial office space in Brooklyn has been disproved — the increased height allowances have only brought high-rise luxury condos. Bruce Ratner has changed tack in his Atlantic Yards proposal, and has converted most of the office space originally proposed to luxury condos and hotel rooms.
News that the luxury condo boom may have run its course isn't good news for Brooklynites who might live in the shadow of Ratner's mammoth Atlantic Yards. Ratner has two proposals on the table, one featuring around 6.8-million gross square feet (gsf) of residential space and an optional plan, which converts about 1 million gsf of the residential space to commercial. Add to that evidence that the super-rich are not willing to pay a premium for starchitect-designed condos, preferring instead to pay extra bucks to live in a more exclusive neighborhood (usually not next to an arena).
If the need for office space in Brooklyn hasn't materialized, and the luxury condo market may have run its course, then why commit billions of public dollars to a project that is at best speculative and, at worst, headed for a bailout even before it gets off the drawing board?
LINKS:
The NY Times, Changing Course to Avert a Glut
Brownstoner, Supply and Demand Getting Out of Whack? (Questions and comments on what the condo glut means to Brooklyn)
One Hanson Place, Price drop at new townhouse by Atlantic Yards
Wall St. Journal, Condos With a Name: 'Available'
Posted by lumi at 7:11 AM
November 18, 2006
Area Merchants Make BID to Improve Business
Courier-Life
Emily Keller
According to proponents Michael Burke, president of the Downtown Brooklyn Council, and Holly Kaye, a BID Consultant, the BID is needed, in part, to give the shopping area between Court Street and Third Avenue a competitive edge against neighboring retail districts, including one that is in the planning stages as part of the proposed Atlantic Yards Project.
...
Member’s of the BID Steering Committee include representatives of the Brooklyn Heights Association, Forest City Ratner Companies, Borough President Marty Markowitz and Councilman David Yassky.Community Board 2 will hold a public hearing on the Court Street/ Livingston Street/ Schermerhorn Street BID at 5 p.m. November 27 at Long Island University, Room HS 119, Health Science Building, at Flatbush Avenue Extension and DeKalb Avenue.
Posted by amy at 12:50 PM
November 17, 2006
Marty Doesn't Want to Be Green With Envy, Just Green
Brooklyn Downtown Star
By Medi Blum
At the Brooklyn Center for the Urban Environment's Second Annual Green Brooklyn Conference, Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz cited Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards as progress towards sustainable development:
"Brooklyn is experiencing unprecedented expansion," continued Markowitz, noting that an anticipated 100,000 new residents will be joining the borough within the next three years. To handle that responsibly, Markowitz argued, would mean "devising and implementing a citywide energy policy that emphasizes conservation"; building the "maximum amount of affordable housing and new schools"; improving recycling; ensuring that all local government vehicles are hybrids; encouraging the creation of local biodiesel plants; devising solar-powered air conditioning systems; and coming up with a "21st century transportation strategy."
Citing what he considers to be existing Brooklyn environmental advances to be proud of, Markowitz mentioned the solar-powered MTA terminal at Stillwell Avenue, the fully wind-powered Brooklyn Brewery, the Red Hook Farmers Market - where the food is grown on top of a former basketball court - and the anticipated LEED certifications for the proposed Atlantic Yards project and the already underway Navy Yards expansion.
NoLandGrab: Before everyone gets all excited about Atlantic Yards LEED certification, remember, Forest City Ratner's commitments are not legally enforceable and the development company reneged on environmental certification goals for the Times Tower.
Posted by lumi at 6:24 AM
November 14, 2006
Delivered vacant? Bricked-up building on Dean Street isn't quite there
Atlantic Yards Report follows up on a Daily News article about a landlord who has offered a rent-controlled tenant $30K to move. She didn't take the deal; that's when the water was turned off and windows were bricked up. Now the property, which is two doors down from the footprint of Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards proposal, is on the market for a million dollars over what the owner paid in 2004.
This isn't a Ratner-thang, but it exemplifies: * the overheated real-estate market just spitting-distance from Ratner's "blighted" neighborhood, * tactics used by property owners to evict rent-controlled tenants, and * the stress of living in Mr. Ratner's neighborhood.
Posted by lumi at 7:53 AM
November 11, 2006
This Old House - Safe For Now
Courier-Life covers a local preservation issue, with a couple of nods to Ratner:
City Councilmember Letitia James has been working with the residents to preserve the house. She said she had stayed in touch with both LPC and DOB, every step of the way.“I’m very hopeful that we can preserve this house,” James remarked, adding that area activists are taking it, “One victory at a time,” in their efforts to get some control of, “Over-development in downtown Brooklyn that’s now spreading into central Brooklyn.”
The kicker is the novel "Ratner excuse" employed by developer Christopher Morris:
“I don’t know why the focus is on me, so much, as if I’m doing something wrong,” Morris went on. “They should focus on Ratner. I don’t know why everyone is focusing on the condos. Condos are going up everywhere. Why focus on this particular property, this particular guy?”
NoLandGrab: Does Mr. Morris sound familiar? He was recently profiled in the Times. Apparently Ratner inspired his purchase. Great developers think alike?
Posted by amy at 11:21 PM
Bloomberg on Spitzer: Day One, big development projects on track
Atlantic Yards Report
Yesterday, during his weekly appearance on John Gambling's ABC radio show, Mayor Mike Bloomberg was asked how he'd get along with governor-elect Eliot Spitzer. After mentioning various compatibilities, Bloomberg added, "He understands our need for the big development projects."Which projects? The Post, reporting on an earlier statement, cited Moynihan Station, Ground Zero, and the Second Avenue subway.
On the Empire Page, consultant Joseph Mercurio opined:
What major projects will begin? Look for quick starts on projects like the Second Avenue Subway, Ground Zero, Governors Island, Moynihan Station, and the new Tapanzee Bridge, not to mention Congressman Jerry Nadler’s rail freight tunnel getting started in earnest.Was Atlantic Yards contemplated? It wasn't clear, but Spitzer and Bloomberg could both do a little more research.
Posted by amy at 8:12 AM
November 10, 2006
Expert Panel Tries to Forecast Building Boom’s Effect On the Slope
Courier-Life covers the Cobble Hill Association’s special development forum, featuring some very harsh criticism of the Atlantic Yards proposal:
[New York Magazine contributing editor Christopher] Smith called it “a failing of capitalist democracy that developers have a big advantage over communities.”Community Board 6 member Jeff Strabone, however, said that the state process which has cleared the way for the Atlantic Yards project was neither capitalism nor democratic.
“It’s more like Soviet state planning,” he said. “As long as the state avenue is open, we’re going to keep having this discussion.”
Posted by amy at 11:29 PM
November 6, 2006
Jane Jacobs, Robert Moses And City Planning Today
Gotham Gazette
By Amanda Burden
Amanda Burden, the chair of the New York City Planning Commission and director of the Department of City Planning, talks a good game out of one side of her mouth about the legacy of Jane Jacobs, while she keeps mum about Atlantic Yards superblocks, top-down planning, publicly accessible-except-during-NBA-games privately owned open space, hand-selected community stakeholders, etc., etc...
The opposing visions of Jane Jacobs and Robert Moses towards city building resonate with many New Yorkers today. It is certainly clear to me that Jane Jacobs is now the prevailing force. While no one person changed the physical landscape of New York as much as Robert Moses, Jane Jacobs’ legacy and her influence is much more deeply rooted and felt widely by urbanists, planners and elected officials.
That legacy embraces:
- the importance of the relationship of people and the public realm
- the appreciation of networks created by diverse uses
- understanding that blocks are the basic unit of the city
- the primacy of the street as the glue of neighborhood life
...
Big cities need big projects. Big projects are a necessary part of the diversity, competition and growth that both Jacobs and Moses fought for. But today’s big projects must have a human scale; must be designed, from idea to construction, to fit into the city. Projects may fail to live up to Jane Jacob’s standards, but they are still judged by her rules.
Posted by lumi at 10:23 AM
City Sees Growth; Residents Call It Out of Control
The NY Times
By Damien Cave
Stories from the Williamsburg-Greenpoint rezoning high-rise-housing rush will not give comfort to Atlantic Yards critics.
The City says that plans are pretty much on target and that they are managing the rezoning as well as possible, but existing residents, who theoretically count for something, tell a different story:
“Buildings are popping up like mushrooms,” said Christopher Olechowski, 59, a member of the community board for Greenpoint and Williamsburg and a longtime resident of the area. “Down Manhattan Avenue, all you hear are jackhammers. If you go down Kent, the road is being repaved.
...
In September, the city’s Department of Buildings received 337 complaints about construction in Greenpoint-Williamsburg, more than twice the filings from the community board of another fast-growing area nearby. In the heart of the rezoned area, near McCarren Park, luxury towers climb skyward, yet only nine new apartments of low- and middle-income housing are being built, far below the city’s original estimates.
...
Mr. Bikowski said that before the rezoning, he dealt with dozens of tenants being forced out by landlords or by construction next door that made their buildings uninhabitable. Over the past 18 months, he said, the problem has increased.His current clients include a 90-year-old woman on North Ninth Street being threatened with eviction, three tenants in a building on Eagle Street being told by a new landlord that their rent is about to more than double, and a 61-year-old disabled woman who is being evicted on a claim that the landlord needs the apartment for a relative.
Other residents have become victims of backhoes. Elizabeth Jankowski said she fled her Diamond Street home in Greenpoint last November, with her 8-year-old daughter and 83-year-old grandmother, because the Fire Department ruled that the construction of condominiums next door had cracked walls in her home and made it unsafe.
William Harvey, 50, an architect who lives on North Eighth Street between Driggs Avenue and Roebling Street, said the city simply seemed outmanned. Standing outside his front door, he pointed to five projects in the works on the block. Two doors down, the message “FDNY DO NOT ENTER” was painted on a red town house to the right of a poured foundation that made the building unsafe. Mr. Harvey said the tenants were forced out last summer.
“We’re in such a huge boom,” he said. “D.O.B. doesn’t have the people power to watch over it.”
Posted by lumi at 10:07 AM
Learning From Newark
Brooklyn Views explains the case for and against the Newark arena and the lessons for Atlantic Yards:
The case for locating large event venues like arenas in urban areas can be briefly stated. The transportation infrastructure for moving large numbers of people is designed for the peak loads. In business areas, peak loads are only in the morning and evening rush hours, and it does make sense to leverage an investment in transportation systems by using it more fully in off-peak hours. An event venue requires the movement of huge numbers of people, and if the infrastructure with adequate capacity is not in place, it would need to be built. In non-urban areas, this required new construction consists of new systems of roadways and vehicle storage areas. Less new construction is required by a project located near existing infrastructure, because the project can - in essence - piggy-back on the existing transportation systems.
However, event venues have unique characteristics and demands on transportation systems and existing infrastructure. The surge of fans arriving and (especially) leaving an event will cause any system to exceed its maximum capacity, causing what transportation planners call a “crush load”. These are inherently uncomfortable and potentially dangerous situations if not properly managed, and are not at all compatible with a normal street life. This is why we don’t see normal streets around event venues. It is not an accident that city planners require event venues to be built at some distance from residential areas, it is a necessity.
Posted by lumi at 9:11 AM
Under Cover: Gehry Perfection
Downtown Express
Construction may have just started on Bruce Ratner’s Frank Gehry-designed tower on Beekman St., but the famed architect is still tinkering with his T-square and does not yet have the final design.
“Maybe by the time we’re at the eighth floor, we’ll have a rendering,” Ratner’s spokesperson joked.
In addition to residential units, the 75-story tower will house an occupational health center run by the New York Downtown Hospital and a K-8 public school. But while the building is going up, renderings of what it will look like are still not going out to the public. According to the spokesperson, that’s because the building design continues to change and the meticulous Gehry doesn’t want to publish plans until all the interior and exterior designs are finalized.
NoLandGrab: The spokesperson may be joking, but Ratner and Gehry aren't kidding — developers are allowed to file plans and permits in stages.
Posted by lumi at 8:23 AM
November 5, 2006
Major tenants steer clear of Downtown Brooklyn office space; what of AY?
Atlantic Yards Report responds to last week's piece in The Real Estate:
There may indeed be a market for smaller parcels for "creative industries." But that raises questions about the Atlantic Yards plan. Remember, developer Forest City Ratner initially promised office space for 10,000 jobs. Last year, the amount of space was cut by two-thirds, and the number of jobs projected to about 2500. The explanation from FCR's Jim Stuckey: "Projects change, markets change."So what kind of jobs and tenants does the developer expect? Phase 1 wouldn't be completed for four years, under the optimum conditions. Can anyone predict? And if the market for office space changes, so might the market for residential space, which means that Phase 2--which would contain most of the affordable housing--can't be guaranteed.
And would "creative industries" prefer to be in a couple of giant office towers or less standardized spaces either adapted from existing buildings or in smaller buildings than those planned for Atlantic Yards?
Posted by amy at 3:20 PM
November 4, 2006
Yankees Say: Not So Fast
The Real Estate's Matthew Schuerman says the 'community' hasn't seen it's 'benefits' yet from the Yankee Stadium CBA...
In April, Bronx City Council Members, the Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrion and the Yankees agreed to a "community benefits program" in return for City Council approval of the new stadium. The agreement stipulated that the signatories would form a construction advisory committee to oversee building and would meet "not less than once a month ... for the duration of the project." Bid packages for minority and locally owned contractors would be prepared "as soon as practicable." Plus, a "fund advisory panel" was supposed to be established "upon the commencement of the project" which would govern a nonprofit in charge of doling out $800,000 donated by the baseball team annually."From our point of view, this stuff should be further along than it is," said Geoffrey Croft, president of NYC Park Advocates, explaining that the Yankees had no trouble getting construction underway quickly. (Macombs Dam Park and part of Mullaly Park, where the new stadium will go, are now closed off, and it will take years to build their replacements.)
Posted by amy at 11:56 AM
November 1, 2006
Housing displacement? The map points to Prospect Heights/Crown Heights
Atlantic Yards Report
Local maps of housing tracts show that some of the low-income neighborhoods most vulnerable to gentrification can be found adjacent to the footprint of the Atlantic Yards project proposal.
Maybe Christopher Morris, the real estate investor quoted in the 10/21/06 New York Times as anticipating a rise in property values because of the Atlantic Yards project, was right. Or maybe he was riding on trends that already existed, trends that suggest that blight and stagnation are trumped by development.
Indeed, as Brooklyn College sociologist Aviva Zeltzer-Zubida recently reported at a panel in June, "Housing Displacement in Brooklyn: A Discussion," there’s some stark evidence about gentrification trends, and they point directly to areas in the orbit of the Atlantic Yards proposal. It's not common for areas of poverty to nudge up against areas of wealth, but when they do, the poorer areas are vulnerable to displacement.
Posted by lumi at 6:59 AM
October 31, 2006
Urban Memory Project: Lost in Translation
The Urban Memory Project works with students to introduce them to the changes in the physical landscape occurring around them, and to analyze and document those changes.
Opening
Tuesday, November 14
Lost in Translation:
Williamsburg and Carroll Gardens
Hosted at the New Visions for Public Schools
320 West 13th Street
6th Floor
New York, NY
Opening Reception: 5-7 PM
Click here for more information and to view a slideshow.
NoLandGrab: We were interviewed by students this month at the New School for Social Research for "Bring Your Favorite Eminent Domain Activist to School Day." Look for the students' projects on the Atlantic Yards issue to be published on NoLandGrab in the coming weeks.
Posted by lumi at 6:42 AM
October 24, 2006
NYT backs off space at its new headquarters
Crain's NY Business
By Julie Satow
Here's the latest drama at the Times Tower:
The New York Times Co. is giving up five floors at its new corporate headquarters before it has even moved in.
The publishing company, which reported a 39% drop in third-quarter profit, is on the hunt for a tenant to occupy 155,000 square feet on the 23rd through 27th floors at 620 Eighth Ave. -- the brand spanking new skyscraper that is under construction between West 40th and West 41st streets.
The Times partnered with Forest City Ratner to develop the 52-story building, designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Renzo Piano. The publisher of The New York Times had planned to occupy the first 29 floors, with Ratner leasing the remainder of the building. So far, Ratner has signed leases for more than 75% of its 700,000 square feet.
Posted by lumi at 10:26 PM
City Modifies Harlem Project To Include More ‘Affordable' Units
NY Sun
By David Lombino
Could missteps at Atlantic Yards already be making a difference elsewhere in the City?
Atlantic Yards was cited as one of the bugaboos by a city official, in an article about the Uptown New York project, which has been limping along after the opposition killed the deal and, just yesterday, the City's Economic Development Corporation reissued a request for proposal for the project.
A lingering critique of the Bloomberg administration's development strategy is its preference for large development projects and its lack of regard for "community-based development."
In Brooklyn, neighbors of the proposed Atlantic Yards project — vastly bigger at about 8.7 million square feet — have complained the city has not addressed community concerns. That project is being guided through the review process by a state agency.
The director of land use in the office of Manhattan borough president, Anthony Borelli, said in the case of Uptown New York, the administration backed away from a fight.
"I think the city actually saw that it would probably be more productive and less adversarial if they started from scratch, rather than push it through with a lot of community opposition," Mr. Borelli said.
Posted by lumi at 8:51 PM
October 22, 2006
On the Block
New York Times
JENNIFER BLEYER
The Times interviews nine "people who live and work near Atlantic Yards." Is it nitpicking to say that no one lives near Atlantic Yards, since it doesn't exist? Is it also nitpicking to say that of the four supporters of the project interviewed, three are listed as living in Crown Heights, which is not one of the immediately surrounding neighborhoods? The opponents all hail from the vicinity of the Vanderbilt railyards. It does reinforce the idea that it's pretty hard to find anyone in Prospect Heights/Ft Greene/Clinton Hill/Park Slope/Boerum Hill that supports the project.
Atlantic Yards Report details more problems with the article in "NIMBY or YIMBY: behind the Times's curious framework (and photo)":
The intro to the piece attempts scrupulous balance:
The plan is colossal — 16 high-rise buildings and an 18,000-seat basketball arena on 22 acres near the borough’s busy downtown — and fans and opponents have matched its magnitude with their own statistics. The developer, Forest City Ratner, which is also the development partner of The New York Times Company for its new headquarters in Midtown, says that the $4.2 billion project will bring 4,000 permanent jobs, billions of dollars in tax revenue and more than 6,000 units of housing. Opponents counter that the plan will corral $2 billion in public money and tax breaks, crowd 15,000 new residents into the area and clog local streets with thousands more cars.Why can't the Times try to sort out the fiscal claims? Would there really be "billions" in tax revenue, or $2 billion in public costs? At some point this can't simply be a "he said, she said" debate.
As for crowding, why can't the Times simply acknowledge that this likely would be the densest residential community in the country--or compare it to other large projects in the city? Why is it the "opponents" who have to establish basic facts?
As for the clogging of local streets, isn't that what the state acknowledged in the Draft Environmental Impact Statement? And isn't that what local community boards--concerned analysts more than opponents--have predicted?
Posted by amy at 7:49 AM
October 21, 2006
Are You Ready For 50K New Neighbors?
Brooklyn Downtown Star
Nik Kovac
"A platform over Sunnyside Yards," it read, "between Thompson Avenue and 43rd Street would create a development site of approximately 166 acres. Depending on the zoning, the new mixed use neighborhood could add between 18,000 and 35,000 new units. By themselves, the 20,000 to 50,000 residents of this 'new-town-in-town' could provide enough customers for an entirely new neighborhood with stores, schools, playing fields, and parks."Such a platform has always been high on the list for local councilman Eric Gioia, who is has lived near them for nearly his entire life. "I welcome this new study," he told the Ledger/Star by phone, "and I welcome development on that site."
In fact, he has even tried to lure Bruce Ratner's Nets arena to that site instead of the Prospect Heights railyards, but Ratner's people have so far told Gioia no way. The Prospect Heights location was conspicuously absent from the Garvin study of platform opportunities, even though four other sites in Brooklyn were included.
Posted by amy at 8:06 AM
October 20, 2006
Density illustrated
The South Oxford Street Block Association just posted this graphic to illustrate the comparison between the population density proposed for Atlantic Yards and the population density of one of the largest superblock developments in NYC.
NoLandGrab: Keep in mind a point made a while ago by Brooklyn Views — the arena itself has a large footprint, which means the "FAR (floor area ratio) on the remaining site is significantly greater."
This same point applies to population density, since no one will LIVE in the arena. In other words, if you discount the arena, the density of the remainder of the site is even higher.
Posted by lumi at 7:06 AM
It came from the Blogosphere...
Landmark This!, Officer's Row, Oh No!!!
An update on the fight to save the Navy Yard's Officer's Row from the wrecking ball explains many of the PR techniques being used by forces who support tearing down the historic buildings:
Another issue with this is the argument that it will benefit the Farragut Housing residents. As I said, they do need a supermarket. But is this just developer using the poor to their advantage? Make the preservationists out to be anti-poor is the method they're using (reminiscent of Atlantic Yards proponents no?).
fluxed.net, big ups brooklyn
An artist comments on the Footprints exhibit and the contributions of his friends Mike and Eliza:
but more importantly, this show was about the proposed atlantic yards project in brooklyn. it is a massive project that includes a sports stadium and PLENTY of luxury apartments. i dont live in brooklyn and i dont know the history of the place, but having been there its really fantastic and it would be a shame to increase its density so quickly.
Fans For Fair Play, A called third strike
A Mets fan finds life lessons in a called third strike (something that Nets owner "Caring" Bruce Ratner probably wouldn't understand):
A called third strike.
Every baseball player knows you guard the strike zone.
Magic doesn't happen unless you make it happen.
City Hall isn't fought unless we do the fighting.
Posted by lumi at 6:38 AM
October 19, 2006
It came from the Blogosphere
CB9 Manhattan, Atlantic Yards Report: The Shiffman solution
Community Board 9 in Manhattan republished Atlantic Yards Report's coverage of CUNY's discussion forum on Megadevelopments in NYC. Community Board 9 is facing a complex problem with Columbia University's planned expansion, which will entail the use of eminent domain "as a last resort."
Urban St. Louis, Ballpark Village Area and Tower
Brooklynites aren't the only ones ranting about architecture. As soon as Frank Gehry's name is attached to a project in St. Louis, Atlantic Yards is becoming a case study for "bad Gehry":
It would be a shame if they brought on Gehry as the architect for this project. Gehry's designs are best suited for small comissions and, if you've seen his proposals for a skyscraper in Manhattan and the huge Atlantic Yards development in Brooklyn, the impracticality of his designs are very readily apparent.
blog.myspace.com/dtmallon, Nets to Queens?
One guy says, "Hells yeah," to the prospect of the Nets landing in Queens... only it seems like he lives in Chicago.
Posted by lumi at 8:44 AM
October 18, 2006
Fury on the Streets
Brooklyn Rail
By Allison Lirish Dean
Just across from Ingersoll Houses on the other side of Flatbush Avenue looms Metrotech, an office park built in the 1980s that was supposed to revitalize a blighted downtown Brooklyn. Compared to its surroundings, such as nearby Fulton Mall and bustling Willoughby Street, Metrotech is peaceful but lifeless. For Ingersoll residents like Rachel Ford, who is 27, Metrotech has come to symbolize the broken promises of urban renewal and the growing doubt that coming development spurred by the city’s Downtown Brooklyn Plan will bring anything better for the low-income, largely African-American residents who live in public housing downtown.
Posted by lumi at 9:34 AM
Relocation Blues
New York City’s shortage of office space hampers its economic future.
City Journal
By Steve Malanga
Lack of affordable office space in Manhattan is driving corporations to the burbs, as development in Lower Manhattan to replace the loss of the World Trade Center has plodded slowly along.
What are the causes and who's responsible?
The city and state bear some responsibility for the space shortage. A nearly ten-year effort to rezone Manhattan’s Far West Side for commercial development wound up getting bogged down in Mayor Bloomberg’s plans to build a stadium there and lure the Olympics to New York. Potential construction of office towers in the area is thus still years away. The city has now missed two real-estate expansions, going back to the late 1990s, in trying to rezone the Far West Side.
Meanwhile, state and city officials haggled for years over the plan to redevelop Ground Zero, with some observers, including Mayor Bloomberg, pessimistically calling for a reduction in the office space planned for the site, assuming that it would be unneeded. As a result of the delays, only one building, 7 World Trade, is nearing completion—developer Larry Silverstein could rebuild it quickly because it wasn’t part of the site that the government controlled. Other Ground Zero towers won’t be ready for years.
A point made about outer-borough development deflates the myth of the success of Bruce Ratner's Metrotech:
When commercial buildings do rise in the outer boroughs, they are still too costly to be competitive. Consider Metrotech, a massive, heavily subsidized suburban-style office campus in downtown Brooklyn, intended to be the place where financial-services jobs would move when they left Manhattan. But after a few successful leases in its early years, the 20-year-old initiative has mostly drawn tenants already located in Brooklyn. Undeterred by that floppy performance, the city is now promoting another Brooklyn top-down mega-project by Metrotech’s developer, Forest City Ratner—the controversial Atlantic Yards, which, even if approved, will take years to realize and will have little impact on the city’s current commercial-space crunch.
Posted by lumi at 7:35 AM
October 15, 2006
Best Blocks
Time Out New York names Park Place between Carlton and Vanderbilt Avenues, Prospect Heights, Brooklyn as the 21st best block in the city:
Another top-notch brownstone and tree-lined Brooklyn strip; it’s also close to burgeoning, hip Vanderbilt Avenue, so you’re never at a loss for a freshly baked muffin or a cool bar. If you need a dose of Flatbush volume, that’s just a quick stroll away.
Not sure how they missed the best feature of all - future walking distance from the Nets! But by then you'd have to walk, as the high ranks for Noise and traffic give way to construction and gridlock.
Posted by amy at 1:09 PM
October 11, 2006
Planetizen Interview With Amanda Burden
StreetsBlog posted excerpts from and a link to Planetizen's interview with NYC Planning Director Amanda Burden and then laments:
After reading this interview, the question I come away with is, simply: Where in the world has Amanda Burden been during the discussion of the "Atlantic Yards" development in Brooklyn? How could it be that such an important voice has been so utterly silent during such a significant development process?
NoLandGrab: Amanda Burden hasn't done anyone but Ratner any favors in this affair.
We've lost count how many times City officials, politicians, hired consultants and community leaders have abandoned everything they've ever claimed to believe, to line up in support of (or at least keep their mouths shut about) Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards.
Posted by lumi at 1:02 PM
Financialized Corporate Era (FCE) part 2
Picketing Henry Ford
Stuart Schrader just posted Part Two of his thoughts on "financialization" and its effects on real estate markets, specifically on Forest City Ratner's prospective Atlantic Yards project:
Financialization is fundamentally based on the anticipation of future gains or losses, and all corporations are subject to this sort of divining. In FCE’s case, the marketing material makes clear that the corporation is deploying its resources to assure investors of its longevity, especially the flagship NYC market, which folk wisdom holds as currently impervious, more or less, to the burst of the housing bubble. Blackburn argues, “In drawing up their investment plans, [corporations] will have to show that these will achieve the benchmark or ‘hurdle’ rates of return established by the financial sector. . . Making a good profit is no longer enough; a triple A rating is also needed. Theoretically, the value of a share has nothing to do with present or past profits, but exclusively relates to the prospects of future profits” (43). In this way, it becomes clear why FCR is so intent on developing the AY in such an outsize, winner-take-all manner. The focus is on future profits, and residential real estate is now the highly profitable development field, even as, on the one hand, speculation has contributed to the current bubble effect, and on the other, a luxury development designed by a world-famous architect is aimed directly at speculators.
Posted by lumi at 11:54 AM
October 5, 2006
Brooklyn Is Burning
New York Magazine, Letter to the Editor
Mark Jacobson’s “Brooklyn Is Burning” [September 25] is off the mark when it implies that the recent rash of arson in Brooklyn may be somehow caused by speculation surrounding Forest City Ratner Companies’ Atlantic Yards project. Jacobson belittles Forest City’s generosity toward Kassoum Fofana, whose family was left homeless by one such fire. My organization, Brooklyn United for Innovative Local Development (build), assisted Fofana in putting his life back together after that tragic fire and asked Forest City if it might help out. It delivered Fofana’s family a refurbished apartment on the Atlantic Yards site—rent-free—and offered them the opportunity to relocate to a new unit at Atlantic Yards when it is built.
—James E. Caldwell, President of BUILD, Brooklyn
NoLandGrab: Efforts to assist the Fofana family mark one time that DDDB and BUILD found themselves on the same side. NLG'ers attended a fundraiser for the family organized by local activists Bill Batson and Raul Rothblatt. The tables were filled with Develop Don't Destroy volunteers and BUILD supporters.
Forest City Ratner's generous assistance of the Fofana family poses a question about the company's sincerity concerning blight findings in the neighborhood. Why would they move a family into a "blighted" neighborhood with high crime rates?
Possible answer: The neighborhood isn't really blighted and the high crime rates are a result of the factoring in of crime from another part of the precinct.
We were wondering the same when Rev. Daughtry sought to house Hurricane Katrina refugees in some of the buildings bought and emptied by Forest City Ratner. That effort was announced, but never happened.
Posted by lumi at 6:02 AM
October 4, 2006
Partnership Working To Revitalize Downtown Brooklyn
The NY Sun
By David Lombino
To set the stage, Mr. Chan promises a host of new initiatives to make transform the area into a more vibrant 24/7 environment, one of the signature goals of the Bloomberg administration’s economic development strategy. That includes a creating a pedestrian friendly Flatbush Avenue, hiring a landscape architecture firm to create open space around the BAM cultural district, attracting a mixed-income housing project east of Flatbush Avenue, and connecting downtown to the low-rise brownstone neighborhoods to the south.
Deputy mayor Daniel Doctoroff said that downtown Brooklyn will compete for tenants with Jersey City. To spur the area’s development, he said the city will direct nearly $500 million in public funds towards parks, open space, infrastructure improvements and to pave the way for the nearby Atlantic Yards project and an accompanying basketball arena.
Deputy Mayor Dan Doctoroff helps keep a Downtown Brooklyn myth alive:
“We lost 50,000 to 60,000 jobs to New Jersey in the nineties because we didn’t have the space,” Mr. Doctoroff told the Sun.“Downtown Brooklyn is changing dramatically over the next five to ten years. What we have to sell will be very different than what we have had to sell before. We will have the ability to attract a totally different kind of corporate tenant.”
NoLandGrab: If there was such a lack of office space in NYC that corporations left for New Jersey, then why did the City of New York have to bail out Bruce Ratner's Metrotech by becoming the project's biggest tenant?
Posted by lumi at 8:05 AM
It came from the Blogosphere...
Greiner's Grumblings, Your weekly Atlantic Yards update
Could the Atlantic Yards become the house that LeBron built? ...
LeBron’s new contract with the Cavaliers ends in 2010, roughly the same time that the stadium will be complete.These dots might never connect, but what are the chances that LeBron will become the first marquee name on the “Brooklyn Nets’” roster? Food for thought at least, especially in an age when sports executives whine that they need new venues with outrageous luxury boxes in order to draw top-notch talent.
The Built Environment, brownstone brooklyn
Looking ahead, it's tough to imagine that Brownstone Brooklyn will remain unchanged as it heads deeper into the 21st Century. While the skyrocketing prices of brownstones in neighborhoods like Prospect Heights and South Park Slope should discourage the demolition of existing buildings (landmarking or contextual zoning laws protect buildings in some areas as well,) there are very few new rowhouses (of any material) being built. It is particularly unlikely that areas with lots of development potential -- Gowanus and the areas around Atlantic Yards, for example -- will be developed as low-rise housing given the market conditions.
Despite my love of brownstones, I don't think the introduction of new forms to Brooklyn is necessarily a bad thing. The brownstone emerged as a dominant style because of economic forces in the 1880s and 1890s, not because everyone thought it would be cool to build matching row houses. Working within the existing context, developers can produce structures that fit into Brooklyn's contemporary economy with a modern design vernacular. This means the area may change somewhat in appearance, but the underlying middle-class character can survive. The dangers lie at the extremes: preventing new development will cause prices to rise, turning Brownstone Brooklyn into an enclave for the wealthy; developments that ignore the existing context can interfere with the streetscape and diminish what made the area so wonderful in the first place.
Posted by lumi at 7:41 AM
TOWERING RISE IN NEW BUILDING STARTS
The NY Post
By Tom Topousis
Fueled largely by a housing boom, construction across the city is hitting a record level this year, with $20.8 billion worth of new apartment buildings, office towers and public projects under way, a new study has found.
...
"Given that World Trade Center construction activity won't begin to peak until 2009 and that major development projects such as Atlantic Yards are slated to commence in that time frame as well, it is quite possible that the building boom could continue well into the next decade," said Building Congress President Richard Anderson.
Posted by lumi at 7:07 AM
October 3, 2006
A Final Wal-Mart Solution: Nix Public Input
The Real Estate Observer
By Chris Shott
As community opposition continues to keep Wal-Mart out of the Big Apple, local retail broker extraordinaire Robert K. Futterman has come up with a brilliant solution to the big-box debacle: Kick the naysayers out of the approval process.
"If they keep going in front of [the City Planning Commission] and community boards, they're gonna have a problem," Futterman said in an interview with The Real Deal, available via podcast. "The ideal situation would be a location, whether it be New York or any of the other boroughs, where they can go in and operate without having to go get, you know, any approvals outside of the zoning."
NoLandGrab: Hmm... someplace where Wal-Mart "can go in and operate without having to go get any approvals outside of the zoning."
We suggest that Wal-Mart ask Bruce Ratner how he got NY State to take over the Atlantic Yards project, thus eliminating the naysayers, zoning hurdles, local review or regulations.
Posted by lumi at 7:07 AM
The "Ratner Effect" Starts to Take Hold of the Market.
Don't Worry It's Just Reality: Brooklyn Edition
Dreadnaught notes the similarity between the Domino Sugar factory redevelopment controversy and Atlantic Yards.
Both developers are counted amongst Brooklyn's bad boy businessmen and now Isaac Katan is taking a page from the Bruce Ratner PR playbook (from The NY Times, via Brownstoner:
“We certainly support preservation,” said a Katan spokesman. But he added, “Our priority is affordable housing, and we want to achieve a balanced plan.”
NoLandGrab: This is nutty — big-time Brooklyn developers are about as concerned with affordable housing as George Bush is with democracy. Affordable housing is the political cover du jour in response to any criticisms.
Most people agree affordable housing is sorely needed, but is it a panacea for bad planning and negative environmental effects? In Williamsburg, "affordable housing" was included in the rezoning as a tradeoff for developers seeking to build to maximum FAR.
Posted by lumi at 5:57 AM
October 2, 2006
EDC hosting Spanish contingent of developers
Crain's NY Business
Recruited by the city Economic Development Corp., 25 construction and finance companies from Spain will travel to New York City next week to explore the possibility of doing major projects here. All but two have never done business in the city, EDC officials say.
...
Oct. 10 and 11, the Spanish contingent will tour development sites including the Silvercup Studios project in Long Island City and Atlantic Yards and the Brooklyn Academy of Music cultural center in Brooklyn.
NoLandGrab: With any luck, the Spaniards might run into the Hagan sisters of the Prospect Heights Action Coalition, who have been reminding folks that "Su casa es Bruce casa."
Posted by lumi at 8:27 PM
Green Construction
Gotham Gazette
By Joshua Brustein
Forest City Ratner (FCR) touts its commitment to Green Construction and LEED certification for Atlantic Yards. [Note: FCR did the same for the Times Tower, yet later opted not to apply for certification.]
Why is Green Construction important to New York?
From the proposed Atlantic Yards project in downtown Brooklyn to the water filtration plant in the northern Bronx, critics almost always complain not just about the project itself, but about the inconvenience, pollution, noise and dangerous accidents they will face during its construction.
The construction downtown is unique in that the contaminants from Ground Zero are still an issue. In late September, the Environmental Protection Agency finally approved a plan to demolish the Deutsche Bank Building adjacent to the site, after a long debate over how best to ensure that the asbestos and other dangerous chemicals in the building are not released into the air; the building will come down over the next year. Similar issues must be resolved for other buildings that are either known or suspected to be contaminated. The huge scale of the development downtown also ensures that there will be more pollution than in a project of conventional size.
And what is Green Construction and LEED?
The enthusiasm for green buildings among developers, public officials, and environmental activists is palpable. While the word generically refers to buildings that are environmentally friendly, it has also become shorthand for a set of standards put out by the United States Green Building Council called the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, or LEED, system. LEED puts priority on using energy efficiency, employing innovative construction materials, and recycling.
Posted by lumi at 8:17 AM
Consequences of a Construction Boom
The NY Sun
By David Lombino
Wanna know why the projected construction costs for Atlantic Yards have soared, from $2.5 billion to $4.2 billion, and will continue to go up?
Construction costs are skyrocketing nationwide, and the local crunch is threatening to put the current construction boom on the skids.
Soaring construction costs are putting the squeeze on the city’s private developers, real estate experts say, threatening New York’s housing boom, and lessening the impact of billions of government dollars invested in public infrastructure projects around the region.
...
At a conference on economic development last month, the president of Newmark Knight Frank Capital Group, James Kuhn, called construction costs “the single biggest problem in New York right now.”“It makes me nervous and I don’t see a solution,”Mr.Kuhn, a powerful figure in the New York real estate industry, said.
He said developers faced with increased costs have to earn about a third more on a per square foot basis than just a few years ago. He added that the costs will put pressure on the bigger, more ambitious, and long-term projects, including Forest City Ratner’s Atlantic Yards.
“When it was started, we were in a very,very bullish condo market,” Mr. Kuhn said.“When it gets approved, will we be in a market that justifies construction at a number where you will be able to sell units?”
Posted by lumi at 8:10 AM
September 29, 2006
ON PROSPECT PARK
The NY Post
By Adam Bonislawski
In recent coverage of One Prospect Park (see, The Brooklyn Papers), Richard Meier has made pointed references to the scale of the rhymes-with-hairy monster-o-city a half-mile down the road:
Unlike another big name (rhymes with "Hank Neary") with plans for the area, Meier took care to integrate his design with the neighborhood's existing structures.
"It doesn't have to do with the way it looks or the materiality," he says. "But it's a matter of scale. That's something that's important in all of my work.
Posted by lumi at 8:52 AM
September 28, 2006
The CBA is Dead, Long Live the CBA
The Real Estate Observer
Last year Mayor Michael Bloomberg hailed the Atlantic Yards Community Benefits Agreement as historic. Then every overdeveloper who needed the cover of community support was cutting deals with whomever would sign on the dotted line. Bloomie put the kibbosh on the free-for-all once he realized that CBAs were circumventing the City's role in determining the pros and cons of large-scale developments. But now CBAs are back and the Mayor wants in.
Reporter Matthew Schuerman can't cure your whiplash, but he can explain what's going on.
Posted by lumi at 8:23 AM
September 21, 2006
Pataki’s Hopes For Moynihan Being Derailed
NY Sun
By David Lombino
The Moynihan Station project is receiving more scrutiny from Albany Democrats than Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards project. "Governor Pataki's hopes of breaking ground on Moynihan Station before he leaves office are being derailed by Albany Democrats," such as Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and State Comptroller Alan Hevesi, who have raised objections to project details.
Posted by lumi at 6:51 AM
September 20, 2006
Brooklyn Is Burning
Do Development and Brooklyn Fires Go Hand in Hand?
NY Magazine
By Mark Jacobson
The Greenpoint-Williamsburg rezoning and the state-sponsored Atlantic Yards project are fueling local real estate speculation. Could greedy speculators be fanning the flames as "Brooklyn is Burning?"
As the displaced survivors struggle to go on with their lives, some help comes via Atlantic Yards developer Forest City Ratner:
Another, less-expected item was that the family of Kassoum Fofana, who’d fallen on top of Sherrie Williams the night of the 1033 fire, had a new apartment. This was good news, since the Fofanas had been more or less homeless since the fire. Weirdly, the Fofanas’ benefactor was the Forest City Ratner Companies, would-be builder of the hated Atlantic Yards project, which may do more than any fire to change the landscape of Brooklyn.
“Ratner got the Fofanas a place to live,” [Bill] Batson said, shaking his head at the irony.
Posted by lumi at 8:29 AM
Mister Rogers' Neighborhood Gerrymandered To Serve King Friday's Make-Believe Agenda
The Onion
Brooklyn is not alone when it comes to facing government-sponsored overdevelopment schemes.
MISTER ROGERS' NEIGHBORHOOD, PA—A plan to radically redistrict Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood to further cement the control of the powerful King Friday XIII political machine is expected to pass this week and deeply affect current taxation structure, voting patterns, and services. "Meow-me-meow can't afford meow property tax as it stands now meow, and meow don't want everything I've worked for to be destroyed meow," said one resident, who asked to remain anonymous. Among the anticipated changes are sharp cutbacks in speedy deliveries, the elimination of trolley routes to such low-income districts as Someplace Else and the platypus mound, as well as the destruction of the Museum-Go-Round to make room for a massive new headquarters for The Electric Company.
NoLandGrab: We knew that King Friday would want to get a piece of the action after Mr. Ratner got his own cardigan.
Posted by lumi at 6:07 AM
September 15, 2006
Letter to the Editor, Our Time Press
Picketing Henry Ford
Stuart Schrader's unpublished letter to the editor of Our Time Press addresses columnist Errol Louis's reference to Metrotech, pointing out that eminent domain used for the project removed valuable blue-collar jobs from the community, the very community which Atlantic Yards claims to benefit:
Third, and most gravely, Mr. Louis fails to mention that one of the buildings razed with Mr. Ratner’s cherished eminent domain to build MetroTech was a factory, American Safety Razor Co.
Surely no yuppies worked there, but many of the 1,500-plus workforce staged sit-ins and other more aggressive protests against the removal of the factory. These were regular folk from the community, the type whom Mr. Louis believes Mr. Ratner’s current project will help. Deindustrialization in Brooklyn is a long and sordid tale, related to global economic trends as well as to municipal politics, so the blame cannot be dropped entirely at Mr. Ratner’s opportunistic feet. But it would be a mistake to think that the back-office jobs offered by companies that relocated to MetroTech or, perhaps someday to the Atlantic Yards, offer economic salvation to Brooklyn’s minority communities devastated by the loss of blue-collar employment. If anything, these jobs, and the accompanying condos, will bring more yuppies.
Posted by lumi at 6:05 AM
September 14, 2006
Gaphattan builder: Stay small
The Brooklyn Papers
Manhattan architect Richard Meier — famed for his iconic, celebrity-filled glass-walled towers on West Street in Manhattan — celebrated his first Brooklyn building last week with a warning to his fellow master builders: Keep it small.
...
“Brooklyn has its own scale, a human scale — that’s why Brooklyn is great,” he said, in an implicit criticism of Frank Gehry’s skyscraper-filled design for Bruce Ratner’s Atlantic Yards.“Other builders can build tall, but that’s not for me. I build to Brooklyn scale.”
Posted by lumi at 10:51 PM
Deputy Mayor Dan Doctoroff Officially Opens Holiday Inn Express Brooklyn
Magna Hospitality Celebrated the Opening of the First Hotel in Brooklyn's Burgeoning Park Slope Neighborhood With Ribbon Cutting Ceremony
In the press release for the opening of the 4th Ave Holiday Inn Express, the hotel was touted as being "ideally situated to service visitors coming to see the Nets play in their new home at the nearby Atlantic Yards development, which will include an arena designed by architect Frank Geary (sic), and travelers on the Crown Princess and Queen Mary 2, both of which will be docking in the new cruise terminal in the borough's Red Hook neighborhood."
NoLandGrab: The only way you can consider Park Slope "burgeoning" is if you include the Gowanus side of 4th Ave. in The Slope, but then again, these are some of the same guys who think that the Atlantic Yards proposal is in Downtown Brooklyn.
Posted by lumi at 10:14 PM
September 13, 2006
GROUND ZERO INC.
In the aftermath of 9/11, a cadre of developers move to reshape the landscape and culture of New York City.
NY Press
By John DeSio
Atlantic Yards in Downtown Brooklyn and Silvercup Studios in Long Island City, a renewed interest in the City from big-box retailers like Wal-Mart and a race to squeeze housing in anywhere possible, a new development culture has taken over the City. Though new construction is typically a sign of prosperity, many view this particuloar wave as an attempt to force feed the populace new development under the banner of rebuilding the City after 9/11.
Nowhere has this complaint picked up more steam than in Brooklyn, where the Atlantic Yards proposal has forced friends and neighbors to draw battle lines over the future of the borough. Developer Bruce Ratner’s plan would bring a new face to Brooklyn, and many residents who would eventually live in the project’s shadow are not pleased. Dan Goldstein is the head of the leading anti-Ratner group, Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn. In his opinion, the new push to change Brooklyn and the rest of the City is part of a plan by Bloomberg, Doctoroff and others to radically alter the landscape of the City without effectively dealing with the needs of the communities surrounding the projects. To Goldstein and others, it is as if they just don’t care.
“The Mayor sits back while Dan Doctoroff does the deals,” Goldstein said, pointing to not only the Atlantic Yards project but also the failed push to build a stadium for the New York Jets on the West Side of Manhattan, multiple retail developments handled by Doctoroff’s friends at the Related Companies and others. “The deals skirt any serious urban planning and don't involve needs assessments. The deals are developer driven, classic ‘City for Sale’ stuff. They are characterized by land giveaways and privatization of public space.”
Posted by lumi at 11:39 PM
From World Trade Center to Atlantic Yards
Picketing Henry Ford is a new blog by writer Stuart Schrader whose first entry is a continuation of his graduate thesis on the history of the construction of the World Trade Center and a comparison to Atlantic Yards
Some similarities: the use of eminent domain, spurious designations of blight, and an alliance of state and private corporate interests (in the WTC’s case, the peculiar quasigovernmental Port Authority of New York and New Jersey acted as a development corporation; in the AY’s case, the state is allowing a corporation to build on publicly owned land, with heavy public subsidies enabling the development deal). Like the WTC, Ratner’s plan willfully ignores the local context, which happens to be near where I live, rather than something I can today only read about or see in photos. Ratner does not openly propose his project in terms of world history, but as Marshall Berman argued in All That Is Solid Melts Into Air, the modern construction site is “the stage for world history in our time.” More prosaically, because the proposed acreage of this project exceeds that of the WTC (and the square-footage is 3/4 that of the WTC), it is a grave mistake to see the project only in its local context.
The euphoria about centralizing the nitty-gritty of world trade in one complex, which animated the decision to build the WTC, today seems quaint, if not downright depressing, knowing that its planners envisioned their orchestration of world trade as the keystone of an irenic global project... The spirit of the WTC, like its decade’s polyester bell bottoms, characterizes a time, and although it is instantly recognizable as outmoded, it is destined to return again and again because of a peculiar attractiveness. The AY project will surely in 30 years be recognized as marking a specific moment in time, with its specific historical misconceptions, one we might label the total triumph of corporate real estate interests in spite of the urban environment and its inhabitants
Posted by lumi at 11:45 AM
September 5, 2006
New York City made new
Deputy Mayor Dan Doctoroff says it’s an historic time in our history
Metro NY
by Michael P. Ventura
If it seems like there’s a new development everywhere you look in the city, well, there is. City Hall’s point man for such projects talked to Metro about how these plans will transform New York.
How much say does the city have in how much affordable housing is created in the Atlantic Yards project?
We’ve been involved every step of the way. In fact, we negotiated the terms with Forest City Ratner. So, we’re comfortable — not to say that there might not be some more tweaks — and we’re confident in the commitment to affordable housing. We are providing a lot of the subsidies and other inducements to create affordable housing.
Posted by lumi at 12:44 PM
August 31, 2006
Bruce to the rescue?
Library courts Ratner for big cash infusion
The Brooklyn Papers
By Ariella Cohen
Big shots at the Brooklyn Public Library are eying developer Bruce Ratner as the key “partner” they need to jump start their long-delayed Visual and Performing Arts Library just two blocks from his proposed Atlantic Yards project.
No deals have been brokered between the institution and the developer, but officials from Forest City Ratner are talking to library trustees about funding the $120-million arts library, The Brooklyn Papers has learned.
“There have been several conversations,” said Danny Simmons, a member of the Brooklyn Public Library board and brother of rap impresario, Russell Simmons. “He would make a good partner. Ratner is building a huge, huge complex and one of the things that make it more attractive is surrounding cultural attractions. He has significant interest in making sure they succeed.”
NoLandGrab: This rendering of the proposed Brooklyn Public Library Visual & Performing Arts branch does not include Ratner’s Atlantic Yards plan, which would obscure most of the open sky from this vantage point.
Posted by lumi at 11:00 PM
August 28, 2006
YIMBY! The Williamsburg Hasids want an arena? (Not really)
Atlantic Yards Report
A group of Hasidic Jews from Williamsburg attended last week's public hearing on Atlantic Yards, carrying signs proclaiming "YIMBY: Yes In My Backyard."
That's ironic, because the project wouldn't be in their backyards, and according to a NY Times article unearthed by Norman Oder of Atlantic Yards Report, the same community is alarmed by "their neighborhood being invaded by 'artisten,' a Yiddish word that in local parlance is used to describe non-Hasidim who live on the north side."
Posted by lumi at 9:32 AM
August 17, 2006
White flight … to Brooklyn
The Brooklyn Papers
By Dana Rubinstein
Brooklyn is getting whiter, the Census Bureau reported last week, confirming many residents’ unscientific observations.
Between 2004 and 2005, the number of blacks in the borough decreased by approximately 20,000, while the number of whites increased by more than 66,000 [see chart].
...
The “gentrification” trend has been obvious since the Brownstone Brooklyn revival took root in the 1970s. The trend accelerated in recent years as numerous upscale residential developments were planted in adjacent neighborhoods, and could advance further if projects such as Bruce Ratner’s Atlantic Yards and the condo-infused Brooklyn Bridge Park come on-line.
Posted by lumi at 10:07 PM
August 15, 2006
Shrill Of The Week: Weeds
Last week Dope on the Slope fully embraced his inner-shrill. This week he rhapsodizes about "weeds" and wildflowers and wonders what Marty has been smokin'.
Posted by lumi at 11:11 AM
August 13, 2006
Prospect Place Takes a Stand Against Atlantic Yards
Courier-Life
Emily Keller
A new survey conducted by the Prospect Place Block Association – which has expressed apprehension and opposition to the proposed Atlantic Yards Project – says the majority of area residents want the association to take a stand against the project.More than 150 people who live on the three blocks of Prospect Place from Flatbush Avenue to Underhill Avenue completed the survey, and of them, 87% said that they want the block association to take a position against the development proposed by Forest City Ratner Companies (FCR).
Posted by amy at 12:46 PM
August 10, 2006
Times in Bruce’s corner
The Brooklyn Papers, Editorial
The New York Times, which is working with Bruce Ratner to build a new Times headquarters in Manhattan, continues to trumpet its enthusiastic view of its partner’s Atlantic Yards mega-development. In a City section editorial that capped a string of upbeat “news” articles and unreported stories, Times writers seemed to be working off a Ratner press release. As a service to our readers, some of whom may also occasionally read the Times, we present a more nuanced view.
Click here to read the Times editorial in support of Atlantic Yards with editorial footnotes from a newspaper that represents Brooklyn.
Posted by lumi at 9:45 PM
August 5, 2006
Cities Grow Up, and Some See Sprawl
The NY Times
By Nick Confessore
Some call it "smart growth," others warn that it's "vertical sprawl." Whatever your view, "infill development" is gaining currency amongst city planners, politicians and well connected developers, and promises to bring higher density to "urban cores."
The article gives Atlantic Yards as an example:
Last month in Brooklyn, when a state development agency unveiled a long-awaited environmental impact study of the proposed Atlantic Yards project, critics complained that their worst fears had been realized.
The developer, Forest City Ratner Companies, wants to plop more than a dozen buildings as high as 62 stories onto 22 acres near downtown Brooklyn, where a mix of vacant lots, low-rise apartments, abandoned buildings and condominiums now sit. The developer says that the massive residential, office and arena complex would bring housing and jobs to a borough in need of both. According to the state study, however, the project would also create significant traffic and parking problems, require an extra school’s worth of classrooms, and cast shadows over nearby residential neighborhoods.
NoLandGrab: We're pretty sure that the "smart growth" movement hasn't considered the implications of 8.7 million square feet on 22 acres, which would comprise the densest residential community in the nation, by nearly a factor of two.
In the case of Atlantic Yards, it's not just a matter of "high density" over a transit hub, but rather "Shanghai density."
Posted by lumi at 9:14 PM
August 3, 2006
Judge: No case for park foes
Metro NY
By Amy Zimmer
Though it's a boondoggle of a slightly different species, occasionally we cover news about the Brooklyn Bridge Park proposal because it gives us a chance to make an important point about both projects:
Why does the Brooklyn Bridge Park have to be self-sustaining, while Bruce Ratner's private Atlantic Yards development will get nearly $2 billion in subsidies?
From the Metro article:
Brooklyn Heights residents who sued to demolish plans to build condos in the proposed Brooklyn Bridge Park received a legal blow yesterday when a judge told them they had no case.
Although Brooklyn State Supreme Court Justice Lawrence Knipel made no official ruling at yesterday’s pretrial hearing on the lawsuit filed by condo foes, the Brooklyn Bridge Park Legal Defense Fund, he said, “I can see policy reasons for not putting these buildings next to a park. But why legally?”
Through a Freedom-of-Information request, Metro also uncovered a letter which bolsters the charge that the Condos-in-a-Park scheme totally ignores public input:
Foes of the Brooklyn Bridge Park condos who claim they’ve been shut out of the planning process had their concerns echoed by an unlikely source.
Top officials at the pro-park Brooklyn Bridge Park Conservancy wrote a letter obtained by Metro to deputy mayors Dan Doctoroff and Paticia Harris blasting the state agency in charge of the project for “poor communication [that] has lead to strong park opposition.”
Posted by lumi at 9:07 AM
August 1, 2006
Columbia modifies Harlem plan
Metro NY
By Amy Zimmer
NoLandGrab readers have been watching developments in Columbia's bid to expand their campus in West Harlem because both project will be using eminent domain to seize private property.
In today's article about the West Harlem project Brooklynites will notice that the two projects share even more issues in common: * public space design, * respect for the existing neighborhoods, and * "value" to the community vs. "value" to the developer.
NoLandGrab: One big difference between the two projects is that the Columbia expansion has to go through NY City's land use review process, while Atlantic Yards has been taken over by NY State in order to supercede local zoning and review.
Posted by lumi at 2:43 PM
SUPPORTING & OPPOSING ATLANTIC YARDS
This week, City Limits publishes two viewpoints on Atlantic Yards.
SUPPORTING ATLANTIC YARDS:
'SIMPLY NOT ENOUGH HOUSING IN BROOKLYN'
The executive director of NY ACORN argues that the plan’s superior affordable housing provisions require citizens “to take yes for an answer.” — By Bertha Lewis, Executive Director, ACORN NY
OPPOSING ATLANTIC YARDS:
'FAILS TO ACCOMPLISH A DELICATE BALANCE'
The president of the Municipal Art Society challenges residents to hold out for the high standards of planning, design, housing -- and democratic public process -- the city deserves. — By Kent Barwick, President, Municipal Art Society (MAS)
Posted by lumi at 8:47 AM
July 31, 2006
Developers nix or delay condo projects as sales slow, costs rise
AP, via USA Today
This article about the slowdown in the luxury condo market appeared in papers nationwide (locally, in AM NY).
PHILADELPHIA — More and more developers are canceling or delaying condominium projects as home sales slow, construction costs soar and lenders balk at financing units that might not sell.
What's making the situation worse is a glut of high-priced condos and too few people who can afford them.
NoLandGrab: Locally, tons of luxury condos are already in the pipeline and the demand for Starchitect-designed luxury condos has never materialized.
Forest City Ratner Atlantic Yards Development Group President James P. Stuckey has repeatedly claimed that the luxury condos "allows us to do the cross-subsidization" for affordable housing.
Are we expected to belive that in order to meet the affordable housing goals for the project, Ratner is pinning his hopes on a non-existent market for Frank Gehry-designed luxury condos? Or, does Stuckey make this stuff up because the public hasn't seen the financial projections for the project and can't tell if he's telling the truth or not?
Posted by lumi at 4:33 PM
July 28, 2006
Things looking up in Brooklyn, if you’re a skyscraper
The Brooklyn Papers, Editorial
By Gersh Kuntzman
The Downtown Brooklyn Plan — an upzoning and condemnation law passed two years ago — is finally bearing young with at least eight buildings on the drawing board for just a short stretch of Flatbush Avenue Extension from the Manhattan Bridge to Willoughby Street.
Check out the list of buildings (a majority of which are luxury condos) at different stages on the drawing board. They're all pre-approved as part of the Downtown Brooklyn Plan and in the pipeline before Bruce Ratner receives the official nod for Atlantic Yards.
NoLandGrab: Your friends and neighbors are gonna freak when they wake up and realize what the City's plan has in store for Downtown Brooklyn.
Don't forget to tell them that the Mad Overdeveloper, Bruce Ratner, has 23 Williamsburgh Savings Bank Towers worth of development planned for the railyards and Prospect Heights, which would make that little corner of Brooklyn the densest residential community in the nation.
Posted by lumi at 6:45 AM
July 27, 2006
Sierra Club Tries on Two Suits for Size
Brooklyn Downtown Star
By Nik Kovac
The local chapter of the Sierra club takes on some serious local land use issues:
Until this year, the nation's oldest and largest environmental advocacy group hadn't bothered to involve itself in any New York City litigation for over two decades. In just the last four months, however, the Sierra Club has now already filed briefs in two such cases - both in Brooklyn.
In March they got involved on the side of community activists hoping to change the Atlantic Yards project, and just last week they did the same in opposition to the current Brooklyn Bridge Park plans.
The "friend of the court" brief they filed along with Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn (DDDB) against Atlantic Yards was limited in scope, addressing only process concerns surrounding a particular environmental lawyer's alleged conflict of interest. Their more recent "friend of the court" brief supporting the Brooklyn Bridge Park Defense Fund (BBPDF) is much more wide-ranging and dire.
Posted by lumi at 5:51 AM
July 26, 2006
Dope slap
Nothing will earn ya a dope slap like greasing the wheels for wealthy sports team owners.
Today Dope on the Slope offers this image of the Newswalk watertower (which is enveloped by Ratner's plan footprint) then puts the squeeze on H.O.M.E.P.L.A.T.E. and overdevloper-slash-eminent-domain-abuser Bruce Ratner.
The city government that brought you Developer Entitlement Zones is eagerly promoting another fine product to deliver maximum value for your tax dollar. Among the social workers in city government who work tirelessly to assist underprivileged elites, it's known as Handing Out Money to Empower Professional Lobbyists And Team Executives (aka HOMEPLATE).
...
Sports executives aren't the only fans of HOMEPLATE. Shortly after the program's inception, it received a hearty endorsement from the United Front of Unfettered Kingpin Developers (UFUKD).
Homeowners, The Pesky Little Blighters
According to the Real Estate Development "industry," as cited in today's New York Times, a bunch of pesky, small-time pipsqueaks (aka homeowners and small business owners) are ruining it for everybody with regard to the Atlantic Yards proposal...
As far as I can tell, this ["blight"] study concludes that individual property owners are a major inconvenience to big shot developers, and since threat of bodily harm is ostensibly illegal in real estate transactions, developers need another sort of weapon - namely, the threat of eminent domain.
Posted by lumi at 11:25 AM
ON THE WATERFRONT
New Life For the Gowanus
NY Sun
By Roberta Weisbrod
An article about the potential for - and problems with - redevelopment in the Gowanus Canal area of Brooklyn makes this observation about sewer overflows:
What is needed is keeping the old 1911 flushing tunnel in good repair, upgrading it, correcting the combined sewer overflows — especially before the Atlantic Yards development adds more flow, cleaning debris from the canal, repairing bulkheads, and dredging contaminated sediments. Mr. Scotto also says: "The development projects will create pressure for infrastructure improvements — with, of course, the community keeping politicians' feet to the fire."
Posted by lumi at 9:34 AM
July 25, 2006
Battling Teardowns, Saving Neighborhoods
The fight against the "teardown" phenomenon to save historic neighborhoods and buildings isn't limited to opponents of Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards plan, which proposes to demolish the one of the best local candidates for "adaptive reuse," the Ward Bakery (pictured here, with its architecturally significant white terra cotta facade).
The National Trust for Historic Preservation President Richard Moe gave a speech in San Francisco decrying the "teardown" trend. Text of this speech was recently published on the Trust's web site.
In some places, teardowns are acceptable or even desirable. Replacing outdated and inefficient structures is sometimes necessary if a community is to remain economically viable. But in recent years the pace of teardowns has amounted to an orgy of irrational destruction.
Sound older houses should be cherished as an irreplaceable legacy from the past — but instead, in community after community, they're being discarded like yesterday's newspaper.
Posted by lumi at 11:25 AM
July 24, 2006
NEW DOWNTOWN B'KLYN 'HEIGHTS'
The NY Post
By Patrick Gallahue
If you thought that Brooklyn was in store for overdevelopment brought to you by Ratner's Atlantic Yards plan, read what's already in store in Downtown Brooklyn as a part of the already formally City-approved "Downtown Brooklyn Plan."
Note: Most of these projects are luxury condominiums, which isn't exactly what NY City had in mind for the redevelopment of Downtown Brooklyn.
At least eight new construction projects are in the pipeline for a now-gritty three-block stretch of Flatbush Avenue between Tillary and Willoughby streets, just blocks from Bruce Ratner's $4.2 billion planned complex...
Among the projects being planned is a 60-story, multimillion-dollar hotel, office and condominium tower over a city-owned parking garage at Albee Square West, to be built by Thor Equities.
Down the block, on Myrtle Avenue, a $450 million pair of buildings - comprising a million square feet of space - are planned, according to John Catsimatidis, who will develop the projects.
...
Just across the street, BFC Development is hoping to break ground later this year on a roughly $200 million, 40-story residential and retail tower, by the architectural firm Skidmore Owings and Merrill, which designed the Freedom Tower."It's going to be in the area of a billion dollars between all [these] projects," said Ron Hershco, who broke ground on his own luxury 35- and 40-story buildings on Gold Street.
NoLandGrab: Before Atlantic Yards boosters waste their breath slamming Atlantic Yards critics for not opposing the current wave of Downtown Brooklyn development, let's make something clear — many of the same neighborhood activists were at the hearings for the Downtown Brooklyn Plan.
Readers may be familiar with the "Albee Square West" developer Thor Equities as the company re-envisioning Coney Island as a billion-dollar entertainment mecca. Coney Island is where Bruce Ratner and Marty Markowitz originally wanted to build the Nets arena — no reason has been given for their decision to pursue the Prospect Heights land-grab strategy instead.
Posted by lumi at 12:08 PM
July 12, 2006
A Pot of Tax-Free Bonds for Post-9/11 Projects Is Empty
The NY Times
By Terry Pristin
A milestone was reached yesterday in the federal Liberty Bonds program, which was created to help Lower Manhattan and the New York economy recover from the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks by giving developers access to billions of dollars in low-cost tax-exempt financing.
Once officials issue the bonds that were earmarked yesterday, the $8 billion designated for the program will be depleted, ending a program that critics say has benefited developers and high-profile corporations at the expense of ordinary New Yorkers.
Two projects familiar to NoLandGrab readers and which received Liberty Bonds are Frank Gehry's IAC Headquarters in Manhattan and Bruce "the Juice" Ratner's Atlantic Terminal mall (that's the Bank of NY office tower mentioned below).
If developers of residential projects were quick to embrace the Liberty Bond program, commercial developers were much slower to respond. So early on, officials awarded the low-interest financing to other projects that they believed would benefit the city’s economy. A division of Forest City Ratner got $90.8 million worth of financing to build a new office tower in downtown Brooklyn for the Bank of New York, which suffered heavy losses on Sept. 11. (Forest City Ratner, The New York Times Company’s partner in the development of a new headquarters building on Eighth Avenue, applied for Liberty Bond financing for that project but was turned down.)
NoLandGrab: We may be going out on a limb here, but hasn't development in Lower Manhattan been held up for years in a game of political football? If developers didn't queue up right away before the program was expanded, it was likely no fault of their own.
It's a little incredible to offer the lack of interest of commercial developers as the reason for expanding the program, in the face of criticism that the program was another porcine free-for-all for NYC developers.
Posted by lumi at 10:27 PM
July 7, 2006
Work sites remain idle
An amNY article about the construction workers' strike mentions the effect on Bruce Ratner's Times Tower project:
Forest City Ratner, the developer of the New York Times building, had to postpone the "topping out" ceremony to celebrate placement of the structure's last steel beam, according to spokeswoman Jane Pook.
Posted by lumi at 9:52 AM
July 6, 2006
TRACKING SHOT ON THAT 'DOZER
City Limits
Developers beware — Bruce Ratner isn't the only local developer whose crews have been caught on film performing illegal demolitions.
The South Park Slope Community Group, an organization formed to fight high-rise developments in the neighborhood, surprised developer Isaac Katan last month with video footage of his demolition crews working with illegal equipment, often past work hours.
Posted by lumi at 7:17 AM
Sitt's Billion-Dollar Dream for Coney Island
Brownstoner
Joseph Sitt's plan for Coney Island may not be quite as ambitious as the one Bruce Ratner has concocted for the Atlantic Yards, but so far Sitt's appears to be a whole lot less contentious. Perhaps it's because he's trying to build on the area's history, albeit to the nth degree, rather than trying to impose a vision that most locals don't share.
NoLandGrab: Ever wonder if Ratner wistfully contemplates the Coney Island alternative for the arena?
Posted by lumi at 6:55 AM
June 30, 2006
The Park Is Not in the House (or vice versa)
Brooklyn Downtown Star
By Phil Guie
The Brooklyn Bridge Legal Defense Fund's lawsuit against the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) alleges that the Brooklyn Bridge Park Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) is flawed because it doesn't take into account traffic generated by the Atlantic Yards Plan.
In the same hearing, NY City prevailed in its petition to join the lawsuit as an "interested party." The attorney for the City, Susan Amron, opined that "'city property is going to be part of the park. The city has committed $65 million to [its] development.' She called Brooklyn Bridge Park a paradigm for other parks in the city."
Attorney David Paget, already known to Brooklynites from the suit brought by DDDB and other neighborhood organizations, plays a starring role, representing the Empire State Development Corporation.
NLG Q: Will the Atlantic Yards EIS take into account traffic that may be generated by other development proposals? Community folks want to know if anyone at the Department of Traffic and Transportation is minding the store, and if Brooklyn will get the comprehensive traffic/transportation study and plan it deserves?
The "paradigm" Amron cites is the model of the "self-sustaining park."
Which begs the question: Why must a park be self-sustaining, while Atlantic Yards must receive billions of dollars in tax subsidies?
Posted by lumi at 8:50 AM
June 29, 2006
Demand for Midtown Office Space Pushes Prices Up
The NY Times
By Terry Pristin
The market for Class A office space in Midtown is so hot that The Times found an example where a landlord paid its tenant to move in order to lease out the space for more than double the previous rent.
While the vacancy rate in Midtown over all is said to be about 8 percent, space is even tighter in the so-called Plaza submarket, from the Avenue of the Americas to the East River and 51st Street to 63rd Street.
NoLandGrab: Bruce Ratner is watching market trends for Class A office space very carefully, as Forest City Ratner is currently trying to fill its share of the Times Tower with tenants.
How does this affect Atlantic Yards? Continued demand for Class A office space could lead Ratner to convert some space in the proposed skyscrapers back to office/commercial space, as originally planned. However, the movement to diversify back-office operations of large corporations, post-9/11, has run its course, and the demand for Class A space in the outer boroughs hasn't materialized, as evidenced by the failure of the Downtown Brooklyn Plan to build anything but luxury housing.
Posted by lumi at 7:07 AM
June 21, 2006
W'BURG SOAR POINT
Though ours is bigger than theirs, Williamsburg joins Atlantic Yards in the race for over-development with a hedgerow of 28 towers, plus an additional four next door. The rub is that this section of Williamsburg was DOWNZONED last year in the Greenpoint-Williamsburg rezoning plan, in hopes of protecting the existing residential neighborhood.
NoLandGrab: The Williamsburg proposal, presented by Quadriad Realty Partners, would require a local zoning change. Bruce Ratner circumvented all local zoning for Atlantic Yards by getting NY State to take over the project.
Posted by lumi at 6:38 AM
June 20, 2006
NEW DAY FOR BUSINESS AT SUNSET PARK
Manufacturers could find an affordable home in Brooklyn warehouses.
This short item in City Limits dispels two myths on one page.
1) There's no place for manufacturing jobs in the new NYC service-based economy.
2) Sports venue jobs are a great way to foster economic growth.
Two vacant government warehouses in Sunset Park could provide homes for several dozen manufacturing companies being displaced from other parts of the city and retain thousands of blue-collar jobs, according to a new report from the Center for an Urban Future.
The report finds that redeveloping the two buildings - Federal Building #2 at Third Avenue and 30th Street and Building A at the Brooklyn Army Terminal - would create 2 million square feet of new industrial space, a boon for manufacturers at a time when so many face a space crunch due to zoning changes, condo conversions and escalating rents.
This reuse could actually have a larger impact on the city's economy than high-profile projects - like new stadiums for the Yankees, Nets and Mets - that rely heavily on public subsidies and create fewer permanent jobs.
Posted by lumi at 7:31 AM
June 16, 2006
ROOM$ WITH A VIEW
$3M in old bank building
Brooklyn Papers
By Dana Rubinstein
On the Williamsburg Savings Bank Tower rebranded as One Hanson Place by a Magic Johnson's development group:
Johnson says he’ll move into one of the 189 luxury units in the building, a short walk from Bruce Ratner’s proposed arena for the Brooklyn-bound New Jersey Nets.
“I’ll be able to walk to a Nets game,” said the former Los Angeles Lakers star, whose Canyon-Johnson Urban Funds spent an undisclosed amount to renovate the $70-million building.
While the well-heeled VIPs sipped martinis, a dozen members of ACORN, an affordable housing advocacy group, picketed outside to protest the absence of low-cost units.
But Johnson defended the project.
“It would be unfair to say we haven’t tried our hardest,” said Johnson. “But if the numbers don’t work, they don’t work … We have to answer to [our] investors.”
Buyers of luxury apartments in the building will benefit from the city’s 421-a tax-abatement program.
Posted by lumi at 4:18 PM
June 15, 2006
Atlantic Yards Opponents Bring Up the "Coney Island Arena Solution" Again
Gowanus Lounge
Atlantic Yards opponents are again suggesting a "Coney Island arena solution" as an alternative to the huge Forest City Ratner project at Flatbush Avenue and Atlantic Avenue. In the latest salvo from Develop-Don't Destroy Brooklyn, Daniel Goldstein says, "Coney Island is a viable location for an arena in Brooklyn that requires a serious and hard look. It was built for crowds and can use the 'off season' shot in the arm that a professional basketball arena could bring."
Posted by lumi at 5:58 AM
June 14, 2006
In Major Projects, Agreeing Not to Disagree
The NY Times
By Terry Pristin
An article about the popularity and pitfalls of Community Benefits Agreements:
Since 2001, when a comprehensive community benefits agreement was struck for a hotel-and-entertainment project now being developed in Los Angeles next to the Staples Center sports arena, the trend has quickly spread to other cities, including Denver, Milwaukee, Chicago and Washington. Advocates of C.B.A.'s, as they are known, see them as an outgrowth of the Smart Growth movement — the idea that development decisions should address a broad range of social and economic issues like transportation, jobs and housing.
In New York, however, some critics are wondering if this trend is threatening to distort the planning process. They say the danger is that local groups will agree not to oppose the projects in exchange for favors that may be unrelated to the project's impact on the neighborhood.
Critics of the Atlantic Yards (whose developer is a partner to The New York Times Company in its new headquarters building on Eighth Avenue) and other agreements have questioned whether the groups signing the document really speak for the community. "Groups pop up and you're not sure who they represent," said Patricia A. Jones, the co-chairwoman of the Manhattan Community Board 9 task force on Columbia University's expansion in Manhattanville. Ms. Jones contends that development plans ought to be reviewed by community boards, which are currently excluded from the C.B.A. process, before the benefits are meted out. "They can look at the bigger picture," she said.
Times article on CBA flaws: some dismay but few specifics re Atlantic Yards deal
The man who writes faster than most people read, Norman Oder, has already posted commentary on Atlantic Yards Report, explaining how the Times missed an opportunity to compare the prototype agreement for the Staples Center in LA to the "illegitimate" agreements Ratner signed with individual groups in Brooklyn.
Posted by lumi at 8:53 AM
June 11, 2006
For Brooklyn's Beacon, the Luxe Life
New York Times
To most Brooklynites, it is surely the building's exterior, especially the four illuminated clock faces below the dome, that matters most. But there is some question about how visible these images will be in the future. A 22-acre plot of land around the corner is the site of the proposed Atlantic Yards development, including a basketball arena and more than a dozen new towers, which some critics of the Atlantic Yards proposal say could obscure the bank building's pride of place as the grandest light on the borough's skyline. After three-quarters of a century, they fear, the classic skyscraper that has been Brooklyn's beacon could disappear from view.
...
Many of the dentists will lose their offices in the conversion (Dr. Franzetti is among only 16 who will stay on), but they weren't the only ones unhappy with the building's new role. In April, nearly 100 protesters gathered outside the tower to demand low-income housing in return for the city tax breaks for which the development, as a rehabilitation project, will be eligible.
"When they invited me to their grand opening, I told them I am not going," said City Councilwoman Letitia James, who participated in the protest and whose district office occupies a storefront just down Hanson Place from the tower. "Downtown Brooklyn is becoming very homogeneous. We need to preserve the diversity of downtown Brooklyn. We need to advance it."
Posted by amy at 1:52 PM
June 6, 2006
Record high-rises set for Brooklyn
Six towers with more stories than Williamsburgh Savings Bank planned; some worry about loss of low-rise charm
The Real Deal
By Tiffany Razano
Atlantic Yards isn't the only high-rise game in town.
The 40-story 306 Gold Street in Downtown Brooklyn will be the tallest new residential tower in the borough when construction on it is completed in 2008. But it's just one of many high-rises planned for Brooklyn, where buildings tend not to soar. The shift has some residents concerned.
Posted by lumi at 7:03 PM
June 5, 2006
Money for nothing, parks for free
Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn poses a question that gets at the heart of Brooklyn:
Did You Ever Wonder...
...why Brooklyn Bridge "Park" needs to be self-sustaining, but Forest City Ratner's Skyscraper City doesn't?
Good question. Since when do parks have to be self sustaining? That's what our tax dollars are for. Are we really leaning towards a vision of the future with high-rise condos in Prospect or Central Park?
Consider the bits of green space that are supposed to knit together the private residences ringing Grand Army Plaza and the public plaza itself. The "berms," as they are called, are considered so dangerous to public safety that they are fenced off and they illustrate the difficulty of designing the transition between private and public space.
On a regular city street, a sidewalk does the trick. But in a park, there is no street and the walkways do not serve the same function. Can you really create a private space in a park and maintain full public access? How do you design the transition between the private and public spaces?
If it doesn't work, then the park will quickly become a publicly subsidized amenity for the condo class, another variation on the superblock... which sounds like another project we know.
Posted by lumi at 7:40 AM
June 2, 2006
Downtown Brooklyn Plan, we hardly knew ya
This week Brooklyn Papers covers the announcement of a Downtown Brooklyn Planning Czar to be named later (and here we thought that it was Ratner all along!) accompanied by Gersh Kuntzman's editorial reaction.
Downtown czar: Bloomy to name plan’s savior
Let the market rule
NoLandGrab: We spend way too much time explaining, "The "Atlantic Yards" proposal IS NOT in Downtown Brooklyn." Since it isn't, why do we care about Downtown Brooklyn?
Because the wheels are coming off of the Downtown Brooklyn Plan, previously envisioned as a large-scale commercial-residential high-rise neighborhood (sound familiar?) and packaged to politicians to stem the flow of jobs to New Jersey. Now there's little demand for office space in Central Brooklyn -- Bruce Ratner knows that, which is why he's converted millions of square feet of planned office space to luxury condos -- and the plan is in disarray. Brooklyn was supposed to gain jobs and a revitalized commercial district, and all City Hall has to show for its efforts is a drawing board full of luxury housing.
In addition, eminent domain has been authorized for the entire district in order to amass lots big enough for high-rise development. The result has been to suppress the growth and development of small businesses. We know what you're thinking, just use eminent domain and take back Metrotech to build affordable housing. Shame on you -- eminent domain is abusive in Prospect Heights and isn't doing anyone any favors in Downtown Brooklyn.
Eminent domain, commercial-vs.-residential real estate, luxury-vs.-affordable housing, city planning gone awry (similar to total lack of city planning gone awry) and small businesses getting the squeeze -- Downtown Brooklyn matters. The political and market forces west of Flatbush ought to have an effect on how development of the railyards proceeds, but it won't if Bruce Ratner has his way and is allowed to go ahead with his plans to re-invent Brooklyn.
Posted by lumi at 9:32 AM
May 31, 2006
Who benefits from the city’s building boom?
Metro NY
Reporter Amy Zimmer interviews "Louis Coletti, president of the Building Trades Employers’ Association, which represents 1,500 union construction companies in the city. Coletti talked to Metro about how the unions get people working but are not the city’s magic bullet."
Coletti on the building boom:
Is there more work for your members?
We’re right at the beginning stage for really big projects. I think we’ll see a lot of shovels in the ground this summer and next. You’ll see Yankee and Shea stadiums; the Freedom Tower, the PATH station, Atlantic Yards and the city is putting $11 billion in school construction.
Coletti on Community Benefits Agreements:
Can unions meet the demands of community benefits agreements for projects like Yankee Stadium or the Atlantic Yards that call for a percentage of contracts going to minority or women-owned businesses?
There’s a disconnect because we have not been party to many community benefits agreements. Let’s say you have a project in the Bronx and you get the local politicians saying, you need 25 percent of jobs going to people from the Bronx. Well, construction doesn’t work like that. We have a lot of workers living in the Bronx, but what if they don’t want to work on that particular project. We’re not going to lower our standards. We won’t be held accountable for those numbers. We already have the most diverse work force. Match it against any non-union contractor. Too often elected officials see us as a panacea to a paycheck. Yes, there’s an unemployment problem, especially in the African-American community, but that’s not our job to fix. We’re not a social service agency.
Posted by lumi at 8:21 AM
May 17, 2006
Letting a thousand projects bloom
Metro NY
By Amy Zimmer
The Empire State Development Corporation (the lead agency for Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards proposal) is involved in more development projects today than ever before. ESDC Chairman Charles Gargano talked to Metro about the expansion of the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, Moynihan Station and other ongoing projects.
...What do you say to Brooklynites concerned about the Atlantic Yards?
The facts are that we didn’t really have to use eminent domain because there were friendly condemnations done. The amount of condemnation that we had to do was very small. I grew up in Park Slope, and another big blunder by the city was we lost the Brooklyn Dodgers. They wanted to build a new Ebbets Field at the Atlantic Yards. And because of that blunder in the ’50s, we have had a blighted look in the Atlantic Yards for nearly 50 years. There will always be people who object because everybody has different personal interests, and that’s OK. But I think what you have to do is do it for the majority.
NoLandGrab: Whether Gargano pleads insanity or ignorance, he's dead wrong. The use of eminent domain is still pending for the Atlantic Yards project.
And what the hell is a "friendly condemnation?" The Chairman is just nuts.
Check out Atlantic Yards Report for the complete lowdown on Gargano's lies and damn lies.
Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn can only come to one conclusion that makes sense, Charles Gargano is reporting from the future.
Posted by lumi at 5:33 PM
Mayor To Name Development Tsar To Oversee Downtown Brooklyn
NY Sun
By David Lombino
The Bloomberg administration is looking to boost downtown Brooklyn by naming a Brooklyn development tsar to oversee the planned growth of the city’s third largest business district.
If the city’s initiative moves ahead as expected, the tsar would oversee a new organization that would coordinate economic development in the area and market downtown Brooklyn as a mixed-use neighborhood that is a cultural and entertainment destination. Development analysts said the reorganization shows the mayor is prioritizing Brooklyn’s development, but critics said a centralization of development functions would stifle local input.
Posted by lumi at 6:40 AM
May 11, 2006
Olympic Sites Become Topic Of Hot Debate
NY Sun
By David Lombino
Nearly a year since the Bloomberg administration’s Olympic dreams died, the legacy of its elaborate citywide development plan is a subject of debate. Advocates say the plans laid the groundwork for future growth, while critics charge the mayor was overeager and cost taxpayers.
The New York 2012 Olympics plan called for more than 20 venues to be built across the five boroughs, pairing sports like beach volleyball with the Brooklyn waterfront and whitewater kayaking with Flushing. Mayor Bloomberg’s announcement last week that the city would not pursue a 2016 Olympics bid signals that most of those planned venues will never come to fruition. Still, the administration is touting the Olympic legacy as a spur for some of the broad economic development that is occurring across the city.
...
The author of the Web site newyorkgames.org, Brian Hatch, an advocate of the Olympics who has been critical of the Bloomberg administration’s bid, said most of the development on or near the planned Olympics venues would have happened anyway in today’s booming development environment. Instead, he said, the administration’s rabid interest in the Olympic sites had a negative effect for taxpayers.“The deals got better for the developer in most instances,” Mr. Hatch said.
...
[Julia] Vitullo-Martin pointed to Forest City Ratner’s Atlantic Yards project as an example of where Olympic dreams may have clouded [Deputy Mayor Dan] Doctoroff’s judgment. She called the project, which would have housed the gymnastics competition, “way too big, and way too subsidized.”
Posted by lumi at 6:13 AM
April 27, 2006
A Plan to Rebuild by 2012, and Doubts on the Big Rush
An alert NoLandGrab reader pointed out this paragraph in today's news about the plans to rebuild the World Trade Center (emphasis added):
Some experts are even wondering whether there will be enough steel, concrete and curtain wall to build the four towers by 2012 at the same time that two baseball stadiums, the $2 billion Goldman Sachs headquarters, the $1.7 billion expansion of the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, Moynihan Station, 10,000 apartments and various subway projects are under construction.
NoLandGrab: Industry experts have already noticed the Katrina effect on the supply and cost of construction materials. Add to that the building boom under the Bloomberg-Doctoroff doctrine and the $3.5 billion figure for Atlantic Yards isn't even going to be close enough for horseshoes and hand grenades.
Posted by lumi at 10:06 PM
Brooklyn Broadside: ‘The End of Brooklyn as We Know It’
The Brooklyn Daily Eagle's Dennis Holt proves that you don't have to construct an argument to have an opinion.
In a rambling editorial disputing Atlantic Yards critics' characterization of the project as "the end of Brooklyn as we know it," Holt takes the metaphor quite literally and extrapolates it to the edges of the borough, to locales such as Floyd Bennett Field.
From there Holt touts the State's inadequate review process and then misleads his readers [emphasis added]:
Another major change to another part of Brooklyn is being engineered that will not benefit from such detailed study. It is not because everyone is lazy or has something better to do: it is simply that such work is not required by law.
Dennis Holt is referring to buildings going up as part of the ALREADY APPROVED Downtown Brooklyn Plan, a project that he conditionally supported in the pages of The Eagle.
NoLandGrab: Why is this worth mentioning?
This tactic of deflecting criticism of Atlantic Yards by pointing to other high rises currently under construction is becoming familiar and most recently has been used by our great leader Marty Markowitz.
The Downtown Brooklyn Plan brings up a good point: that the environmental impacts of Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards proposal will only be compounded by development already in the pipeline.
Dennis Holt supported the Downtown Brooklyn Plan and the traffic study that accompanied it. Now that the traffic study is gathering dust on a shelf in some cubicle at the DOT, how can "Brooklyn as we know it" plan for the next wave of proposed development?
Posted by lumi at 6:42 AM
April 25, 2006
One Hanson Place Update: Site's Sorta Open Again
 |
Curbed.com
While Bruce Ratner is showcasing photos of scrap buses stored in the MTA-owned railyards as evidence of blight in the neighborhood (see atlanticyards.com, 2,700K slideshow), Curbed.com takes a sneak peak behind the cyber-curtain at the units for sale at the newly renovated One Hanson Place (aka Williamsburg Clock Tower building).
At a cool $3 mil for the penthouse flat, there goes the neighborhood.
Posted by lumi at 9:17 AM
April 24, 2006
Bill ties benefits, jobs to subsidies
If businesses don’t deliver on promises, they would have to repay tax breaks
MetroNY
By Patrick Arden
A State Assembly bill would force large projects that receive subsidies to meet stated goals or lose state subsidies.
If passed, how could the bill affect promises made by developers in these Community Benefits Agreements that are becoming popular in NYC?
Under IDA reform, businesses getting government subsidies would have to meet certain standards. Construction jobs would have to pay prevailing wages, for instance, while permanent employees would have to earn at least 185 percent of the poverty level for a family of three. Local hiring would also be mandated. Many of these provisions are now being negotiated separately under so-called Community Benefit Agreements.
“We’d like to take the question of jobs, benefits and local hiring off the table from the beginning — if agencies are going to give out public subsidies, then these kinds of conditions should be attached to those subsides right off the bat,” said Adrianne Shropshire, executive director of New York Jobs With Justice.
Posted by lumi at 12:17 PM
CBA should mean "CITY Benefit Agreement"
Room Eight
One voice in a growing chorus of critics of Community Benefits Agreements, Barry Popik illustrates how developers will cut these side deals with those who are willing to receive a handout in exchange for their support of a project.
CBA should mean "city benefit agreement," not "community benefit agreement." Promises of jobs on large projects should be city-wide, not community-wide. Mayor Bloomberg should issue a policy pronouncement on this right now.
Posted by lumi at 12:12 PM
Targeting Shaya Boymelgreen
Kick off for Nationwide Make Work Pay! Campaign
TODAY! MONDAY APRIL 24th
Join us in a Rally against Shaya Boymelgreen, an Unscrupulous Developer And Launch Nationwide Make Work Pay! Campaign
1000 local workers will gather on April 24th to send a message to Shaya Boymelgreen that workers should be rewarded with decent wages, affordable healthcare, a safe workplace and a chance for a better future. This action will be joined by dozens of events across the country to kick off the national Make Work Pay! Campaign
Stand with Local members the Laborers, Teamsters, UFCW, SEIU, UNITE HERE, Carpenters, Jobs with Justice, ACORN, New York Civic Participation Project and many other community and religious leaders.
MONDAY April 24th 3:00pm
Atlantic Ave at Smith Street in Brooklyn
Metro NY, Activists: ‘We can’t live in New York City’
Also, ACORN stormed an open house this weekend for Boymelgreen's 85 Adams Street project. Their point: developers receiving subsidies from the City should be required to build affordable housing.
Posted by lumi at 11:42 AM
BLOOMBERG MOVES TO TARGET COMMUNITY BENEFITS AGREEMENTS
NY Sun, NEW YORK DESK
Community Benefits Agreements, like the one Forest City Ratner signed last year, have proliferated and are causing frustrations amongst City officials and community groups, as calls to rein in these side deals are growing louder.
Mayor Bloomberg may soon be targeting community benefits agreements, the lucrative payment deals that developers have agreed to with local leaders to assuage public opposition to major projects. An administration official told Crain’s New York Business this week that the mayor is evaluating the agreements and may unveil a policy on how they should be negotiated. The New York Yankees recently signed a community benefits package with Bronx leaders involving their plans for a new stadium,leading Queens lawmakers to demand a similar pact from the New York Mets on a proposed replacement for Shea Stadium.
Posted by lumi at 11:30 AM
April 23, 2006
More Welcome Development
Excuse me, you're in the way wants their own luxury condo, and sends a plea to Ratner for assistance:
A site in downtown Brooklyn currently being used as a parking lot is being offered for sale. It is zoned for a 130,000 square foot apartment building, which is woefully inadequate. Even at a relatively sane 700 sq ft per apartment, that's still fewer than 200 units, and once you factor in 2 and 3-bedroom units, it goes even lower. If New York is going to be adding 1 million people in the coming decades, this type of development just isn't going to cut it.Where's Bruce Ratner when you need him?
Posted by amy at 10:07 AM
April 21, 2006
Community Benefits Agreements, is it extortion & who benefits?
Community Benefits Agreements have become a standard mechanism for givebacks to the community in exchange for local support for controversial projects.
But the questions linger over who negotiates and signs for the community and if the entire process is just a legal way to extort money from developers without addressing the breadth of community concerns.
Atlantic Yards Report, Systemic changes? Ratner's CBA-compliant architect is already building Downtown Brooklyn towers
Norman Oder uncovers a discrepancy between Forest City Ratner's stated intentions and its actions, as the developer hires one of the most prominent architects in New York City, who happens to be born in Mexico. The move goes towards fulfilling the minority hiring requirement of the CBA, but minorities in Central Brooklyn see little benefit.
Columnist Errol Louis wrote in Our Time Press in January, "At this stage of the game the question should be how and when the dollars will begin flowing into central Brooklyn." Though Louis is an ardent supporter of Ratner's proposal, he makes a good point. The question remains unanswered, as Ratner appears only to be fulfilling the letter of the CBA in defiance of its spirit.
Crain's NY Business, Don't put zoning up for sale in NY
Crain's Publisher Alair Townsend calls on the Mayor and City Council Speaker to rein in private deal making between developers and self-professed representatives of the community, a trend that is resulting in agreements that have "less to do with mitigating adverse impacts than with buying off opposition."
Metro NY, Queens Councilmen seek sweet deal with the Mets
Bloomberg speaks out against efforts to sign a Mets CBA:
At the unveiling of plans for a new Mets’ ballpark two weeks ago, Mayor Michael Bloomberg scolded Queens Councilmen who were trying to negotiate a community benefits agreement with the team. He called their threats to stall the project a “demand to get some ransom.”
The Politicker, C.B.A.'s: Sometimes Extortionate, Sometimes Not So Much
Regarding the Mayor's comments (see above) about a Mets' CBA:
It's obvious but just needs to be said: You won't catch Mike Bloomberg saying this about the community benefits agreement undergirding the Nets stadium deal.
Posted by lumi at 6:52 AM
April 19, 2006
Atlantic Yards...What Could Have Been
 |
From Curbed.com, more proof that developers had designs on the Vanderbilt Railyards before New York State bent over backwards for Bruce Ratner:
Before Bruce Ratner and Frank Gehry decided to play mad scientist with the Brooklyn skyline, there was a time when a different future was imagined for the Atlantic Yards. A reader reflects:
Before Ratner had his eyes on the Atlantic Railyards, Boymelgreen had big plans for Newswalk...not just the renovated Daily News printing plant, but for the whole neighborhood...all that survived was the Newswalk building, but this page from some architectural firm has some pretty hilarious sketches of what could have been...
NoLandGrab: Though the sketches might seem bizarre — "amusement park kitsch" comes to mind — on first glance we see a brew pub (perhaps for the mighty Brooklyn Brewery?) and some serious traffic calming measures that would satisfy transportation advocates. The design scheme would have put off many of those in the neighborhood, but ideas of scale, "fusing together the two neighborhoods" in a pedestrian-friendly environment, would have been welcome by many.
Commentary from Atlantic Yards Report, So, Boymelgreen had a plan for the railyards?:
Surely the goal to knit together the neighborhoods (the page mentions Crown Heights and Park Slope but, strangely enough, not Fort Greene and Prospect Heights) is a sound one. And the scale of this plan is quite modest compared to Forest City Ratner's 16-tower Atlantic Yards proposal. Perhaps it was too modest to be economically successful, even though the only housing was market-rate.
Had it been discussed publicly, perhaps local officials would have urged an RFP for the railyards, rather than let them sit. A discussion of Brooklyn's housing and retail needs might have followed, and multiple bidders might have competed. And then Marty Markowitz and Charles Gargano wouldn't be making pronouncements about how "no one has done a thing about" the railyards.
Posted by lumi at 7:17 AM
April 15, 2006
Deluxe Apartments In the Sky
Fort Greene Courier
By Stephen Witt
In an article about the groundbreaking for "the first ground-up residential high-rise project... following the approval of the Downtown Brooklyn plan in 2004," Marty Markowitz takes a shot at Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn and other critics of the Atlantic Yards proposal, "claiming that their activism smacks of NIMBYism."
In a curious bit of editorializing, reporter Stephen Witt echo's Markowitz's plaint:
Curiously absent and silent from the groundbreaking ceremonies were City Councilmember Letitia James and the grassroots organization Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn (DDDB).
DDDB spokesperson Daniel Goldstein countered his organization didn’t exist when the Downtown Brooklyn plan was passed, but many of its members and opponents of the Atlantic Yards project did protest about it at the time.
NoLandGrab: Where does Marty think many of the Atlantic Yards critics come from, anyway?
It is curious that Stephen Witt didn't notice that many of the same critics who attended the hearings for the Downtown Brooklyn Plan have joined the chorus against the Atlantic Yards project. Perhaps he didn't bother covering the hearings (or maybe he wasn't reporting in Brooklyn at the time).
Politicians and neighbors who claim Atlantic Yards critics are a bunch of NIMBYists unconcerned by the inevitable increase in density and traffic in Downtown Brooklyn have been asleep for the past few years. But be sure to thank them for noticing that there seems to be a problem with the impacts of overdevelopment in Brooklyn.
What's worse is that Atlantic Yards will be ADDING to density, traffic and burden upon city services without going through local review and approval like the Downtown Brooklyn plan did.
Posted by lumi at 8:13 AM
April 11, 2006
Letter to the Editor: "Local communities"
NY Metro
LUCY KOTEEN
Fort Greene
April 11, 2006
Why is the mayor giving away our land to build new sports centers? There is a massive land transference taking place in the city right now. Our homes, our local businesses and our parks are all vulnerable under the Bloomberg/Doctoroff doctrine that supports the rich and well-connected by using our precious tax dollars along with huge tax incentives to aid these land takeovers. It doesn't seem to matter that the local communities are locked out of the process and no matter how many neighborhood people protest, they are written off as a few naysayers. Imagine if these public relations efforts and money were put into solving the problems of homelessness, hunger, asthma and education.
Posted by lumi at 7:38 AM
April 4, 2006
FREEDOM PHOBIA
The NY Post
By Steve Cuozzo
In an article about the fear that the Freedom Tower at the World Trade Center could become a "white elephant" if built on spec, Steve Cuozzo cites Ratner's Times Tower as the only recent such project that has failed to sign up a tenant. Columnist Cuozzo's colleague, Lois Weiss reports that "Ratner may finally have a big tenant interested."
Just one spec project has yet to find tenants: The top half of the New York Times headquarters on Eighth Avenue, where Bruce Ratner has 700,000 square feet to rent. (The Times owns the tower's bottom half; Ratner, the top.) Ratner's space has been on the market for more than a year - yet no one is bellyaching that it's a "white elephant."
Cuozzo's main point is that office space built on spec doesn't remain vacant for long.
Posted by lumi at 8:03 AM
March 24, 2006
DOOMING DOWNTOWN
NY Post
By Nicole Gelinas
Mayor Bloomberg is duking it out with Larry Silverstein, citing Silverstein's inability to finance the entire project. The irony is that Silverstein might actually run out of money after one or two towers are built, unless he has access to Liberty Bonds, $8 billion of low-cost financing meant to spur Downtown redevelopment.
Yet Bloomberg so far hasn't used the Liberty Bonds to aid Downtown's recovery. He awarded $114 million to developer Bruce Ratner for a Brooklyn office tower, and approved $650 million for a Durst-owned tower in Midtown. Neither project fulfills Congress' mandate - in fact, each competes with Downtown. (Gov. Pataki took flak for approving $1.7 billion in Liberty Bonds for Goldman Sachs - but Goldman's building Downtown.)
Bloomberg has awarded Liberty Bonds to favored developers - Silverstein isn't one of them - at the expense of Downtown redevelopment, further antagonizing Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, who represents Lower Manhattan and put the kabosh on the stadium deal.
Posted by lumi at 7:22 AM
March 23, 2006
Markowitz Sets Sights on Building New Jail, Condos at Old Detention Site
The NY Sun
By David Lombino
Though Borough President Marty Markowitz declared that, "he would support nothing less than tearing down the existing jail [on Atlantic Avenue] and building something new," he has not yet used his lifeline to Brooklyn's development kingpin, Bruce Ratner:
Mr. Markowitz said he has spoken with several area developers who say they are interested in the site. He said he had not consulted with the developer of the Atlantic Yards project, Bruce Ratner.
Posted by lumi at 6:42 AM
Financial follies at Ground Zero
Or are they political follies?
City Journal
By Nicole Gelinas
The rebuilding of the World Trade Center is at a very curious stalemate:
But so far, Mayor Bloomberg hasn’t used the Liberty Bonds to aid rational private-sector recovery downtown. He has awarded $114 million of these valuable, and finite, resources to developer and political darling Bruce Ratner for an office tower in Brooklyn. He has approved another $650 million in Liberty Bond financing for a Durst-owned tower in Midtown. Neither of these projects fulfills Congress’s mandate to rebuild Lower Manhattan. Worse, both projects will actively compete with downtown. (Pataki has gotten a lot of flack for approving nearly $1.7 billion in Liberty Bonds for Goldman Sachs—but at least Goldman is building downtown.)
NoLandGrab: New Yorkers are wondering what the end game is supposed to be in the Mayor's plan. If Bloomberg manages to bully Larry Silverstein off the project, does City Hall turn around and award the project to a favored developer like Related Companies or Forest City Ratner?
Posted by lumi at 6:05 AM
March 18, 2006
Bullseye: Third Brooklyn Target On The Way
Brooklyn Downtown Star reports that Marty has reached his ultimate goal for Brooklyn:
The Flatbush Junction is a transit hub similar to the one farther up the avenue, near its intersection with Atlantic, where another Target store just opened two years ago. "There will now be more Target's in this county," smiled the Beep of Kings, "than in any other. It goes to show you that Brooklyn is once again number one in something."
Markowitz extends his excitement into suggesting restaurants to complement the Target:
"How about a Red Lobster?" suggested Marty Mark, shovel still in hand, "or a Legal Seafoods?"
NoLandGrab: How about a locally owned and operated business to keep the profits in the vicinity?
Posted by amy at 10:21 AM
Downtown glitz jumps Flatbush Avenue
Brooklyn Papers:
Ground has been broken on a 40-story luxury condo building on Myrtle Avenue directly across Flatbush Avenue Extension from Forest City Ratner’s Metrotech office campus.
...
“I want to know who wants Brooklyn to look like Manhattan,” asked Vincent Battista, president of the Institute of Design and Construction located one block south on Flatbush Avenue Extension. Battista has opposed the Downtown Brooklyn Plan since its creators threatened to use the power of eminent domain to demolish his college to build a park.“And the question is,” he added, “who will be able to afford it when it does?”
Posted by amy at 10:14 AM
March 12, 2006
Multi-Tiered Wal-Mart Becoming Reality
theboxtank:
3rd year architecture students at NYIT investigated the multi-level big-box in Matthew Dockery's Big Box vs Big Apple: Wal-Mart in New York City design studio last fall. The premise of the studio is based on "a hybrid public / private venture designed to allow New York City to reap the benefits of low-cost merchandise without suffering the negative impacts of Big-Box stores on public space, local business and the environment." The site of the project lies adjacent to Bruce Ratner's Brooklyn Atlantic Yards, the Frank Gehry masterplanned mixed-use development at the intersection of Flatbush Avenue, Atlantic Avenue and 4th Avenue in downtown Brooklyn.
Posted by amy at 11:12 AM
March 9, 2006
Sheldon Silver Calls for Schools Chancellor Joel Klein's Removal
Downtown Express
By Ronda Kaysen
No doubt Forest City Ratner is keeping an eye on the mudslinging that's going on across the river in Lower Manhattan between Schools Chancellor Joel Klein and State Assembly Leader Sheldon Silver. Silver, who represents the district in Lower Manhattan, thought that he had a deal with the City to build a new public school at the Frank Gehry-designed Forest City Ratner project on Beekman Street.
The war of words has escalated between the Mayor and leaders in Albany, now that Mayor Bloomberg is holding up funding for the project in hopes of finally getting the State to pay out the full amount of money due to NYC Schools, as mandated by a State court.
The mayor has singled out Silver, Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno and Governor George Pataki in his attacks. The schools Bloomberg selected are in key legislative districts, with the two Downtown schools sitting squarely in Silver's district. A source in the mayor's office told Downtown Express that the Downtown schools were selected to get Silver's attention.
NoLandGrab: This public fight may affect more than the progress and composition of Ratner's project in Lower Manhattan. If positions harden and relationships sour between City Hall and leaders in Albany, approval of Atlantic Yards could end up being another pawn. Though in New York politics, you never know.
Posted by lumi at 7:06 AM
March 6, 2006
Atlantic Yards Report: Density Debate Contextualized & Equity-v-Livability
Atlantic Yards Report attempts to clarify two debates surrounding Bruce Ratner's proposed 22-acre mega-development.
New visuals of AY density; when does it become congestion?
The recent "citizen effort" to provide visual context concerning the density of the Atlantic Yards proposal attempts to address Forest City Ratner Executive VP Jim Stuckey's point that density should be situated near a transportation hub. Do the visually arresting images illustrate density or congestion?
Atlantic Yards Reporter Norman Oder quotes Urbanist Roberta Brandes Gratz, in her book The Living City:
"Density comes when many people are in the same place doing things that gain strength from their interaction; congestion results when there are so many of them that interaction becomes difficult, access in and out unpleasant, and frustration high."
Equity vs. livability: the false choice
Pratt Center for Community Development Director Bran Lander framed the affordable housing debate as divided between "'equity advocates,' as represented by ACORN, and 'livability advocates,' as represented by Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn (DDDB)."
Are these convenient labels much too simplistic to further the debate over affordable housing and Atlantic Yards?
Posted by lumi at 11:07 AM
Big name developers eye Willets Point deal
Metro NY
By Amy Zimmer
Brooklyn real estate baron Bruce Ratner appears on a list eight finalists to bid on the 75-acre Willets Point redevelopment.
The developers were selected for their “clear understanding of the mayor’s standards for superior, sustainable urban development and an affinity for the needs and concerns of the community,” according to EDC President Andrew Alper.
Posted by lumi at 10:33 AM
March 3, 2006
Finalists Picked To Bid for Willets Point Makeover
The NY Sun
By David Lombino
The city has selected eight firms as finalists to bid for the $2 billion to $3 billion project to remake a 75-acre site at Willets Point, Queens, with a mixed-use development including about 1 million square feet of retail space, a hotel, and a convention center.
Among the firms expected to compete for what real estate experts call a potentially profitable but challenging project are three of the most active in the city: Forest City Ratner Companies, the Related Companies, and Vornado Realty Trust, according to information provided by the city's lead development agency.
Willets Point is a long-neglected part of Queens, now zoned for heavy industrial use, with an inadequate sewer system and no paved roads. The proposed project is likely to require condemnation of private property through the exercise of eminent domain, as well as extensive environmental remediation and traffic work.
Posted by lumi at 7:36 AM
February 24, 2006
Conspiracy Corner: Municipal Government Colluding With Developers to Shut Out Poor?
Daily Heights
One question in the debates over the Atlantic Yards proposal is how thousands of new units of luxury housing may affect the social demographics of the neighborhood. Do we even know if these impacts are being studied in consideration of all the other luxury housing that is already under construction?
Some folks on the DailyHeights message board take it a step further and contemplate the possibility of a government conspiracy against the poor. One participant's suspicions are hardened when the developer and government agency share the same lawyer, as in the case of Bruce Ratner and the Empire State Development Corporation.
NoLandGrab: The rationale for the argument that there's a conspiracy against the poor presented in the DailyHeights message board isn't unassailable, but certainly NYC is doing a better job at alleviating the housing crunch for the rich than for the poor.
The picture gets more complicated when one wonders if the affordable housing negotiated by ACORN for Atlantic Yards will be enough, soon enough, or it it will even be built on site. Affordable housing units, using goals that are established by regional (not local) median household income figures, are not scheduled to be built until Phase II of the project, which could be more than a decade away.
Posted by lumi at 8:47 AM
New York Wonders: An Island Fit for What?
The NY Times
By Nicolai Ouroussoff
Some see the Bloomberg administration's hemming and hawing over Governor's Island as an indication that City government is out of practice when it comes to planning. Forget red tape, is it possible that nothing is even conceived in NYC until it's been turned over to a large developer?
In asking developers to take the lead, government officials risk quashing creativity at the outset. More broadly, their appeal raises questions about how American cities — New York in particular — are approaching large-scale urban development these days, handing over enormous swaths of public land to private interests. In the past, such a process tended to favor conventional design solutions.
Posted by lumi at 8:22 AM
February 22, 2006
nolandgrab - could you clarify please?
Sorry to say, NoLandGrabbers don't check DailyHeights as often as they should, otherwise the discussion around one reader's confusion over last Friday's super-post on the luxury-housing market would not have gone on so long.
Thanks to everyone who explained how a drop in the luxury-housing market would not necessarily cause Bruce Ratner to lose his shirt on the deal, and that a "Bruce Ratner white elephant" means that taxpayers are likely to pick up the tab, with municipal and state agencies becoming tenants (thus subsidizing the project on the back end, even though the project has already received every subsidy available on the front end).
Basically, the lack of demand for Class A office space has forced Ratner to convert much of the planned office space to luxury condos (he has reserved the option to change that back). A subsequent drop in the luxury housing market would not leave much flexibility regarding the financial health of the project. A nationwide increase in construction costs, related to demand for labor and materials to rebuild the Gulf Coast, could make things even worse.
The point isn't that opponents of the project are contradicting themselves, debating affordable vs. luxury housing and gentrification vs. diversity. As Councilwoman Letitia James likes to say, these are "false dichotomies."
Keeping an eye on market forces and Ratner's changing configuration of the project (BTW: Ratner hasn't released the profit projections that accompanied his MTA bid for the railyards) makes Brooklynites as concerned as Ratner must be about the economic success of the biggest private project in the history of Brooklyn.
Ratner is known for making bold moves, but what is the risk to him if the projects are heavily subsidized and eventually are "carried" by the public until market forces are more favorable?
These issues and questions must be taken into consideration when pondering the big question: do the project's benefits outweigh it's negative impacts?
Posted by lumi at 9:04 AM
The C.B.A. Tourney
The Real Estate Observer's Matthew Schuerman provides a glance at two local Community Benefits Agreements. In the red corner, we have Forest City Ratner, and in the blue corner, The Related Companies.
While you are checking it out, keep in mind that the devil, as always, is in the details.
Posted by lumi at 8:50 AM
February 17, 2006
Will there be a demand for Ratner luxury housing in the future?
Could an ominous grouping of clouds presage a perfect storm of market forces that could put a damper on the need for Ratner's 2,800 luxury condos and 2,250 units of market-rate (aka luxury) rentals, on top of the thousands of units of luxury housing already in the pipeline in Brooklyn?
From Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke's comments to Congress:
Some cooling of the housing market is to be expected and would not be inconsistent with continued solid growth of overall economic activity. However, given the substantial gains in house prices and the high levels of home construction activity over the past several years, prices and construction could decelerate more rapidly than currently seems likely.
Speculation in luxury condo market could drive prices down, from The NY Times:
Speculators in this and other buildings are putting dozens of units on the market at the same time, causing asking prices and profits to slip.
Volatle pricing at 85 Adams, from Curbed.com.
NoLandGrab: The growing concern is, if the Atlantic Yards project is approved and the bottom falls out of the luxury housing market, Ratner-Gehry luxury housing would be an enormous Forest City Ratner white elephant.
Posted by lumi at 11:14 AM
February 11, 2006
Pacific paved
Brooklyn Papers:
Why did the city repave part of Pacific Street that Bruce Ratner plans to eliminate? Hey, you never know.Last week, the city fixed Pacific between Sixth Avenue and Bond Street in Prospect Heights, despite the fact that Ratner’s Atlantic Yards mega-project would transform Pacific Street between Vanderbilt and Flatbush avenues in Boerum Hill into green space.
Then again, explained a Department of Transportation spokesman, maybe it won’t.
“An ‘if’ is still an ‘if,’” explained the spokesman, Craig Chin.
Posted by amy at 3:15 PM
February 8, 2006
Empty Storefronts on Flatbush Ave.
"Gentriblightification? Blightifigentrification?
A heated discussion is going on in the DailyHeights Forum, pondering the reason there are so many empty storefronts on Flatbush Ave.
Is the culprit the up-zoning of Flatbush Ave. or speculation over Ratner's arena deal? What about those damn lies? And, will White Castle get the last word?
Posted by lumi at 8:46 AM
February 7, 2006
Community groups say they were left out of Bronx market benefit pact
Metro NY
by Patrick Arden
Local politicians are touting the Community Benefits Agreement (CBA) struck with Related Companies for the Bronx Terminal Market development, calling it a possible template for a CBA for a new Yankee Stadium.
However, only FOUR of the "13 named community groups" are signatories. What happened to the other groups?
“Only three signatories were necessary to make it binding,” said Anne Fenton, a spokesperson for Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrion. “Because the negotiations were going up to the last minute, they called seven people and stopped after they had three who could take off work to be there. They wanted to get it signed before the vote.”
But according to a nonparticipating neighborhood group called Bronx Voices for Equal Inclusion, the benefits agreement didn’t have the support of the majority of community representatives. This claim is backed up by several people who participated in the CBA negotiations and requested anonymity.
NoLandGrab: Politicians and developers have a way of taking the community out of CBA.
Posted by lumi at 2:37 PM
February 1, 2006
Times architecture critic Ouroussoff gets political--regarding the Javits Center
TimesRatnerReport compares NY Times architecture critic Nicolai Ouroussoff's political assessment of the Javitz Center expansion to the lack thereof in Ouroussoff's previous comments on the Gehry/Ratner Atlantic Yards project.
The question remains if Ouroussoff will mention the "political maneuvering behind the [Atlantic Yards] project, and the potential, for example, of ruinous traffic," in future commentary.
Posted by lumi at 7:40 AM
January 30, 2006
Arena nabe is jumpin'!
Condos rise while Ratner fights
The NY Daily News
By Lore Croghan
While Forest City Ratner is wading through the approval process, other developers are "getting in ahead of Ratner and building sleek condo buildings on empty lots or sites that were occupied by auto-body shops and other single-story commercial buildings."
The neighborhood is being transformed with chic new development and skyrocketing prices for brownstones.
What about the prospect of Ratner's 10-year construction plan?
That hasn't stopped homebuyers from paying increasingly high prices to get into the neighborhood, undeterred by the possibility of noisy construction or traffic-snarled streets on game day.
NoLandGrab: All this fuss over a neighborhood that Ratner's PR machine still insists is "blighted."
Posted by lumi at 8:40 AM
January 19, 2006
PROSPECT HEIGHTS
Future Prospects
NY Press
Prospect Heights resident Joshua Bernstein portrays the neighborhood before it's gone:
Prospect Heights came into its own long ago. There has always been the park and the museum, and a quiet you can’t find in Manhattan. Prospect Heights is family and friends, bucolic living in big, bad New York City. The buildings are low-rise gems. Rental prices remain affordable ($1,800 for a two-bedroom is, sadly, inexpensive in NYC). And now it’s coming into its own? Because you can stuff your belly and get drunk beside upper-middle-class folk? Or perhaps because of Bruce Ratner’s proposed New Jersey Nets arena complex. If constructed, it will carve up northern Prospect Heights, demolishing businesses—like divine dive Freddy’s—and residences like Godzilla. Then a neighborhood will not have come into its own; it will have come and gone.
Posted by lumi at 10:15 PM
January 17, 2006
DEVELOPERS BUILDING UP HOPE FOR A BOOM YEAR IN BROOKLYN
The NY Post
By Patrick Gallahue
“It’s the supernova borough,” says Brooklyn Councilman David Yassky, about all the development coming our way.
Brooklyn is expecting to see many more projects breaking ground this year, compared to years past. Projects the pipeline: * Brooklyn Bridge State Park (if you could call it a park), * Atlantic Yards (we're working on this one), * IKEA, * Whole Foods, * the cruise-ship port, and * the opening of the expansion of the Marriott.
While Yassky, Marty Markowitz and Michael Burke, president of the pro-development Downtown Brooklyn Council, are looking forward to the exciting changes, others, like Community Consulting's Brian Ketcham, express concern and dismay over the lack of infrastructure improvements.
Brian Ketchum [sic], an urban-planning consultant, said, “If all of this gets built, [every week] it will generate another half-million subways trips, another 100,000 to 120,000 car trips and 100,000 bus trips — and there is absolutely nothing being done to accommodate that.”
Posted by lumi at 10:12 AM
Where Old and New Collide
The Metropolis review of the new addition at the architecture school at Pratt Institute, by Fred A. Bernstein, references Frank Gehry's suggestion to Bruce Ratner to bring other architects on board and examines how different styles of architecture not only can co-exist, but make for a more vital urban environment.
When Frank Gehry was hired to design the vast Atlantic Yards complex in Brooklyn, he tried to persuade developer Bruce Ratner to assign parts of the project to other architects. Gehry told me he was worried that by handling the entire job himself he would deprive Brooklynites of the variety of styles that makes cities generally (and their borough in particular) vital. Some kinds of architecture, he seemed to say by asking Ratner for help, are most effective when forced to coexist with other kinds of architecture.
So far Gehry hasn't convinced Ratner to farm out parts of Brooklyn's Atlantic Yards. But proof of the wisdom of his approach to urbanism is visible just a mile away, where a new building for the architecture school at Pratt Institute opened last year. Steven Holl's 22,500-square-foot light box, known as Higgins Hall, slips cleanly between a pair of elaborate nineteenth-century buildings. Holl's glowing object would have looked out of place (even otherworldly) on an empty lot. Paradoxically it seems right at home sharing a block front with the two Victorian-era structures, which have themselves been smartly updated by Rogers Marvel Architects (who were also architects of record for the Holl addition).
Posted by lumi at 7:05 AM
January 16, 2006
Governor Pataki Signs New Oversight Law
NY1
Important news on the role of NY State government in large development projects:
Governor George Pataki has signed a new oversight law to ensure public authorities follow state guidelines.
Pataki has allotted $1.5 million in his executive budget for the creation of the Public Authority Budget Office.
The office will oversee the spending, compliance and the general ethics of agencies such as the MTA.
More coverage:
AP, via NY Newsday, Pataki tightens reins
[The measure] establishes codes of ethical conduct for authority directors, officers and employees.
Rochester Democrat & Chronicle, Pataki supports measure to rein in, reform state authorities
The new law mandates new regulations for disposing of property owned by the authorities.
The new measure is an important step forward but is weakened by the fact that the governor will appoint the inspector general, said one good-government lobbyist.
The NY Post, GOV OKS AUTHORITIES WATCHDOG
Pataki has been criticized for stonewalling a bill passed in June. Some say he wanted to wait as long as possible to minimize the impact on his administration in his final year in office. Aides argue he just wanted six months to prepare for the changes.
NoLandGrab: Support for this law spread after several backroom real-estate giveaways, benefiting politically connected developers, caught the public's attention.
Until now, development corporations have been formed to act on behalf of the state or local government, but, since they are private entities, they have not had to adhere to the laws governing "spending, compliance and the general ethics."
These quasi-governmental corporations with access to the deep pockets and political muscle of the state, coupled with the freedom to act as private companies, will hopefully become a thing of the past.
HOW DOES THIS AFFECT BROOKLYN?
Ratner's deal with the MTA for the Vanderbilt Railyards does not close until the proposal goes through the state's environmental review process.
So, we are left wondering, will the Public Authorities Reform Act require the MTA to re-open or re-structure their land deal with Ratner?
Posted by lumi at 7:56 AM
January 11, 2006
Home Depot and Costco Set for a Mall in East Harlem
The NY Times
By Terry Pristin
After years on the drawing board, with lapsing lease agreements and permits, Harlem's East River Plaza project, featuring anchor tenants Home Depot and Costco, is moving forward, this time with a little more flair.
In May 2004, Blumenfeld Development Group, the Syosset, N.Y., developer that came up with the idea of bringing suburban-style retail to Manhattan, acquired a new partner, the Forest City Ratner Companies, which is also a development partner for the new Midtown office tower being built for The New York Times.
Posted by lumi at 8:21 AM
January 8, 2006
Ratner Taking Out the Trash
From the Downtown Brooklyn Star:
So far, all they're doing is taking out the trash. But if it's happening inside the proposed footprint of Forest City Ratner's arena and high-rise construction project, even a simple chore becomes complicated and loaded with consequence.In the case of the Samuel Underberg building on the southwest corner of Atlantic and 6th Avenues, removing the interior debris is so critical because it is the first step towards demolition of the mothballed and cobwebbed structure, which in turn could be the first in a series of falling dominoes extending all the way to Vanderbilt Avenue.
Posted by amy at 2:29 PM
December 18, 2005
A Neighborhood Comes Into Its Own
The Times reports on the current booming popularity of Prospect Heights:
"There's a great cultural corridor here," said Jon Keegan, an illustrator who moved in 2002 from Park Slope into Newswalk, a Dean Street loft building formerly home to a Daily News printing plant, with his wife, Julie, a painter. "There's this sweet spot of being between BAM and the Brooklyn Museum - Prospect Heights is so perfect for that," he said, referring to the Brooklyn Academy of Music.Yet as Mr. Keegan and his fellow users of dailyheights.com are well aware, there is an undercurrent to all of the recent success of Prospect Heights: the plans of the developer Bruce Ratner to build a sizable complex of shopping, offices, housing and a Frank Gehry-designed arena for his New York Nets over the railyards on Atlantic Avenue. Concerns about eminent domain issues and the project's potential impact on the area's density are widespread, as is uncertainty over what form it will finally take.
Still, not everyone is up in arms. Mark McCartney, a computer programmer who rents a one-bedroom apartment on Washington Avenue with his fiancée, Beth Elliott, lives south of the proposed project's area. "We're so far away it wouldn't affect us," he said. "And I don't like basketball."
TimesRatnerReport dices and slices it here...
Posted by amy at 11:00 AM
December 13, 2005
666 Pacific Street: Will Evil Be Crushed?
Curbed.com dubs this photo the "most appropriately evil-looking facade shot of the moment."
What if 666 Pacific is torn down to make way for Ratner's Tim Burtonesque superblock fantasy? When the dark side of development does battle against an evil façade, who wins?
Posted by lumi at 7:28 AM
December 9, 2005
Towers in the Park
Brooklyn Views ponders the towers-in-a-park configuration of Gehry's site design.
Irrespective of the architecture, does the relative scale and site configuration determine success or failure?
 |
Posted by lumi at 6:07 PM
December 1, 2005
Danish Architect Weighs in on Ratner Project
Brooklyn Downtown Star coverage of Jan Gehl's walk through Metrotech and the Atlantic Yards site:
The problem with developers in general, Gehl concluded, is that they sometimes over-scale projects, planning on elephant or dinosaur scale, rather than on human scale.
"For several million years people have not been much bigger," he said, but urban developments are forever growing.
Posted by lumi at 6:52 AM
November 28, 2005
A Boy from Brooklyn Grows Up
Gotham Gazette
When Gotham Gazette's Book Club interviews Brooklyn native Jonathan Lethem, Calvin Johnson pops the question about the author's views on Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards.
Lethem is careful about commenting on details without being better informed and defines competing opinions about development in NYC before offering his views.
Community Outreach
But, as far as I can tell, Ratner has done just the worst possible job of including community voices in the dialogue. That’s just such a fundamental error, to not begin there. It’s both offensive and naïve. It’s not going to work, I think, because I think the neighborhood is going to be militant against it.
Ratner in the Red
The other thing to say is that all you really you know of Ratner, all that’s tangible of Ratner, is that horrific shopping mall. And if he wants to begin to negotiate aesthetics and the community’s wishes in that neighborhood, his first act would be to tear the thing down. And then, we can talk. Okay, you want to make something good; you’re already in the red, with that thing that’s there.
Traffic, Potential and Money
The traffic prospect is frightening. And there’s a lot of other things that you can imagine, happening with that space. But, there’s a lot of money being brought in, too.
Posted by lumi at 10:11 AM
November 27, 2005
Circulation
Brooklyn Views is a new blog covering the Atlantic Yards project from the perspecitve of architect Jonathan Cohn.
The most recent post critiques Laurie Olin's open space circulation plan, presented last week at an American Institute of Architects forum:
Laurie Olin spoke about how people move through the open space, and about how the design could mitigate blind corners so that people could see the space as they move through it. He presented an image of red lines on the site plan, and proposed that these represented paths of circulation. But the lines appear to have been drawn without any reference to the origins and destinations of the pedestrians.
Cohn goes on to explain how the debate on density doesn't add up when the Floor Area Ratio (FAR) "is based upon using the taken street areas in the calculation of the project area."
Posted by lumi at 7:21 PM
Forest City Ratner day in the NY Times regional editorial sections
The NY Times
Two Ratner projects were covered in the corresponding regional editorial sections of the Sunday Times.
Atlantic Yards
The City
A Matter of Scale in Brooklyn
The NY Times editorial board still holds that the project should go forward, but not before laying out many of the problems: traffic congestion, expansion of the project, fewer jobs, less affordable housing, modest returns, and public subsidies.
Ridge Hill
Westchester
The Shame of Palookaville
You could have cast a half-dozen Frank Capra movies from the roomful of regular folks - moms and pops, tweedy types, old ladies in wool coats, a lawyer or two - who stepped up to deplore an impending vote to rewrite city zoning law to help a rich developer. Their words were hot but their demeanors cool. They spoke civilly and played by the rules, something the Council majority assuredly did not do on that chilly, depressing, inspiring night.
The Times's Westchester editorial lauds the Yonkers citizens who showed up at a meeting of their City Council, intent on saving democracy. Brooklynites, however, can note that the same paper's Atlantic Yards editorial left out one key point from its litany of concerns with the project: the subversion of the local city planning process.
The NY Times loves democracy; maybe it can look into getting some more of it in Brooklyn.
Posted by lumi at 5:55 PM
November 23, 2005
Extra Burden
The Real Estate Observer
Observer reporter Matthew Schuerman covers a different angle from anything else being discussed about last night's Gehry/Olin presentation and discussion:
Planning geeks have lamented the fact that Atlantic Yards won’t go through the city land use review process--which requires the City Council and City Planning Commission to approve zoning changes--but it seems like city Planning Director Amanda Burden is still getting to have her say. At a presentation before the New York Chapter of the American Institute of Architects tonight, both architect Frank Gehry and landscape architect Laurie Olin intimated that she had been needling them even if she has no power over their decisions--and in such a way that they did not seem rehearsed.
Posted by lumi at 8:42 AM
The Imperial City. Delirious New York.
Our long architectural snooze is over, thanks to neomodernist mania and the arrival—finally—of Gehry. Brooklyn should embrace him.
New York Magazine
by Kurt Andersen
|
Kurt Andersen on the Ratner-Gehry vision of a city within a city in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn:
Bruce Ratner of Forest City is the developer, as he is of Piano’s Times building and of what will be a whole new Brooklyn downtown between Atlantic and Flatbush—a Nets arena plus a residential quarter as large as Rockefeller Center with sixteen buildings, all by Gehry. Freddy Ferrer called it “the twin brother of Bloomberg’s West Side stadium boondoggle,” but that’s wrong. The arena is the anchor of a thoroughly imagined project by an actual developer; basketball seasons have 41 home games instead of 8, thus generating more street life; and the architecture will be the work of a single-minded genius, not a big corporate firm. Simply because enormous redevelopment projects are often or even usually misguided (Robert Moses’s Lower Manhattan Expressway, the Jets’ stadium, Freedom Tower) doesn’t mean we ought to oppose them by default. Westway, for instance, should have been built, and so, probably, should Gehry’s Atlantic Yards.
The skewed, cartoony angles of the buildings, which range from 20 to 60 stories, would in one fell swoop create a second, sui generis Brooklyn skyline encompassing the familiar, phallic old Williamsburgh Bank Building. Gehry’s goal is for it to “look like it developed over time. Usually I would bring in other architects to make it look like a city, not like a development.” But many hands at the drawing table (or the CAD screen) is no guarantee of urban quality either: At Battery Park City the result has been, as Ratner says, “a mishmash of architecture.”
NoLandGrab: Andersen's take on the Ratner-Gehry vision, jutting out into low-rise residential Brooklyn, reveals his belief that the financial and architectural complexities of the project will work out and that any leftover problems would still be fair trade off, despite the fact that many Brooklynites have invested their lives in their neighborhoods, only to serve as place holders until New York became "a city of glamorous cutting-edge architecture."
Posted by lumi at 7:14 AM
The Trade-Offs in Zoning Trade-Offs
The NY Times
by Lisa Chamberlain
It has become common in New York City for real estate developers to offer public amenities in exchange for the right to put up buildings that are taller than the zoning ordinarily would allow or to garner public support for projects that might stir controversy. But those amenities - parks, plazas or atriums, for example - sometimes fail to live up to expectation, fall into disrepair and are occasionally scrapped altogether.
It was recently disclosed, for example, that the Forest City Ratner Companies will not open a rooftop park to the public - as it originally announced - as part of its proposed mixed-use development on Atlantic Avenue in downtown Brooklyn, which includes an arena for the New Jersey Nets basketball team, as well as 16 buildings. The omission of the park is a small change amid many others in this large-scale development, but it provided fodder for critics and renewed questions about relying on private developers to create public spaces.
Posted by lumi at 6:57 AM
November 17, 2005
DDDb Media Release: Exploring Ratner's Public Spaces With Acclaimed Danish Architect/Urban Planner Jan Gehl
Public Space Specialist to Tour and Observe Forest City Ratner's Brooklyn Developments and Proposed Atlantic Yards Site and Plan
WHAT: A walking tour of downtown Brooklyn and Jan Gehl's reactions to the design and use of public spaces.
WHEN: Friday, November 18th. 10:15AM to 12:15 PM
WHERE: Meet at Metrotech Mall and Jay Street (at Myrtle Avenue) A/C to Jay Street Borough Hall, 2/3 to Borough Hall (see map here: http://tinyurl.com/deffw)
BROOKLYN—On Friday November 18 at 10:15 AM internationally acclaimed urban planner Jan Gehl will visit downtown Brooklyn, including Metrotech, Fulton Mall, Atlantic Terminal Mall, Atlantic Center Mall, and the site of the Atlantic Yards plan. He will comment on public space and the transportation infrastructure in downtown Brooklyn.
The press is invited and encouraged to attend.
Jan Gehl is a Danish architect, Professor of Urban Design and Director of the Center for Public Space Research at the School of Architecture, Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen. He is author of several books including Life Between Buildings and the Public Spaces and Public Life series. He has designed projects around the world and specializes in the planning of public spaces.
WHO:
-- Danish Architect/Urban Designer Jan Gehl and Renowned Public Space Specialist
-- Hunter College Urban Planning Professor Dr. Tom Angotti
-- Paul Steely White, Executive Director of Transportation Alternatives
-- Members of Brooklyn civic and community groups
RSVP suggested: Call 917-701-3056
Jan Gehl's CV: http://www.gehl.dk/Gehl.html
More on Jan Gehl from the Project for Public Spaces: http://www.pps.org/info/placemakingtools/placemakers/jgehl
Posted by lumi at 8:59 PM
November 16, 2005
The Brian Lehrer Show: Charles Gargano, "Nets Gain?"
WNYC Radio
Brian Lehrer interviewed Charles Gargano, Chairman of the Empire State Development Corporation. Lehrer asked great questions and Gargano did a better job of not answering them.
Gargano explains how the state puts out an RFEI (Request for Expressions of Interest) to get the land use planning process started. He frequently mentions the 42nd Street redevelopment as an example of a successful State planning process and supports eliminating the "red tape" of the local land use review process.
What this has to do with Ratner's plan, where no Expressions of Interest were requested, is still a mystery.
Posted by lumi at 7:31 AM
November 15, 2005
Atlantic Yards: Through The Looking Glass
Gotham Gazette
Curiouser and curiouser, Professor Tom Angotti becomes the latest observer to compare the Atlantic Yards plan to Alice in Ratnerland:
In Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass, everything appears backwards, Alice is caught up in a giant chess game of powerful players over which she has no control, and the characters she meets talk nonsense.
The planning for Atlantic Yards is all backwards. Normally, government does a plan for the area, then looks at the potential environmental impacts of the plan, decides what to do, and then either does it or puts it out to private developers to bid on. In Atlantic Yards -- and increasingly in other megaprojects throughout the city -- it is just the reverse.
Posted by lumi at 7:40 AM
November 14, 2005
The Project That Ate Brooklyn
In a Sunday New York Times City Section Op-Ed piece, the author, John B. Manbeck, accuses all sides of "overkill," then fumbles the facts, before making some good points.
FUMBLE |
FACT |
|
The project is being proposed "on the very site that was denied the Brooklyn Dodgers 50 years ago." |
Ratner's failing mall sits on that site (let's put this Brooklyn myth to rest already). |
|
"The arena would stimulate construction on Boerum Hill's vacant lots." |
Boerum Hill is booming thanks to the already approved Downtown Development plan. |
|
8,300 new housing units |
It's 7,300, unless Manbeck knows something the public doesn't. |
The TimesRatnerReport points out some other problems including the fact that the "bio box doesn't mention that [Manbeck] has written for both issues of Forest City Ratner's Brooklyn Standard p.r. sheet."
It's regretful that there are these holes in Manbeck's piece because he brings up three important points: * "a project that relies heavily on subsidies rarely works," * "Officials need to consider the existing profiles of neighborhoods as well as the immediate goals of developer" * Brooklyn developers typically unveil overly ambitious projects that are eventually scaled back, resulting in a project "that satisfies his true ambitions while allowing the public to feel that it has staved off disaster."
Posted by lumi at 11:30 AM
November 11, 2005
Lobbyists for NYC box stores
These comments were submitted by an NLG reader in response to the Observer profile on Richard Lipsky, the anti-box-store crusader who has crossed to the dark side to support Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards plan, even though Ratner is the king of bringing box stores to Brooklyn.
On Related's PR team:
The Marino Organization is working for Related Co., developer of the Bronx Terminal Market. Marino is also spearheading the campaign by Wal-Mart to gain access into NYC.
On Related's lead attorney:
Jesse Masyr is also working for Related. He is cited on google as land-use attorney for Related, IKEA, etc. Apparently he is an ex-Manhattan deputy borough president, and a partner in the Wachtel and Masyr law firm whose clients have included:
* Blumenfeld Development Group
* Forest City Ratner Corporation
* Home DepotIt seems like developers all go to the same few people to get anything done in this town.
For a fascinating article on lobbying in NYC see: http://www.gothamgazette.com/iotw/lobbying/
This is where I first saw the term "astro-turf" lobbying.
Posted by lumi at 7:05 PM
Critics of Ratner Plan Say Oversight of Project Too Lax
The NY Sun
by David Lombino
These days the city's biggest development projects are the ones that proceed through the most lax approval processes and receive the least amount of oversight, panelists involved in a discussion at the Municipal Art Society said yesterday.
The discussion focused on the Atlantic Yards project, developer Bruce Ratner's $3.5 billion plan to build a basketball arena, more than a dozen commercial and residential towers, and a hotel in and around downtown Brooklyn.
Though invited, Forest City Ratner did not send a representative to the Municipal Arts Society forum. TimesRatnerReport contrasts Forest City Ratner's persistent claims of openess and transparency with their record of meeting with critics of the project.
Posted by lumi at 6:28 PM
November 10, 2005
Battle of the Bronx Looms For Mom-and-Pop Crusader
NY Observer
by Matthew Scheurman
Anti-box-store crusader Richard Lipsky has gone to battle against Wal-Mart, BJ's and Pathmark and is currently fighting against the big-box stores slated for the Bronx Terminal Market for his client the Neighborhood Retail Alliance.
However, in Brooklyn, Lipsky has crossed the aisle to support Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards deal, though the developer is notorious for bringing BIG-box stores to the borough (whatdya call a "Tar-jay" in a building that looks like a toaster?).
When asked tough questions, Mr. Lipsky doesn’t get defensive, or tell the reporter such and such is not important. He just answers in the sort of dry monotone one might use when ordering lunch at a drive-in, and lets the ideas, and inconsistencies, speak for themselves.
He supports Forest City Ratner’s proposed live-work-play complex in central Brooklyn, for instance, and in fact is getting paid to organize an amateur sports league there as well as to lobby for other Ratner projects around town. And yet the complex will almost certainly require the state to use eminent domain to acquire private property—a practice that his Neighborhood Retail Alliance blog has consistently labeled harmful to small business.
Lipsky calls Atlantic Yards opponents, "ideological purists." Obviously Lipksy is not an ideologue, since he's taken Ratner on as a client.
Posted by lumi at 6:32 AM
November 4, 2005
Brooklyn Faces Growing Pains
The News Hour
by Ray Suarez
RAY SUAREZ: Forest City Ratner says it wants to break ground so that the Brooklyn Nets can tip off their 2008 season in the new arena. Critics say it will never happen, all they can agree on is this is one valuable piece of real estate; they just can't agree on what 21st century Brooklyn will look like.
transcript and video
Posted by lumi at 8:39 AM
October 26, 2005
Ad for Air Rights at Arena-Area Building Raises New Questions
The Brooklyn Daily Eagle reports on intrigue in the real estate world concerning a property in the Ratner footprint. Article by Raanan Geberer.
An large ad in Friday’s New York Sun, concerning an unusual building that falls within the footprint of Forest City Ratner’s planed Atlantic Yards development, raises more questions than it answers.
The ad, on page RE-9, reads, “Brooklyn, Atlantic Yards Area, 24 Sixth Ave., Air Rights Easement, Covers and Controls Forest City Ratner Companies Development. All Offers Considered.” ... Lupe Todd, a spokeswoman for Forest City Ratner, said that the real estate firm has run the ad before, and added that Forest City Ratner “needs that air right” to develop the project. Still, she said she was “not sure what [Helmsley-Spear’s] motives are.”
Posted by lumi at 9:22 AM
October 25, 2005
Re-Imagining Brooklyn's Inner Core: Atlantic Yards and Brooklyn Bridge Park
Project for Public Spaces
A NLG must read, that proposes a positive vision for Brooklyn, while promoting critical thinking about current proposals.
This essay addresses two major projects that are now in the works--Brooklyn Bridge Park and the Atlantic Yards development--that present a once-in-a-lifetime chance to re-shape Brooklyn's inner core around a truly vibrant public realm. As currently envisioned, both of these projects will be tragic missed opportunities, because they are not designed as compelling places that people will enjoy using.
NoLandGrab: Thanks to Brownstoner this article is making the rounds again.
Posted by lumi at 10:53 AM
October 19, 2005
Overdevelopment: Planning, Not Rezoning, Is The Answer
Gotham Gazette article by CUNY professor and speaker at last night's public hearing Tom Angotti:
The real problem with downzoning to stop overdevelopment, or upzoning to encourage development, is that they both avoid any serious planning, both in each neighborhood and in the city as a whole. They don’t allow local residents and businesses to address serious concerns they have with everything from housing needs to traffic, because zoning regulations are limited to use and density controls.
Imagine if the city were to take seriously the question of building housing to meet the present and future needs of New Yorkers. The city’s planners might do some projections and then work with every neighborhood in the city to see how they could accommodate their fair share of the need
Posted by lumi at 10:32 AM
New London severs ties with development authority
The [New London, CT] Day (www.theday.com)
While Brooklynites' attention was focused on last night's hearings, the unthinkable happened in New London, CT (home of the Kelo eminent domain case).
NEW LONDON, Conn. -- The city council has voted to sever ties with the quasi-public development authority at the center of a national debate over eminent domain powers.
The council voted 6-0 Monday night to revoke the designation of the New London Development Corp. as the city's "implementing agency" for its Fort Trumbull development. The agency has guided the $73 million state-funded project since its inception in 1998.
The U.S. Supreme Court sparked a national debate in June when it ruled the development authority had the power to take homes for the private development project.
But the development corporation angered state and local officials by sending orders to vacate to five Fort Trumbull residents living on the property that the developer wants for a hotel and office space.
State officials had asked municipalities to hold off on property seizures until the legislature considers changing the state's eminent domain laws.
City officials asked the development authorities' two leaders to resign, but they declined. They did rescind the orders to vacate under pressure from Gov. M. Jodi Rell.
But council members said they could no longer deal with an agency that disregared the city's rights as a development partner and the wishes of the community.
"I don't think you can continue a partnership where there's only one partner saying, 'I'm willing to go back and forth,' and the other's saying, 'I've heard you, but I'm going the other way,"' Councilor Rob Pero said.
The council also voted Monday to demand the agency transfer title to all its real estate in the project area to the city of New London. That includes the former Naval Undersea Warfare Center at Fort Trumbull, which was transferred by the U.S. government to the development authority, not the city.
"I think we're divorced," Mayor Jane Glover said.
The future of the homes and the development project is unclear.
City Lawyer Thomas Londregan had asked the council to postpone the vote, until it consulted with the state Department of Economic and Community Development.
"The state has a 70 plus million dollar mortgage on the (affected) property," Londregan wrote in a memo also provided to the council. "We need to hear from them."
The development corporation's president, Michael Joplin, did not return calls seeking comment on the vote.
Information from: The Day, http://www.theday.com
Posted by lumi at 8:39 AM
October 10, 2005
David Walentas Unplugged
The Real Estate Observer
by Matthew Schuerman
Brooklyn's other builder, Dave Walentas slams superblocks when asked about Ratner's megablockolis.
Posted by lumi at 9:04 PM
September 26, 2005
Tough Choice for Brooklyn Businessman: Accept Ratner Offer or Risk Seizure
The NY Sun
by David Lombino
Simon Liu saw his father’s butcher shop seized by communists in China. Now the butcher’s son is facing government seizure of his own New Yorkbased business as part of real estate developer Bruce Ratner’s plan to bring the New Jersey Nets and 7,300 housing units to Brooklyn.
Mr. Liu said that even after what happened to his father, he never thought that the powers of government would be used to seize his own property. “My father would seldom talk about that,” Mr. Liu said. “I could never imagine it would happen here.”
Posted by lumi at 9:06 AM
September 25, 2005
Re-Imagining Brooklyn's Inner Core: Atlantic Yards and Brooklyn Bridge Park
From the Project for Public Spaces:
This essay addresses two major projects that are now in the works--Brooklyn Bridge Park and the Atlantic Yards development--that present a once-in-a-lifetime chance to re-shape Brooklyn's inner core around a truly vibrant public realm. As currently envisioned, both of these projects will be tragic missed opportunities, because they are not designed as compelling places that people will enjoy using. With a thorough re-evaluation and re-design of these proposals, however, we can do what's best for Brooklyn.
Posted by amy at 10:58 AM
September 23, 2005
What Will Ratner Reap?
The Jewish Week
by Adam Dickter
If he builds it, will Jews come?:
“It will very likely encourage more Jewish life in an area that has not been the main focus of Jewish life in the borough of Brooklyn,” [demographer Jack] Ukeles said.
On the other hand:
But because Orthodox Jews require more local infrastructure than other denominations or unaffiliated Jews, it is unlikely a large Orthodox community will spring up in the new neighborhood despite overcrowding in areas like Williamsburg, Crown Heights and Borough Park.
Letter to the editor from a Jewish Week subscriber.
Posted by lumi at 7:13 AM
September 21, 2005
At W.T.C. and Brooklyn Arena, Death and Life of the Superblock
The New York Observer
by Matthew Schuerman
When planners contemplated rebuilding on the World Trade Center site, the first mistake they unanimously hoped to rectify was the restoration of through streets, since the superblocks and raised plazas, popular in the 60s, proved to be an anathema to vibrant neighborhoods.
Now, in our post-end-of-history world where terrorism concerns trump all others, it looks like New Yorkers are going to have to accept street closings in Lower Manhattan. Adding to the mix the Ratner arena/high-rise megablockolis in Brooklyn and recent nostalgia for Robert Moses, reporter Matthew Schuerman detects a new trend towards supersizing New York City.
Jane Jacobs, we hardly knew ya.
Posted by lumi at 2:35 PM
September 18, 2005
Atlantic Yards taken over by New York State and defined
Government agencies typically quietly release controversial or bad news on Friday to keep the public/media outcry to a dull whimper.
Here's what Brooklynites have been waiting for:
COMBINED NOTICE OF PROPOSED LEAD AGENCY DESIGNATION, PUBLIC SCOPING AND INTENT TO PREPRARE A DRAFT ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT STATEMENT
NY State officially takes over the project and schedules a public scoping meeting to obtain comments on the draft scope of analysis for the DEIS, which is attached to this notice. The document also announces the intention to condemn property using eminent domain.
The meeting will be held on Tuesday, October 18, 2005 from 5:00 P.M. to 8:00 P.M. at New York City College of Technology, 285 Jay Street, Klitgord Auditorium, Brooklyn.
ATLANTIC YARDS ARENA AND REDEVELOPMENT PROJECT DRAFT SCOPE OF ANALYSIS FOR AN ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT STATEMENT (Filesize 1.7MB)
This document is a draft of what environmental impacts will be studied. It also defines the actual size of the project which now officially includes Site 5 across Flatbush Ave. in Park Slope.
Posted by lumi at 8:52 AM
September 8, 2005
CITY IN THE WILDERNESS: After four years of barren Ground Zero, New York needs a new Moses.
NY Press
by Harry Siegel
City planning is in disarray, with misguided priorities begetting missed opportunities. Instead of rebuilding Lower Manhattan, has the bumbling Bloomberg administration managed to develop a nostalgia for the days of Robert Moses?
Posted by lumi at 7:37 AM
August 30, 2005
For L.A., utopia or dystopia
L.A. Times, Opinion
by Mick Farren
L.A., if you can believe it, was declared the most densely populated area in the US by the Census Bureau. It also shares NYC's strain for middle- and lower-income housing, transportation concerns and need to create a viable, livable city.
Superblocks, Blade Runner-stlye insta-skylines, managing terrorism security, traffic woes and organic street-level redevelopment can all be observed in our west coast rival. What can the sucesses, unintended consequences and plain-and-stupid mistakes inform us about redevelopment efforts on the drawing board in NYC, specifically Brooklyn?
Posted by lumi at 7:14 AM
August 22, 2005
In the Fall, Look Out for More Conflict on Park, Atlantic Yards
This from the Brooklyn Daily Eagle's late-summer wrap up of Brooklyn development deals:
Before mid-September, a deal will probably be cut between the MTA and Forest City Ratner to wrap up the sale of the Yards property. Sometime, probably by October, the state will have to host a scoping meeting for the preparation of a Draft Environmental Impact Statement.
More than usual, this will be an important session because it will give one and all, and there are a good many of them, to try to influence the content and character of this important document. People should pay important attention the number of housing units and the kind of buildings planned for this project. The density and scale of this part of the project is the key element, not the arena, nor one or two office buildings. The use of eminent domain is really a sideshow, and going to court over this issue cannot stop the heart of the project.
Contestants will be able to look quite judicial on this issue and the temptation will be present, but the project, if need be, can be built around the slivers that Forest City does not control. This issue is moon-looking.
NoLandGrab: "Moon-looking?" Is it just the heat? The full moon? Or has Dennis Holt stopped making sense?
Posted by lumi at 10:17 PM
August 20, 2005
DOUBLE DEALING
From the Brooklyn Papers:
The same day they signed a widely publicized agreement setting aside land for developer Bruce Ratner’s proposed Atlantic Yards project, top officials of the Pataki and Bloomberg administrations signed a separate pact with the developer, granting him the right to build up adjacent urban renewal sites without city review.That second agreement was never made public, but it turned up this week in the state’s response to a fairly broad Freedom of Information Act request made by a neighborhood group opposed to the Atlantic Yards plan.
Posted by amy at 10:48 AM
August 19, 2005
Brooklyn Activists Uncover 'Secret' Ratner Memo
Curbed.com
In its usual snarky manner, Curbed.com facetiously comments that DDDb's clamoring about the double-secret Memorandum of Understanding (a.k.a. MOU2) puts Daniel Goldstein "in the potentially untenable position of lobbying for the sanctity of one of the saddest malls in the land."
NoLandGrab: The NYC real estate blog totally misses the points that MOU2 seeks an end run around the local review process, expands the footprint of the original project plan by 25% and proposes using eminent domain to force the sale of land owned by PC Richard. Also, though signed at the same time as the MOU announced in February, MOU2 was inexplicably kept under wraps.
Posted by lumi at 8:35 PM
August 17, 2005
'Times' to Commoners: Go Elsewhere
The Village Voice
by Paul Moses
The lease, on file with the Securities and Exchage Commission for The NY Times-Forest City Ratner Times Square project bars renting space in the 52-story building for:
* "a school or classroom or juvenile or adult day care or drop-in center."
* "medical uses" ("including without limitation, hospital, medical, or dental offices, agencies, or clinics"),
* employment agencies (other than executive-search firms),
* job training centers,
* auction houses ("provided, however, the foregoing shall not apply to high-end auction houses specializing in art and historical artifacts."),
* discount stores,
* welfare or social-services offices,
* homeless shelters or homeless assistance centers, and
* court or court-related facilies.
Lease restrictions that exclude the public may not be unusual in luxury office buildings, but there is an irony in this case. The Pataki administration, acting on behalf of the New York Times Company, condemned the property for a so-called "public purpose." This is the standard the Fifth Amendment sets for the state to invoke the immense power of eminent domain.
The rest of the article examines the question of whether or not the NY Times-Ratner project would pass constitutional muster under Kelo and if proposed legislation by State Asseblyman Brodky would have any effect on the liberal use of eminent domain in NYC.
Posted by lumi at 8:34 AM
August 10, 2005
Developmentally Challenged
The Architect's Newspaper
ARCHPAPER.COM
by Peter Slatin
Developers have been catching on that brand-name architects and community outreach can add dollar value to their projects. That’s a big development in itself, but doesn’t always translate to good development.Peter Slatin reflects on how developers can do good while doing well.
The sudden tussle between developers over Brooklyn’s Atlantic rail yards throws into grand scale a classic New York question: Do developers give a damn about how their buildings impact a given community?
Bruce Ratner, wearing Frank Gehry on his sleeve from the get-go, rode into Brooklyn Borough Hall in December 2003 to unveil a master plan for an arena-anchored district, which includes millions of square feet of office, retail, and residential real estate, much of which will rise from a platform built over the Atlantic rail yard. The plan, which would overwhelm the two adjacent, low-scale neighborhoods of Fort Greene and Prospect Heights, has also had community opposition from the get-go. This hasn’t stopped it from ballooning in ambition, scale, and budget. But despite the project’s unwieldy size, difficult financing, and an angry community, Ratner’s chances of winning the bid for the rail yards, being auctioned off by the MTA, are excellent. He started from the top down, lining up powerful political supporters, sports celebrities, investors, and yes, a superstar architect. The MTA soft-peddled its RFP, which has given Ratner’s effort the appearance of a closed deal.
A community group, Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn, began contacting developers in hopes of finding one that would make an alternate bid. Enter Gary Barnett and Extell Development Corporation with their scaled-down scheme: 2,000 units topping out at 28 stories compared to Ratner’s 6,000 units at 60, spread out over 8 acres instead of 21. Extell’s architect is Cetra/Ruddy, a decent if uninspired production firm whose vision lacks the punch and excitement of Gehry’s fistful of highrises. The Extell scheme does, however, provide connecting tissue and green space for the two low-scale, old Brooklyn neighborhoods that will be divided under Ratner’s plan.
What does all this say about whether developers care about the places they transform? The answer is, They do care…up to a point. Good development is almost always a trade-off that begins and ends with the pencil—and I’m not talking about the drafting pencil.
It also says that good-guy developers can switch hats, well, on a dime. Barnett is a white knight in this part of Brooklyn, but he is under heavy fire from Upper West Siders railing against his plans for two skyscrapers straddling Broadway at 99th and 100th streets. (The project is now under even more scrutiny after a structure on the 100th Street site collapesed on July 14.) Ratner, at one time the city’s commissioner of consumer affairs, is the cat’s meow to sports fans seduced by the idea of the major leagues returning to the borough, but others see his plan as antithetical to everything Brooklyn, even though he has hired one of the world’s great architects. The architects of Cetra/Ruddy might be regarded as heroes in Fort Greene and Prospect Heights, but in Red Hook they are the bad guys, having designed the six-story residential project at 160 Imlay Street that the local Chamber of Commerce recently tried to halt (See “By Hook or Crook,” page 1). The point is, you never know who the good guy is.
The good news is that more and more developers want to be the good guy. They are patronizing good architecture, even if their motivations are not entirely altruistic. Good design sells, in the end, better than bad design. It lasts longer, both physically and psychically; it creates its own set of values. Developers have also realized that good design is not the province of well-known architects. Indeed, we’ve seen some pretty horrible work by high-profile architects in prominent locations—work that can drastically alter the character of a neighborhood, like Astor Place, for example. In such an event, one can only hope that the pre-existing condition has enough depth and breadth to sustain itself.
Given these circumstances and the multiple real-world challenges that confront any project, it’s especially exciting when good development—informed but not intimidated by context and community—comes into place. And good development is happening throughout the city on a wide variety of scales and property types. Even as examples of tired design and cheap production abound, one can find reason to celebrate smart efforts at different stages of development, especially in residential and office design.
Take the small Chelsea/Meatpacking District projects of developer Jeffrey M. Brown. From the start, both in Manhattan and Philadelphia, Brown has turned to SHoP Architects for his renovations and new projects, and has been unafraid to let them have their own ideas. Brown has pushed the envelope farther than did developer Robert Wennet, another Meatpacking District maven who was also active in neighborhood development in cities such as Miami and Washington, D.C. Developers like Time Equities have also long sought ways to use their project to enrich their neighborhoods, as well as themselves. Richard Meier’s fine Perry Street towers stand out in the way they draw on their neighborhood for context and then alter it with a single stroke. That effect is driven as much by siting as by design. Should developer Frank Sciame’s vision for Santiago Calatrava’s twisting residential palace ever be realized, it too will transform a historic district with a magnificent gesture.
On the office-building or commercial front, there are a handful of projects in the works that are significantly different from the standard-issue skyscraper to indicate that their developers have a committed vision. The least obvious of these is 505 Fifth Avenue, designed by Kohn Pedersen Fox for developer Axel Stawski’s Kipp-Stawski Group. It’s a relatively small, neat design that is not all that unconventional. But Stawski has gone the extra mile inside, commissioning reclusive light artist James Turrell to transform the building’s lobby into a light sculpture that is intended to go beyond decoration, setting it a world apart from the granite/ marble standard by requiring something in turn from visitors.
Just a block west is the city’s second largest construction site, after Ground Zero (which is not something we can discuss here while considering good development). The big hole is for One Bryant Park, designed by Cook + Fox for the Durst Organization. In contrast to 505 Fifth, this is a huge building. It deploys crystalline forms in a tapered structure to minimize its undeniable bulk. But the developer’s announced intention to achieve LEED Platinum status is an important step for a commercial structure of this size, especially since about half of the space is being built on spec. The use of an efficient cogeneration energy system, recycled steel, sub-floor air circulation, and graywater recycling are all part of the package.
Finally, there is the Hearst Building at 57th Street and Eighth Avenue, designed by Foster and Partners as a corporate and environmental showcase. Without flinching at the sharp contrast between historic and contemporary, the architects scooped out the guts of the old headquarters, built for Hearst by Joseph Urban and George B. Post & Sons in 1927, and inserted a new iconic structure in the base. Hearst is seeking LEED Gold certification. If one can accept (or even consider) the difficult premise that there is such a thing as good corporate citizenship, this building strives to express that.
While developers and architects will always do battle over design’s place in the hierarchy of place-making—still a very linear concept in the minds of most development practitioners—continued pressure can help move that mark. And then there will always be some who understand that architecture is the fulcrum that can successfully balance neighborhoods and returns.
Peter Slatin is the founder of www.theslatinreport.com, and writes our regular real estate column, Curbside. He lives in what was an unglam Upper West Side developer monstrosity when it was built that is considered highly desirable real estate today.
Posted by lumi at 7:25 AM
August 6, 2005
‘HOTEL HARVEY’
'Not Just Nets' indeed, local development is out of control throughout our area. The Brooklyn Papers uncovers the latest addition to Future Skyscraperville - ahem - Ft. Greene.
A developer has quietly bought up property next to a Brooklyn Academy of Music theater, planning what neighbors believe will be a high-rise hotel and condo.Manhattan-based developer The Clarett Group paid $12 million for three lots at the northwest corner of Fulton Street and Ashland Place, an assemblage that abuts the four-story BAM Harvey Theater.
Under the current C6-4 commercial zoning for that block, a more than 20-story hotel, office tower or mall could be built. The equivalent residential zoning, should a zoning change or variance be granted, could support up to a 30-story tower.
Posted by amy at 11:35 AM
August 5, 2005
Silence on Bronx Market Is Mystifying
The NY Sun
Columnist Alicia Colon takes voters and politicians to task for ignoring the Bloomberg administration land grabs for politically connected developers such as the one in the Bronx.
Posted by lumi at 10:06 AM
August 4, 2005
Council of Brooklyn Neighborhoods seeking neighborhood organizations to participate in community review of EIS
The Council of Brooklyn Neighborhoods (CBN) is inviting all local community groups, including block and merchant associations, churches and community organizations active in CBs 2, 3, 6, and 8, to join in preparation for the community review of the Environmental Impact Statement for the Atlantic/Vanderbilt rail yards.
Membership will entail agreeing to the mission and structure of the Council and paying nominal dues of $50 per member organization for administrative and operating costs.
The CBN invites community groups to send a representative(s) to a General Meeting:
WHEN: Tuesday, August 9th, 7pm
WHERE: Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church
85 S. Oxford Street (corner of Lafayette).
The featured speaker will be Tom Angotti, Professor of Urban Affairs & Planning at Hunter College who will help explain the EIS process.
Download the official CBN solitication letter (including the mission and charter statement).
Posted by lumi at 9:01 AM
July 31, 2005
Bensonhurst Group Wants Halt To All Development in Brooklyn
From the Brooklyn Daily Eagle:
The letter leveled what in reality are three accusations at the Department of City Planning, complaining that neighborhood development throughout Brooklyn is progressing too rapidly, that the development does not reflect the aesthetic character of the borough, and that much of the new construction disregards safety considerations — such as the structural integrity of new buildings.“Too many unethical builders and developers are not abiding by the current building codes, creating a very dangerous public safety situation,” the letter said. “Until realistic contextual rezoning plans have been seriously and expeditiously studied in the remainder of Brooklyn, we feel this immediate moratorium will be a saving grace for our residential, family communities.”
Posted by amy at 10:51 AM
July 27, 2005
Dark-Horse Brooklyn Bidder
The NY Observer
by Matthew Schuerman and Michael Calderone
So, is Mr. Barnett bidding on Vanderbilt Yard, the eight-acre M.T.A. parcel in Central Brooklyn, just because it’s payback time? Is he just another James Dolan, the Cablevision C.E.O. who bankrolled the opposition fight on the West Side stadium and who, when it looked like he was losing, decided to bid on the land himself and proposed a housing-and-office complex for the site? That’s the $100 million question.
Then again, who else but a lone wolf would dare upset the apple cart of prearranged subsidies and Mayoral endorsements to actually respond to the M.T.A.’s request for proposals? No one else bothered.
Posted by lumi at 12:19 PM
July 25, 2005
Oh Brooklyn, My Brooklyn
It's not so easy being a cheerleader for future-forward architecture when the future is right outside your window
Metropolis
by Karrie Jacobs
Thoughts about urban design are no longer abstract when you can watch big changes outside your own window. Champion of contemporary architecture, Karrie Jacobs, does some soul searching and reflection on her own backyard:
My concern is the potential return of 1960s-style urban renewal. Developer Bruce Ratner--whose accomplishments in Brooklyn include a cluster of truly hideous shopping centers and an Atlanta-style office park--is making headway in his bid to build a basketball arena for the Nets above the Long Island Rail Road tracks behind his malls, along with 17 residential and office towers in the surrounding area. He has retained architect Frank Gehry and landscape architect Laurie Olin to woo the cognoscenti. But do we judge Ratner's intentions by what he's built in the past or what he's promising for the future? When I look out my window I stare directly at one of his projects--a windowless high-rise multiplex with an Aztec-patterned facade--and question whether Ratner should be charged with redeveloping such a substantial chunk of the borough.
But I'm troubled that Brooklyn is being regarded as an opportunity rather than as a place. Ratner's development scheme, the Downtown plan drafted by the city, and the vision for the Greenpoint-Williamsburg waterfront all seem to view the borough as a tabula rasa. It is that old urban-renewal thinking that overvalues the potential and understates the significance of what's already here--exactly the kind of thinking that engendered a 30-year backlash. It's not nostalgia or NIMBYism to want planning that intelligently integrates past, present, and future.
Posted by lumi at 9:03 AM
July 23, 2005
Doctoroff: Brooklyn key to economy
NLG: The real title of this article should be "Doctoroff: Lying and dogding questions key to economy" or possibly "Doctoroff: Brooklyn overdevelopment my new pet project now that I lost the Olympics..."
Read it in the Brooklyn Papers.
Posted by amy at 10:55 AM
July 21, 2005
Not-for-Sale Signs Are Starting To Bloom in Parts of Brooklyn
The NY Sun
by Daniel Hemel
Fed up with brokers who are making unsolicited offers for the neighborhood’s modest wood-frame houses, homeowners on the south side of Park Slope are placing signs in their windows that announce: “House Not For Sale.”
These signs are catching on in Prospect Heights as Develop Don't Destroy Dan Goldstein explains, "It’s the right way to tell people to leave you alone.”
Posted by lumi at 8:11 AM
Ratner ‘Ratchets Up’ Campaign for Arena Plan
The Brooklyn Daily Eagle
by Raanan Geberer
The Eagle covers the press conference where State Assemblymember Roger Green was "master of ceremonies" heralding the Ratner-Gehry project.
Meanwhile watchdog groups called for the MTA to release the competing bids for the railyards.
Posted by lumi at 7:13 AM
July 19, 2005
Collapsed Manhattan Building Was Owned by Ratner Rival
The Brooklyn Daily Eagle coverage of the Manhattan Extell building collapse.
No, there wasn't another collapse, it just takes a few days for The Eagle to post their news on their web site.
Posted by lumi at 5:32 AM
July 18, 2005
U.N. moves to plan B to find temp space
Crain's NY Business reporter Julie Satow reports that the United Nations is one again in the market for "swing space" to relocate their operations while their current facilities are being rennovated.
Talk of the U.N. temporarily moving to Brooklyn was quashed when a plan was formulated to relocate to the Robert Moses Playground just south of its Turtle Bay headquarters. Albany lawmakers put the brakes on that plan and now the real estate hunt is back on.
Several Downtown Brooklyn locations are considered possiblities, including space potentially being built by Ratner.
Posted by lumi at 8:30 AM
July 15, 2005
Developer Reviled on Upper West Side, Loved in Brooklyn
The NY Sun
by Jeremy Smerd
On the Upper West Side, residents have begun to lob the same criticisms at Extell’s development at Broadway and West 99th Street that the Brooklyn opponents of Forest City Ratner have used: that Extell’s high-rises would ruin the intimate flavor of the neighborhood.
Much to the chagrin of area Upper West Side residents, Extell purchased the air development rights from St. Michael’s Church on Amsterdam and 99th Street, which are transferable to Extell’s development, allowing them to build higher than normal zoning would allow.
NoLandGrab: As much as Brooklynites would like for Extell to save them from the arrogant vision of Ratner and Gehry, the West Side neighborhood activists have a point.
The difference between the two is that Extell appears to be working within NYC's planning guidelines and Forest City Ratner needs NY State to take over the project to skirt local zoning regulations.
Posted by lumi at 7:53 AM
Demolition collapse at Extell site in Manhattan
The one-story demolition site on Broadway at 99 and 100th Streets collapsed into the street, injuring and trapping several people. Five people, including one baby, were taken to local hospitals and several firefighters were treated for injuries.
The site is owned by the Extell Development Corporation which recently made news for its alternate bid on the MTA's railyard property at Atlantic and Flatbush Aves. in Brooklyn, the $1.8 billion purchase of the Trump Place developement on the West Side, and neighborhood protests at the site of the collapse just a day before the collapse occurred.
Violations were issued to the demolition company, which an Extell spokesman pointed out was a reputable company using union labor. Regardless of who is ultimately responsible, there is a stop work order issued on the site and many questions linger.
Here are the headlines:
* The NY Times, One-Story Building Collapses Into Busy Block of Manhattan
* NY Daily News, Protest hours before wall fell
* NY1, Site Of Building Collapse Also A Bone Of Contention For Upper West Side Residents (dialup/broadband)
* NY Sun, Building Collapse on Broadway Traps 4 People in Rubble Nine Hospitalized, Including an Infant
Posted by lumi at 7:30 AM
July 14, 2005
Ratner rival ripped over W. Side project
The NY Daily News
by Tanyanyika Samuels and Dave Goldiner
Neighborhood activists rallied last night against an upper West Side skyscraper plan from Extell Development - the company that won praise for countering Bruce Ratner's Nets arena mega-project in Brooklyn.
Posted by lumi at 8:06 AM
July 13, 2005
Eminent Domain: What The Supreme Court Ruling Means To NYC
Gotham Gazette
by Brad Lander,
Dir. of Pratt Institute of Community & Environmental Devlopment (PICED)
Lander reviews the Kelo v. New London Supreme Court ruling as it relates to development in NYC.
Though it is Lander's view that current projects employing eminent domain in NYC "don’t have too much reason for concern," he points out that political backlash to the high court's decision is an opportunity to introduce more thought and accountability in NYC's urban planning process.
We need a better, more consistent process to insure that publicly-supported private development: * helps to reduce income inequality * creates jobs that enable people to support their families and move toward the middle class * creates affordable housing * lives better within its “environmental footprint” * addresses the challenges of traffic and transit * helps create better neighborhoods * and makes those neighborhoods places of opportunity.
This is a lot to ask, but it is a fair trade for hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars in subsidy and the power to take people’s homes.
NoLandGrab: What's interesting about Lander's principles is that most of them are represented in the Extell bid for the Atlantic Railyards, which doesn't even require the use of eminent domain.
Posted by lumi at 9:03 AM
SNEAKY DEVELOPERS IN THE SOUTH SLOPE
Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn:
There is good reason these days for residents of Brooklyn's neighborhoods to feel a bit paranoid.
Gehry isn't the only architect that's scary. OBKB dogs Brooklyn architect Henry Radusky, who manages to sneak past the City's zoning codes by claiming to build "faculty housing" in order to add extra stories to his projects.
NoLandGrab: Though this allowance has been declared null and void, it could be added to the Ratner divide-and-conquer-the-nabes playbook.
Posted by lumi at 8:26 AM
July 12, 2005
Blogosphere: Reponse to July Surprise
POSTCARD FROM THE SLOPE, Just Like in the Movies
Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn compares the 11th hour Extell bid to a Frank Capra movie, because "It doesn't hurt to dream."
The Real Estate Observer, Downsizing Ratner
Matthew Schuerman links coverage of the bids received for the Atlantic Railyards. In response to the Times wanting to see details of each competing plan leaked, Schuerman claims, "An MTA spokesman tells The Real Estate it will release details of the two offers once it briefs its board members--maybe as soon as this week."
Sensory Impact, That Sinking Feeling
NLG's Amy stumbles across sinking furniture to go with a rising city.
Posted by lumi at 6:26 AM
July 9, 2005
Ratner Plan’s Magnitude Amounts to a New Downtown
From the Brooklyn Daily Eagle:
When developer Bruce Ratner revealed the scope of his plans for the Atlantic Yards area in December 2003, it became obvious to anyone that a new Brooklyn Downtown was indeed in the works.But more than that, looking at the plan made public this week, it is evident that the Ratner proposal amounts to a new city as part of a new city downtown within an even larger city.
Posted by amy at 12:17 PM
July 8, 2005
Ratner foes hunted bids for Nets site
Daily News staff reporter Deborah Kolben's story about, "how a band of Prospect Heights activists tried to attract rival developers to bid for the downtown Brooklyn site where Bruce Ratner wants."
NoLandGrab: This band of activists took it upon themselves in earnest to do the legwork usually done by the offering public authority. In this case, the public authority is the MTA, which only published one public notice in The NY Times and another in a weekly real estate trade publication. The notice was brought to the attention of area activists by a neighborhood property owner who accidentally stumbled upon the listing.
The MTA's response? Kolben reports:
The MTA advertised in newspapers and sent the offer to a list of developers, said MTA spokesman Tom Kelly.
NLG: We'd sure like to see the list of developers who received notice of the request for proposals. Like the Husdon Yards debacle, the financially strapped MTA is conducting a very secretive public process.
Posted by lumi at 8:56 AM
July 7, 2005
DDDb Press Release: Ratner, Extell Bids Reveal Radically Different Visions for Brooklyn
Community Groups and Pols Express Cautious Optimism Over New Plan
NEW YORK, NY—Brooklyn community groups and politicians are greeting a new plan for development at the MTA’s Atlantic Avenue Railyards with what they described as ‘cautious optimism.’
“From what we’ve seen of the Extell Development Company’s plan,” said Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn (DDDb) spokesman, Daniel Goldstein, “it appears to respond to the desires of this community. Their bid appears to meet many of the foundation principles the community has established for developing the Yards.”
Two Different Visions
Extell Development Company entered a proposal to the MTA for their 8.5-acre Atlantic Avenue Rail Yards this Wednesday, the day on which bidding was closed.
“This plan couldn’t be more different than Bruce Ratner’s,” said DDDb’s Goldstein. “It respects the existing communities, doesn’t rip off taxpayers, doesn’t displace residents and businesses, and is much more within the context of the surrounding neighborhoods.”
“In addition, Extell is offering to go through the inclusive and multi-leveled City land use review process (ULURP), which means that—far from being a backroom sweetheart deal, like Bruce Ratner wants—Extell’s proposal would have real community input, oversight by Community Boards and City Planning, and be voted on by our City Council.”
The Extell plan provides for affordable housing, jobs for minority- and women-owned contractors, a new community center or school and significant amounts of open parkland. Buildings would reach a top height of 28 stories, as opposed to the 50-60 story buildings in Bruce Ratner’s proposal.
What About the Arena?
What the Extell plan conspicuously lacks is a sports arena. “We have always said that bringing pro sports back to Brooklyn is a fine idea,” said Goldstein. “But when Bruce Ratner says that his destructive, taxpayer-subsidized sweetheart deal is the only way to do it, that’s a con job. There are viable options for an arena in Brooklyn, and maybe now that debate can occur.”
“If Brooklyn doesn’t get a pro sports team,” Goldstein concluded, “it will only be due to Bruce Ratner’s hubris and greed.”
A Dark Horse Bid
Asked about the MTA’s bidding process for Atlantic Yards, Goldstein replied, “It was a joke. They barely advertised their RFP, which is why Develop Don’t Destroy took it upon ourselves to send the RFP to about 100 developers.”
“Extell contacted us and asked what the community would want to see developed on the rail yards. Before they went to the drawing board, we showed them the UNITY community development plan—which grew out of 15 months of community meetings and presentations—as well as principles for development that have the endorsement of 20 community groups and our three locally elected officials.”
“Extell seemed to want to make an effort to respond as best they could to those guidelines. Now we invite and urge all interested community groups to join the process and hold their feet to the fire over the coming months.”
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– Principles for Responsible Community Development on the Vanderbilt Rail Yards: www.dddb.net/principles
Posted by lumi at 6:42 PM
No medal but a silver lining
NY Daily News
by Mike Lupica
Ratner is doing hardly anything different with his arena plan than Mayor Bloomberg and Doctoroff and the Jets were trying to do with the Hudson Railyards. He has just managed to fly under radar because the Jets and their West Side stadium became the main event.
But Ratner gets a sweetheart land deal, one of the sweetheart deals in the history of the city, and if you think it is about bringing pro basketball to Brooklyn then you are the kind of dream sucker Ratner needed to look like a hero. A hero of his own bank account. Take a look at his project and how it continues to grow. He just needed a sports team to make it work.
Posted by lumi at 6:00 AM
July 6, 2005
Brooklyn Plan Draws a Rival, and It's Smaller
The NY Times
by Diane Cardwell
A rival of the developer Bruce C. Ratner submitted a competing bid yesterday to buy and develop the site of a proposed Nets basketball arena in Brooklyn, throwing up the first significant obstacle to Mr. Ratner's ambitious plan to create a dense urban hub at the eastern edge of Downtown Brooklyn.
The plan, which would not include a sports arena, was drafted in close consultation with community advocates who oppose Mr. Ratner's project. It portends a potential replay of the heated and costly battle between Cablevision and the Jets football team over a proposal, now scuttled, for a stadium on the Far West Side of Manhattan.
Posted by lumi at 11:58 PM
June 30, 2005
BEYOND BLOOMBERG’S STADIUM INFATUATION
An economic development plan for the boroughs.
CityLimits.org
by Jonathan Bowles
Mayor Bloomberg gets high marks from the business sector and urban planners for reorganizing local governmental agencies, widening the focus of economic development to the outer boroughs and opening the planning process to community input.
However, there is still much criticism over his "top-down approach" to large-scale development projects that favor prominent local developers:
In almost every neighborhood where prominent real estate developers have expressed an interest--including Greenpoint and Williamsburg, Atlantic Yards, Red Hook, the far West Side of Manhattan and the Bronx Terminal Market--the administration takes a distinctly top-down approach to economic development. Though the prospect of significant private investment in these long-overlooked neighborhoods is in many ways a welcome sight, the administration often seems overeager to cut deals with developers and uninterested in whether a project will displace existing businesses or significantly alter the unique character of a neighborhood.
Posted by lumi at 6:44 AM
June 27, 2005
New York State to Shine Light Into Shadows
The NY Times
by Al Baker
In the waning minutes of the NY State legislative session, Assemblymember Richard Brodsky's (D-Westchester) bill requiring oversight of the state's Public Authorities, such as the MTA and Local Devlopement Corporations (LDCs).
This bill requires that Public Authorities get "fair market value" when selling public land, such as the Atlantic/Vanderbilt Railyards. However public interest groups heed caution because the Inspector General to be appointed to head oversight will be chosen by Governor Pataki.
Posted by lumi at 8:06 AM
June 22, 2005
URBAN RENEWAL: STADIA MANIA
The New Yorker, The Talk of the Town
by Nick Paumgarten
Ry Cooder gets it. Here's the socially conscious musician's take on Ratner's arena complex:
“I got the idea that there was some kind of controversy about all this in New York,” Cooder said last week, from his home in Santa Monica. “Is it all driven by this multi-use concept, where they have the corporate boxes and the restaurants and the stores? In other words, a mall?”
Read about Cooder's musical lament for the neighborhood demolished for the LA Dodger's stadium. Ironically, the ballpark was built when Robert Moses refused to let O'Mally build a Brooklyn ballpark at Atlantic and Flatbush.
Posted by lumi at 7:58 AM
The Planning Vacuum
New York stumbles into a good stadium deal
Wall St. Journal, Opinion
by Ada Louise Huxtable
Huxtable's post mortem of Jets stadium and the state of large-scale development in NYC.
Here's her little bit on Ratner:
Savvy developers know how to navigate the civic shoals with singular skill. Forest City Ratner, currently engaged in a vast project for the Atlantic Yards on the Brooklyn waterfront, which includes a basketball stadium for the Nets designed by Frank Gehry, has made token changes in cooperation with community representatives, although questions remain about densities and scale. There are builders who sugarcoat their proposals with big-name architects, irresistible bait in a city that shamefully settles for the ordinary. New York has never managed, as Chicago has, to make Donald Trump use a different architect in exchange for a prime site.
NoLandGrab: Maybe someone could point the Pulitzer Prize-winning architecture critic in the right direction.
In case anyone else is muddled up over Brooklyn development controversies:
* Brooklyn waterfront controversies are in Greenpoint/Williamsburgh and Brooklyn Bridge Park.
* Atlantic Yards is planned for Prospect Heights & Park Slope (nowhere near the waterfront).
Posted by lumi at 7:18 AM
June 16, 2005
Bertha Lewis = Moron
I Love Capitalists If I Can Use them To Screw White People
The Noble Savage
The words of one African American who is not down with Big-Time Bertha playing the race card while shilling for an Upper-Eastside Billionaire developer:
Its a shame that Bertha Lewis is soiling the image and reputation of ACORN. When I heard about the MOU between ACORN and Bruce Ratner, I was shocked; but after hearing her words on the MOU, I knew she saw this as a way to screw those she saw as gentrifying the area -- in other words the white people.
Posted by lumi at 9:11 PM
June 13, 2005
How Can New York Get Its Groove Back
The NY Times
After last week's fatal blow to the West Side Stadium, the Times asked prominent New Yorkers about what NYC's next steps should be. Apparently no one asked Bruce Ratner, because his development scheme for Prospect Heights Brooklyn is not on anyones radar (though Donald Trump whines about "contextual zoning" and community boards).
Philip K. Howard, chairman of the Municipal Arts Society, makes the case that the City should rethink the way it deals with Land Use issued since the current process results primarily in one-developer-driven megalopolises like Ratnerville.
Today, however, instead of investing in public buildings the government tries to cut corners and generate financing for projects like the Moynihan rail station by selling zoning rights so that public buildings and parks find themselves in the shadow of oversized private development. This approach also leads to single-developer schemes with super-blocks and large plazas, which destroy the organic vitality of the city. Their public space is too calculated and cold. Just as important as placing a higher priority on public buildings and parks, we must ensure that private development is set in the traditional street grid, so that it is easily adapted for new uses as the economy and city evolve.
Posted by lumi at 8:19 AM
June 10, 2005
Atlantic Yards Project Reaches First Base
Curbed.com
So just how did the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) get put in charge of processing the applications for the affordable housing units that are part of Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards development plan?
Posted by lumi at 12:25 PM
June 9, 2005
FLATenD
A new name for the neighborhood in Ratner's Yard's footprint.
Boundaries: Starting at the the intersection of Flatbush and Atlantic, ending at Dean.
Posted by lumi at 6:46 AM
June 8, 2005
UNITY Fans Don't Get Along With Ratner Vision
Brooklyn Downtown Star
by Reed Jackson
Only hours after a City Council hearing on developer Bruce Ratner's massive plans for the Atlantic Yards, the project's opponents gathered for a less crowded, if no less feisty meeting to discuss an alternate conception for the abandoned MTA property. Dubbed the UNITY Plan... this alternative project aims to deliver the same benefits as Ratner's plan with much less impact.
Posted by lumi at 6:05 AM
June 3, 2005
Hudson Railyards suits tossed out by judge
You've heard the news. Here's the coverage:
WNYC, Major Victory for West Side Stadium
The NY Times, Hurdle Cleared, West Side Stadium Backers Turn to Albany
NY Daily News, Judge throws out lawsuit against West Side stadium
The judge also shot down the lawsuit claim that the MTA had not allowed bidders enough time to prepare their proposals. Both sides were working under the same 27-day time constraints, [Justice] Cahn said.
NY Post, TIME TO DECIDE
NY Post, HEVESI THROWS A BLOCK
The state's top fiscal watchdog — sounding a lot like his longtime Democratic ally, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver — unexpectedly declared that it would be "premature" for the Public Authorities Control Board to vote for approval of $300 million in state funding for the project.
NY Newsday, Stadium future still uncertain
Despite stern words from Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Gov. George Pataki -- both staunch stadium backers -- Silver suggested to reporters he might seek to again postpone the decision.
Posted by lumi at 6:58 AM
June 1, 2005
New Urbanism in Denver
The NY Times covers the highly touted Stapleton mixed-use development, a recent Forest City Enterprises project. Stapleton has become the most high-profile development in the nation which embraces the principles of the New Urbanist movement.
This article is complete with a disclosure of the relationship between FCE's subsidiary, Forest City Ratner and The Times.
NoLandGrab: Forest City Enterprises is getting a lot of respect for the Denver project.
Meanwhile Forest City Ratner is defying current urban planning standards to embrace the Battery-Park-style planning model for Atlantic Yards, complete with high-rises, private "public" spaces, and street closures. Past errors in city planning, such as these, inspired urban designers to analyze successful mixed-use neighborhoods, the foundation of the New Urbanism movement.
The development of the Atlantic Railyards is an opportunity for NYC to learn from itself. Unfortunately, it is being proposed as the next step in Bruce Ratner's learning curve.
Posted by lumi at 8:02 AM
May 27, 2005
Costco may come to Harlem
NY Newsday
In a move towards equal access to box stores:
After several delays, Costco is close to signing a lease for its first Manhattan store, said the developers of East River Plaza, a big-box shopping center set to open in summer of 2007 on FDR Drive in Harlem.
The warehouse club retailer will likely sign a lease as an anchor within the next two weeks, said David Blumenfeld, vice president of Blumenfeld Development Group, which is building the project in partnership with Forest City Ratner.
NoLandGrab: An alert to those who have become incensed by eminent domain abuse during the course of the Atlantic Yards fight -- in recent years Costco has become one of the largest beneficiaries of eminent domain abuse in the nation.
Posted by lumi at 7:25 AM
We believe in Magic
Another reason to cheer for Brooklyn
NY Newsday, Editorial
If you combine Johnson's investment with the ambitious complex that Bruce Ratner wants to develop down the street - it includes a basketball arena, four office towers, and 4.4 million square feet of housing - you will start to see the outlines of a redevelopment that could give Brooklyn more cachet and prosperity than it has enjoyed since the Dodgers left the borough after the 1957 baseball season.
Posted by lumi at 7:18 AM
May 26, 2005
New York City Lobbyists Take in $33.6 Million
Not-for-Profits and Corporations Driving Industry to New Heights
The NY Sun
Records of lobbyists' activities in NYC from 2004 shows that both Bruce Ratner and the Jets have spread around cash to more than one PR firm to lobby local government:
The Jets were not, however, the only entity with business before the city spreading money around to firms with ties to government entities.
Forest City Ratner, which has development projects all over the city and is trying to win approval to build a basketball arena for the Nets in Brooklyn, also hired several firms. An initial review of the report shows that Ratner shelled out at least $196,000 to three different lobbyists.
Posted by lumi at 7:56 AM
May 21, 2005
Magic’s kingdom
The Brooklyn Papers discusses Magic Johnson's purchase of the clock tower:
With an anticipated completion date of the summer of 2006, and an already-secured broker in the Corcoran Group, Turner said the investment fund isn’t bothered that plans for new residential and office towers down the block, as part of developer Bruce Ratner’s Atlantic Yards plan, could dwarf the iconic bank building.Ratner’s plan, which includes 17 towers ranging from 110-feet to 620-feet tall, would build the new tallest building in Brooklyn only a block away at the intersection of Flatbush and Atlantic avenues. Those towers are part of the company’s plans to build a professional basketball arena and 17 office and residential towers on property emanating from the intersection of Flatbush and Atlantic avenues and stretching three block into Prospect Heights.
“I think our theory and philosophy’s always been we don’t need to be the biggest, we need to be the best,” said Turner.
Posted by amy at 12:53 PM
New York's Robert Moses Moment
New York News Network
Here's a local-development story that we missed a few weeks ago, but thought that it would be of interest to our readers.
New York City is having a Robert Moses moment at a time when real estate is hotter than Wall Street, and residents love their respective communities so much that they want to preserve them as much as possible.
On the far West Side of Manhattan and parts of Brooklyn, residents acknowledge the inevitability, and even the need, for development. But they are vehemently opposed to what they see as mega projects they say are imposed from above - from a citywide development vision of breathtaking scope proposed by the Bloomberg administration.
Posted by lumi at 7:12 AM
May 19, 2005
Taking a shot on Brooklyn landmark
Investment group led by hoops legend Magic Johnson teams up to convert 34-story building into condos
NY Newsday
by Pradnya Joshi
The managing partner for the venture fund that bought the Williamsburg Savings Bank tower makes a public statement of support for Ratner's proposal.
The [Williamsburg Savings Bank] tower is the first purchase for a new venture fund started by the Canyon-Johnson Urban Funds, which has raised $600 million to be invested in urban developments. The Beverly Hills-based fund is joint venture between Canyon Capital Realty Advisors and Johnson. Real estate developer Dermot Co. also is among the group purchasing the building.
The Fort Greene building, which dates from 1927, was originally owned by the Williamsburgh Savings Bank and stands out among the Brooklyn skyline. The building is near the Atlantic Yards, the city's third-largest mass transit hub and where developer Bruce Ratner wants to build a new arena for the New Jersey Nets basketball team.
"Here's an opportunity to take an underutilized asset and really vitalize it," Bobby Turner, managing partner of the Canyon-Johnson Urban Fund said in an interview. "We are excited about the prospects of Bruce increasing the available amenities to the community."
Posted by lumi at 8:39 AM
Land Doesn't Pay
The city's $7 billion-a-year property tax gap -- no wonder we're broke
The Village Voice
Neil deMause demistifies property tax exemtions, who gets them and why the city is always broke. Find out why favored developers like Ratner, like New York City.
Posted by lumi at 8:19 AM
May 18, 2005
The Home Front: Playing Terrorist
After 9/11, the terror-simulation business has boomed.
What kinds of scripts are they writing for New York?
New York Magazine
by Guy Martin
As the NYC's Deputy Commissioner for Planning and Preparedness plans mock terrorism-response training exercises, he cites the City's large-scale venues as being prime targets for terrorists.
"Obviously, we 'kill' a lotta people in these exercises," says Gabriel at his desk in OEM’s bunker near the Brooklyn Bridge. "We have to imagine that any large assembly of people in New York automatically makes our major arenas, baseball stadiums, and convention centers targets." [emphasis added]
NoLandGrab: Despite the analysis of terrorism experts, only Ratner arena detractors have questioned the wisdom of putting a new arena in a densly populated area.
Posted by lumi at 8:21 AM
May 17, 2005
Williamsburg Savings Bank bought
Crain's NY Business
The Williamsburg Savings Bank Building has been bought by Canyon-Johnson Urban Funds, an investment concern started by “Magic” Johnson, and the Dermot Co., which plan to renovate the landmarked, 35-story tower into condominiums and ground-floor retail space.
Canyon-Johnson and Dermot bought the nearly 80-year-old tower, which is Brooklyn's tallest building, from HSBC. The bank put the building on the block last year.
Also:
NY Post, HIGH HOOPS FOR BROOKLYN
GlobeSt.com, Williamsburg Bank Tower To Become $165M Condo
Posted by lumi at 9:49 PM
May 14, 2005
WE’RE overdeveloped, Ratner foes tell Marty
From the Brooklyn Papers:
Borough President Marty Markowitz’s decision to hold a little-publicized meeting this week addressing overdevelopment in southern Brooklyn — which he called “suburban Brooklyn” in a recent newsletter — incensed residents in Brownstone Brooklyn, who say they are facing projects of a greater scale.In Markowitz’s April newsletter, titled “Brooklyn!!,” he touts efforts to rezone portions of Bensonhurst and Bay Ridge, the latter of which he calls, “the largest rezoning effort taking place in the Borough of Brooklyn today.”
The piece, headlined ‘Saving Brooklyn’s Communities,” blames “rapid, unplanned development in some of Brooklyn’s most suburban neighborhoods” for “changing the character and scale of some communities,” and notes that the borough president asked Mayor Michael Bloomberg to “make rezoning of overdeveloped Brooklyn neighborhoods and those facing overdevelopment a priority.”
The Ratner project, which will encompass 24 acres and stretch from Atlantic and Flatbush avenues to Vanderbilt Avenue and Dean Street, will host 17 high-rises and at least four skyscrapers — one reaching as high as 600 feet tall — and swallow four city street-beds.
And remember - Marty is up for election this year. If you would like to see a borough president who does not sacrifice one part of Brooklyn for another, check out and support Green Party candidate Gloria Mattera.
Posted by amy at 10:05 AM
May 13, 2005
Supersizing Brooklyn brings downsizing of stables
The developers are coming, the developers are coming!
Overdevelopment is coming to a neighborhood near you:
* Red Hook IKEA
* Downtown Brooklyn
* Prospect Heights/Ft. Greene, Ratner Arena and 17-High Rise Towers
* DUMBO
* Williamsburg-Greenpoint rezoning
* High-rise Condos in the Brooklyn Bridge Park
* South-South Slope
And now, developers are trading in the Little Grey Barn in Kensington for an eight-story as-of-right 100-something-unit condo.
Get the scoop on Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn about the downsizing of Kensington Stables.
NoLandGrab: Trading in a barn where generations of city kids have learned to ride and work with horses reminds us that sometimes the "best use" of a city lot is not that which yeilds the highest floor-area ratio.
Posted by lumi at 8:46 PM
City Council passes Speakers PILOT legislation
Wednesday, the NY City Council passed Speaker Gifford Miller's PILOT legislation (Intro 584-A), which would bar the Mayor from spending City money without the City Council approval, including money disbursed from the Payment In Lieu of Taxes (PILOT) fund. This legislation is targeting Mayor Bloomberg's proposal that the City contribute $300 million to the building of the West Side Stadium.
This legislation could have bearing on the Mayor's proposal to spend $100 million on the Nets Arena proposal, though New Yorkers can expect that the Mayor will veto the legislation, the Council will overide the veto and the whole ball of wax will end up in the courts.
The Daily News, Council bars mayor from stadium aid
Gotham Gazette, City Council Slated Meeting Notes: West Side Stadium Financing
City Council Press Release
Posted by lumi at 7:17 AM
May 12, 2005
DANGER IS SEEN OF CROWDING IN BROOKLYN
31 DOWNTOWN PROJECTS BY ’08
NY Sun
by Julie Satow
City planners and politicians have not planned for the traffic and pollution costs to residents and the local economy caused by the enormous redevelopment plans for Downtown Brooklyn and vicinity. Community Consulting's Brian Ketcham has just released a report warning of the need to improve infrastructure in Brooklyn.
Downtown Brooklyn’s infrastructure will be overwhelmed by more than 40 million square feet of development in the next 15 years, according to a new study by a transportation think tank, Community Consulting Services. The city and the state will need to spend as much as $4 billion to handle the “traffic damages” resulting from the borough’s projected 24,000 new residents and 74,000 new jobs, the report says.
Posted by lumi at 8:30 AM
UN may end up as Brooklyn dodgers
NY Daily News
Giddy rumors about the UN temporarily relocating to Brooklyn, maybe even Bruce Ratner's proposed Atlantic Yards, were quelled yesterday as a UN technocrat pointed out that they are looking at several properties over the entire city and that they were not even close to making an announcement of what they intend to do for temporary quarters while the current site is being renovated.
Posted by lumi at 7:18 AM
City Council Approves More SUPERSIZING for Brooklyn
The NY City Council approved the rezoning plan for Williamsburg-Greenpoint. Supporters are claiming a victory for affordable housing and redevelopment of the waterfront with views of Manhattan. Many local residents were hoping to secure affordable housing guarantees, not "incentives" that developers often pass over. Many in this thriving low-rise middle-income community are now concerned that this action will zone out many of the features that made this neighborhood a desirable location for working class and artists.
Other Brooklynites look on wondering, what and who's next?
The NY Times, Council Approves Makeover of the Brooklyn Waterfront
A single council member, Charles Barron of Brooklyn, voted against the legislation, saying that the housing provision was a "step in the right direction" but too modest.
Crain's NY Business, B'klyn rezoning wins Council approval
Posted by lumi at 7:00 AM
May 11, 2005
ANGER BUILDS IN B'KLYN OVER DEVELOPERS
NY Post
Ratnerville isn't the only development that has Brooklynites' knickers all in a twist.
"[Residents] are pleading for relief from the destruction of their neighborhoods," said Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz.
Posted by lumi at 7:24 PM
UN looks to B'klyn for temporary space
NY Newsday
The UN is looking for temporary quarters while their current facilities are being renovated. Though no details of their real estate search have been publicly released, rumors are circulating that they are considering Ratner's Atlantic Yards along with 7 WTC.
Also:
The NY Sun, Secretary-General Urges United Nations To Abandon 'Swing Space' Plan
The NY Times, Temporary Space for 191 Countries? For U.N., Maybe It's in Brooklyn
NoLandGrab: If the 2010 date doesn't work for the construction of "swing space" closer to the current UN site, it is hard to imagine that enough of Ratner's complex could be ready before then. A litany of law suits sure to be unleashed in the ensuing months would, at least, slow the process down.
Posted by lumi at 8:11 AM
Jane Jacobs: Letter to Mayor Bloomberg and the City Council
Published in The Brooklyn Rail
As approved, the Greenpoint-Williamsburg rezoning plan has been modified since this letter was sent. However, many of Jacobs points still apply and are food for thought for the many rezoning and redevelopment projects besieging Brooklyn.
"The community’s plan does not violate the existing scale of the community, nor does it insult the visual and economic advantages of neighborhoods that are precisely of the kind that demonstrably attract artists and other live-work craftsmen, initiating spontaneous and self-organizing renewal."
Posted by lumi at 8:10 AM
Big Cities Big Boxes
The Big Cities Big Boxes blog tracks IKEA's controversial development in Red Hook (now in ligtigation on several fronts), development concerns throughout NYC and what to do about big box stores.
There has never been a full public debate in New York City about whether we want to let in big box stores and, if so, what they should have to look like and how they should have to pay their employees. There is an urgent need for public discussion.
Posted by lumi at 6:28 AM
May 9, 2005
Save Our City
Brooklyn Rail
by Theodore Hamm
Stadiums and high-rise condominium towers, big-box stores and more stadiums—of course this is what your community wants. Never mind these projects’ daunting scale or the minimal number of living-wage jobs they actually create. The large developers and their cronies are essentially saying, “It won’t happen in my backyard, but you should be thrilled that it’s happening in yours.”
What’s new to report is not that residents of various neighborhoods are fighting back or that they’re doing so in the name of protecting their local communities from unwanted types of development. Instead, what’s different about the recent protests—at least over the developer-friendly rezoning of Williamsburg—is that local activists have taken the fight to the streets.
Posted by lumi at 9:08 AM
May 8, 2005
Mike Lupica: Shooting from the lip
Lupica on Doctoroff, Blooomber, the West Side Stadium, and re-zoning for rich folks:
The funniest comment of the week came from our guy Five Rings Doctoroff, who told the New York Times on Friday with a straight face that he only spends 10% of his time dealing with getting the Jets and their stadium on the West Side.
But then he goes on to point out that he does work 100 hours a week.
What a guy.
Let's face it, taking care of developer friends with sweetheart real estate deals all over town can cut into a guy's social schedule.
As the News' Juan Gonzalez keeps pointing out, it is an outrageous conflict of interest to have the city's corporation counsel Michael Cardozo - a lawyer whose old firm used to work for the Jets - anywhere near this stadium deal.
But then this is the administration of Mayor Money, isn't it?
His campaign slogan should go something like this:
I'd like to be the mayor of all New Yorkers, but I'm busy re-zoning for the richer ones.
Posted by lumi at 9:35 AM
May 6, 2005
Mailing spotlights Ridge Hill
The Journal News
by Michael Gannon
The folks in Yonkers are waiting to receive their brochure touting the benefits of Ratner's controversial real estate deal, Ridge Hill Village. FCR VP and Brooklyn resident Bruce Bender says that the mailing is a way to directly communicate with Yonkers residents and, "let people start discussing this on its merits."
NoLandGrab: Dubbed "Liar Flyer I & II" by Nets arena detractors, Central Brooklynites have been treated to two mailings from Forest City Ratner. The slogan, "Live, Work, Play" (ironically the same as Corcoran Real Estate's latest campaign) has become sort of a mantra. Does it define the times as well as "Turn on, tune in, drop out," did for the hippie generation? May we live, work and play long enough to find out.
Posted by lumi at 6:53 AM
May 5, 2005
The Return of Urban Renewal
Dan Doctoroff's Grand Plans for New York City
by Susan Fainstein
Harvard Design Magazine
NOLANDGRAB MUST READ. This article provides a quick historical overview of urban planning in NYC and the Mayor's ambitious planning goals. It goes on to examine the largest and most controversial plans (including Brooklyn's own boondoggle, BAY) and reviews the advantages and shortcomings of each.
In the first phase of the federal urban renewal program, opponents of projects that would destroy communities and small business were similarly excoriated for being unconcerned with the public interest. It was only later, when it became evident that benefits did not always trickle down, communities were destroyed, cleared land lay vacant for decades awaiting a developer, and “marginal” businesses that frequently laid the groundwork for the next wave of innovation were uprooted that the dangers of “great plans” became fully appreciated. By now many of these lessons have been forgotten as a new generation of architects and planners has come along seeking to imprint their visions on New York's landscape. The pendulum has swung to the other side rather than resting at a point where comprehensive planning can occur within a context of humility, flexibility, and democratic participation.
Posted by lumi at 8:39 AM
May 3, 2005
New York’s Proposed Stadiums and Arenas
Gotham Gazette
An overview of how NYC's three proposed sports venues compare to others across the nation.
[W]hen comparing New York’s proposed stadiums and arenas to others across the country, some things are clear:
- New York’s sports venues would be by far the most expensive ever built
- They depend on large subsidies by the taxpaying public
- The city may be repeating mistakes that have been made elsewhere in the country.
Posted by lumi at 8:04 AM
Pols clash over Ground Zero
Here are two stories that might be of interest to those following the Ratner boondoggle.
As Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver -- whose support the Mayor and Governor need for controversial development projects like the West Side Stadium and Ratner's Atlantic Yards -- is blaming Bloomberg and Pataki for lack of progress in rebuilding is district of Lower Manhattan, the Mayor and Governor might make a scapegoat out of real estate mogul Larry Silverstein, who still holds the lease on the World Trade Center site.
NY Newsday, Silver blasts Bloomberg, Pataki `leadership' on Freedom Towers
NY1, Governor, Mayor Considering Using Eminent Domain At Ground Zero
NoLandGrab: Despite the misguided notion that these projects are a "done deal," from time to time the public is reminded that the political situation is fluid, as the titans in state and local politics clash.
Posted by lumi at 7:53 AM
Stadium lawyers suit up
NY Daily News
Comlumnist Juan Gonzales on the up-and-coming court battles over the West Side Stadium:
This is not just a misguided effort by Mayor Bloomberg and his economic development czar Daniel Doctoroff to spend millions in public money on the world's most expensive private stadium.
No, this stadium deal is far worse.
It reflects the chief hallmark of the Bloomberg years - crony capitalism.
"These hyperdevelopment projects are going up all over the city," says Beka Economopoulos of the Creative Industries Coalition, a neighborhood group in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. "City Hall keeps squeezing out residents and small businesses in favor of rich developers."
Posted by lumi at 6:25 AM
Supersized Williamsburg on the Way
The Village Voice
by Sarah Ferguson
The Greenpoint-Williamsburg rezoning plan was approved. Concessions of more affordable housing and park land were extracted at the last minute, but neighborhood activists are still concerned that the low-rise charm of the neighborhood will be swept away and fear that the affordable housing provision is not strong enough to motivate developers.
"There is no way that you can say that 40-story towers have anything to do with the existing character of the neighborhood," complained Stephanie Thayer, a member of the North Brooklyn Alliance, which has been battling to scale back the development.
Thayer notes that because the providing of affordable housing is voluntary, developers could still build up to 33 stories high without offering any subsidized units.
"That's our worst nightmare," Thayer said. "That we get these grotesque buildings with no affordable housing."
Also:
The NY Times, City Is Backing Makeover for Decaying Brooklyn Waterfront
Posted by lumi at 6:06 AM
April 30, 2005
Land Store
By M. Fullilove
Background: Columbia University paid $300,000 to the Empire State Development Corp to begin a "blight" investigation.
Posted by lumi at 5:03 PM
Spring, in a Tense Time
The Brooklyn Daily Eagle stabs at Ratner's proposed street layout:
On Bruce Ratner’s Atlantic Yards proposal, we’re all in favor of the Nets arena, and believe the site is right for attendant residential and commercial development – it’s just that the only indication of a plan we’ve seen so far looks wrong in terms of urban design, what with its closing-off of some streets. What the layout gains in terms of open park space doesn’t look to us like inviting or meaningful parks.
Posted by amy at 10:01 AM
April 28, 2005
Internet resources for what you need to know on NYC Land Use/Zoning
Gotham Gazette
Tom Angotti
For those of you who have been following this issue but are in the dark about Land Use issues, this piece is a Land Use primer with links to basic information available on the web.
Posted by lumi at 6:24 AM
April 22, 2005
The Anti-Moses And The First Community-Based Plan
Gotham Gazette
By Tom Angotti
Remembering the father of community-based planning, Walter Thabit.
In 1961, after more than 100 community meetings, Thabit completed the Alternate Plan for Cooper Square, which proposed that the original residents of the area should be the beneficiaries and not the victims of urban renewal. Community leaders Frances Goldin, Esther Rand and Thelma Burdick were joined by many others over a period of almost 50 years to implement the community’s vision for a stable neighborhood affordable to people with modest incomes.
Posted by lumi at 7:54 AM
April 21, 2005
Brooklyn neighborhood faces uncertain future
NY Newsday
By Luis Perez
Prospect Heights residents stand to loose their homes to Ratner's wrecking ball. Though Ratner knows of only one holdout, reporter Luis Perez found tenants, homeowners and landowners who want to keep their homes. Most neighborhood folks are concerned about Ratner's proposal and are upset with the Mayor, whose developer-friendly mentality has little concern for the average guy.
Come May 1, Craig Sterritt, 34, will leave his Pacific Street rental loft of 13 years, which Ratner now owns, for a higher-priced place in Harlem.
"The whole thing was put together in backrooom deals, treating the neighborhood as if it was the South Bronx in the late '70s," Sterritt, a medical writer and editor who is a lifelong Brooklynite, said of the arena project.
He scoffs at the thought that his neighborhood, which actually sits in the crossroads of Park Slope, Boerum Hill, Fort Greene and Clinton Hill, needs revamping.
"These megadevelopments strike me as a bad idea for the city," he said. "Particularly this one here, because of the way it literally puts up a wall dividing neighborhoods."
NoLandGrab: We're sorry to see Craig Sterrit go. He should keep his ear to the ground when he moves to Harlem -- Ratner's company has a seat on the 125th St. redevelopment council, the River-to-River Advisory Committee.
Posted by lumi at 8:15 AM
April 17, 2005
Mike Lupica: Shooting from the lip
NY Daily News
Our elected politicians rolled over for Caring Bruce Ratner in Brooklyn.
Then Mayor Money and his trusty aid, Shifty Doctoroff, did everything in their powers to give away the Hudson Railyards to the extremely needy Woody Johnson of the Jets.
Posted by lumi at 7:56 AM
April 14, 2005
The Ratner Plan Meets a Passel of Experts
The Brooklyn Downtown Star
By Theodore Ross
Report on the Boerum Hill Association forum on "urban planning, traffic, and financial ins-and-outs of Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards development plan."
Posted by lumi at 9:15 AM
April 12, 2005
Say Goodbye to Sunlight? Plaza Condo May Loom at 30 Stories
Daily Heights has posted news of a proposed 30-story condo development on the corner of Plaza St. East and Eastern Parkway. The shadows cast by a 30-story building will not be long enough to reach Ratner's proposed 60-story skyscraper, but that makes for a lot of height in the Heights.
UPDATE: Today the Daily Heights is featuring Deb Kolben's story in this morning's NY Daily News which pegs the Meier building at 15 stories.
Posted by lumi at 5:31 AM
April 8, 2005
Councilwoman urges city to try for better Ridge Hill tax accord
The Jounal News
The latest in another controversial Forest City Ratner project. Skeptics in government want more taxes paid directly to Yonkers and disolution of the embattled Ridge Hill Development Corporation (immediately or after the debt on project is paid). The numbers and political positions are all speculative since "Forest City Ratner will not disclose how much revenue it expects to make at Ridge Hill."
Posted by lumi at 6:44 AM
April 5, 2005
NYC Planning Information Portal
Want to find out more about the large-scale development proposals effecting your neighborhood? Search by Community Board, or just type in your address. Links to more information and articles.
From the "NYC Planning Portal, ABOUT" page:
The NYC Planning Portal is a web-based tool that improves access to information about major urban planning projects in New York City. Unlike traditional media web sites, the Portal is organized by both planning issue and neighborhood. Unlike government agency and advocacy websites, the Portal links to organizations with viewpoints on all sides of each issue.
Posted by lumi at 8:38 AM
April 2, 2005
Expanding Downtown Confronts Residential Neighborhoods Already Changing from Within
The Brooklyn Daily Eagle discusses the history of development in what they call "Downtown Brooklyn" as well as Ratner's unpopular role within it.
Fort Greene and Prospect Heights have not been prepared for the change coming their way. What is happening is that downtown Brooklyn is expanding eastward in a big way. A new culture center, the Downtown Brooklyn Plan and the Atlantic Yards proposal are all, in comparison with other past projects, rather overwhelming.
Posted by amy at 12:43 AM
March 24, 2005
Sharpton supports West Side stadium
Wondering where elected and community leaders stand on Ratner's arena plan? The West Side stadium may not be a useful indicator of those who would oppose the Nets arena, though it is a barometer for those who support it.
Al Sharpton is the latest local leader to line up behind the Mayor in support of the West Side stadium deal. [Thanks to NewYorkGames.org for lining up these articles.]
NY Newsday, Sharpton joins stadium fight
AP (NY Newsday), Sharpton is latest player in West Side stadium fight's unlikely matchups
The NY Times, As Democrats Fight Stadium, Some Blacks Buck the Trend
NY Daily News, Jets' bid Revs up
Posted by lumi at 7:54 AM
Perspective on Expansion
As Pace University looks at it's options to expand their campus in Downtown Manhattan, the Columbia Spectator takes a glimpse at the scuttled deal with Ratner.
Posted by lumi at 7:24 AM
March 22, 2005
Newark seeks delay on demolition plan
Deleware News Journal:
A reminder that all politics is local, ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) defends low-income housing from the wrecking ball in Newark. Located on a former city landfill, questions of contamination have arisen on the site of the half vacant housing complex.
"I think we're being misled by Jackson," said John Kowalko, an ACORN member and advocate for the Cleveland Heights residents. "Their homes are not unfixable. ... They want to maintain their community."
This is in stark contrast to ACORN's chants of "Tear them down, tear them down...," during Forest City Ratner's presentation last November, when James Stuckey claimed that the Prospect Heights homes and businesses they are seeking to condemn were blighted.
Posted by lumi at 6:26 AM
March 21, 2005
An Agency to Answer a City's Prayers, but Not All Its Questions
The NY Times
By MICHAEL SLACKMAN
Forest City Ratner's Ridge Hill Village proposal in Yonkers is not only getting its fair share of critics fearful of overdevelopment and traffic congestions.
Criticism is raining down on the agency that was created to make the miracle happen: the Ridge Hill Development Corporation, a private, nonprofit group that opponents say appears to have been set up as a haven where friends of current and former politicians can find high-paying jobs and wield huge sums of money.
Here are some particular gems from this article:
"Some state officials said, and a lawyer for Ridge Hill confirmed, that the corporation could have been set up to be accountable to elected officials, and covered by the state's open meetings laws. But Ridge Hill officials said that initially they wanted to keep everything secret to protect their negotiations with the developer, or talks between the developer and the project's potential tenants."
Read: We could've made it transparent, but then it wouldn't have been secret."Tax documents show that in 2003, [former Yonker's Mayor] Spencer's [20-something-year-old] brother-in-law, Chris Spring, had a $100,000-a-year job with the corporation, but a storm of protest followed and by 2004 he was on the developer's [Bruce Ratner] payroll instead.
No worries, they moved the gravy train from the quasi-public sector to the private sector where it belongs.
NoLandGrab: So many questions have arisen out of the Ridge Hill Development Corporation that a lawsuit is in the works and it is attracting scrutiny from the State Comptroller's Office and Legislature. This may all ultimately have bearing on the Local Development Corporations that Mayor Bloomberg favors for handling big projects in the City like the West Side Stadium and Atlantic Yards.
Oh, and The NY Times once again failed to disclose their existing business relationship with Forest City Ratner.
article
Also, The Journal News,Ridge Hill records to be open in Yonkers
An Agency to Answer a City's Prayers, but Not All Its Questions
By MICHAEL SLACKMAN
For three years, it has been recommended as just the shot in the arm Yonkers needs: a plan to develop 84 acres of state-owned land along the New York State Thruway into a complex of offices, apartments, shops and a hotel that backers say will create thousands of jobs and produce more than $50 million in tax revenue for that beleaguered city.
But now the project is taking shots, not giving them. Criticism is raining down on the agency that was created to make the miracle happen: the Ridge Hill Development Corporation, a private, nonprofit group that opponents say appears to have been set up as a haven where friends of current and former politicians can find high-paying jobs and wield huge sums of money.
Some local officials and community leaders complain that the agency, a local development corporation, would have legal control of the tract and hundreds of millions of dollars in rent that the land will generate, yet is not answerable to voters or elected officials.
The corporation appoints its own board of directors and can keep many of its deliberations and activities secret, and while it is required to pursue economic development activities in Yonkers, it will have near-total say over how it spends the more than $6.5 million in rent it is expected to receive annually over 70 years if the project is completed.
The agency has come under so much pressure that on Friday its board of directors voted to make its records available to the public and to give quarterly reports to the mayor - though it could rescind that decision at any time.
Critics say the situation is a local version of a phenomenon playing out across the state: the creation of more than a hundred similar quasi-governmental agencies that engineer lucrative deals, often without the oversight or accountability required of most government bodies.
Many communities work with such agencies as a way to lure developers through tax or financing advantages, and to provide liability protection. In recent months several of these agencies have come under fire - from the local development corporation that Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has proposed using to help build a stadium on the West Side of Manhattan, to state authorities like the Canal Corporation, which sold valuable development rights along the Erie Canal for $30,000.
The state comptroller's office has said it plans a review of other, similar types of agencies that conduct economic development activities around the state, called industrial development agencies. (One of them, in fact, set up the Ridge Hill corporation.) And one state lawmaker, Assemblyman Richard L. Brodsky, said he plans to introduce legislation to make these economic development agencies more accountable.
"The Yonkers deal is the poster child for what is wrong" with the agencies, said Mr. Brodsky, a Westchester Democrat who is chairman of the Assembly Committee on Corporations, Authorities and Commissions. "They are being used to systematically avoid scrutiny, legislative and budgetary checks and balances and to evade worker protections, environmental and other social legislation."
The Ridge Hill corporation was created in 2000 by the Yonkers Industrial Development Agency to develop a site that has been the focus of the city's hopes and disappointments since the state granted a 99-year lease to a manufacturer in 1979, hoping to create thousands of jobs. When the jobs did not come, the corporation bought the remainder of the lease and signed a developer, Forest City Ratner, to build the complex, the Ridge Hill Village Center.
By creating the Ridge Hill corporation, the development agency said it sought to protect itself and the city from any liability in case the project fell through. "The board felt that we should be isolated from any litigation that might prevent us from doing our work," said Ed Sheeran, the agency's executive director.
Some state officials said, and a lawyer for Ridge Hill confirmed, that the corporation could have been set up to be accountable to elected officials, and covered by the state's open meetings laws. But Ridge Hill officials said that initially they wanted to keep everything secret to protect their negotiations with the developer, or talks between the developer and the project's potential tenants.
Another major reason for creating the corporation was ensuring the very independence that Ridge Hill's critics find so disturbing, the corporation's lawyer said.
"The business people were allowed to do what was good for the city, and politicians were kept out of the process," said the lawyer, Dennis Lynch. The Yonkers project, he said, stands to be successful because it is being guided by "experienced business people" rather than "politicians who are worried about one thing: the next elections." He said that if politicians were more involved, Ridge Hill would be run by "the usual hacks."
Yet the project's critics say that is exactly what has happened.
Some of the corporation's directors are allies of Mayor Philip A. Amicone and former Mayor John R. Spencer, and sit on the boards of at least two other local development corporations in Yonkers. Tax documents show that in 2003, Mr. Spencer's brother-in-law, Chris Spring, had a $100,000-a-year job with the corporation, but a storm of protest followed and by 2004 he was on the developer's payroll instead.
The corporation's role has created an unusual dynamic in Yonkers, where the Chamber of Commerce has emerged as an unlikely foe. The Chamber's charges of cronyism gained currency when it was disclosed that the corporation had paid a $10,000 bonus to Mr. Sheeran, director of the industrial development agency that created Ridge Hill, for helping to negotiate the purchase of the lease.
"Our concern is, is this a fiefdom being set up down the road for former politicians and their friends to enjoy, or is this really a great thing for the city?" said the Chamber's president, Kevin T. Cacace. "If this is a great thing for the city, they should have no objection to sunset the corporation and let all the money flow to the city." Mr. Lynch, the corporation's lawyer, said it is governed by federal and state laws, and must spend the rent money received on economic development in the city.
But one city councilman, John M. Murtagh, said that while that is true, the company is still not accountable to the public, and can decide for itself what constitutes economic development. When he asked last month for a copy of a lease between Ridge Hill and the developer, he said, the corporation did not comply, saying it assumed he would get to see it at some later point.
"I am a city councilman in Yonkers and a co-chairman of the Real Estate Committee, and it seems fairly outrageous to me they want me to vote on this and not show me the lease," Mr. Murtagh said.
The council, in fact, has obtained most of its information about the project from the developer, an official said. On Friday, the corporation's board approved the resolution that opened its records, though it did not provide details of how that would work.
"This is exactly what we were after," said Mayor Amicone, a key supporter of the project. "To open up the process, to eliminate all the misinformation out there."
The mayor tried to calm public concern last month by announcing that the corporation's board had promised $5 million a year for city schools. A lawyer for Ridge Hill acknowledged in an interview that the promise is not binding.
The project has moved slowly for a variety of reasons, including opposition by community groups that have expressed the fears that often surface over such a large project: concerns over parking, traffic congestion and burdens placed on local schools. The City Council has been weighing whether to change the zoning of the land to allow the complex's mix of housing and businesses.
But the largest obstacle has been misgivings about the role and power of the Ridge Hill corporation - issues that have been explored extensively over the years by The Journal News, a newspaper in Westchester County.
The matter has also raised anew another question that has been shadowing state officials: whether they are getting the best price for state assets. The state has offered to sell the land to Ridge Hill for $8.7 million, but the corporation's contract with Forest City Ratner would generate more than that in rent just in the first two years.
Bart Bush, deputy commissioner for real estate, real property management and development in the state's Office of General Services, said his agency had negotiated a fair price for the land, based on two appraisals. He said it is not the state's role to act as a developer, or to assume the accompanying financial liabilities. Besides, the sale is intended not as a short-term moneymaker, but as a long-term investment that will yield economic benefits for Yonkers and the state.
The sale requires the unanimous approval of the state's Public Authorities Control Board, and is scheduled to be on the agenda of the board's next meeting. But the Democrats in the State Assembly control one of the three voting seats, and have held off approval because of questions.
"Why should an asset be sold at less than market value to an L.D.C.?" Assemblyman Brodsky asked. "Why should it be sold to an L.D.C. which is not required to put the money back in the city that created it? Is the L.D.C. honestly and appropriately created and run?"
The office of the state comptroller, Alan G. Hevesi, deep into an audit of Yonkers's financial practices, said it planned soon to review the way industrial development agencies operate, prompted in part by the Ridge Hill deal. Mr. Hevesi's office did not comment on the Yonkers case because of its audit, but a spokesman said the agencies would be examined to see if their power to issue lucrative tax breaks has been "cost-effective and well managed."
"There must be accountability and transparency at all levels of state and local government," said the spokesman, Dan Weiller.
Posted by lumi at 4:01 PM
Blast from the Past
Familiar issues and faces abound as Ratner's completes his crossing to the darkside. James Stuckey still works for the city and Donna Hennes is not yet being quoted about how "fairly" she was treated by FCR.
Dare we imagine a world where: * DDDb's Dan Goldstein accepts a HUGE buyout and becomes a corporate shill? * Marty smiles for the camera during his "perp walk?" * Community Consulting's Brian Ketcham heads the DOT, fighting off desperately needed change? * Fans For Play's Scott Turner is an executive in the Nets' front office? * PICCED's Brad Lander becomes the new Jim Stuckey? * Fort Greene Association's Lucy Koteen is elected Borough President in a landslide victory over her opponent, Bruce Bender?
Posted by lumi at 10:11 AM
Arthur Miller’s Brooklyn Legacy
Brooklyn Rail
by Theodore Hamm
What imperils Brooklyn’s unique identity now is the same as what threatened it during [Willy Loman's] day: rampant overdevelopment. These days it’s stadiums, office towers, luxury high-rises, and big-box stores—a bland yet imposing vision, and in reality, a far from egalitarian one. Brooklyn, though, still has plenty of its own natural resources: its capacity to manufacture, its land, and its waterfront, and most of all, the underdeveloped talents of its working people. What Arthur Miller’s masterpiece reminds us is that in order to prevent the “deaths” of many more salesmen, Brooklyn needs to be its own borough.
Posted by lumi at 7:48 AM
March 20, 2005
Vanishing Vistas: Will the “borough of churches” become a borough of skyscrapers?
The Brooklynite — Spring 2005
By Francis Morrone
One reader called this article a "poignant love letter and call to action," -- another must read for Brooklynites.
Today, all agree that the Atlantic Yards neighborhood cries out for development. The question is what sort of development.
...this isn't really a fight about basketball or traffic or even eminent domain, but a battle over what Brooklyn wants to be.
Brooklyn neighborhoods have succeeded because they retain a scale and a style from an age when city development reached a stage of optimal habitability.
In 1929, the Williamsburgh Savings Bank moved its headquarters to a new 512-foot-high dome-topped skyscraper at the corner of Ashland Place and Hanson Place, near the busy Flatbush Avenue Terminal of the Long Island Railroad. This gem of a skyscraper was Brooklyn's tallest, though quite modest by Manhattan standards. No one expected that it would remain the tallest for long, or that it would stand for 75 years (and counting) in such isolation, with not another tall building near it. For many years, at least since the Brooklyn Academy of Music opened its new building on Lafayette Avenue in 1908, Brooklynites had expected that this corner of Fort Greene would eventually emerge as the borough's new downtown.
It didn't happen. The stock market crash and the Depression were partly responsible. So too were the demographic changes that followed World War II. Since then, this area surrounding the Atlantic Avenue railroad cut has been one of Brooklyn's problem children. A succession of publicly sponsored efforts has failed to render urbanity out of a chaos of empty spaces that have created a classic example of what Jane Jacobs, in her landmark 1961 book The Death and Life of Great American Cities, called “border vacuums.”
Today, all agree that the Atlantic Yards neighborhood cries out for development. The question is what sort of development.
Bruce Ratner has one idea. As we all know by now, the developer plans to build a 20,000-seat Frank Gehry-designed basketball arena for his NBA franchise, the Nets, over the Atlantic rail yards, adjacent to his Atlantic Center and Atlantic Terminal shopping malls. The arena, of course, is to be but a relatively small part of a vast apartment and office complex. One of the buildings will rise higher—by 108 feet—than the nearby Williamsburgh Savings Bank Building. Three other office buildings and thirteen apartment buildings will range in height from 110 to 452 feet in height.
Those who support Ratner’s plan do so out of excitement at the return of a major sports franchise to Brooklyn, admiration for Frank Gehry’s architecture, or a desire to see something—especially something with a little newsworthy pizzazz—grow on that forlorn site. Opponents counter with criticisms of the likely use of eminent domain and concerns about gentrification, the displacement of residents and businesses, and increased traffic in a neighborhood where automobile traffic is already as bad as any to be found in the city.
Pro or con, though, this isn't really a fight about basketball or traffic or even eminent domain, but a battle over what Brooklyn wants to be.
For Ratner, as for many city officials, the proximity to Manhattan of downtown Brooklyn suggests that it serve as an extension of Manhattan. The September 11 attacks exacerbated an already-existing trend of corporations moving their back-office operations outside of Manhattan. A major beneficiary has been Jersey City, which in just a few years has acquired a high-rise skyline vastly more imposing than that of Brooklyn. But every defection to Jersey City means lost tax revenue to New York. Why, city officials ask, can't these offices go to Brooklyn? (Perhaps critics who charge that the city and private developers wish to “Manhattanize” Brooklyn should instead be speaking of its “Jersey City-ization.”)
So it is with other development proposals or prospects that have made Brooklyn the hottest urban development location in the United States. The Bloomberg administration backs the redevelopment of the Greenpoint and Williamsburg waterfronts with high-rise luxury housing and waterfront esplanades. It also backed the rezoning of the heart of downtown Brooklyn so that office skyscrapers can be built to appeal, like those of nearby MetroTech Center, to Manhattan corporations that might otherwise shift operations to New Jersey or some other place outside the city. And Fourth Avenue, on the edge of increasingly chic Park Slope, has recently been rezoned for high-rise apartment construction.
In essence, the administration, to satisfy the city’s hunger for additional housing and office space, wants to give developers license to radically transform vast swaths of Brooklyn. The resulting construction would replace the borough’s European-scale skyline—in many areas still punctuated by Victorian-era church spires—with walls of high-rise buildings.
One can readily understand why the city promotes such a vision for Brooklyn. But one must also understand why some of us feel that these rezoning and rebuilding schemes may in fact destroy the ways in which Brooklyn might most benefit the city as a whole.
Recent decades have seen many old Brooklyn neighborhoods rise from the brink of doom. In many cities—indeed in parts of Brooklyn—post-World War II urban disinvestment by lending institutions led to widespread neighborhood decay followed by massive programs of government-sponsored demolition and rebuilding in accord with the most advanced ideas of the putative experts in government and academia. Two areas in or near downtown Brooklyn succumbed to these fashionable notions of “urban renewal.” Much of downtown Fulton Street and other streets yielded to the vast open space and high-rises of Cadman Plaza. And the Atlantic Yards themselves are within the large Atlantic Terminal Urban Renewal Area. The city displaced the old Fort Greene Meat Market and the handsome old Flatbush Avenue Terminal of the Long Island Railroad so as to create a blank slate for prodigious new building in the area, contributing to the void we see today.
Yet radiating out from the downtown core are neighborhoods of a type that in other cities fell to “urban renewal” but that in Brooklyn were spared. Neighborhoods like Brooklyn Heights, Cobble Hill, Carroll Gardens, Fort Greene, Boerum Hill, and Park Slope made it intact through the 1950s when they were most imperiled by government-sponsored rebuilding. They also for many years were spared the attentions of private developers, who at the time had no interest in Brooklyn. And they benefited from “historic district” designation by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission. These splendidly intact 19th-century neighborhoods’ physical attractiveness made them ripe for gentrification, and their revival has been an urban success story of national import.
The irony is that by being spared rebuilding, these neighborhoods have flourished. As a result, they have attracted the interest of developers, who not only had nothing to do with the neighborhoods’ revival, but whose prior lack of interest actually helped them to flourish in the first place.
Today, private developers are zeroing in on the peripheries of the historic districts and on neighborhoods that have as yet been undesignated. Atlantic Yards is an excellent case in point, as it straddles the boundaries of several beautiful 19th-century neighborhoods that have become boiling-hot real-estate markets.
Clearly, the Atlantic Yards area needs development. The proposals on the table, however, beg the question of whether Brooklyn’s urban success stories have taught us anything at all, or just paved the way for thoughtless mega-development. Jane Jacobs coined the phrase “cataclysmic money.” Disinvestment is bad. So is over-investment. And it seems that in some parts of Brooklyn we may be going from the one to the other.
Brooklyn neighborhoods have succeeded because they retain a scale and a style from an age when city development reached a stage of optimal habitability. Such neighborhoods are exceedingly hard to find in urban America today. These Brooklyn neighborhoods are not only a New York treasure but a national treasure of preserved, human-scale places. Developing their interstices with mega-projects like the Atlantic Yards proposal would destroy the scale of neighborhoods that would, as a result, be edged and hemmed by phalanxes of outsize buildings. Only the crudest short-term cost accounting could possibly justify playing so fast and loose with these treasures of comely urban form.
Yet at the same time, we do need to improve these intervals between neighborhoods and do away with the border vacuums. Incremental redevelopment, of a more modest scale, may lack luster in this age in which many architects and planners have swung back from the influence of Jane Jacobs to reembrace the values of an earlier generation that venerated Le Corbusier and his notions of towers and open spaces sweeping aside the shopworn vestiges of earlier periods of urban development. But for many, incremental redevelopment seems appropriate in Brooklyn—which has fought back from the brink to provide models for urban America, not of vast projects of wholesale transformation, but of rehabilitation and the tender loving care of the sorts of neighborhoods and places that we spent so many years trying to destroy.
Francis Morrone writes the “About New York” column for The New York Sun. He is the author of An Architectural Guidebook to Brooklyn and co-author, with Judith Stonehill, of Brooklyn: A Journey Through the City of Dreams.
This article was originally published in The Brooklynite magazine (www.thebrooklynite.com).
Reprinted with permission. All rights reserved.
Posted by lumi at 6:31 AM
March 18, 2005
Shaya defies Ratner, moves ahead with Atlantic Yards hotel
The Brooklyn Papers tells the tale of dueling developers. Get your banjos out.
A developer is moving forward with plans to build a hotel smack-dab in the middle of Bruce Ratner’s proposed Atlantic Yards site.
Posted by amy at 11:05 PM
UNITY Loves Company: Ratner’s Limbo Provides Momentum for Alternate Proposal
Brooklyn Rail:
According to a recent New York Times article, Brooklyn developer (and New Jersey Nets owner) Bruce Ratner is trying “to elevate his knowledge of basketball…[by playing] the NBA Live video game on his computer.” One has to wonder if he similarly elevates his knowledge of urban development by playing the popular computer game SimCity, in which the click of a mouse can bulldoze any unwanted buildings to make way for anything the player wants to put in their place.
While the Ratner's plan waits for the MTA to get its act together over the Hudson Railyards, the UNITY plan is being presented to local community groups.
Posted by lumi at 6:42 AM
March 17, 2005
Big Projects and Bad News
Gotham Gazette: Tom Angotti is concerned about what opposition to several large-scale developments will leave in its wake. Neighborhoods will still be vunerable to NYC's procrastination with rezoning, and box stores like BJs and Wal-Mart will be more savvy when they take another bite of the Apple.
Too many giant projects are driven by corporate developers that have rigid business plans and suburban-style designs, and at best buy off potential opposition with meaningless promises and palliatives. How about having community plans that incorporate the kind of new development that’s needed? Let the giants conform to our rules if they want to play in our ballfield. That way New Yorkers and not the Nets can control their destiny.
Posted by lumi at 7:14 AM
March 14, 2005
Coney Island property a hot commodity
The Brooklyn Papers: Coney Island revialization is right around the corner.
Members of the Coney Island Development Corporation (CIDC), the group charged with reinvigorating the area, expect to release a draft of their plans within months.
HYPE ALERT:
Ratner reps' and Markowitz's mantra that the Atlanatic Terminal transportation hub is the best site for a new Nets arena in Brooklyn has quelled talk that Coney Island would be a better (read below, "BUILD THE ARENA IN CONEY ISLAND).
Could the real reason be that Ratner owns all of the recently developed commercial property adjacent to the site? Na-a-a-aw!
Posted by lumi at 9:03 AM
BUILD THE ARENA IN CONEY ISLAND
Olympic and Transporation expert Brian Hatch's overview on why Coney Island is a better site for a new Nets Arena than Prospect Heights/Atlantic Terminal:
Coney Island was designed from its very inception to handle large crowds, and is the best location for an arena.
Coney Island has superior transit infrastructure to Prospect Heights. While the Atlantic Avenue & Flatbush area has many subways, they are mid-line at this location. Platforms could repeatedly overflow before a train arrives in the course of traversing its cross-city route. At Coney Island, four lines terminate at the enormous Stillwell Avenue terminal, the largest subway station in the world. This configuration allows crowds to board up to eight waiting trains of the Brighton (Q), Culver (F), Sea Beach (N) and West End (D) lines. The Brighton express (B) and former Sea Beach express (old "NX") lines can also be extended to this terminal to increase service to six lines, and provide two express services to more distant points of the city.
Being a terminal station, trains can safely and efficiently depart as soon as they fill up, then get quickly replaced by waiting trains from the adjoining Coney Island yard, the largest in the system.
Unlike Prospect Heights, Coney Island has the Belt Parkway going right by the site, providing far superior vehicle access than the choked Atlantic and Flatbush intersection.
Posted by lumi at 8:28 AM
March 10, 2005
Shaya Boymelgreen to build hotel in Bruce Ratner New York project
Globes, Israel's Business Arena:
The New York “Daily News” recently reported that Shaya Boymelgreen was planning to build a hotel in the center of the $2.5 billion Brooklyn Atlantic Yards project being constructed by US real estate tycoon Bruce Ratner.
Posted by lumi at 6:58 AM
March 9, 2005
Arena foes: Where do Dem bigs stand?
NY Daily News
By Hugh Son
Where do the Democratic Mayoral candidates stand on Ratner's arena plans?
Despite the similarities between the West Side Stadium and Ratner's arena project (see DIRTY LAUNDRY LIST), Miller and Weiner have stated lukewarm support, while Ferrer and Fields have stated lukewarm opposition.
"They all need to get off the fence and take a firm position by looking deeply into the details of this project," said Daniel Goldstein of the anti-arena group Develop - Don't Destroy Brooklyn.
The group sent candidates letters this week demanding they oppose the Ratner project on the same grounds they oppose the West Side development.
Posted by lumi at 6:57 AM
DIRTY LAUNDRY LIST
West Side Stadium & Nets Arena Comparison
Now that the MOU has been released and more details about Ratner's plan have emerged the list of issues tied to the West Side Stadium controversy have become clearer. Here's NoLandGrab's Dirty Laundry List so that you can tell your friends why they should scrap Ratner's arena along with the West Side Stadium.
DIRTY LAUNDRY LIST
- MTA sale of public land must go to highest bidder
- Taxpayer financing ($300 million and $100 million for the Stadium and Arena, respectively, while slashing $1.3 BILLION from schools)
- No legislative oversight (no local review & no legislative approval of taxpayer financing)
- Bloomberg going to the mat for big business
Plus: Ratner wants to use eminent domain to displace residents and small businesses.
Posted by lumi at 6:06 AM
March 8, 2005
Bridging the gap
The next cool places to live
The Economist:
“Bridge and tunnel” used to be the Manhattanites' dismissive term for insufficiently stylish visitors to the island from further out. Now Brooklynites use the term too, and count themselves among the insiders.
NoLandGrab: Brooklynites wonder, how can the neighborhood Ratner proposes to eliminate be cool and blighted at the same time?
Posted by lumi at 7:30 AM
March 3, 2005
Rival elbowing in on Ratner
NY Daily News:
As Ratner's Atlantic Yards proposal seems to have stalled, rival developer Shaya Boymelgreen is "plowing ahead with plans" to convert a former bread factory in the footprint of the development proposal into a hotel. Boymelgreen is also working with another landowner, Henry Weinstein, to build office space and housing on more property sought by Ratner down the street. None of Ratner's dozen or so spokespersons would comment on Boymelgreen's plan.
Posted by lumi at 8:25 AM
Harlem residents express concern over rapid growth
Amsterdam News: City planners, residents and development interests met to discuss residents' concerns about zoning changes and redevelopment of 125th St.
Though no speakers at the meeting identified themselves with any of the numerous private development projects in the works for 125th Street, the River-to-River Advisory Committee does include corporations invested in the area including Columbia University and Forest City Ratner, a Manhattan based company who pioneered 125th Street retail with Harlem Center, a 126,000-square-foot property anchored with a CVS and Marshalls.
NoLandGrab: FCR is usually identified as a "Brooklyn-based company," in reference to "Metrodreck," Atlantic Yards, and even Yonker's Ridge Hill Village (yes, FCR wants to build a "village," like Gehry is looking forward to designing a "whole neighborhood from scratch."). FCR is headquartered in Brooklyn, where they have built most of their particular brand of blight.
Should residents in Harlem be taking a skeptical look at the composition of the River-to-River Advisorry Committee? Ask the West Harlem Business Group and DDDb.
Posted by lumi at 7:39 AM
February 24, 2005
QUALITY OF LIFE: NOT ABOUT SQUEEGIE MEN ANYMORE.
NY Press:
[Ratner's proposal] doesn't have to be a quality-of-life cataclysm for the neighborhoods of north Brooklyn. If locals would accept the possibility of an arena in their midst, the project could be used as a springboard for historic, once-in-a-generation quality-of-life improvements. Unfortunately, these issues aren't even being discussed. While jobs and housing advocates have seats at the table and are wringing all kinds of concessions out of FCR, the neighborhoods are locked out.
Naparstek has posted an unabridged version of his column on his web site.
NoLandGrab: To be fair, opponents haven't dismissed the idea of an arena. In fact the Atlantic Yards Development Workshop, from which the UNITY plan was borne, came up with alternative development plans that included the arena, but mitigated some of the negative impacts to the surrounding neighborhoods and taxpayer pocketbooks. These ideas were dismissed by FCR.
Posted by lumi at 7:52 AM
February 17, 2005
IT'S NOT ABOUT THE ARENA
NY Press, "OLYMPICS GO HOME": Part deux to Aaron Naparstek's column last week, "THE BROOKLYN RATS," where he took a hard look at Ratner's plan. This week he features the UNITY plan.
While FCR touts its ability to create jobs and affordable housing, [Urban Designer Marshall] Brown believes that the community can do better and expect more. "We can go beyond housing and build homes. We can go beyond jobs and build businesses and careers." Ultimately, this is the biggest innovation of the UNITY planóthe idea that those traditional political commodities, "jobs" and "housing," aren't enough. For hundreds of millions of dollars of public money, New Yorkers can expect more.
Posted by lumi at 7:19 AM
February 13, 2005
In Case a Jail Closes: Pursuing Ideas for a Gentler Future
From the New York Times:
The jail sits at the intersection of the Downtown Brooklyn, Boerum Hill and Cobble Hill neighborhoods, between the planned Brooklyn Bridge Park and Bruce Ratner's proposed arena. Marty Markowitz, borough president, thinks its redevelopment would unify the area. He said last week that the city should issue a request for proposals, to "see what ideas are out there."
Posted by amy at 10:48 AM
February 12, 2005
New Yorkers rally for affordable housing
From the People's Weekly World:
Housing activists charge that the mayor supports many real estate developments that benefit big business, but has aggravated the housing crisis for regular people.Reginald Bowman, representing Rep. Major Owens (D-N.Y.), told the World that housing plans must take into account the needs of community residents. Referring to plans of Ratner, a developer whose corporation is trying to redevelop downtown Brooklyn in a way that would force out many community residents, Bowman said Rep. Owens is supporting an alternative. “He is an advocate for making sure that the community has affordable housing and the kind of planning for neighborhoods that makes sure the working class and the poor always have some place to live.”
Posted by amy at 11:43 AM
February 10, 2005
HYPOCRITES
NY Post, Opinion Columnist, Steve Cuozzo:
THE New York Times is evidently unafraid to make an ass of it self if it can add even incrementally to the growing hysteria against the West Side stadium project.
Worse still are the Times' editorials against the stadium deal — which flagrantly ignore striking similarities to the Times' own recent purchase from the state of the land for its new Eighth Avenue headquarters.
Similarities between the Jets and the Times-Ratner deal are: * sweetheart land deal, * a litany of tax-breaks, and * lack of competitive bidding on the site.
NoLandGrab: If you added eminent domain abuse at taxpayers' expense to this list, then you would have the complete real-estate-developer playbook written by Forest City Ratner. Who can blame the Jets for stealing a few pages from the NYC Builder's Bible?
Posted by lumi at 7:53 AM
February 8, 2005
Atlantic Yards Development
The Brooklyn Daily Eagle: UNITY Plan presented at community meetings.
article
Atlantic Yards Development by Charles Sweeney (charles@brooklyneagle.net), published online 02-08-2005 PARK SLOPE -- Tonight, an old church in the heart of Park Slope will serve as the latest stop on the “tour of neighborhoods” undertaken by opponents of the Atlantic Yards development plan.
At tonight’s meeting at Old First Reformed Church on Seventh Avenue, the contentious issues surrounding Forest City Ratner’s (FCR) redevelopment plan will be aired and an alternate vision for the area will be presented.
Critics contend the FCR plan, if realized, would “destroy the character of the neighborhood, put a strain on the existing infrastructure, cause traffic problems and, with the considerable subsidies at the state and city level for the developers, engender huge taxpayer losses,” according to Jezra Kaye of Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn (DDDB), a group opposing FCR’s plan.
(See Borough President Marty Markowitz’s “State of the Borough” on page 4 for a different view of the arena controversy.)
Marshal Brown, an urban designer from Fort Greene who worked on the alternate plan said, “We’re not just interested in this particular site, we’re interested in using this as a model for how development can be done cooperatively by bringing everyone to the table in the beginning.”
Brown is critical not only of FCR’s plan for the site, but how the plan came about.
“There’s been no independent review,” Brown pointed out. “City planning has not done their job. The developer doesn’t even want to go through the Uniformed Land-Use Review Process (ULURP).”
He places the blame for this circumvention of checks and balances squarely on the shoulders of the city’s politicians. “The fact is it’s their responsibility to do their job to enforce the system,” Brown said. “I hope the mayor and the governor and the borough president are more responsible for the process. They need to say yes, we will go before ULURP, no we won’t allow eminent domain abuse for sports and entertainment uses.”
The alternative Unity Plan eliminates the sports arena and calls for a higher percentage of affordable housing, more green space and more storefront retail space. It’s (the arena) only 800,000 square feet,” Brown said. “The entire proposal is 7.6 million square feet. The arena is only 10 percent of the project. I call it a ‘Trojan Horse,’” Brown joked.
Brown will present the plan to the public in Park Slope himself. “Everyone should get something out of it,” he said of the proposed development.
Coalition of Groups Tours Areas
While this will not be the first time the Unity Plan will be presented to the public, supporters feel they have to reach out to as many people as possible if they hope to compete with the millions spent on public relations and lobbying by FCR.
The groups decided to tour the affected neighborhoods “to present to communities the changes that such large-scale development can bring,” according to Jezra Kaye, of DDDB. “Some people understand well, others are not noticing how deeply this will impact them.”
“This is our first time in Park Slope,” said Eric McClure, a spokesperson for Park Slope Neighbors (PSN). “This is an update for the people of the neighborhood, what the plans are.”
Asked about a recent announcement that FRC would be reducing the amount of office space in the current plan, adding more housing, PSN’s McClure was unimpressed.
“They might be doing that because they think it would be easier to fill,” he said. “They’ve had problems filling MetroTech.”
This second-guessing of motives and the general air of cynicism, while always a part of real estate development in the city in the past, seems to have reached a new level in the battle over the Atlantic Yards.
DDDB’s Kaye criticizes the lack of public input into a decision to turn public land over to a developer who she believes has shown little interest in neighborhood concerns.
On one side, Kaye sees the forces of the real-estate lobby with allies in Albany and City Hall; and on the other, ad-hoc groups like DDDB and PSN.
“This deal has been carefully crafted to insure that only three people need to approve it for it to go through,” Kaye said. “Governor Pataki, (NYS Assembly) Speaker Silver and the mayor.”
Kaye explained the process of handing over the development rights: “The MTA agrees to give up the rail yards, the Empire State Development Corporation takes control of the process and awards Ratner the development rights, and the mayor signs away rights of review.”
Study Critical of Ratner Plan
Does the Unity Plan really have a chance?
In light of the political wrangling required to get the project under way, what chance does an alternate plan have, even one put together by talented, well-meaning but otherwise under funded professionals donating their spare time?
Toward this end, Kaye points to an economic viability study released in June 2004.
The study was self-funded by a Jung Kim, a Ph.D. from Columbia University, and Gustav Peebles, a former city employee with a masters in economics from London School of Economics.
The results of the study question the contention that FCR’s development plan is economically viable.
In an executive summary, the study concludes, “In addition to the $449.34 million the city and state are giving outright to the project, the developer (FCR) will utilize the threat of eminent domain to obtain land that the developer could readily buy on the open market.”
It is this definition of “eminent domain” that critics contend has been misused.
Something Will Be Built
“It’s safe to say that someone will develop there,” Kaye said. “Not necessarily Ratner.”
Even the most ardent opponents of the plan believe that something will be developed at the location.
What they are fighting for is the kind of development they, as residents, will have to live with.
“I’ll say this,” Brown added. “I think the Atlantic Yards site might be the best single piece of coherent property in New York, with its relation to transportation infrastructure, the convergence of so many neighborhoods. Rather than selling the resources short, let’s invest in the city. We want to see something that would benefit the surrounding communities.”
The “Unity Plan” presentation for the Brooklyn Atlantic Yards takes place Monday, 7 p.m. at Old First Reformed Church, 126 Seventh Ave., near Carroll Street.
Posted by lumi at 4:12 PM
Ratner's now an L.E.S. memory
Ok, wrong Ratner, but maybe the Bruce could open up a Ratners in an FCR food court.
Posted by lumi at 6:13 AM
February 7, 2005
Standing by the stadium Critics use it to attack mayor, whose supporters say controversy overshadows his many economic successes
NY Newsday: As the Mayor has staked his political fortunes on the controversial West Side Stadium, other local issues and controversies have been eclipsed. Polling data sends mexed missages as the Mayor and critics point to public support for each of their positions.
Posted by lumi at 6:01 AM
February 4, 2005
The Deputy Mayor and the Olympics
WNYC: Read or listen online to Andrea Bernstein's series on how local developers curry favor with Deputy Mayor Dan Doctoroff by donating to NYC2012, the non-profit NYC Olympic bid committee set up by the Doctoroff. It's not illegal, and it works!
The Deputy Mayor and the Olympics
Condos Grow in Red Hook?
Posted by lumi at 5:45 PM
February 2, 2005
ZONED OUT: A cult of growth and the death of Brooklyn
NY Press: A must read for Brooklynites, by Brian Ketcham and son, Christoper Ketcham. The gridlock in Downtown Brooklyn, last Christmas Eve, is a prophecy of days to come, if comprehensive planning doesn't replace the development goldrush and stop-gap measures that are being doled out of the political feeding trough.
Also, in case you missed it: Christopher Ketcham's Harpers Magazine article (Dec, 2004) that shook the Brooklyn political machine and has incurred veiled threats from the DA's office.
Posted by lumi at 9:14 AM
January 31, 2005
Nets Arena Foes Offer Alternative For Ratner Site
The NY Sun:
Community groups opposing Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards development in Brooklyn are advancing an alternative proposal to develop the site. The "unity plan" calls for the development of the 11-acre rail yard but does not include a new home for the New Jersey Nets.
"The point of the unity plan is to elevate the discussion away from the arena and try to make it about real issues, such as the value of the Atlantic Yards to the community," the director of the Atlantic Yards Development Workshop, Marshall Brown, said. The workshop is the architecture group that designed the unity plan.
Posted by lumi at 7:26 AM
January 26, 2005
Secret city land deal a whopper
NY Daily News Exclusive: Mayor Mike, The Spin Doctoroff and the EDC dupes the City Council over secret land grab deal with Doctoroff's pal and former business partner Steve Ross.
When the City Council approved the massive Hudson Yards development project last week, it gave the Bloomberg administration permission to condemn and acquire several parcels of land on Manhattan's far West Side.
But the Council was never told the city had no intention of condemning the site.
The city had quietly decided last fall to sell it to one of this town's biggest real estate developers, Stephen Ross, for the price of a song: $100,000.
NoLandGrab: Business as usuall at City Hall. This article was published yesterday. A day later, the news media is too busy to follow up on stories of blatant corruption.
Posted by lumi at 9:21 AM
January 23, 2005
Just another building block. Local stadium plans never have the blight stuff.
The Daily News: A synopsis of seven stadium/arena proposals for Metro NY sports teams. The blurb on Ratner's Nets arena plans strives to be well-balanced but misses the mark by getting swept up in a couple of Ratner's PR lies.
Bruce Bender, executive vice president of Forest City Ratner, points to a smashed car window parked along Pacific St. and says, "This is the old Brooklyn."
NoLandGrab: Bruce Bender is an idiot - everyone knows that those cars with broken windows are put there by the police after they've towed them from accidents and joy ride abandonment. Why should he care to learn about the neighborhood that he's trying to destroy?
Posted by lumi at 11:53 AM
January 20, 2005
Rezoning creates B'klyn cyclone.
Investors buy into downtown frenzy; overheated market?
Crain's: The rezoning of Downtown Brooklyn, a nearby arts district in the works and Ratner's plans for mega-development in Prospect Heights is creating a feeding frenzy on available property as developers are driving up prices on commercial real estate. Where some see great potential upside, others worry about impending glut of commercial real estate in New York City.
By Steve Garmhausen Published on January 17, 2005
Last spring, it was just another gritty parking lot at Flatbush Avenue and Myrtle Avenue in downtown Brooklyn. Today, even $25 million isn't enough to buy the 25,000-square-foot parcel.
Welcome to the new downtown Brooklyn. Following a sweeping rezoning of the district in June, the area's property market has taken off, with developers and investors poised to build office towers, hotels and luxury condos, and willing to pay top dollar to do so.
"There's very little inventory, and guys are getting crazy numbers," says Bob Klein, a senior director at real estate brokerage Kalmon Dolgin whose client dropped out of the bidding for the parking lot when his $25 million offer came up short. According to Mr. Klein, the latest bidding was up to $31 million--more than $100 per buildable square foot.
City leaders pushed the higher-density rezoning to make the area a more vibrant commercial core and a magnet for businesses that might otherwise seek space out of town. They expect the changes to result in 4.5 million square feet of new office space within 10 years.
With an office vacancy rate of only 6%, according to Cushman & Wakefield Inc., the area is being scoured by investors for industrial buildings that can be replaced with offices. Prices for such treasures have risen about 30% since the rezoning, says Ralph Trionfo, president of Upside Ventures, a Manhattan-based real estate investment firm. "There are no existing office buildings, and these landlords know it," he says.
Money no object
Mr. Trionfo, who is mining the area for an office tower site on behalf of an investor group, says his clients are raring to go even with the rising prices. One reason is that offices in Brooklyn cost at least 25% less than comparable product in Manhattan, and are expected to remain a cheaper alternative despite the current bidding wars.
Another reason is that Manhattan companies want nearby backup offices on a separate power grid.
"I'll pay the price if I can find the right site," says Mr. Trionfo. "My guys are saying, `We're not going to wait for a tenant--we want to have product available.' "
For all of the interest in office space, there is at least as much buzz about residential development. The HSBC Bank tower and the Verizon building at MetroTech Center are generating strong interest from buyers who plan to convert them, at least in part, to luxury housing units. The Verizon tower is said to have drawn a recent bid of $68 million.
It's easy to understand why. Residential developers can sell condominiums at $525 a square foot, according to Mr. Klein, while Class A office space downtown might bring in $40 a square foot. That means it would take roughly more than a decade of office rents to earn the same return as a condo sale.
A hotel is also in the works in the neighborhood. Mr. Klein reports that a client bought a 15,000-square-foot plot at Willoughby and Bridge streets three months ago for a hotel that could be about 22 floors and 210,000 square feet. The Manhattan-based developer paid $9 million--a huge leap from the $2 million that Mr. Klein says the land was probably worth before the rezoning.
But the rezoning is not the only factor behind all the activity. Just outside the rezoned area, in Fort Greene, an arts district is being developed around the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Nearby, developer Bruce Ratner is moving ahead with his plan to build a residential and office complex around an arena for the Nets, which he acquired last year.
Architect Frank Gehry is designing the arena, and rising star Enrique Norten is designing a sleek arts library for the cultural district.
Will they come?
"I think developers are seeing that there is much more upside in Brooklyn than probably anywhere else in the city," says Cushman Executive Director Glenn Markman.
Of course, the deals could come back to bite those who make them if the tenants don't appear on cue. Some believe that the speculation is getting a bit overheated. As Mr. Klein says, "The question is whether you can fill up the buildings."
Posted by lumi at 7:31 AM
January 18, 2005
An Arena That Pencils Out?
New York Games: Brian Hatch from New York Games attempts to get to the bottom of where The NY Times got its numbers in last weekend's article ("Stadium Games: Give and Take and Speculation," January 16). Result: a brief synopsis of the conflicting cost estimates of Ratner's Nets arena.
Read NewYorkGames.org synopsis.
Posted by lumi at 8:04 PM
Take a fresh look at stale arguments over stadiums
Sports Business Journal, Op-ed, Nov 15, 2004: New York Games has posted commentary by Andrew Zimbalist, the sports venue economist whose Ratner-commissioned report stirred controversy and debate last year.
This Zimbalist statement from the op-ed piece is one of the arguments arena detractors cite in the face of the conclusions of Zimbalist's original cost/benefits analysis of the Nets arena:
"...if the goal is strictly economic development, building a stadium should always be compared to the best alternative use of the city's land and resources."
Read more at NewYorkGames.org.
Posted by lumi at 7:49 PM
January 11, 2005
Yesterday's Tenant Activist, Today's Landlord
The New York Times: Tenants in East Harlem are feeling confused and betrayed by ACORN as the housing activist group assumes the role of landlord.
Brooklynites are not clear as to what ACORN's role will be if Ratner manages to build the 4,500 units of new housing as a part of the arena complex. Apparently a deal has been cut for ACORN to determine the eligibility of applicants for the affordable housing units, but no details of any arrangement have been made public.
Posted by lumi at 9:31 PM
January 7, 2005
NYC communities fear superstore invasion
NY Newsday: While Ratner is proposing more large-scale commercial retail next to his Atlantic Terminal Mall (Target) and Atlantic Center Mall, New Yorkers debate the benenfits of box stores on our neighborhoods and small businesses.
Posted by lumi at 7:14 AM
January 4, 2005
Shaya eyeing hotel-condo in Ratner arena footprint
The Brooklyn Papers: The latest news on Boymelgreen's plan for redevelopment of 800 & 750 Pacific St. despite the fact that the land is in the footprint of Ratner's proposed development.
A five-story concrete warehouse on Pacific Street that has been empty since the former owner, a records storage company, moved out in August was plastered with large “Space Available” signs this week, advertising the property for lease through a broker.
In any other neighborhood an old warehouse going up for rent wouldn’t raise an eyebrow, but the building at 800 Pacific St. stands smack in the middle of a site proposed to be cleared for developer Bruce Ratner’s Atlantic Yards project.
Ratner wants to build a $2.5 billion complex of office skyscrapers, apartment highrises and a professional basketball arena on property bounded by Dean Street and Flatbush, Atlantic and Vanderbilt avenues.
The Brooklyn Papers revealed last month that the property at 800 Pacific St. is owned by Shaya Boymelgreen, a rising star in Brooklyn’s soaring real estate development community, who some sources suggest has an increasingly rocky relationship with Ratner.
Boymelgreen has posted on the Web site of a joint investor, Africa Israel, plans to turn the 250,000-square-foot former baked goods factory into 1.1 million square feet of luxury condominiums spread over seven parcels of land. The condo, on a lot bounded by Vanderbilt and Carlton avenues, between Pacific and Dean streets, would be similar to Newswalk, one block down at 700 Pacific St., which Boymelgreen also converted.
Henry Weinstein, who owns adjacent land leased by Boymelgreen at 750 Pacific St., thinks the property going on the market brings the luxury housing plan one step closer to happening.
To get a zoning variance that would allow Boymelgreen to build in the manufacturing district he would have to offer proof that he was unable to lease to a manufacturer or other commercial use acceptable within the current zoning restrictions.
A spokeswoman for Leviev Boymelgreen shared what she said her company thought of as “ideal” uses for the site: either a chain hotel or office space.
The spokeswoman, Sara Mirski, director of development for Leviev Boymelgreen, said the 800 Pacific St. project is still in a “pre-development phase,” and the developer was trying to figure what could work before applying for a zoning change or variance.
“We believe that a national hotel chain servicing the brownstone Brooklyn community and Downtown Brooklyn, or office-commercial space would be the most ideal permitted uses,” said Mirski.
Boymelgreen, who is building a combination boutique hotel and luxury condo high-rise at Atlantic Avenue and Smith Street in Boerum Hill, has invested more than $1.5 billion into the development of downtown Miami, many of which included hotel projects.
“We are hopeful that the highest and best use for the site will be determined within the next six months,” said Mirski, adding that a new tenant “ideally would be one user” not a group that would divide the space.
And if Ratner succeeds in his bid to seize the land within the footprint by having the state deem it blighted? Mirski reassured that provisions would be made with the tenant for a dissolution or transfer of the lease if that should happen.
Through a spokeswoman, Forest City Ratner declined to comment for this story.
“I think that is probably driving Ratner nuts,” said Patti Hagan, a vocal anti-Atlantic Yards activist, who noticed the new space available signs in her neighborhood.
“I think [Shaya Boymelgreen] is probably ultimately planning to do a residential conversion similar to what he did with the Daily News [Newswalk] building,” she said.
“If it needs to go through the hotel phase before it can be straight residential, that’s OK with me.”
Asked how a national hotel development would fit in, Hagan said, “That would be OK. Right now all we have in the neighborhood is the little bed and breakfasts, but that’s all, unless you want to put people down in the Marriott [on Adams Street near Metrotech]."
Posted by lumi at 8:24 AM
December 27, 2004
POWER BROKERS
Community groups seek inside track to Ratner bucks
The Brooklyn Papers:
Members of both BUILD (Brooklyn United for Innovative Local Development) and the New York chapter of ACORN (Alliance of Community Organizations for Reform Now) — which both support the Forest City Ratner plan — say they are already providing to the developer services for which they could later be hired, acting as community gateways to jobs and housing.
Posted by lumi at 9:11 AM
December 24, 2004
Yard Battle: UNITY vs. FCRC
Brooklyn Downtown Star:
Until recently, one of Ratner's best arguments for moving forward with his mammoth vision was the lack of coherent alternatives. Marshall Brown and his political patrons are currently working overtime to change that. The UNITY plan, designed by Brown and sponsored by City Council Member Letitia James and State Senator Velmanette Montgomery, has recently been making the rounds of press conferences, workshops, and community meetings.
Last Wednesday was the first time Brown got a chance to present his baby, formally, to a community board. "This is not a done deal," he immediately informed the Land Use Committee, speaking of Ratner's plans. "There are better options for this site and this is one of them."
Brown's UNITY Plan proposes: * no eminent domain condemnation * average height of buildings, 10 stories * no buildings over 17 stories * build on 11 acres, not 24 * no street closings * adding streets to "stich" neighborhoods together * more retail space
Check out the details in the article.
Posted by lumi at 8:05 AM
December 19, 2004
Mike Lupica: Shooting from the lip
Lupica on the "other" land grab:
Only an MTA as weak as the one we have at the present time would roll over this way for the Bloomberg-Doctoroff land grab on the West Side.
You know the land grab I mean.
The one where Bloomberg and Doctoroff - rich guys both - take care of other rich guys like Woody Johnson and try to build a new football stadium for Johnson while playing the whole town for suckers.
And not a single politician from Albany to the Henry Hudson Parkway has the guts to stand up to a mayor who still doesn't have an approval rating of even 50%.
Posted by lumi at 9:10 AM
December 17, 2004
Washington DC Council rejects MBL financing scheme
The Washington DC City Council narrowly approved the plan to build a ballpark for the Montreal Expos. The ammended plan called 50% of the stadium costs to be privately financed, which MLB has rejected.
The New York Times: "Baseball Rejects Terms for Washington Stadium"
Field of Schemes: "Whither Youppi?: The sequel"
The DC case has been watched with interest by Atlantic Yards activists because of it would require public financing and condemnation by private property by eminent domain, all this fuss for promises of jobs and economic development (familiar arguments to Brooklynites).
These recent developments in DC are interesting because it illustrates the increasing public backlash against stadium/arena deals that never make good on their promises. Politicians are beginning to react to increased public scrutiny of these sweetheart deals. Remember to WRITE YOUR REPRESENTATIVE.
Posted by lumi at 8:43 AM
December 14, 2004
Neighborhood Residents Divided Over Shopping Mall
Gotham Gazette: Community Gazette for District 35:
Ratner's malls have transformed the neighborhood, but what do chain stores & lack of parking this mean to the small business owners.
Posted by lumi at 8:19 AM
Box Stores in Brooklyn
Bruce Ratner has brought you box stores and national chains. Are box stores coming to a neighborhood near you and what are the consequences?
Gotham Gazette: "Shopping in the City"
The Brooklyn Daily Eagle: "Target Keeps An Eye on Competition in Brooklyn"
Posted by lumi at 8:01 AM
December 11, 2004
The Defiant One: Art store in arena footprint expands
The Brooklyn Papers calls Simon Liu a "maverick" for opening an art store in the proposed footprint.
You can see more pictures of Simon's woodworking shop here.
Posted by amy at 2:41 PM
November 30, 2004
A stadium battle grows in Brooklyn
Metro: The headline is misleading. Though the it mentions a "battle" the article is about how neighbors of the arena feel like there is little hope of fighting off the arena, and ends with a Jim Stuckey "housing, jobs and hope" quote.
Posted by lumi at 12:47 PM
November 27, 2004
The Times' Sweetheart Deal: The paper gets huge subsidy, then sells old headquarters building for a huge profit
The Village Voice
"The New York Times Company's sale this month of its 43rd Street headquarters at least doubled the profit its executives predicted when they prodded city and state officials for tens of millions of dollars in tax breaks to build a new office tower, records show."
The total cost to taxpayers for the new Times headquarters will be unknown until the cost of the "state condemnation of land on behalf of the Times," has been finalized:
"The deal calls for the Times to get $26.1 million in tax breaks, but the real price for the public depends on the additional cost for the land. Under the deal, the Times and Forest City will buy the property, but get money back from the city for any costs above $85.6 million. They'll do that by deducting the money from payments that substitute for property taxes."
City and State officials from agencies who negotiated the deal with the Times said that the terms would not be revised in light of the jackpot received for the old headquaters:
"Janel Patterson, spokeswoman for the city Economic Development Corp., noted that the city rejected Forest City Ratner's effort to reopen the deal to get low-cost Liberty Bonds financing. 'We stand by the original deal we reached with the company and the developer of its new building, Forest City Ratner,' she said. 'A deal is a deal.'"
Ok, "a deal is a deal." However, maybe The New York Times Company will consider using its windfall by adding NYC and New York State to their "Neediest Cases" campaign during these budget-busting belt-tightening developer-susidizing times.
Posted by lumi at 6:19 PM
DUELING DEVELOPERS: Boymelgreen’s plans put Ratner’s ’Yards’ in peril
The Brooklyn Papers:
The developer of the Newswalk building, Leviev Boymelgreen, and Pacific St. property owner, Henry Weinstein, have partnered on a plan to build market-rate housing with in the proposed footprint of Ratner's arena office-housing tower complex. This could throw a "monkey wrench" in Ratner's hopes to have the State use eminent domain to condemn private property he plans to build upon.
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Quotes from Pacific Street property owner, Herny Weinstein:
“I’ve lived here 30 years, and I don’t take kindly to people kicking me off my property.”
“The area’s doing very well without a stadium,” criticizing Ratner’s linkage of needed housing to a privately owned arena in order to seize property, “I don’t know why that stadium has anything to do with building houses.”
“We’re certainly not going to go away quietly, that’s for sure. We’re going to spend any amount of money to keep my property.”
Background: The issue of eminent domain became more complicated two weeks ago when Forest City Ratner (FCR) VP Jim Stuckey declared during Markowitz's Closed-Door Meeting: Part II, that the case pending in the US Supreme Court of Kelo v. New London does not apply to FCR's Atlantic Yards proposal because Ratner and NY State will seek to have the private property they seek declared as "blighted."
This a break from FCR's past strategy where the use of eminent domain would be in the public interest since any redevelopment would increase the tax base. Even Marty Markowitz admitted last month that the Supreme Court case "would make or break the plan."
This is also a break from Ratner's assurances that he would attempt to minimize the use of eminent domain by buying out the property owners* and asking architect Frank Gehry to redesign the site plan to save existing buildings**.
*5/8/2004, "Coalition cracking"
**4/3/2004, "Ratner, Gehry looking to scale back plans"
Posted by lumi at 8:44 AM
November 24, 2004
Zoning duo are part of city Olympic team
Conflict of Interest on the West Side:
"Two of the 10 city planning commissioners who voted for the city's West Side rezoning plan Monday sit on boards for NYC 2012, which needed passage of the plan to help its effort to secure the Olympics.
"Irwin Cantor, a planning commissioner and founder of a prominent engineering firm, is a member of the NYC 2012 facilities committee, and Kenneth Knuckles, the vice chair of the commission, is on the overall board."
Conflict of interest in Brooklyn:
"In August, it was reported that Planning Commissioner Dolly Williams was an investor in developer Bruce Ratner's $2.5-billion Nets arena project in Downtown Brooklyn. She had sat in on Planning Commission meetings on the proposal."
[emphasis added]
Posted by lumi at 7:37 AM
November 20, 2004
TROPHY TOWER: Williamsburgh’s close to a deal
The word is that the Williamsburg Savings Bank building is about to be sold to the Dermot Company who will convert it into luxury housing. There have been rumors for months that Ratner was interested in buying the building, but there are no indications that the Dermot Company is acting on behalf of Forest City Ratner.
Posted by lumi at 9:36 AM
November 19, 2004
Sports officials, under new governor, to review Meadowlands plans
Newsday:
"New Jersey's new acting governor has given state sports officials more leeway than his predecessor did when negotiating with professional teams to keep them from fleeing the state."
"New Jersey Sports & Exposition Authority Chairman, Carl “Goldberg said Codey asked him to strike a more conciliatory tone with the teams, and that he did just that in a recent 'productive conversation" with the Nets owner, developer Bruce Ratner, about extending the Nets' lease beyond the 2006-07 season if a Brooklyn arena is not built in time."
Remember, Ratner “isn’t as negative on the Meadowlands as some may think.” (Brooklyn Papers, October 30)
Posted by lumi at 1:15 PM
Gramercy Capital Corp. Announces Financing of Atlantic Yards Project
BusinessWire, Press Release:
"Gramercy Capital Corp. today announced it has originated a $40.5 million mortgage loan to two entities sponsored by Forest City Ratner Companies (FCRC). The loan permits FCRC to acquire various residential and commercial buildings in Brooklyn, New York. The bridge loan from Gramercy will be repaid prior to development of the arena. The City and State of New York have each publicly announced their support for the development plan. [emphasis added] Andrew Silberfein, Executive Vice President and Director of Finance for FCRC, stated, "Gramercy Capital Corp. became involved in this project in the earliest stages of the development and understood our business plan and vision in a way that traditional lenders could not."
It looks like Ratner has been forced to seek a "bridge loan" for the purchase of properties in the footprint from a non-traditional lender. On the heels of the Pace debacle and difficulty with raising money for the purchase of the NJ Nets, this release will add fuel to the rumors that Ratner has money problems.
The statement that the City and State have "publicly announced their support" is just plain wrong, since they haven't.
Posted by lumi at 8:07 AM
November 16, 2004
Area Businesses Fight Eminent Domain
New York Sun: Those who live or own businesses in the footprint of Ratner's proposed arena and 17-tower complex are not the only ones in New York City preparing for a civil rights battle over eminent domain abuse.
Columbia University is planning to expand its campus and may rely upon the New York City Economic Development Corporation to condem properties that they were unable to purchase directly.
Columbia's Journalism School students have covered this issue in the Daily Spectator. Wonder if the Law School is discussing the constitutionality of condeming private land for a private corporation.
Posted by lumi at 9:12 PM
November 15, 2004
HIGH LIFE IN B'KLYN TOWER
The New York Post: "The Williamsburg Bank Building, whose gold-topped clock tower crowns the borough's skyline, is in contract to be sold to the Dermot Co., sources said.
"The 512-foot, 34-story structure is likely to undergo an expensive conversion into more than 180 residential units. They are expected to go on the market in 2006."
There are those who object to Ratner's plan because it includes a 58-story high-rise tower which would dwarf the Williamsburg Savings Bank building and would become the new tallest building in Brooklyn. Nostalgia aside, nobody likes the idea of having the two tallest buildings in Brooklyn a block away from each other. Though scale has been much discussed, density is another concern.
Posted by lumi at 10:47 PM
March 13, 2004
Cruise Line Piers May Have As Much Impact as Downtown Plans
The Brooklyn Daily Eagle
By Dennis Holt
For weeks now, people have been tossing and turning, publicly and privately, over two major plans for Downtown Brooklyn: the Downtown Brooklyn Plan; and the project advanced by developer Bruce Ratner and architect Frank Gehry known as the Atlantic Yards.
Posted by lumi at 7:58 AM
March 10, 2004
Shining light on N.Y.'s Shadow Government
NY Daily News
New York has two governments: The familiar one that answers to the public every four years at election time, and another vast empire that operates in the bureaucratic shadowlands accountable to no one. This is the realm of the state's public authorities.
Posted by lumi at 9:27 AM
TROUBLE FOR NETS AS BEEP OKS NEW B'KLYN
NY Post
By Patrick Gallahue
Opponents of the arena have joined with those who stand to be displaced if the Downtown plan passes, launching a massive lobbying campaign against the idea.
UPDATE: This article is no longer available on NY Post online. The full text appears after the jump.
TROUBLE FOR NETS AS BEEP OKS NEW B'KLYN
By PATRICK GALLAHUE
March 10, 2004 -- The city's ambitious $100 million plan to build massive office and residential towers in Downtown Brooklyn got its first thumbs-up last night.
Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz approved the city's Downtown plan - but it's far from a sure thing.
The proposal has become embroiled in a related clash over a proposed arena for the NBA's Nets in neighboring Fort Greene - and this has led to new complications.
Developer Bruce Ratner bought the team and wants to bring them to Brooklyn.
Both plans involve using eminent domain - forcing owners of private property to sell out so government agencies can use the land - to clear out existing homes and businesses.
Opponents of the arena have joined with those who stand to be displaced if the Downtown plan passes, launching a massive lobbying campaign against the idea.
"The feeling is, these projects are tied together," said Heloise Gruneberg, president of Brooklyn Vision, one of the many groups founded to oppose both the Downtown and the arena plans.
"These plans impact one another," she added, stressing her group's major problems involve traffic concerns and eminent domain.
Markowitz - who also supports the arena - gave a thumbs-up to the Downtown plan.
But he set some conditions.
Among the changes he called for are:
Better subway service.
Residential permit parking.
A jitney loop connecting Downtown to ferries and public transit hubs.
He also raised the possibility of building a new subway tunnel to Manhattan.
Markowitz further suggested that corporate tenants in existing office buildings should give up some private parking spaces to city agencies, to reduce congestion.
Markowitz said he's happy with most aspects of the plan - which the city says will bring 8,000 construction jobs - and eventually 18,500 office jobs - to Downtown.
He expects local residents and businesses owned by minorities and women to be among the prime beneficiaries.
The plan, which was launched last year by city officials, would rezone swaths of Downtown Brooklyn to create an estimated 4.5 million square feet of office space and around 1,000 units of housing.
The proposal is intended to stem the flight of companies in need of affordable "back-office" space to New Jersey.
Markowitz has asked that 20 percent of the new housing be "affordable."
The crush of cars that the arena and the Downtown development project stand to attract has already prompted the city to undertake a new analysis of the traffic in the area.
The borough president's approval is the first favorable endorsement in the public review process. The local community board rejected the proposal last month.
Now the plan goes before the City Planning Commission. Should the commission pass it, the plan will go before the City Council.
The city plans to spend $100 million for several projects, including infrastructure improvements and transit upgrades.
Posted by lumi at 9:14 AM
March 7, 2004
New arena for build battle: Downtown park plan would oust dozens
NY Daily News
While a battle rages over the fate of several blocks in Prospect Heights where developer Bruce Ratner wants to build a home for his NBA Nets, another urban revival plan quietly inches closer to ousting dozens of downtown property owners.
Posted by lumi at 8:37 AM
March 6, 2004
EMINENT DOOM - targeted by Downtown Brooklyn Plan, they vow to fight
Brooklyn Papers
By Deborah Kolben
“It’s not just a business — it’s my life,” says Battista, whose father, Vito, a former assemblyman and political gadfly in the 1950s and ’60s, founded the architecture and construction school nearly 60 years ago for servicemen returning from World War II.
Posted by lumi at 8:29 AM
March 1, 2004
Thinking Big Again
Gotham Gazette's overview of the large-scale projects currently proposed. See the reference to NYC 2050 for a hint of the way a city's future can be imagined by its residents.
BASKETBALL ARENA IN BROOKLYN
This January, the real estate developer Bruce Ratner presented a plan to develop the area near Atlantic and Flatbush Avenues, centered on a basketball arena for the New Jersey Nets, a team which he now owns. The plan proposes 2.1 million square feet of commercial office space, 4.4 million square feet of mixed-income residences adding 4,500 homes to the area, and 300,000 square feet of retail for the 21-acre site on the intersection of Flatbush and Atlantic Avenues.Like the Ground Zero and Hudson Yards plans, Ratner’s plan uses architecture as a way to sell a larger development project. Frank Gehry, who designed the famous Guggenheim museum in Bilbao, Spain – and who also envisioned a huge museum on the waterfront in downtown Manhattan that was never built – drew up preliminary plans for a wavy, glass-and-metal building that looks nothing like a conventional stadium.
Sports arenas have the reputation of sucking up public money, rarely producing the promised payoffs. This one, though, has won the support of many local politicians. Even some who regularly criticize such projects said that this one has promise because of access to public transportation – nine subways and several commuter trains meet at the site.
"The numbers work," Mark Rosentraub, a sports economist who regularly criticizes sports arenas, told the New York Times. "You'll have the best arena in the country to service a market of more than 6.3 million people."
Such arguments have not convinced those who will be directly affected, and local residents and businesses are opposing the plan intensely, skeptical of the plausibility of its financial promises, and reluctant to make the sacrifice that Ratner is asking them to make.
The major controversy surrounding the plan is Ratner’s intention to condemn four city blocks, displacing up to 1,000 people and businesses providing 200 jobs. Some have suggested that Ratner instead raze Atlantic Center, a shopping center across the street which he owns, to avoid using eminent domain.
While some worry about the plan because they may have to find new places to live, others are concerned that the public will have little to say as this plan – still in its preliminary stages – moves forward. If land is condemened and placed under the control of the state - as the plan calls for - the arena itself would avoid the city's land use review process, the major opportunity for public input.
Posted by lumi at 7:43 AM
February 27, 2004
Home Expo, This Week, Comes at Time of Brooklyn Boom
Brooklyn Daily Eagle
By Dennis Holt
In just two months, since January 3, there have been 59 listings of housing purchases in Brooklyn, totaling $42,330,000. That is on a pace for a $250 million sales number this year, probably a record. This comes out to an average sales price of $717,491. The prices range from $170,000 to $3.7 million. And keep in mind, these numbers are drawn simply from what has been recorded by two newspapers — the New York Times and the Post — and there are probably many other transactions net recorded by them.
Brooklyn Heights comes in second with 7 listings totaling $3,673,000. Close on their heels is Prospect Heights, with four listings totaling $3,505,000."
Posted by lumi at 9:21 AM
Brooklyn Nets Arena Foes Ally with Manhattan Jets Opponents
See Some Elements in Common: Eminent Domain, Highrise Bldgs.
Brooklyn Daily Eagle
By Raanan Geberer
Although these are two separate cases, there are some similarities, such as the planned use of eminent domain to condemn some existing buildings, and the use of public money for construction.
Posted by lumi at 8:56 AM
The BHA and Brooklyn
The Brooklyn Eagle, Editorial
By Henrik Krogius
Where the BHA may be guessing wrong, however, is in the newslettter’s assertion that the Downtown Plan poses a more immediate impact than Bruce Ratner’s arena project.
Posted by lumi at 8:41 AM
February 14, 2004
Real estate brokers expect arena will up property values
Brooklyn Papers
By Deborah Kolben
While it is not a done deal — Ratner still needs a litany of approvals and faces a potential hurdle of lawsuits — property owners are busy speculating on how the 22-acre project with office towers reaching almost 60 stories tall might affect the selling prices of their homes.
Posted by lumi at 8:33 PM
January 31, 2004
NOT JUST NETS
Mapping the new Brooklyn
The Brooklyn Papers
It’s the most exciting Brooklyn news in five decades.
But Bruce Ratner’s plan to bring the New Jersey Nets to an arena he would build near the intersection of Atlantic and Flatbush avenues is miniscule in comparison to all the development planned for the greater Downtown and Brownstone Brooklyn areas. The arena is even dwarfed by the massive office and residential towers that Ratner plans to build immediately adjacent to it, towers that would substantially obscure the arena from the view of motorists on busy Flatbush Avenue.
The article gives a run-down of: * the "massive" Downtown Brooklyn Plan, * Park Slope's Fourth Ave. upzoning, * IKEA and the Piers, and * Brooklyn Bridge Park.
Advocates of the overlapping Downtown Brooklyn Plan and Atlantic Yards (which form one entity, only a tiny portion of which would house the Nets) want the projects discussed separately.
But only by considering jointly the imact of all the projects shown above can any of them be properly evaluated.
Posted by lumi at 7:01 AM