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.
 |
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 mil