The Atlantic Yards Effect on Real Estate: Still Unknown

The Times has a story today that looks into how much money commercial property owners near the Barclays Center could stand to make when the arena opens in the fall, and landlords and brokers say it’s very much an unanswered question: “The owners of Triangle Sports, members of the Rosa and Shapiro families, and their broker, Geoffrey Bailey of TerraCRG, have not set a price for the property. Conditions in the area are changing so quickly, Mr. Bailey said, ‘that we prefer to let the market come to us.’ Indeed, among real estate professionals, the mood around the Barclays Center — the only part of the controversial Atlantic Yards project that has come to fruition — could best be described as optimistic uncertainty, as the arena’s opening event, a Jay-Z concert on Sept. 28, approaches.” The story includes fun tidbits like one owner opining that commercial landlords haven’t been letting tenants sign multi-year leases in case they’re able to get much more for their properties in the near future, and a quote from Michael Pintchik, who owns a lot of buildings near the arena, about how “his ground floor retail spaces have recently begun attracting interest from national retailers and Manhattan restaurateurs who, he said, had not considered Brooklyn locations before.” Pintchik also says he hopes to construct a new building nearby that he semi-seriously notes would work for an Apple store! Beyond all that, there are quotes from owners and developers about how the Barclays Center will give the nexus of Fort Greene, Park Slope, Prospect Heights and Boerum Hill an identity as a neighborhood in its own right. Meanwhile, a French hotelier is looking to build nearby: “Cyril Aouizerate, the owner of Mama Shelter, a stylish boutique hotel in the outlying 20th Arrondissement of Paris, said he was ’90 percent sure’ he would be opening a Mama Shelter at a site near the arena. Mr. Aouizerate said he had rejected neighborhoods like Williamsburg as ‘too bourgeois-bohème,’ in favor of the less established Boerum Hill area, where he is negotiating with property owners.” (As a side note, this is the first time we’ve ever heard Boerum Hill described as “less established” than Williamsburg, and we have no idea what that means.) All this talk of the potential of commercial real estate property aside, the article ends with a question that surely tie into the flavor of the retail that will be attractive to people in the area in the future: “[The recent sale of a warehouse near the arena] could also indicate that knowledgeable investors do not expect the residential part of the Atlantic Yards project to rise anytime soon. And that means that long after the Nets play their first game in the neighborhood, there will be a large hole in the arena’s backyard.”
In Barclays Center’s Shadow, Awaiting What’s Next [NY Times]