Ratner Puts Most of Atlantic Yards up for Sale
Shocking news from the New York Times today: Bruce Ratner is looking to sell as much as 80 percent of the as-yet-unbuilt portion of the controversial Atlantic Yards project. Real estate analysts quoted in the story spun the sale as business as usual (the story noted Forest City already sold a stake in the Nets…
Shocking news from the New York Times today: Bruce Ratner is looking to sell as much as 80 percent of the as-yet-unbuilt portion of the controversial Atlantic Yards project. Real estate analysts quoted in the story spun the sale as business as usual (the story noted Forest City already sold a stake in the Nets and Atlantic Center and brought in a development partner for the first tower.) The development, cited as worth about $5 billion in the story, will include 14 residential buildings with 6,000 units, all grouped near Barclays Center at the intersection of Atlantic and Flatbush avenues. So far, only Barclays Center has been completed, although work has started on the first residential tower. Barclays Center has garnered many accolades since it opened, but nonetheless the project “has had a long and tortured history,” said the Times. “Mr. Ratner first conceived of the development in 2003, when he sought to bring a major sports team to Brooklyn as a lever for a broader residential and commercial project. He received hundreds of millions of dollars in public cash and incentives. But after a long public review process, the developer was buffeted by a recession, community opposition and a weak market.” Forest City said it will continue to helm the project, and said the sale will help fund accelerated construction of several delayed buildings, which will include low-income units. Real estate company CBRE is marketing the investment. What do you think? Is this how Ratner rolls? Or is he getting out while the getting out is good?
To Enhance Atlantic Yards, a Plan to Sell a Big Part of It [NY Times]
Forest City’s Trying to Sell up to 80 Percent of Atlantic Yards [AYR]
Not sure why this is news.
A politically connected developer gets his City Hall/Albany cronies to [il]legally “blight” private land & give him the rest under market. He builds the only thing he really wanted – the Arena (to ENY’s point – a success it has been BRAVO!!!) , then he cashes in before he has to build the things he never really wanted to build. Now it’s someone Else’s problem. Brilliant.
not even close to what’s happening here. nice try
Barclay’s arena still the ugliest suburban eyesore in history of cities, built under false pretenses (real jobs, affordable housing), via back room deals, with public (taxpayer) subsidies.
i will never forget the so-called community meetings in the build up. If Tom Wolfe had written up those charades and put them into Bonfire of the Vanities, critics would have described them as far-fetched. . . . Imagine a bunch of fake black “activists” being literally paid by Ratner to shout-down as racist any white person who had the audacity to ask if Atlantic Yards was in the public interest and therefore worthy of knocking down peoples’ homes and giving an enormous parcel of land away for free to a private developer. It was incredible. “Jobs and Hoops!” they cried. Well, we got the hoops. (Have you checked out the ticket prices lately? No members of the working class going to those games, that’s for sure.) Not sure about the jobs. (Is selling popcorn for minimum wage three night a week for three hours a job?) Almost worse than the ACORN jokers were the white union guys/construction workers who lived nowhere near Brooklyn, screaming their heads off. I was going to vote for Bill de Blasio, but having heard that he supported Atlantic Yards I’m now not sure.
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As to the aesthetics of the arena, I must say that I walked around it with a friend last weekend, essentially for the first real amount of time and only from outside, but we were both quite impressed. I’m just going to say it: I really like it; I think it looks cool, interesting, and even modest, and is way more aesthetically pleasing than I could have imagined.
Is this legal?