Brooklyn Bridge Park Financial Report

Activist group People for Green Space Foundation (PFGSF) claims the July financial report commissioned by the Brooklyn Bridge Park Corp. to demonstrate the need for two controversial revenue-generating apartment towers on Pier 6 is inaccurate and misleading.

PFGSF sent a letter to Brooklyn Bridge Park execs on November 3, arguing that economist Barbara Denham’s July report uses “bizarrely incorrect tax data” and is deliberately misleading in order to support the construction of two proposed towers at the Park’s south end, Pier 6, the Brooklyn Eagle reported.

The group points out that One Brooklyn Bridge Park — the residential building next to the proposed tower site — generates $7.78 per square foot in income for the BBP, according to data from the Department of Finance. But Denham’s report says that the building generates little more than half that amount, roughly $4 per square foot.

When the BBP report was released in July, Brownstoner found the Empire Stores income estimates particularly puzzling, and so does the PFGSF. The group contends that Denham used obsolete square footage numbers when estimating the potential rents at Empire Stores — leading to smaller income projections than is likely.

The group also notes that Denham’s choice of buildings for tax revenue comparison is flawed and “undermines the credibility of the analysis.” The 1907 building at 25 Joralemon Street, for example — just one story high and directly next to the BQE — has a value of just $1,500,000. This is low for the neighborhood when compared to newer construction.

Only through deceitful devaluation, PFGSF accuses, was the report able to serve the BBPC’s claims that the construction of Pier 6 is necessary to keep the park financially self-sustaining.

Brooklyn Bridge Park Financial Report

The city is breaking its promise, local activists accuse, of building the bare minimum of developments required to keep the park economically self-sufficient. The PFGSF analysis was conducted in part by a director of PFGSF, Henry Richmond, a financial analyst, said the Eagle.

You can read the full letter and its analysis in this PDF the group has published online.

The Brooklyn Bridge Park Corp. issued a statement standing behind Barbara Denham and her report, listing her former job experience as evidence of the report’s reliability.

The statement also notes that PFGSF’s director and a leading critic of Denham’s Report, Henry Richmond, owns a condo at One Brooklyn Bridge Park, and thus dismisses him as biased.

brooklyn-bridge-park-funding-bonds

ODA-designed towers proposed for Pier 6

[Source: Eagle | Photos: Barbara Eldredge | Rendering: via BBPC]

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What's Your Take? Leave a Comment

  1. The commitment to build “only so much housing than is needed to fund the park” was made in the GPP, and repeated in the first law suit brought by the BBP Defense Fund in 2006 – the BBP’s President testified in her affidavit in the court papers to this exact statement, and it was repeated in the Judge’s decision. Today the BBP Corp wants to remove the critical phrase regarding housing for the park’s “financial need” in the GPP. I think that says it all. They don’t need the funds to pay for the park. We need more park lands given all the new housing in the pipeline – even before the LICH development, 485 feet away, gets decided. We can regain 3.1 acres if we do not build these towers. Again, towers that are no longer needed to fund the park. So why build them?

  2. The commitment to build “only so much housing than is needed to fund the park” was made in the GPP, and repeated in the first law suit brought by the BBP Defense Fund in 2006 – the BBP’s President testified in her affidavit in the court papers to this exact statement, and it was repeated in the Judge’s decision. Today the BBP Corp wants to remove the critical phrase regarding housing for the park’s “financial need” in the GPP. I think that says it all. They don’t need the funds to pay for the park. We need more park lands given all the new housing in the pipeline – even before the LICH development, 485 feet away, gets decided. We can regain 3.1 acres if we do not build these towers. Again, towers that are no longer needed to fund the park. So why build them?

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