Atlantic Yards
May 5, 2008
Atlantic Yards or Atlantic Lots?
These past few days have been a big one for Atlantic Yards news. Saturday, hundreds of protesters led by three opposition groups and several politicians rallied at the Atlantic Yards footprint, calling for a halt to demolition until developer Forest City Ratner can provide details on its plans and assurances that it has the financing to see them through. They were met by a 50 percent larger group of counter-protesters, estimated Atlantic Yards Report blogger Norman Oder, who proceeded to comment on the ethnicity, neighborhood of residence and motivation of each one. On Sunday, Bruce Ratner penned an op-ed piece in the Daily News blaming construction delays on the project's "rigorous public review" and legal challenges waged by opponents. He said "the delays have pushed us into a time when the economy has slowed, and both financing and tenant commitments are more challenging to obtain. But contrary to rumors, large deals are still getting done, and in the past year alone we have closed on the two largest construction financing in our company's history, totaling over $1.3 billion. Atlantic Yards will be no different." Ratner said the company's first goal is to break ground on the Barclays Center (Nets basketball arena) this year, then the first residential building. "As for Miss Brooklyn, Frank Gehry's signature commercial tower, a targeted marketing campaign to identify an anchor tenant is currently underway. When that tenant is confirmed, we will finalize plans and start building," he wrote. He said the whole thing would be completed by 2018, which opponents called crazy talk.
Today, the New York Post obtained renderings commissioned by the Municipal Arts Society depicting how the project's footprint would look as economic woes stall its construction indefinitely. They name it "Atlantic Lots" after the sea of parking lots that surround the arena and lone tower the developer said he'd work on first. Ratner spokesman Loren Riegelhaupt responded, "Frankly, this is so far from anything even remotely resembling what we are building that it's not worth commenting on further." For one thing, he said, the developer would mostly likely plant trees (you know, temporarily) on that big grey slab surrounding the arena. Also today, the Daily News has an article proclaiming "Miss Brooklyn is slashed more than 100 feet in a massive redo" from 620 feet to 511 feet. That of course happened before the project was approved Dec. 2006, but the new model looks substantially different, "replaced by an asymmetrical design that rises like a spiraling Lego structure." State officials told the newspaper Miss Brooklyn would only have 650,000 square feet of office space and no condos or hotel. But a construction timetable for the project's signature tower was not given, and an anchor tenant still needs to be secured before it can ever get financing. They also unveiled that red building to the right of Miss Brooklyn, also a revised design. Technically, the Post and Daily News models are not competing visions, they just depict different stages of construction. As usual, the Atlantic Yards Report has a meticulous dissection of everything. And a Metro columnist says the city would be better off if the Nets just went to Newark.
Ratner: AY Dead? Dream On [Daily News]
The Future is 'Blight' [NY Post]
Atlantic Yards' Miss Brooklyn is Slashed [Daily News]
Opponents say Ratner's Time Line for AY is Pie in the Sky [Daily News]
Nets to Newark Could be a Blessing [Metro]
Bruce Ratner: Put Up or Shut Up! [Daily Gotham]
Not a Done Deal: “Time Out” Rally Met With Counter-Protest [Daily Gotham]
Original aerial photos in Municipal Arts Society models by Jonathan Barkey
May 1, 2008
New Lawsuit Filed Against ESDC Over AY Timeline
The Times reports that a lawsuit was filed in State Supreme Court on Wednesday alleging that the Empire State Development Corporation's agreement with Forest City Ratner that gives the developer 12 years to complete Phase 1 of Atlantic Yards violates eminent domain laws. The suit was brought on behalf of 13 tenants in the Atlantic Yards footprint who stand to be evicted via eminent domain and it makes the case that the 12-year time frame violates state eminent domain laws requiring that seized property be offered back to its former owner if it's not markedly improved within a decade. Phase 1 of Atlantic Yards is supposed to result in the construction of the Nets arena, office space, and some housing, while Phase 2 is slated to include most of its 6,000+ apartments, including the bulk of the 2,250 affordable units FCR has promised. “When you spend hundreds of millions of dollars in public money on something you know the developer is never in a position to deliver,” said the tenants' lawyer, “and government bodies take votes and appropriate hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer money, which is in short supply, based on the promise of affordable housing and jobs, and it’s not going to be built in the statutory 10 years, it’s really a fraud on the public.” The ESDC declined to comment on the lawsuit. Atlantic Yards Report points out, however, that when the ESDC approved the mega-project, it was supposed to take 10 years to build.
Delays in $4 Billion Development Challenged in Tenants’ Lawsuit [NY Times]
ESDC’s Long Leash on Phase 1 Provokes Lawsuit From Tenants [AY Report]
April 29, 2008
Q&A With Isabel Hill, "Brooklyn Matters" Filmmaker
On Thursday Cobble Hill Cinemas will host a free screening of "Brooklyn Matters," the documentary about Atlantic Yards. The film, which examines how Atlantic Yards came about and what the project's possible ramifications are, came out early last year and has been shown in a number of venues, including colleges and universities like Pratt and NYU. Isabel Hill, the director and producer of "Brooklyn Matters," talked to us about the movie's relevance now that Atlantic Yards is likely to be stalled and how audiences have reacted to her work. The main thrust of Hill's documentary is that Atlantic Yards has ignored decades-old urban planning wisdom and techniques. Hill worked as a planner for many years before making the film.
Now that you’ve been showing the documentary for a while, have you noticed a difference in audience reaction over time?
Hill:Yes, frankly, there does seem to be more outrage over the specific elements of this project. When I first started showing the film, I think many people were just surprised when they discovered the overwhelming scale of the many proposed skyscrapers. Most people initially understood the project to consist of a sports arena and a vague outline of other development. When they saw the monumental scale of the proposed buildings, most first-time viewers were incredulous. Also, when I first began showing the film, viewers were shocked at the ways this project circumvented public process and how project advocates manipulated public perception. Now, I think as people know more about Atlantic Yards, they are incensed when they see the film and more fully understand the drastic and long-lasting impacts of this proposal—a proposal we taxpayers are subsidizing. What I’ve seen is that the film consistently is a revelation to viewers whether they know nothing, little, or a lot about the project.
Is the documentary still as relevant now that Atlantic Yards faces delays?
Hill:"Brooklyn Matters" is even more relevant and important now than it was the day it was released. Markets have slowed the rate of progress on Atlantic Yards and allowed more and more people to study the project more closely. It is especially important that the new Paterson administration see the film during this time. In the past, many interested community leaders and residents felt side-lined by the fact that the real estate market was traveling so fast and furious. Atlantic Yards was marketed as a “done deal” and many believed it. Now that more and more people realize that the project is not a done deal, it is even more important to act. We can’t just sit back and see what happens here. This is an opportunity for our elected officials and citizens to rethink what should happen on this important public site—the Vanderbilt rail yards. There must be an outcry against Atlantic Yards, and the film is critical to reaching more and more people with this truth.
Did the finished movie differ much from the movie you set out to make?
Hill: Documentary filmmaking is a process. When you set out to make a documentary, you don’t know exactly where this great adventure will take you so there were things that evolved and changed over the course of making the film. But my frame of reference was always the same. I have worked as an urban planner in Brooklyn for over twenty years and it is through the lens of a planner that I viewed the Atlantic Yards project.
Images from Brooklyn Matters
April 15, 2008
De Blasio Blasts Ratner on AY Obfuscation
Last night Councilman Bill de Blasio held a meet-up for Brooklyn bloggers at which he spoke for a couple of hours about development topics including Atlantic Yards, rezonings, affordable housing, and what he'd like to accomplish if he's elected borough president. Like Gowanus Lounge, we were most interested in what de Blasio had to say about Atlantic Yards: The councilman said he thinks there should be no more demolitions in the Atlantic Yards footprint until Forest City Ratner puts its current plans for the project into writing. De Blasio said he was "livid" about the interview Bruce Ratner gave to the New York Times last month since the likely stall "calls the entire Community Benefits Agreement into question." The Councilman also said that he thinks the entire development should be reviewed again by the state if Forest City Ratner is now conceiving of a vastly different project, particularly one that reneges on its promised affordable housing. "I held out hope for the project because of the amount of affordable housing it would create, as well as the number of jobs it would bring," he said. "But I have been constantly disappointed in the lack of community involvement...I've never seen anything that's been mismanaged so fundamentally in terms of community involvement." The councilman also talked about the possible Coney Island and Gowanus rezonings. While he's not thrilled with either the city or Joe Sitt's possibly competing visions for the area ("I'm not comfortable with the Manhattanization of Brooklyn" that both plans represent), he says that "by and large" he likes Planning's draft framework for rezoning Gowanus because "the best way to get the canal clean is to get residential development around it." As borough president, de Blasio said he'd like to be involved with "shaping more than just promoting Brooklyn." In keeping with one of his primary platforms, affordable housing, de Blasio said he'd use the office to "start addressing the have-nots."
De Blasio Calls for Moratorium on Atlantic Yards Demolition [GL]
April 14, 2008
You Pay and the Nets Will Play
Forest City Ratner is poised to get $2,157,260,000 in tax subsidies for Atlantic Yards, according to an article in this morning's Post, but even that may not be enough dough from public coffers. In a conference call last week the firm's president told investors that the mega-development will "still need more" subsidies. Michael D.D. White, a real estate attorney who has criticized how Atlantic Yards is being financed, came up with a subsidy tally for the newspaper (reprinted on the jump). "The setup is basically like paying taxes on your home and then having the government use that money to help you pay off your mortgage," says White, who estimates that FCR will save $1 billion in tax payments that will go directly toward paying for the $950 million Nets arena. FCR spokesman Loren Riegelhaupt takes issue with White's tally, saying no subsidies are set in stone aside from $305 million from the state and city for infrastructure and land-acquisition costs. Riegelhaupt also says that the entire project is supposed to bring in $1 billion in net tax revenues over its first 30 years.
Your 'Net' Loss [NY Post]
Ratner Feasts on Public Subsidies [Brownstoner]
Photo of Nets billboard on Atlantic by threecee.
April 7, 2008
A Call for a Moratorium on AY Demolitions
In the wake of news that Atlantic Yards plans are stalled, the Dean Street Block Association (6th Avenue to Vanderbilt section) is asking the state to immediately halt demolitions on buildings in the project's footprint. The group sent a letter (copy on jump) to Governor Paterson and ESDC head Avi Schick requesting a temporary moratorium on the destruction of buildings on the project site, particularly those that are being torn down for the second phase of Atlantic Yards. At present, the Ward Bakery building is being demolished, and the group's letter says the "building is eligible for listing on the State and National Register of Historic Places." The occupied townhouses in the photo at left, above, are also slated to come down. The concluding paragraph of the letter notes, "Please implement a moratorium on demolition until such time that the communities surrounding Atlantic Yards can be assured that rational decisions are being made to protect the area from the blight associated by dormant sites, over-scaled inefficiently situated construction staging, and surface parking lots." This does indeed sound "rational." What sense does it make to tear down buildings—especially one as treasured as Ward Bakery—for a development that may never happen?
Endangered AY [Brownstoner]
Ward's Watch: Prepping By The Parapet [Brownstoner]
Photos by Tracy Collins.
Continue reading "A Call for a Moratorium on AY Demolitions"
April 4, 2008
'Angry' Anti-Ratner Protest at the Brooklyn Museum
Between 80 and 100 people showed up to a Develop Don't Destroy-organized protest outside the Brooklyn Museum last night, according to Atlantic Yards Report, to publicly decry the cultural institution's decision to honor Bruce Ratner at a gala. AY Report's Norman Oder says the protest "was notably angry," with some in the crowd holding up signs that said things like "Ratner is a liar" or calling the developer a "con artist" or proclaiming Atlantic Yards a "dung deal." In a separate post, Oder notes that the Forest City Ratner Companies Foundation gave the museum $100,000 in 2005 and another $100,000 in 2006; the foundation's donations from last year have not yet been disclosed. The gala last night cost from $500 to $1000+ a plate.
"Shame!" Crowd Outside Museum Shouts "Ratner's Bad for Brooklyn" {AY Report]
Photo by Brit in Brooklyn.
April 1, 2008
AY Owners, Renters File Eminent Domain Appeal
Eleven property owners and tenants within the Atlantic Yards footprint filed a petition yesterday asking the U.S. Supreme Court to hear their eminent domain case, nearing its 18th month in the judiciary system still without a trial. The case was dismissed twice by lower courts in developer Forest City Ratner's favor. Since news broke of the basketball arena and high-rise project's Dec. 19, 2009 kill-date (as long as Ratner stops pursuing litigation or construction matters), a lot of attention has been focused on the ticking clock rather than the people arguing beneath it. Now, about that legal case: In short, it seeks to clarify the Supreme Court's controversial Kelo v. New London decision in 2005, which allowed the Connecticut city to give a developer private property for the purpose of economic development. In that case, eminent domain was decided by a legislative body, whereas Atlantic Yards was voted on by three publicly accountable politicians, though it went through a lengthy review process. And lead attorney for the plaintiffs Matthew Brinckerhoff said Kelo's definition of public purpose was vague, leaving the average person vulnerable to having their property handed over to more influential citizens. They want the chance to vet that out more, and further investigate who Atlantic Yards was actually intended to benefit.
Forest City Ratner execs have long called lawsuits and appeals filed by project opponents "delay tactics" that deprive citizens benefits from the project's arena, affordable housing and jobs. And now Ratner has found himself in credit crunch territory, possibly delaying or killing key components of the project. Lead plaintiff Daniel Goldstein, who owns a condo in the arena footprint, said it's about their constitutional rights. But as far as the ticking clock, he said this is their last federal appeal, and he expects the court to decide whether to hear it this July. "If they don't take our case, or take our case and rule against us, then we will go to state court, the appellate division, and raise our state claims." When asked if they could drag out their case until 2010, after which time Forest City could automatically default if he decides not to continue pursuing litigation, Goldstein said, "We will take our case as far as we can to protect our constitutional rights."
Ratner Only Required To Show Arena Financing for Eminent Domain Approval[Brownstoner]
Read The Fine Print[Atlantic Yards Report]
Slow Economy Likely to Stall Atlantic Yards [NY Times]
What Will Be Left of Gehry’s Vision for Brooklyn? [NY Times]
March 31, 2008
Docs: Low Disclosure Req'd From Ratner For ED Seizure
Bruce Ratner would only be required to show his financing plan for the Atlantic Yards arena, not its office and residential towers, for the state to seize property and leases spread across the project's 22-acre footprint. According to the recently released AY funding agreement, "Prior to, or simultaneously with, [Empire State Development Corporation] acquiring title to any portion of the Project Site by condemnation, Developer or its Affiliates shall (i) provide a financing plan, subject to the reasonable approval of ESDC, for the financing of the Arena, and (ii) cause the closing to occur under the acquisition contract for the LIRR Vanderbilt Yard." Most of the property the state plans to seize is not in the arena footprint, and the promise of 2,250 units of affordable housing was a central argument in justifying the use of eminent domain. Forest City Ratner spokesman Loren Riegelhaupt pointed out that prior to the state approving Atlantic Yards, "We have provided a complete financing plan for the entire project ... which outlines in detail all the components of the plan." That plan, dated late 2006, expected the residential and commercial towers to be largely financed by affordable housing bonds and mortgages. ESDC spokesman Warner Johnston said in an email exchange, "The residential piece is the most important component and we are working with the developer to ensure that it is delivered."
Lead Atlantic Yards opponent Daniel Goldstein was momentarily speechless last night when read the terms for seizing his condo, which is located in the center court of the planned arena. "This idea that they're going to condemn 22 acres when the only thing they can assure is an arena, it's an abomination... it's crazy, it's unethical." Goldstein contends that "the state needs to assure that there are financing agreements for the affordable housing before they proceed with condemnation." In a recent interview with The New York Times, Ratner indicated he intends to finish the entire project, but said his inability to find Miss Brooklyn an anchor office tenant and the tightened bond market could delay everything but the arena for years. He's made more headway in financing the arena, now tagged at nearly $1 billion: Barclays Bank agreed to pay $400 million for its naming rights, less than two-thirds the total expected from sponsorship deals according to the 2006 financial plan. Luxury suite and loge box revenue would bring in even more, staring at $38 million a year and steadily increasing.
AY Funding Agreement: This Could Take Forever [Brownstoner]
540G will get you a ritzy suite in new Brooklyn Nets arena [Daily News]
Slow Economy Likely to Stall Atlantic Yards [New York Times]
State Never Saw Business Plan For Atlantic Yards Project [NY Sun]
Entire Atlantic Yards funding agreement (37 parts) [Empire State Development Corporation]
Photo by threecee.
March 28, 2008
Mega-Projects Dropping Like Flies
This morning Clyde Haberman has an op-ed summing up how a lot of New Yorkers feel right now about the city's grand development plans: Most believe they're not gonna happen anytime soon. For Brooklyn, the big maybe-never is Atlantic Yards, but there's been a pileup in the past couple of weeks of other fading prospects: the MTA's promise to extend service is on hold; Moynihan Station is looking to be a bust; and no one knows whether the long-planned Javits expansion will occur. But it's not like New York hasn't faced shattered visions before, and often for the better. Haberman quotes CUNY poli-sci professor John H. Mollenkopf as saying huge projects frequently go through several design phases over many years, and so, "'New York will come back, and we will get another crack at all these things.'" On a related score, Metro's Amy Zimmer reports on how there are worries that a stalled AY means empty space at the site will be used as parking lots for years to come. Councilmember Letitia James says parking lots are "a revenue generator and right now [land is] sitting fallow,” arguing that Forest City Ratner should not allow the property, which is now attracting the homeless and illegal dumping, to be used in such a fashion.
As Builders’ Grand Visions Dissolve, So Does Our Faith [NY Times]
Visions of Parking Lots at Stalled Atlantic Yards Site [Metro]
Photo of demolished building in AY footprint by threecee.