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…
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
Serious question for you pro-AYer’s out there: What in your view is the “right” density for this project? Is 6,400 apts “just right” or “too few”? Is there any point at which you would say a development is just too big?
Does anyone know the Marino Organization’s IP address? Could Brownstoner list how many of these comments come from Ratner’s team?
Isn’t pollution by definition a NIMBY issue? I mean, my house doesn’t sit on the NJ turnpike and I do breathe the air in my backyard.
2:36 – so true – so sadly true
Anyone notice that a lot of the area around AY(excluding the rail yards themselves) have been devloping nicely without government subsidies and without needing a total BS campaign
Re: paid protesters –
Daniel Goldstein’s wife, Shabnam Merchant, is a PAID employee of DDDB. Given that married couples typically combine finances, Daniel Goldstein surely benefits from her DDDB salary, regardless of how low that figure is. So, if anyone was paid to protest at this rally, it was these two. It seems that Norman “OCD” Oder missed that detail.
I wish there could be a referendum on this project, in the form of a Brooklyn wide public ballot to see what the TRUE public opinion is. DDDB and the AY crowd will have you believe that most people in Brooklyn are against this project, however, the pathetic turnout at the Anti-Ratner protest at the Brooklyn Museum (80 people?) and the much hyped, well organized event this past Saturday (400 people) would seem to indicate otherwise.
The whole DDDB / Anti -AY crowd are losers. They have nothing to contribute to Brooklyn…they are just NIMBY’s who have nothing better to do with their time. Does Goldstein even work, or is he just a “trustafarian” living off of his corporate raider daddy. If it were up to DDDB, the corner of Flatbush and Atlantic, which has been a whole in the ground for 50 years, will be a whole in the ground for another 50 years. NIMBY’s work like this: If a developer proposed the erection of 100 brownstones for the site, they would say “why are you building brownstones, they are not affordable” If the city decided to build projects on the site, they would say “why are you building projects, they will ruin the ‘character’ of the neighborhood” That’s why you have to just ignore these NIMBY’s. It would not matter what is proposed for the site…they are haters so will hate on anything.
1:47/1:52
Versus the sea of gridlocked cars and trucks on the NJ turnpike going to Net games now? and the wave of cars, trucks and busses of people who will end up living in Southern Brooklyn/SI/NJ/LI etc…. rather than above a massive mass transit hub at Atlantic and 5th?
You can complain about gridlock and pollution all you want, but the fact remains that as it relates to a centrally located/mass transit convenient location like AY – your concerns are strictly NIMBY – as under any legitimate analysis a dense development, centrally located and convenient to mass transit results in a net REDUCTION of car trips and pollution.