Endangered AY
This morning the Times has a couple articles about Atlantic Yards that more or less boil down to the following: Aspects of the mega-project aside from the Nets arena are likely to be delayed or go unrealized; Forest City Ratner has not been able to lure an anchor tenant to Miss Brooklyn, his planned office…
This morning the Times has a couple articles about Atlantic Yards that more or less boil down to the following: Aspects of the mega-project aside from the Nets arena are likely to be delayed or go unrealized; Forest City Ratner has not been able to lure an anchor tenant to Miss Brooklyn, his planned office tower; and Frank Gehry’s overarching vision for AY will be severely compromised if all that’s built is the arena. In one article, Charles Bagli includes snippets of an interview with Bruce Ratner in which the developer concedes that construction of Miss Brooklyn will not begin until a tenant has been secured for the office tower; Bagli also notes that the three residential towers surrounding the arena, which are slated to have 1,000 units of housing—including many affordable units—may not happen anytime soon, since developers are finding financing harder to come by. Ratner still sounds cautiously optimistic about the first phase of AY, though. It’s not going to happen in a nanosecond, he tells the Times. I hope it’s not going to be drawn out. I’d hope that the first residential building will be done within six months of the opening of the arena, and a second one a year after that. In the second article, architecture critic Nicolai Ouroussoff says the possibility that all we’ll be left with is a Nets arena “feels like a betrayal of the public trust.” Ouroussoff calls on Frank Gehry to walk away from the entire development: “by pulling out he would be expressing a simple truth: At this point the Atlantic Yards development has nothing to do with the project that New Yorkers were promised. Nor does it rise to the standards Mr. Gehry has set for himself during a remarkable career.”
Slow Economy Likely to Stall Atlantic Yards [NY Times]
What Will Be Left of Gehry’s Vision for Brooklyn? [NY Times]
Ratner Admits Major AY Delays, Rising Arena Cost [AY Report]
Miss Brooklyn & Housing to Die as Arena Lives? [GL]
Bullet Points of Bagli Article [No Land Grab]
Photo by threecee.
The arena can be good or bad. The MCI center in DC has done good things to the surrounding area. Same with Coors Field and the LoDo development in Denver. The area aroudn Wrigley Field in Chicago is great, but not so much around Sox Park.
I opposed public subidies for AY, but thought the stadium was the best part about it. At least it’s something people can enjoy. Hopefully it’ll have good foot traffic, which is key to the successes of the arenas above, but I’m skeptical about it, looking at the footprint.
Projects as ambitious as this one invitably get delayed and undergo changes. Anyone who thinks otherwise is simply naive.
DDDB and the other NIMBY-driven groups have nothing to do with this delay, which is entirely due to larger market forces. Daniel Goldstein, Patti Hagan, etc. would love to take credit for this, but since their goal is to stop, not delay, the project, their efforts will be in vain if any version of the project gets built (which will happen, only later than originally planned). In the end, this is a DELAY, not a termination.
The one thing you can be sure of is that what people are doing today with their money is not going to be what they will do two or three years from now. I agree that there is no money today going into mortagae backed securities or speculative development but it is not forever, I understand that some can only look ahead a day or two at a time and therefore a year seems like infinity to them, but if you look at the big picture, busts come and go. Money flows one way, then stops, then flows another. On Good Friday it is wise to think about one’s mistakes and failings and to reflect on the cycle of death and rebirth. It all comes around.
The 12:01pm poster and the NY Times’ Ouroussoff are dead-on. If Ratner builds only the arena, it will be a disaster for the area. So now the pols must step in and decide: stop the arena, stop the demolitions, and open up the site to other developers for a reasonable, rational new plan.
Fools only destroy themselves. Including the fat Rat.
Nice story on Good Friday. I think this is trial ballon on exit-strategy. Atlantic Yards is dead in the water (including stadium) because if the current credit crunch. If you take a look here http://www.bloomberg.com/markets/rates/index.html and look at the short end of the yield curve, you will see people are running to safety. Investors don’t want any type of debt but US Treasuries. This is bad for Mortgage Backed Securities, Municipal Bond and other forms of debt. Ratner sees the writing on the wall and thinking will I get caught with my pants down? Like I said before the NETS will be playing in Newark NJ here in 2012 http://www.prucenter.com/ not in Brooklyn.
The What (Tick… Tick… Tick…)
Someday this war is gonna end….
There is no new construction financing today. None. That was the fist shoe to drop. The second shoe will be the drastic fall of existing home prices. It is part of the normal boom and bust cycle of NYC real estate development. Nothing new at all. This project will get underway again in two to four years. How long did it take Metrotech to reach critical mass? Twenty years?
Beginning to sound like the election candidates barbs. Where’s the sensible REAL issue?
JZ is a Ratner tool. F*** em all. Build a park! And can these fools open back up the Carlton ave bridge? Im sick and tired of doller vans and Hasidic buses zipping thru my block for short cuts.