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.
If the Brooklyn economy crashes, nothing will be built over the railyards for many many years. It’s expensive to build over railyards. They aren’t building on vacant farmland. The test of whether Brooklyn has arrived will be if the private/public developers decide it is worth it to build over the tracks. It may well turn out not to be worth it. At least not for years. That would be bad. All that money not spent on the boro. Can’t believe people actually would prefer nothing to happen. Nothing happened in the Boro between 1960 and 1990.
Those were the bad years for those too young to remember.
If you can find a way to buy and build and create and profit, you will get investors. What you are witnessing now is a funding problem.
Maybe Ratner is not as good as you.
If Mr. Ratner was better at developing without having to pay off what were previously pretty well respected non-profits (who lost their credibility and good name in this process), if he could develop without skirting zoning and land use, if he could develop without sweetheart deals with NYC, if her could have done it without turning the bourough president into the butt public jokes, if he could have done it without seizing private property, if he could have done it without intimidating the people who live in and near the footprint, if he had any honor, morals or ethics, I might respect him, but this is not the case.
look, in a perfect world ratner would not be getting public funding for this project, but the yards were never going to get developed w/o that. the yards are screaming for large scale grand development of this nature – nexus of max transit, nexus of major thoroughfares, nexus of multiple neighborhoods, major cultural institution, one of brooklyn’s most destinctive landmarks (wsb). ratner’s development would highlight all of the above and maximize its potential, not destroy it. before the dodgers left bk, lefferts was the place to be, but beautiful theatres have since been replaced by non-descript apartment buildings, and trolls spend their time on this site desparaging the area. in fact, ebbets was built in that area (the dodgers moving from washington park) due to the aclaim of leffets manor and crown heights. this is where the ballers lived back in the day. why would you not want this development? developers have finally realized the greatness of brooklyn and all people want to do is chase them away. anyway, we’re more likely to get the transportation inrastructure money, the school money, etc with this development here than w/o it.
To me there were two interesting aspects to the NYT article, neither of which have been commented on here. One is that the Times thought this this important enough to be their lead article–very unusual for any piece of NYC news. The second is that the source for the negative news about AY was ratner’s company itself. It seems to me that the claim that the stadium, at least, will be built is a last chance attempt to put a somewhat positive spin on funding for this entire project evaporating. I’d be very surprised to see anything at all built on this site for many many years. I suppose that’s good news, but some reasonable development of the Vanderbilt Yards site, by acompany more responsible and competent than FCR, could have been a good thing
Recession not a problem.
ACORN can line up the financing for the housing.
The Pathmark at Atlantic Whatever it’s called is a supermarket. What is Sat 4:54 talking about? They’ve even upgraded it, somewhat. You’d prefer a Whole Foods, I take it? I live in FG and go to the Pathmark all the time. Bogus argument. Where would you like it placed? Fort Greene Park?
Despite what the NY Times says, eh 6:20? Because you know more than they do.
At least in your own mind.
D-O-N-E-D-E-A-L
The What is not Daniel Goldstein. The What is a broker in New Jersey and everybody knows it.