FCE: "Lots of Things Could Happen" at Atlantic Yards
A reader just forwarded us an excerpt from the preliminary transcript from the conference call Forest City Ratner just held with investors. See the excerpt here.
A reader just forwarded us an excerpt from the preliminary transcript from the conference call Forest City Ratner just held with investors. See the excerpt here.
Actually, none of those tenants would ever have been considered “Blue Chip” beyond AIG, not that that matters anymore. And if these places are so full of wonderful Brooklynites, please explain why none of them seems to linger in the area past 5 pm, or why the surrounding streets remain so unattractive? Additionally, how many of these firms are not paying heavily-subsidized rents, made up for by the above-market prices paid by the state and city agencies in the complex (your tax dollars at work)?
And the article linked to above is about an as-yet-unbuilt building, not part of MetroTech.
Babs try educating yourself – it might help you see reality through your ratner hating glasses:
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m3601/is_11_55/ai_n31005868
Babs you really are silly – there are thousands of Brooklynites working at Metrotech, many who moved here after experiencing Brooklyn for the 1st time through their employers office location. Not to mention that Metrotech begat the Marriott, which begat BILLIONS of dollars of new development that is continuing to this day – some of which I believe you have complained about because it was ruining the “organic” Fulton Mall.
That being said:
New leases in the last 6mo include:
law firm Weil Gotshal (relocating staff from the GM building – the premiere office building in the U.S. btw)
El Diaro – the #1 Spanish Language Newspaper
Uniworld -nation’s largest African-American-owned ad agency
Ruport Murdoch owned – Community Newspaper Group
HeartShare Human Services of New York
the Ms. Foundation for Women
AIG – ok not really bluechip anymore
ALM/Incisive Media -advertising
Interboro Partners – architechture firm
Please tell us the bluechip tenants signing on for office space at Metrotech. Last I heard Chase wanted out and many others were subletting (see below exceprt from this blog from August). And the disaster that is Metrotech is a very good argument against the sort of development he proposes for Atlantic Yards — more a sterile suburban office park than urban workplace, Metrotech is deserted after 5 pm, as all the office workers go off to their homes in the suburbs and has done very little to affect the surrounding economy — much more has come as a result of the courts and the Marriott hotel (where most guests are NOT visiting companies in Metrotech, but in downtown Manhattan). The area around Metrotech is still a warren of cellphone stores, cheap furniture dealers, and nail salons, and most Metrotech workers do not venture off of their “campus” until they can flle to the safety of their suburban homes.
From Brownstoner last August:
MetroTech – good news/bad news…
…So many large (for Brooklyn) direct leases have been signed that the landlord is down to a 9,000-square foot and a 12,000-square-foot space in One Pierrepont Plaza. Score one for Brooklyn – Uniworld, specialist in urban marketing, took 38,000 square feet for $35.75 a foot for 10 years. Advertising/marketing tenants of that size in BK? Until now, fuggedaboutit. Other side of the coin – Blue Cross, JPMorganChase, MorganStanley, Keyspan/Grid and SIAC are all subletting space. Talking seven figures worth…. Some of it taken, some in play. A year ago, we thought Class A in BK would be full by now. Nope.
Would someone who was able to read it please put the last sentence in a comment – I couldn’t read any of it.
Thanks
Looks juicy, but the thing isn’t loading correctly and I can only read part of it.
I thought the most interesting thing was that Ratner blithely predicts that all the legal issues will be out of the way in the first part of ’09. . .
assuming htey are resolved to his satisfaction (still a big if), then he says FRC will “assess the situation then”. ..
So even in the best case scenario, it’s full steam ahead until next year when they may decide it’s not full steam ahead.
If i was an FRC stockholder, I’d want Ratner to pull the plug sooner rather than later
FSRQ: Ratner didn’t have money losing team he needed to move when it came to Metrotech and the other projects you mention. Nor were they housing projects with a billion dollar arena.
“Lots of things could happen. For example, the money fairies could deliver another $5o million in affordable housing money for us to spend.”