Gehry & Ratner Show Their Cards
July 5, 2005, NY Times — The massive building plan surrounding a new Nets arena east of Downtown Brooklyn will include a ridge of a half-dozen skyscrapers as high as 60 stories sweeping down Atlantic Avenue, along with four towers circling the basketball arena, according to new designs completed by the developer Bruce C. Ratner…
July 5, 2005, NY Times — The massive building plan surrounding a new Nets arena east of Downtown Brooklyn will include a ridge of a half-dozen skyscrapers as high as 60 stories sweeping down Atlantic Avenue, along with four towers circling the basketball arena, according to new designs completed by the developer Bruce C. Ratner and the architect Frank Gehry. The project, the largest proposed outside Manhattan in decades, would include much more housing than originally announced in 2003, growing to about 6,000 units from 4,500, according to a plan made available to The New York Times. But the real impact would be in the size and density of the buildings, which are taller and bulkier than once envisioned. With 17 buildings, many of them soaring 40 to 50 stories, the project would forever transform the borough and its often-intimate landscape, creating a dense urban skyline reminiscent of Houston or Dallas. The project would be built in phases, starting with the blocks around the arena, then the apartment complexes along Dean Street at the Vanderbilt Avenue end, and finally the northern stretch of housing along Atlantic Avenue. The arena is planned to open for the 2008-9 basketball season, said James P. Stuckey, an executive vice president at Forest City Ratner Companies, with the entire project completed as soon as 2011. The project will come before the Metropolitan Transportation Authority tomorrow as Mr. Ratner makes a formal proposal to buy and develop the Atlantic Avenue railyards.
Comment: We have to admit that these renderings are pretty exciting. Over the past several months, as the debate over the project has intensified, we found our sympathies leaning towards the anti-Ratner camp. We’re extremely uncomfortable with the concept of eminent domain and if our brownstone happened to be directly affected by the plan we’re sure we wouldn’t be pleased. But it’s hard to look at Gehry’s renderings and not get swept up. We couldn’t give a rat’s ass about having a local basketball team, but being at the center of arguably the most significant urban development effort in a generation (or more) is starting to outweigh our earlier reservations. Let’s hope that it’s more than a giant P.R. stunt to close the deal. Enough people’s lives are being uprooted that this better end up being something special. From the looks of it, it just may be.
Instant Skyline Added to Brooklyn Arena Plan [NY Times]
An Appraisal [NY Times]
Whether this makes you feel better or worse, but you can bet that there will not be any “tilted” buildings was this gets budgetted. Too expensive by far and they will become straight up and down buildings.
“Idea is that Atlantic yard is devided and sold on free market to many small local developers.
And they would have to build acording to the master plan.”
Retailers do not build property, they buy or rent property and conduct business out of it. A disorganized, piecemeal sale to dozens of different developers with disparate and competing agendas would result in complete chaos and would never be entertained by the MTA. Furthermore, if an organized coalition exists that is willing to bid in concert for the land, why don’t they come out and bid already? Obviously, there is no such coalition. If the UNITY plan is feasible, it should have been implemented years, if not decades, ago. Anyone who has been in the neighborhood for the thirty years that I have surely knows that the alternative to Ratner’s plan is thirty more years of desolation. We should welcome a developer who actually looks to Brooklyn as a worthy investment rather than a blighted afterthought next to Manhattan.
I’m not saying I have all the answers. I’m not saying that the area should be 100% brownstones or remain undeveloped.
However, I look at Metrotech & Atlantic Center Mall and I get a little uneasy thinking about 40 to 50 more stories of Ratner-land.
Is it too much to ask that Ratner (or whomever) have an honest discussion with a MAJORITY of the community that will be affected in order to reach a fair middle ground on development? Maybe in 7 years I’ll be eating my words but the way in which Ratner has approached this project doesn’t fill me with confidence.
Can’t say that I know all the details but when I read articles like this, I can’t help but think something is wrong here.
http://www.brooklynpapers.com/html/issues/_vol28/28_27/28_27nets1.html
Obviously, development is not an inherently bad thing, especially when it’s an abandoned railyard we’re talking about. But weighing the impact of such a large-scale development on the lives of the thousands of people who live nearby, many of whom either have spent their lives here or plan to spend the rest of their lives here, is not an individual, piddly concern. Ratner is getting help from our city gov’t to push this through, so I don’t understand why we the taxpayers should be quiet little mice about this.
“malymis – But who would fund etc. the DDDB plan. Is it organized at all from a project planning/funding perspective? Kind of on the back foot if there is no real backing from a practical standpoint – no architects, no funding etc.”
Idea is that Atlantic yard is devided and sold on free market to many samall local developers.
And they would have to build acording to the master plan.
at 11:28am, this poster writes:
“Just curious, why do you feel you should have a voice in what’s built there? Is it your property?”
We can ask the same thing of Ratner who is trying to use eminent domain to take the property of people who choose not to sell. It is their property. Who are you to say that it should be stolen in order to build a stadium and a bunch of Gehry buildings? By what right do you claim that Ratner should have the power to take someone else’s property?
malymis – But who would fund etc. the DDDB plan. Is it organized at all from a project planning/funding perspective? Kind of on the back foot if there is no real backing from a practical standpoint – no architects, no funding etc.
Hey, look, no one said it isn’t a fair question. But asking the question isn’t enough to halt the project. You can ask away for the rest of your life but that then prevents Bklyn from growing period. What would you prefer to have happen here, if anything? And if nothing, why? Sure, let’s weigh in for the fun of it but it’s not your Bklyn and it’s not my Bklyn. Cities develop for better or worse. The thing is you’re speaking for yourself when you talk about shadowed streets of Manhattan, density and congestion. And it’s fine, you should speak for yourself. But no offense, our individual piddly little reasons not to build this aren’t quite enough. Bklyn is a city, a pretty large one at that, so you must’ve seen it coming. I mean, right? And in terms of look, it’s such a personal thing. You think it’s a big chunk of Rockefeller Center and I love it. Comes down to: you say potato and I see pototto. Hey, may the best plan win (it’s just that this is the best, if not only, I’ve seen yet).
I think part of the reason a lot of Brooklynites live here is because much as we love new york city, we find brooklyn’s smaller scale to be much more livable than the density, congestion and shadowed streets of manhattan. Development is inevitable, but how many of us want what looks like a big chunk of rockefeller center plunked down right next to us?
And don’t forget that the stretch of Fourth Ave. leading away from the Ratner site has also been “upzoned” for major residential development, putting further strain on schools, traffic, etc.
In dallas, atlanta and houston, most of the housing is miles away in the suburbs. I’m not an urban planner, but surely there must be some middle ground? Just because I don’t have the answer doesn’t mean it’s not a fair question.