Soaring City Tech Tower Cut Down to Size
Forest City Ratner’s plans to develop the tallest building in Brooklyn are no more, according to an article in the Daily News. The Renzo Piano-designed City Tech tower on Jay Street was supposed to reach 100 stories, with CUNY facilities on lower floors and condos on upper levels. Now Piano is off the job and…
Forest City Ratner’s plans to develop the tallest building in Brooklyn are no more, according to an article in the Daily News. The Renzo Piano-designed City Tech tower on Jay Street was supposed to reach 100 stories, with CUNY facilities on lower floors and condos on upper levels. Now Piano is off the job and the building may only be built to a modest 10 stories. City Tech’s whittling follows a deal collapse between FCR and CUNY; according to an FCR-CUNY statement, the ambitious project could not be reconciled with the college’s immediate need to move forward with a first-class academic space to serve its growing student enrollment.” A Brooklyn Paper story on the collapsed deal quotes Councilman David Yassky as saying FCR’s decision probably has to do with Bruce Ratner’s iffy finances and the fact that many developers are reconsidering residential construction. He may be overextended right now, said Yassky. Look, a lot of developers are re-evaluting their numbers and feel that residential buildings don’t work right now, he said. Whatever the logic is behind the decision, it seems like a pretty big blow to the ongoing plans to change the face of Downtown Brooklyn.
Ratner Tower Whittled Down [NY Daily News]
Ratner Kills Mr. Brooklyn [Brooklyn Paper]
Development Watch: City Tech Tower, Take 2 [Brownstoner]
But then he went crazy trying to change downtown in record time. He needed to pace himself. Let one development enjoy its success until he builds something else. People have to catch up to his building frenzy.
Everything 11:38 said is accurate. It’s all true. Downtown Brooklyn hasn’t looked as good as it does now since the f**king 1940s, and Ratner, like it or not, had a lot to do with that.
11:38 = ratner minion.
Nice revisionist history, 11:38.
And tell us more about the Shangri-la that is Atlantic Terminal.
Ratner has nothing to do with DUMBO. He is the guy who single-handily risked billions on an office project in an outer borough that was in serious decline in a city that conventional wisdom said was doomed. He built Metrotech (when no one else would) got it fully rented to blue chip companies (which it remains), proved the viability of Downtown Brooklyn, exposed the Boro to hundreds of thousands of well-paid workers and paved the way for virtually all the development in Downtown Brooklyn that came after – including the Marriot Hotel, the record sale of 16 Court St, the upzoning of Flatbush Ave etc….
don’t let the monday morning quarterback criticism of the “corporate campus” design diminish the positive effect it had on this Boro.
“Isn’t Ratner the guy who almost single-handedly transformed DUMBO into an expensive residential neighborhood?”
Isn’t that Walentas?
10:52 – the “rush” is the changes in 421-a; another example of Government intervention (or partial withdrawal of intervention) perfectly timed to wreck havoc on the marketplace.
Isn’t Ratner the guy who almost single-handedly transformed DUMBO into an expensive residential neighborhood?
Who hates him? the artists who he evicted?
The folks who bought lofts from him? Professionals he doesn’t pay? I would really love to hear. I know very little about him.
Get Ratner’s giant stranglehold of political swindling and money out of here and let developers grow Brooklyn the way cities are supposed to grow. That’s the ticket to a healthy Brooklyn.