Proposed: Atlantic Yards Development - Commercial, Residential, Retail, NBA Arena [Archive] - Page 8

krulltime

August 29th, 2006, 10:55 AM

Pressure Mounts to Curb the Size of Atlantic Yards

By DAVID LOMBINO
August 29, 2006

The developer of the $4.2 billion Atlantic Yards project is coming under pressure to downsize, The New York Sun has learned.

State officials have discussed with the developer, Forest City Ratner, a reduction in the size of the project, a source said. The officials have said the downsizing should come in the next few weeks, before September 22, the end of the public comment period regarding the draft environmental impact statement, the source said. As proposed, Atlantic Yards would be the largest development project in Brooklyn's history and create the densest census tract in America.

Forest City Ratner is seeking to build a basketball arena and 16 towers containing 6,860 apartments on 22 acres in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn, but the project has come under fire from some members of the community who say the project is too dense, will destroy the low-rise neighborhood, and further ensnarl the borough in traffic.

Many supporters of Atlantic Yards hail the project's affordable housing component. The developer has promised that half of the project's rental units, about 2,250 apartments, will be made available to low- and middle-income families.

The support of the Pataki administration and its leading development agency, the Empire State Development Corporation, is critical to the project's success.The proposal is being shepherded through the approval process by the ESDC, whose board must approve the plans before they head for final approval from the Public Authorities Control Board.

City officials said yesterday that the Department of City Planning is drafting written testimony that it will submit to the ESDC that will include comments about the proposed height and how the project fits in the context of the low-rise neighborhood.

Previously, the Bloomberg administration has supported the plan without reservation based on its job creation and affordable housing components. City Hall does not have an official vote on the matter, because the proposal circumvents the city's uniform land use review process.

Last Wednesday, hundreds of supporters and opponents clashed verbally during and outside a public hearing over the developer's draft environmental impact statement. At the hearing, the president of Brooklyn, Marty Markowitz, tweaked his previously robust support for the project to include some new demands. He asked the state and developer to reduce the project's scale, build a school, add a police substation, improve potential traffic problems and parking, and make sure that the project's open space is public and accessible.

A spokesman for Forest City Ratner told the New York Post last week that it would consider the suggestions by Mr. Markowitz. The developer would not comment yesterday.

If the developer reduces the project's size, it should not expect instant community approval of the new plan. A spokesman for Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn, an umbrella organization of opposition groups, Daniel Goldstein, said a size reduction would not halt a legal challenge over the proposed use of eminent domain.

Mr. Goldstein said the organization would oppose the project until the developer changes the 22-acre project footprint, considers not building the basketball arena, and takes eminent domain off the table. He said he expected a size reduction as part of the developer's strategy to seek approval.

"They shoot for the sun so they can get the moon. When they get the moon, they act like they have listened to the criticism and responded," Mr. Goldstein said.

Mr. Goldstein said the latest proposal is about 700,000 square feet bigger than the 8 million square feet that was originally proposed in December 2003. Opponents contend that the developer increased the total square footage to about 9.1 million square feet last September, and then in March scaled back plans by about 5%, or 475,000 square feet, to its current total size of about 8.7 million square feet.

The developer has said that the size of the project, and its thousands of market rate housing units, is necessary to subsidize the affordable units. Forest City Ratner has not said how much it stands to profit from the project.

If the developer downsizes, as expected, any decrease in the number of affordable housing units could threaten a main source of support, which includes the housing activist Bertha Lewis. A well-timed size reduction could, however, placate some politicians whose support has been conditional on changes to the current plan.

A spokesman for City Council Member David Yassky, Evan Thies, said a decrease in size would be a significant development. Mr. Yassky supports the project, but has called for a size reduction and traffic improvements.

"Finally, someone seem to be listening on the other side," Mr. Thies said. "This is a real opportunity for the developer and the ESDC to prove to the community that they are listening to their concerns."

Several elected officials have asked that the size and density of the project be reduced. In May, a bill introduced by Assemblyman James Brennan, a Democrat of Brooklyn, would have forced the developer to reduce the amount of square footage by about one-third. The state, in return for a reduction, would give more money to subsidize the project's affordable housing units and for land acquisition costs. Five members of the Assembly from Brooklyn supported the bill.

Yesterday, the Empire State Development Corporation scheduled an additional public community forum for September 18. A forum is also scheduled for September 12.

If minor changes are made to the current plan, the developer would not necessarily have to submit a new supplemental environmental impact statement and the state could give its final approval soon after the public comment period concludes.

© 2006 The New York Sun, One SL, LLC.

pianoman11686

August 29th, 2006, 12:14 PM

“It’s almost science fiction that they would put something like this in the middle of a garden district like Prospect Heights.”

Oh, right, because we all know that the "middle" of a garden district usually includes acres of railyards, a >500-foot skyscraper, and the busiest transit hub in a city of 2.5 million people. Of course: how dare they?

As much as I support getting concessions from developers like Ratner these days, people need to learn what's worth fighting for and what's not. A police substation, a school, transit improvements, and public parkland are reasonable demands, especially on a project this big. A good amount of affordable housing is another. But how do they expect to achieve all of those goals, and expect to reduce the size of the project by a third, or more? Something's got to give. You can't have your cake and eat it too. [Insert another similar cliche here.]

Also, looking at those renderings, I don't even want to think about any proposed height reductions. Those buildings are already pretty bulky as it is. If they're worried about looking like Downtown Manhattan, then scaling down and resembling suburban office parks is definitely the better alternative, right?

ZippyTheChimp

August 29th, 2006, 12:42 PM

As much as I support getting concessions from developers like Ratner these days, people need to learn what's worth fighting for and what's not. A police substation, a school, transit improvements, and public parkland are reasonable demands, especially on a project this big. A good amount of affordable housing is another.Right.

That's exactly the error made at Yankee Stadium. Instead of trying to stop the project and force building on the present site, they should have squeezed the organization for worthwhile neighborhood improvements.

lofter1

August 29th, 2006, 02:03 PM

If nothing else these renderings of before / after are pretty danged dramatic:

Dean facing Arena - Existing:

http://k53.pbase.com/g2/25/695725/2/65629350.vzyaq8da.jpg (http://www.pbase.com/atlanticyards/simulation)

Dean facing Arena - After:

http://mishilo.image.pbase.com/g2/25/695725/2/65629351.M50eMINF.jpg (http://www.pbase.com/atlanticyards/simulation)

lofter1

August 29th, 2006, 02:06 PM

Another ...

Dean Playground - Existing:

http://k41.pbase.com/g2/25/695725/2/65629356.ZMRETSHC.jpg (http://www.pbase.com/atlanticyards/simulation)

Dean Playground - After:

http://mk23.image.pbase.com/g2/25/695725/2/65629357.6ywUNy3o.jpg (http://www.pbase.com/atlanticyards/simulation)

Teno

August 29th, 2006, 02:20 PM

I think its reasonable to ask for the project to be scaled down as much as possible. But the grey area is by how much?

The more you scale down the bulk of the building is spread horizontally. To maintain the same number of housing units where exactly is that bulk supposed to go?

Teno

August 29th, 2006, 02:52 PM

lofter1

August 29th, 2006, 03:04 PM

As the renderings show it seems that none of what you mention will be very visisble from the vicinity of the Ranter / Atlantic Yards once the project is constructed.

Teno

August 29th, 2006, 03:11 PM

I'm talking about the area as a whole. Driving from the Manhattan Bridge onto Flatbush, Atlantic Yards will not be the only new high rise development you will see on the landscape.

lofter1

August 29th, 2006, 03:28 PM

OK -- but I'm talking about if you live within a couple block radius and what you'll see from your window / front stoop.

None of which means I think the project should not be built in some fashion.

People are having babies and all of NYC is growing -- more housing is desperately needed.

More density is the only answer.

Whether or not this project is the best answer is still up in the air ...

Transic

August 29th, 2006, 06:41 PM

Right.

That's exactly the error made at Yankee Stadium. Instead of trying to stop the project and force building on the present site, they should have squeezed the organization for worthwhile neighborhood improvements.

[sarcasm]

But...but...but Yankee Stadium is SACRED GROUND! Ruth, Gehrig, DiMaggio, Mantle, Mattingly, the Captain, Reggie, Yogi, McDowell (ok, forget about him), Wells (ok, forget about him), Pip (ok, forget about him), Pepitone (ok, forget about him). How dare anyone suggests tearing that place down? 26 Championships, man! (OK, buying off the KC A's farm system helped but never mind) Not to mention the REAL Giants played there (OK, there was no other stadium fit for them at the time but let's forget that for a second). And Notre Dame (well, having a heavily Catholic population in NYC had a lot to do with that)! And Joe Louis! (but that was when boxing mattered more but let's forget that for a second) And the Pope! (see: Notre Dame) And Billy Graham! (wait! Should we acknowledge him?)

I'm telling you, that place is a LANDMARK (umm...no official designation I know of but whatever)! It's as American as the Statue of Liberty (a gift from the French, btw, but we'll overlook that). You just don't tear down history (well, old things are torn down all the time for things like malls, tall buildings and new Applebees...but let's forget that for a second)! Yankee Stadium is a SHRINE (well, a 1970's update of an old building, complete with a flashback to the days of Ace, Grand Funk Railroad and James Gang but nevermind)! The place REEKS of history (including the embarrassing loss of the 2003 World Series to the Marlins, of all teams, and the improbable comeback of the BoSux of 2004 but please forget all of that for a second)! I'm telling you, the ghosts will never forgive King George (who gave the city six championships and flipped off the rest of the league in doing so, but that's not important now) for what he is about to do (which the BoSux were about to do with their place before fiscal reality intervened)! The Mets can tear down their place for all I care (because they SUCK!) but the Yankees have the best thing they got (well, besides sycophantic and drunken fans)! If Yankee Stadium is torn down it will be gone forever (because then the new place will be compared to Camden Yards and I hate being compared to a skank town like Bald-tee-mOOre)!

That's why I'm against the new stadium (because I can't fathom the thought of the Stadium being nothing more than a glorified large, public facility built for the purposes of hosting sporting events)! And let's not forget the poor people who use the park next door (when not taken over by cars and drunken Yankee fans). Where will the little kids play (uh, the new parks they're building)? It's unfair, I'm telling you! (because they're rich and we're not but nevermind) History will not look kindly to George when he does this (umm...does the Howie Spira scandal ring a bell?) to baseball history! The new stadium will have upper deck seats further back than in the current stadium (because I'm me and I deserve to pay cheap prices for close seats. How dare they charge for good seats?). And more luxury boxes for the corporate crowd (and a $200 million payroll should fall down from the trees at Macombs Dam Park...because we're New York). Why do all that when they have a perfectly good stadium there right now? (and continue the fantasy of nothing having been changed since 1976, except the beer and hot dog prices. And Jeter.)

One final thing. Where else but the Stadium will you find the voice of God (funny to talk about religion at a time when most of the city, except for Muslims, old fogeys, minorities and other dupes, have lost it), Bob Sheppard, announcing the lineup for the night's game? There is no other place in the world (meaning America and a few other places people here are not aware of) like it. Enjoy the Stadium because when it's gone there will be no other place like it.(and people will fly to visit Safeco, Camden Yards, Fenway, Minute Maid, Busch, New Shea...not the mention the new place across the street)

[/sarcasm turned completely off]

Sorry for going off-topic, guys, but that comment from Zippy had me going. :D

pianoman11686

August 29th, 2006, 08:03 PM

I'm willing to believe that those renderings are drawn to scale. However, they are missing two crucial components: illustration of any kind of facade treatments and/or street-level retail, which would really help to animate the buildings and make them seem less lifeless/domineering; and, I don't think it's out of the question to assume improvements in the surrounding streetscapes, as property values will probably go up.

As a kicker, I also don't think that the exclusion of these facets was accidental. I believe the renderer intended to portray this development as brutally and overwhelmingly as possible.

ZippyTheChimp

August 29th, 2006, 08:30 PM

Below is a map of the Atlantic Yards site with the approximate camera location of these photos (http://www.pbase.com/atlanticyards/simulation/). The numbers correspond to the order they are shown on the site.

http://img95.imageshack.us/img95/9892/atlanticmap12god3.th.jpg (http://img95.imageshack.us/my.php?image=atlanticmap12god3.jpg)

No surprise, the only one that doesn't hit you in the face is number 5, the furthest from the site. Estimated distance from the site is 650 ft.

"Newswalk" in the last photo, is the old Daily News printing plant right across the street. It is the large building right of center in the first photo. Rooftop terraces line both sides. That view will go away no matter what is built, unless they think someone will pay to develop the railyards and put up 8 story buildings. Those on the Dean St side will still have the panorama of photo 1.

ablarc

August 29th, 2006, 10:02 PM

Even with the polemicist's afforts to cast these buildings in the worst possible light by drawing them as drab nonentities, the "after" picture is better imo than the "before" in every single case. Actually, I think some of these buildings could be/should be taller.

It's time Brooklyn stopped being such a scraggly rendition of Anytown, USA ca. 1920. Much of it today is tedious and grey; we keep pointing to the brownstone areas, but they're only a part of Brooklyn, and they won't be adversely afftected despite the nonsense to the contrary. The Hancock and Prudential Towers soar magnificently and inspiringly in countless street views in both Back Bay and the South End; they entice photographers to document the delightful contrast of red brick townhouses against mirror glass towers. Who doesn't get off on such views?

And property values? You can expect them to soar with the towers.

lbjefferies

August 29th, 2006, 10:50 PM

Transic

August 29th, 2006, 10:54 PM

Assuming that this project takes off, and it looks like at least parts of it will, it is unlikely that the rest of the neighborhood surrounding the new buildings will stay static or unchaged. I would think that other developers would make a move on the buildings that would be left intact, in effect changing the neighborhoods even more.

Well, at least the train tracks are about to be hidden out of view.;)

BrooklynRider

August 30th, 2006, 12:10 AM

The Hancock and Prudential Towers soar magnificently and inspiringly in countless street views in both Back Bay and the South End; they entice photographers to document the delightful contrast of red brick townhouses against mirror glass towers. Who doesn't get off on such views?

Now envsion that skyline with nothing but towers built in one shot, by the same developer using the same architrect in the same style going on for half a mile. "Magnificent" and "inspiring" wouldn't be the first words you'd you to describe it.

BrooklynRider

August 30th, 2006, 12:13 AM

These renderings make it appear that Ratner's project is the only one that will dramatically change downtown Brooklyn while in truth their will be several other buildings.

This project would be put in more perspective if we could see the other high rise buildings to be built in the area. All of these project combined downtown Brooklyn will be radically different over the next few years

Actually, when viewed against the Downtown Brooklyn Rezoning Plan, Ratner's project falls completely outside the Downtown Zone. Even if we were to just accept that Flatbush Avenue at Atlantic Ave is "Downtown Brooklyn," you'd be hardpressed to find anyone who lives in Brooklyn who will tell you that Vanderbilt Avenue and Atlantic is a "Downtown Brooklyn" intersection.

lofter1

August 30th, 2006, 12:19 AM

The Hancock and Prudential Towers soar magnificently and inspiringly in countless street views in both Back Bay and the South End; they entice photographers to document the delightful contrast of red brick townhouses against mirror glass towers.

ablarc, you're stretching it with that argument.

Atlantic Yards isn't a single "background" building from any angle.

More like a mountain range rising from the plains.

Also ...

The Hancock is essentially a "tower in the park" -- one high rise set apart ...

http://images.fotosearch.com/bigcomps/SIX/SIX006/USA-159.jpg
http://www.fotosearch.com/SIX006/usa-159/

http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/cas/fnart/fa267/pei/hancock2.jpg

The Prudential isn't exactly across the street from brownstones / 4 -story brick houses:

http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/cas/fnart/fa267/20th/prudent1.jpg

And just look at all that dead "plaza" space ^^^^^^^

ablarc

August 30th, 2006, 08:35 AM

Now envsion that skyline with nothing but towers built in one shot, by the same developer using the same architrect in the same style going on for half a mile. "Magnificent" and "inspiring" wouldn't be the first words you'd you to describe it.
Maybe they would be. Of course it depends on the architecture itself. If the buildings were to look like Co-op City, I'd agree with you, but you can trust Gehry won't do that.

And if they're individually inspiring, a range of them is as good as one. Mt. Rainier is magnificent isolated, and the Grand Tetons are magnificent as a range.

One Perry Street tower by Meier was splendid, two were marvellous, and three are ravishing. Before it was completed, we were mostly skeptical about that third one, and we were wrong. And if he were asked to add a fourth I'd be confident he'd make it interesting --probably with small variations as before, like the small variations in consecutive phrases of a piece by Philip Glass.

When you're dealing with the likes of Meier or Gehry you can confidently leave the aesthetics to the architects; they have a much better handle on the issues than we have, and it's even a little presumptuous of us to second-guess them too much. We could save that for the likes of Kondylis or O'Hara.

An artist's mandate is to surprise us with the unexpected, to expand our conception of what is right. Art enlightens by stretching our minds to accept new ways of doing things. It's best to take a chance on it; it's the only way to keep from being hidebound. That fact has always separated the avant-garde from stick-in-the-muds.

* * *

Gehry --like Meier, being a septuagenerian veteran-- has a mile-long track record of producing dazzling beauty. We admire their achievements extravagantly on this forum and architects actually improve with age, viz. Wright and the Guggenheim.

.

ld876

August 30th, 2006, 12:05 PM

The Prudential isn't exactly across the street from brownstones / 4 -story brick houses:

http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/cas/fnart/fa267/20th/prudent1.jpg

And just look at all that dead "plaza" space ^^^^^^^

I wouldnt expect much dead plaza space in the, assuming nothing changes, most dense cencus tract in the United States.

ZippyTheChimp

August 30th, 2006, 12:18 PM

A couple of interesting points regarding the Aug 23 public hearing from an article in The Architect's Newspaper (http://www.archpaper.com/index.html)

On the architecture:
Indeed, architect Frank Gehry and landscaper Laurie Olin never came up in testimony: the two sides focused on the project’s ancillary effect rather than its design.

On the EIS:
Project opponents chastised the ESDC’s draft environmental impact statement for counting a glass room with ticket windows as open space,As I stated elsewhere, EISs have degenerated from the intended transparent documents.

In my opinion, with the availability of these documents online and legions of opponents poring over them, and the fact that they are required by law, it is foolish for developers to engage in this behavior.

Just tell it straight.

NYguy

August 31st, 2006, 11:46 PM

Brooklyn Papers

Size matters
State not discussing Atlantic Yards shrinkage with Bruce Ratner

By Gersh Kuntzman
The Brooklyn Papers

State officials moved swiftly last week to deny they were negotiating behind the scenes with Bruce Ratner to decrease the size of his Atlantic Yards mega-development.

After the New York Sun reported on Tuesday that the Empire State Development Corporation had discussed “a reduction in the size of the project” with Ratner, ESDC blasted the report as untrue.

“ESDC has not been in discussion with Forest City Ratner about reducing the size of the project,” spokeswoman Jessica Copen told The Brooklyn Papers.

But the agency is under pressure — even from the project’s loudest supporters — to scale back Atlantic Yards.

At last week’s public hearing, Borough President Markowitz — the official perhaps most identified by his support of Atlantic Yards — told ESDC that it needed to “get real” about the impacts of the $4.2-billion, 16-tower, arena, hotel, residential and commercial development slated for the intersection of Atlantic and Flatbush avenues. “This project needs to be reduced.”

Fellow supporter, Assemblyman Roger Green (D-Fort Greene), went further, calling a 30- to 40-percent reduction in scale “a moral imperative.”

The state’s own draft environmental impact statement outlined numerous “significant” adverse effects, including increased traffic, more-crowded subways, long shadows, and the need for a new school to handle thousands of Yards kids.

But there are only a few ways in which that could actually happen:

• ESDC, which is shepherding Atlantic Yards through the public-review process, could require it as a precondition of approval.

• The Public Authorities Control Board, the same state body that killed the West Side stadium last year, could demand a reduction when it weighs in this fall. This is not likely, as all three officials who control the board — Gov. Pataki, Senate leader Joe Bruno (R-Brunswick) and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver (D-Manhattan) — support Atlantic Yards.

• Ratner could downsize of his own volition — which isn’t far-fetched, given the positive publicity he could reap by reducing the project’s density to ease public concerns.

Ratner spokesman Joe DePlasco hinted at that last week when asked for a response on Markowitz and Green’s call for a smaller Atlantic Yards.

“We…will of course continue to look at individual buildings and the overall design as we go forward,” DePlasco said. “We understand the Borough President’s point of view and have always found his suggestions valuable. We will continue to work with him and others to improve on what we all agree is a great project with many benefits.”

Ratner has said that the size of the project is necessary in order to subsidize its 2,250 units of affordable housing. But the company has never stated what its expected profit will be, so it is unclear how big Atlantic Yards needs to be. With its 6,860 units, it would be the most-dense census tract in the country.

__________________________________________________ _

Bruce to the rescue?
Library courts Ratner for big cash infusion

By Ariella Cohen
The Brooklyn Papers

http://brooklynpapers.com/html/issues/_vol29/29_34/29_34bplplan.jpg

The proposed Brooklyn Public Library Visual and Performing Arts branch.

Big shots at the Brooklyn Public Library are eying developer Bruce Ratner as the key “partner” they need to jump start their long-delayed Visual and Performing Arts Library just two blocks from his proposed Atlantic Yards project.

No deals have been brokered between the institution and the developer, but officials from Forest City Ratner are talking to library trustees about funding the $120-million arts library, The Brooklyn Papers has learned.

“There have been several conversations,” said Danny Simmons, a member of the Brooklyn Public Library board and brother of rap impresario, Russell Simmons. “He would make a good partner. Ratner is building a huge, huge complex and one of the things that make it more attractive is surrounding cultural attractions. He has significant interest in making sure they succeed.”

The sleek, all-glass, Enrique Norten-designed building is a main feature of the city’s plan to surround the Brooklyn Academy of Music with a Lincoln-Center-style campus that includes new housing and cultural institutions.

When the library design was unveiled in 2002, officials predicted a 2005 groundbreaking. Now that date has been pushed back to 2009.

Few art world insiders were shocked to hear that Ratner is considering underwriting the building. The developer is a longtime BAM trustee who chaired the institution’s board until 2001. “If you look at the BAM playbills, you have to see that [Ratner] has a history of giving,” said Marilyn Gelber, executive director of Independence Community Foundation.

Yet Ratner’s Atlantic Yards project is so controversial in some quarters that many opponents are looking this possible gift horse in the mouth. To them, Ratner’s support for the Visual and Performing Arts Library only confirms old suspicions about the BAM Cultural District.

“When the hours for all libraries in Brooklyn have been reduced and inventory is outdated, we need to rethink putting what [little] capital we have into this visual arts library,” said Councilwoman Letitia James (D-Fort Greene).

“The state is relying on developers to make Downtown Brooklyn a playground for the rich, while ignoring basic needs in our community,” she added.

The latest plans for the “BAM Cultural District” show a theater designed by Atlantic Yards architect Frank Gehry, affordable office space for arts organizations, 350 units of housing (of which half would be middle- and low-income), plus a fountain designed to bring it all together.

Mayor Bloomberg allocated $74 million in financing for the cultural district in 2004 — but it has received no funding from the City Council since.

__________________________________________________ _________

City kicks in more Ratner cash

By Ariella Cohen
The Brooklyn Papers

The city will kick in another $29 million towards Bruce Ratner’s proposed Atlantic Yards, The Brooklyn Papers has learned.

The new expenditures — which will fund infrastructure improvements around the proposed basketball arena — bumps up the city’s contribution to $129 million, a slight jump in spending that project opponents characterized as unnecessary.

“This is a project of unacceptable cost [to taxpayers] and questionable benefit,” said Bill Batson, an Assembly candidate.

Batson says he uncovered the new money in a final draft of the city’s 2007 budget.

City officials declined to comment.

The $29 million will fund the relocation of water mains and the reconstruction of a pedestrian underpass at the intersection of Atlantic and Flatbush avenues, where the Frank Gehry-designed arena would be built.

The new money is part of an old problem — skyrocketing public subsidy for the private development, opponents said. Last year, watchdogs at the Independent Budget Office estimated that the development would cost $530 million in new education, sanitation, and police services over 30 years — and that was when the project called for 860 fewer housing units. And Ratner will get hundreds of millions in tax abatements.

IBO spokesman Doug Turetsky couldn’t confirm Batson’s discovery, but called the latest cash infusion “not unusual,” saying, “Twenty million is a lot to you and me, but in context of a $53-billion budget, it is not a huge amount.”

BPC

September 1st, 2006, 12:23 PM

Gehry --like Meier, being a septuagenerian veteran-- has a mile-long track record of producing dazzling beauty. We admire their achievements extravagantly on this forum and architects actually improve with age, viz. Wright and the Guggenheim.

The reason that Wright's Guggenheim looks so brilliant on Fifth Avenue, and Gehry's Guggenheim looks so brilliant in old Bilbao, is precisely because all of the surrounding buildings are NOT designed by Wright and Gehry respectively, allowing those fantasic designs to stand out. That is why I have always believed that Gehry should design the arena and more "pedestrian" architects should design the rest, the latter in scale and style with their surroundings.

noik53

September 1st, 2006, 06:26 PM

The reason that Wright's Guggenheim looks so brilliant on Fifth Avenue, and Gehry's Guggenheim looks so brilliant in old Bilbao, is precisely because all of the surrounding buildings are NOT designed by Wright and Gehry respectively, allowing those fantasic designs to stand out. That is why I have always believed that Gehry should design the arena and more "pedestrian" architects should design the rest, the latter in scale and style with their surroundings.

We can also use the same idea that you have for Gehry but on a larger scale. As the Guggenheim looks so brilliant in its Upper Westside neighborhood beacuse it doesnt resemble its surrounding building. Gehry project can do the same but for the entire borough of Brooklyn. Making this complex stand out because it doesnt mirror the architecture of the community and the borough that surrounds it, thus making it, as you said "a Fantastic Design"

The strenght behind his design may be because of its scale and contrast to the community.

ZippyTheChimp

September 1st, 2006, 08:31 PM

Hmmmm. I think you're stretching the point a bit.

Gehry or not, I'm not partiucularly happy with the layout east of 6th Ave.

NYguy

September 2nd, 2006, 07:38 PM

NY Press

BATTLE IN BROOKLYN
The fight over Atlantic Yards heats up

http://nypress.com/19/35/news&columns/RATNER1.jpg

Bruce Ratner sports ACORN’s signature shirt proudly.

By John DeSio

Crooked politician. Hipster garbage. Scumbag. Sellout. These were just some of the many wonderful names you could have been called if you attended last week’s hearing on the Atlantic Yards development project in Downtown Brooklyn. The scope and size of Bruce Ratner’s vision, which would give the NBA’s New Jersey Nets a new home and redefine the Brooklyn skyline through new high-rise office and residential space, has evoked strong emotions from supporters and detractors, both of whom recently had their say in a crowded auditorium at CUNY’s City Tech on Jay Street.

Both sides held signs, and everybody cheered or booed each speaker like it was a debate for class president. Members of city trade unions, which overwhelmingly support the project, did their best to drown out anyone opposing the project with loud hoots and hollers. Opponents of the plan went a different route, waiting until the room got quiet to launch more personal insults at elected officials.

Inside the hearing, the room was decidedly pro-development, though outside, those on line waiting to get in made up an oppositional force large enough to make the crowd an even split. There were some interesting moments inside the auditorium. Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz, the project’s number one booster, declared that he felt the development might need to be downsized, a stunning about face from his previous position. A senior citizen was ushered from the room after she brazenly vented her anger at project supporter, State Senator Martin Golden. And both sides had fun pointing out to the overwhelmed moderator that disfavored speakers were going over the allotted three minutes of speaking time given to them.

But the most notable moment of the hearing took place outside, several blocks away from City Tech, in front of the Brooklyn Marriot. There was Bertha Lewis, executive director of the activist group ACORN, getting several hundred of her red-shirted followers in order. ACORN is a big supporter of the Atlantic Yards project, largely due to the more than 2,200 proposed units of affordable housing it will create. Lewis had quite a surprise for her troops. In just a few minutes, they would be getting a pep talk from their general, Ratner himself.

Ratner did not attend the hearing, more than likely fearing that the focus would change from a lively discussion of the project to a contest to see who could hurl the most expletives at him before their three-minute bell rang. But here he was, the man himself, running across Jay Street with a huge smile on his face, eager to meet his most committed supporters.

“Put the shirt on!” cheered one ACORN member, urging the developer to join them in wearing one of ACORN’s signature red shirts. Ratner obliged, and the crowd went wild. Obviously worried about spending too much time outside where he might be seen by the project’s critics and suddenly become a public spectacle, Ratner kept his comments brief. “We have a great mission to do,” said Ratner. “You’ve got wonderful leaders. I can’t thank you enough. It’s a good cause, and we are going to win.”

The crowd was now frenzied, much like fans at a ballgame. And as the enthusiastic group began their march to the hearing, Ratner took a few minutes to personally shake the hands of many ACORN members. High-fives and back slaps were in abundance, and Ratner was thrilled to see it. And then, just as quickly as he came, he was gone. While ACORN walked to the meeting, chanting, “the people, united, will never be defeated,” Ratner quietly headed back to his office in the adjacent Metrotech Center, which he also developed. The raucous nature of the hearing, which drew over 1,000 Brooklynites, was not something he wanted to be a part of.

The craziness raged on into the night, so much so that after allowing the hearing to run an extra three hours, the State scheduled an additional hearing for September 12th where those who did not have a chance to speak will be able to do so. That hearing is likely to also be a madhouse and, like the one before it, Ratner will probably not attend.

But if you want to tell him what you think of the project on that day, you might want to look around and find the ACORN march. Though hostile territory is clearly off-limits, Ratner has no problem rallying his own forces to the cause, happy to be the leader of the pep rally. So if you’re a union worker looking to thank him for a job or a neighborhood resident angry you’ll soon be losing your home, walk a few blocks away from City Tech towards the Marriot on September 12th and let the man know what you’re thinking. He’ll be the happy guy in the red shirt.

krulltime

September 3rd, 2006, 10:09 PM

60% support big Brooklyn arena plan
Prospect of housing and employment sways New Yorkers, Crain's poll finds

by Erik Engquist
September 04, 2006

The colossal and controversial Atlantic Yards development is favored by a solid 60% of city residents and disliked by only 25%, according to a Crain's New York Business poll. New Yorkers cite the jobs and affordable housing that it promises for Brooklyn as the two most important benefits of the project.

Support for the proposal is running at a robust 60% in Brooklyn as well, though opposition there is stronger, with 33% viewing it unfavorably. The poll, conducted by Charney Research between Aug. 23 and Aug. 28, surveyed 601 people representing a cross section of the five boroughs. It has a margin of error of 4%.

The public's opinion of the 8.7 million-square-foot project influences the state officials in charge of the approval process, which is nearing a conclusion. If they take their cue from local sentiment, the officials will probably demand only a modest reduction in the development's size--not a fundamental redesign.

"The meaning of the poll is that New Yorkers are broadly pro-development, and that includes people in Brooklyn who are close to this project," says Craig Charney, the research firm's president.

Support for Forest City Ratner's $4.2 billion plan runs across racial, economic and gender lines, the poll shows. The proposed complex of 16 office and residential towers and a basketball arena is viewed favorably by 56% of African-Americans, 58% of whites, 68% of Latinos and 72% of Asians.

The results contradict the popular characterization of detractors as white elites and fans as poor minorities. Only 26% of whites say they are somewhat or very unfavorable toward Atlantic Yards, compared with 30% of blacks. Opposition among residents of households with income below $20,000 or above $100,000 was identical: 29%. It was 22% in households with incomes between those amounts.

The poll shows why Forest City has trumpeted its deal with community groups setting aside apartments and construction jobs for local residents, and why opponents have tried to discredit the pact. A whopping 86% of respondents call it an important benefit. That figure is 70% even among those who don't like the project.

Housing important

The project's proposed 2,250 apartments for low- and middle- income renters receive a similarly robust endorsement: They are deemed an important benefit by 92% of the development's supporters and even by 66% of its detractors.

Forest City's plan to move the Nets from New Jersey to the arena, at Flatbush and Atlantic avenues, is less of a factor. Only 58% describe it as an important benefit, while 40% say it's not. More men than women praise the basketball component, and college-educated women are the least impressed, with 53% calling it unimportant.

In fact, college-educated women are the least enthusiastic about Atlantic Yards as a whole. Yet half of them like it, while 32% do not.

Interest in Atlantic Yards is intensifying as its day of reckoning nears. A public hearing last month drew an overflow crowd, and hearings Sept. 12 and Sept. 18 are also expected to be packed. A recent opposition rally and an informational meeting for prospective tenants each drew more than 2,000 people. The Crain's poll indicates that 28% of Brooklynites and 20% of New Yorkers are following the issue closely.

Most New Yorkers are not bothered by some common criticisms of the project. Only 34% say its significant costs to the city--such as those schools and infrastructure entail--raise serious doubts in their minds. Just 29% express misgivings when told that the project, which includes a 62-story office tower, is out of scale with the neighborhood and will promote gentrification.

Of greater concern is the fact that the city's land-use review process was not used to consult the community on Atlantic Yards. That raises doubts in 40%, including 53% of those who are college-educated, but just 27% of those who didn't get past high school.

City will deal with it

"I don't think the neighborhood had enough input, and I think it's too big a project," says Richard Wald, 64, of Far Rockaway, Queens. "I'd like it to go back to the drawing board."

He says that though it would be nice to have the Nets, they should return to their former home on Long Island. "City land is too valuable," he explains.

Edward Altman, 83, of Brooklyn Heights, sees the project differently. "There are problems with Atlantic Yards, but they'll be overcome and I think the benefits outweigh the disadvantages," he says. The project would create jobs and residential units, he says. "I know most [of the housing] will not be moderate- or low-income, but enough of it will be.

"The stadium for the Nets has been overemphasized," Mr. Altman says. "It's not like a football stadium where you get 70,000 people in the daytime. It's 19,000 people--at night." Though he acknowledges that traffic would increase, "the city will have to find a way to deal with it," he says.

©2006 Crain Communications Inc.

ablarc

September 4th, 2006, 07:43 PM

The Hancock is essentially a "tower in the park" -- one high rise set apart ...
Nonsense. It's a tower in the urban fabric. As tightly integrated as the RCA Building or Time Warner.

The Prudential isn't exactly across the street from brownstones / 4 -story brick houses
From a narrowly technical point-of-view it isn't; the four-story buildings across the street were long ago converted to retail and office use. Your point, however, is faulty, lofter, framed in such narrow terms. The Tower looms in countless views throughout residential red-brick Back Bay. When I lived on Marlborough Street (three blocks over) it was my constant companion; I had a straight shot of it from my second story Newbury Street apartment, and on Newbury Street it's visible and benignly dominant at all points. It's visible over the entire length of the Commonwealth Avenue mall, too.

And just look at all that dead "plaza" space ^^^^^^^
The east-facing photo you posted is carefully edited to give the impression that you intend, but if it weren't so cropped you'd see Back Bay in its entirety to the left. This kind of "evidence" is either uninformed or dishonest. Knowing you, lofter, I think it's not the latter, but it is time for you to take a little field trip to Boston to freshen your acquaintance with that city.

And as for the dead plaza, that's not germane to the discussion. We were talking about the contrast of rowhouses and towers. There are towers with dead plazas and there are towers without dead plazas.

lofter1

September 4th, 2006, 07:59 PM

Granted it's been a while since I've been to Boston, but please post ONE image showing a 60+ foot streetwall (such as is proposed for AY) which sits directly across the street from those Back Bay houses.

I didn't "crop" the photos -- I googled for images of the two buildings. These were the ones that showed some relationship to the surrounding streets. I wasn't trying to be deceptive.

ablarc, I think you carefully worded your statements to argue that the Hancock / Prudential were good "background" buildings. Perhaps so -- as individual towers.

The BIG difference at AY is there is no individual tower -- even MIss Brooklyn is linked by the fairly large mass of the arena to the block of other towers.

I really don't think that for those living within a couple of blocks that any part of AY will appear to be "benignly dominant".

It could be that comparing anything in Boston to what is proposed by Gehry / Ratner for Brooklyn ends up apples <> oranges.

pianoman11686

September 5th, 2006, 12:16 AM

Developer Is Expected to Snip Away at High-Rise Project in Brooklyn

By CHARLES V. BAGLI and DIANE CARDWELL

Published: September 5, 2006

Facing mounting criticism of its $4.2 billion Atlantic Yards project, the developer Forest City Ratner plans to reduce the size of the complex by 6 to 8 percent, eliminating hundreds of apartments from the largest development proposal in the city, according to government officials and executives working with the developer.

Forest City is also considering reducing the height of the project’s tallest tower, which is known as Miss Brooklyn, to get it under the height of the borough’s tallest building, the nearby Williamsburgh Savings Bank, according to real estate executives.

The Atlantic Yards project, which includes a Frank Gehry-designed arena for the New Jersey Nets basketball team, more than 6,000 apartments, high-rise towers and a hotel on 22 acres near Downtown Brooklyn, has drawn a torrent of criticism as it nears the end of its public approval process. Critics fear that it would overwhelm the nearby brownstone neighborhoods and clog an already congested area with traffic.

The development, anchored at Atlantic and Flatbush Avenues, has a number of powerful supporters, including Gov. George E. Pataki, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, some local politicians and advocates for subsidized housing. And a recent Crain’s New York Business poll shows that most New Yorkers approve of the project, although opposition is strongest in Brooklyn.

But both supporters and critics have expected Forest City to reduce the size and density of Atlantic Yards, which has been the focus of a series of raucous, standing-room-only public hearings, most recently on Aug. 24. The stage appeared to be set when the Brooklyn borough president, Marty Markowitz, the project’s chief cheerleader, proclaimed at that hearing that no tower at Atlantic Yards should be taller than the 512-foot Williamsburgh Savings Bank building.

Forest City has been working with city officials on a revised plan after some officials raised questions about the project’s overall density and the design of Miss Brooklyn, which was supposed to rise 620 feet. Officials say the developer will announce the reduction later this month.

“I’ve been told they will modify the project in order to address some of the concerns about the development,” said Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, who has supported the project. “I’m not sure all the criticisms will be addressed or that all the critics will be happy. But I understand there will be modifications.”

Officials say that Forest City has not settled on the final numbers for the project, but that it plans to reduce the size by 500,000 to 700,000 square feet by eliminating hundreds of market-rate apartments. That would enable the developer to cut the height of some of the towers, including a 350-foot building on what is known as Site 5, on the west side of Flatbush Avenue, and possibly at Miss Brooklyn.

But according to executives briefed by the developer, Mr. Gehry has objected to any changes in his design for Miss Brooklyn. Forest City, they say, will continue to set aside 2,250 apartments for low, moderate and middle-income tenants, even as it seeks additional subsidies for that part of the development.

A spokesman for Bruce Ratner, the president of Forest City Ratner, declined to comment. Forest City is also The New York Times Company’s development partner on its new headquarters in Midtown Manhattan.

“I’m sure the developer is looking at ways to reduce the size of the project,” said Charles A. Gargano, chairman of the Empire State Development Corporation, which has granted initial approval of Atlantic Yards. “It would be a good thing for everyone. It’s an important project for Downtown Brooklyn.”

Whatever happens, the planned cutbacks are unlikely to satisfy the most severe critics.

“I don’t think the bottom-line community concern is really about aesthetics, which is what shaving a few stories off the heights of the buildings is about,” said James F. Brennan, a Brooklyn assemblyman. “I don’t think this flies.”

Daniel Goldstein, a spokesman for Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn, added, “They could chop Miss Brooklyn in half in terms of the height and that won’t change our position.” Mr. Goldstein’s group opposes the arena, the project’s density and the state’s use of eminent domain to acquire some of the property.

Mr. Goldstein said he suspects that the developer has had this proposal “in their closet for a long time.”

Mr. Ratner and his supporters are hoping that the changes will appease residents of the surrounding areas concerned about the impact of such a large-scale project and take the heat off the politicians who represent them.

“A lot of us who support it believe that it should be scaled back,” said City Councilman Bill de Blasio, who represents Park Slope. “But the amount of affordable housing has go to remain the same.”

A small portion of the project, Site 5, dips into the district of Assemblywoman Joan Millman, who has been critical of the project’s height and density, as well as its effect on traffic at the busy intersection of Atlantic and Flatbush Avenues. But she favors the arena, the large block of lower-priced housing and the developer’s commitment to union jobs.

“I’ve always praised Ratner,” she said. “He’s one of the few, if not the only one, who uses union labor. I’m just very concerned about the overall impact.”

Mr. Ratner’s project won widespread support in December 2003, when he first announced plans to build a glass-walled arena for the Nets and to erect 4,500 apartments, half of them subsidized. For the romantics, there was the appeal of the borough having its first major professional sports team since the agonizing departure of the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1957.

But over the following two years, the size of the project swelled to 7,300 apartments and the high-rise towers — 19 to 58 stories — took shape, looming over the four- to six-story buildings in the adjoining neighborhoods. In March, Forest City reduced the project by 475,000 square feet by cutting 440 market-rate condominiums, but that went largely unnoticed.

The reduction in the project’s scope comes as the Empire State Development Corporation prepares to hold two more public hearings later this month before voting on the project in October. Officials say the developer is likely to unveil the changes around Sept. 25, when the City Planning Commission is expected to issue design guidelines for the project and recommend changes, including a reduction in density.

At that point, there could be a long line of politicians and activists hoping to take credit, including the Bloomberg administration, Mr. Silver, Ms. Millman and Mr. Markowitz.

“Everyone’s going to take credit for something that everyone knew would happen,” said an executive who works with Forest City. “For these guys, it’s very important.”

Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

ablarc

September 5th, 2006, 02:01 AM

BACK BAY AND ATLANTIC YARDS

Granted it's been a while since I've been to Boston, but please post ONE image showing a 60+ foot streetwall (such as is proposed for AY) which sits directly across the street from those Back Bay houses.
OK, but the Back Bay townhouses are themselves 60 feet of streetwall.. Typically, they’re five stories with mostly high ceilings.

http://66.230.220.70/images/post/backbay/005.jpg

I think you carefully worded your statements to argue that the Hancock / Prudential were good "background" buildings. Perhaps so -- as individual towers.
They’re not background buildings at all --any more than Miss Brooklyn will or should be a background building. They loom.. And looming is good.

Sometimes they loom individually over their red-brown neighbors:

http://66.230.220.70/images/post/backbay/007.jpg
To loom is interesting. The contrast is delicious.

Sometimes they loom in groups, as they will in Brooklyn:

http://66.230.220.70/images/post/backbay/012.jpg
To loom is to layer. Here history is layered and form is layered. It’s cosmopolitan and metropolitan.

From a distance they loom over the entire district (so do the trees,which is why you can’t really see low-rise Back Bay in this view, except a bit on the far right and just over the treetops):

http://66.230.220.70/images/post/backbay/017.jpg
By looming in one place you can have great FAR density, by not looming elsewhere you can have a delicate scale. The two complement and enhance each other.

The exact same angle from up in an airplane reveals the truth in its entirety. A large mass of high-rise buildings is wedged between two very large low-rise townhouse districts: Back Bay in the foreground and South End in the background. Both benefit from the high-rises in between. The high-rise wedge --which, please note is actually bigger than Ratner’s Brooklyn project (and this is Boston!!) in both area and height (Hancock is 798 feet)—provides visual interest, prestige, civic pride, two shopping malls, a supermarket and miscellaneous retail, offices, high-rise residential, hotels and a conference center --and most of all, a physical link across what was before a yawning chasm of railroad tracks (sound familiar?):

http://66.230.220.70/images/post/backbay/018.jpg
The railroad tracks are still there and they’re even joined by an interstate highway. Can you even spot it?

This picture was taken from the Prudential Center. Consider this: every window and every sidewalk you can see in this picture can be used to view the Prudential Tower:

http://66.230.220.70/images/post/backbay/019.jpg

You ask: what’s across the street from the Prudential? This:

http://66.230.220.70/images/post/backbay/025.jpg
Picture taken from Pru.

In context:

http://66.230.220.70/images/post/backbay/036.jpg

Railroad tracks on left, interstate highway on right, completely decked over by high-rises (and their “dead plazas”):

http://66.230.220.70/images/post/backbay/126.jpg

Life on the rooftops of Back Bay as photographed from the Prudential Tower. Guess what all these folks have a view of. If looking at skyscrapers oppresses the soul, think how utterly oppressed these poor folks must feel in their multimillion dollar condos:

http://66.230.220.70/images/post/backbay/166.jpg

Honestly, the aesthetic complaints about Gehry’s projects are just a bunch of balderdash

The BIG difference at AY is there is no individual tower -- even Miss Brooklyn is linked by the fairly large mass of the arena to the block of other towers.
Well, Zippy’s complaint is that there are freestanding towers…

I really don't think that for those living within a couple of blocks that any part of AY will appear to be "benignly dominant".
Still think that after seeing the photos of Back Bay and the South End?

It could be that comparing anything in Boston to what is proposed by Gehry / Ratner for Brooklyn ends up apples <> oranges.
Oh, no; it’s definitely apples and apples. It’s about the same building mass, it deals with the same aesthetic issues of big and small, it’s built over transportation, it was for decades a gaping wound –and it’s about to get healed.

.

sfenn1117

September 5th, 2006, 02:31 AM

Great post ablarc. You really nailed your point.

NYguy

September 5th, 2006, 08:29 AM

http://66.230.220.70/images/post/backbay/018.jpg
The railroad tracks are still there and they’re even joined by an interstate highway. Can you even spot it?

This picture was taken from the Prudential Center. Consider this: every window and every sidewalk you can see in this picture can be used to view the Prudential Tower:

And you just know the views of Miss Brooklyn or any of the rest of the development will be selling points for and to anything in the surrounding area. Count on it.

NYguy

September 5th, 2006, 08:29 AM

Forest City is also considering reducing the height of the project’s tallest tower, which is known as Miss Brooklyn, to get it under the height of the borough’s tallest building, the nearby Williamsburgh Savings Bank. Forest City has been working with city officials on a revised plan after some officials raised questions about the project’s overall density and the design of Miss Brooklyn, which was supposed to rise 620 feet. Officials say the developer will announce the reduction later this month.

But according to executives briefed by the developer, Mr. Gehry has objected to any changes in his design for Miss Brooklyn.

Good for Gehry. There was no need to cave in on that height.

ablarc

September 5th, 2006, 08:47 AM

^ Alas, it may be the start of a rift between Gehry and Ratner. Ratner is more likely to cave to the moronic philistines because he doesn't really care about beauty and art --unlike Gehry who is totally immersed in them.

God save us from the ignorant aesthetes. This Williamsburgh Bank height fetish is mega-stupidity. It's the rattling of shriveled minds. Stupid, stupid, stupd.

Consider this: Brooklyn may be the US's fourth biggest city, after NYC, LAX and CHI, but several smaller cities represent more interesting cultural and architectural magnets for the world's tourists, including SFO, BOS, WAS, PHL --and even maybe SEA and NOL-- and yet some of its benighted residents are pulling hard for even more mediocrity. Maybe instead, Brooklyn could use a little more of what Manhattan has.

Brooklyn: world class? Ha!

Not presently, and less likely every day.

lofter1

September 5th, 2006, 03:34 PM

BACK BAY AND ATLANTIC YARDS

Oh, no; it’s definitely apples and apples. It’s about the same building mass, it deals with the same aesthetic issues of big and small, it’s built over transportation, it was for decades a gaping wound –and it’s about to get healed.

Okie dokey: me sayeth, "UNCLE"

;)

ablarc

September 5th, 2006, 06:08 PM

Okie dokey: me sayeth, "UNCLE"

;)
Valor and discretion ;).

Can't think of an example anywhere that so closely resembles Atlantic Yard's proposal. :)

NYguy

September 5th, 2006, 08:48 PM

^ Alas, it may be the start of a rift between Gehry and Ratner. Ratner is more likely to cave to the moronic philistines because he doesn't really care about beauty and art --unlike Gehry who is totally immersed in them.

I hope Gehry really drives home his point. What Miss Brooklyn needs is to be taller, not shorter. And exactly why does this tower have to be shortchanged when there are already plans in the works for another tower taller than the Williamsburgh? Makes no sense whatsoever.

sfenn1117

September 5th, 2006, 10:06 PM

I too am glad to see Gehry standing up for Miss Brooklyn. The design has really polarized people, but personally, I find the design so stunning and so original, only good can come from a piece of architecture like that.

To see it watered down would be a disappointment. Lower each and every other tower if you must; but not the centerpiece.

Kris

September 6th, 2006, 05:17 AM

September 6, 2006
Developer’s Plan for a Smaller Yards Project Matters Little, More or Less, in Brooklyn
By NICHOLAS CONFESSORE

Ever since Forest City Ratner announced plans to build a massive residential, office and arena complex along Atlantic Avenue near Downtown Brooklyn, people have been demanding that it be made smaller.

But as word circulated yesterday through the neighborhoods near the proposed site of the developer’s reported plans to reduce the 8.7 million-square-foot project by 500,000 to 700,000 square feet, the reaction from people who work and live nearby was almost uniform: Big deal.

“That seems like a non-change,” said Alex Walker, 28, a music producer who has lived for two years in Fort Greene, a few blocks from the site. “It doesn’t seem like much of a difference.”

The potential reduction — a shrinkage of 6 to 8 percent — could allow Forest City to preserve views of the Williamsburgh Savings Bank clock tower, the borough’s tallest building. Like several residents interviewed, however, Mr. Walker said that he would prefer to see the tower unobstructed, but that it would not change his assessment of the project, adding that the developer was going to “build it anyway.”

Even those who said their positions on the project were not yet fully formed seemed to feel that downsizing would not affect their views.

“What’s 8 percent, anyway?’’ asked Stacy Mooradian, 36, an owner of a sandwich shop on Fifth Avenue near the site. “What’s going to be different? That’s what I would want to know. I’m not in favor of building a replica of Madison Square Garden here, but I do think we need more affordable housing.”

One woman interviewed did object to the possible changes — because, she said, she does not want the project to shrink at all. “I heard the story this morning and I said, ‘Oh no, please don’t make it any smaller,’ ” said Vernolla Shields, 46, who hopes to apply for one of the project’s subsidized apartments. “I think they should use all of the land and build as many apartments as they can.”

Where public debate is concerned, the project’s vast size has long been its most salient feature. And the reductions that Forest City — which is also the development partner in building a new Midtown headquarters for The New York Times Company — is considering would be only the latest in a long dance over square footage that has preoccupied proponents and critics of the project since it was unveiled in December 2003.

Originally planned to occupy about eight million square feet on 21 acres — a scale large enough to create in Brooklyn the kind of high-rise skyline more closely associated with Manhattan — the project got even bigger in September 2005. That is when the developer laid out a mostly residential variation of the proposal that ran to 9.1 million square feet on 22 acres. In April, the Empire State Development Corporation, the state agency sponsoring the project, announced that Atlantic Yards would be reduced by about 5 percent, to roughly 8.7 million square feet.

The project’s most ardent critics have said that even a large reduction would do little to assuage their concerns, which include the project’s basketball arena and the eminent domain required to piece together the space for it.

In recent weeks, some supporters of the project have also called for reductions far greater than those apparently under consideration, including Assemblyman Roger L. Green of Brooklyn, who has been one of Forest City’s allies. Mr. Green has sponsored a bill with Assemblyman James F. Brennan and other colleagues that would forbid state approval of the project unless it was reduced to 5.85 million square feet.

But a recent poll by Crain’s New York Business suggested that, for now, supporters of the project in New York City outnumber opponents, even at the current size.

The pattern of changes so far has fueled speculation in some circles that Forest City is merely following the tried and true developers’ tactic of building a cushion against inevitable calls for downsizing from planners, politicians and residents of the surrounding neighborhoods.

“With practically every large development project, people ask for far more than they need,’’ said Ron Shiffman, a former member of the New York City Planning Commission, who recently joined the advisory board of Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn, an umbrella organization for groups opposed to the project. “The city is never really very good at setting their own standards and criteria for scale.”

Mr. Shiffman speculated that the small reductions being contemplated are “more of a show than a substantive reduction,” aimed at politicians who do not want to stop the project but do want to claim credit for having gained concessions from the developer. “This is similar to the playbook and strategy that Ratner has used for all of his developments,” Mr. Shiffman added. “I think this is predictable, and that they concluded that the politicians needed something to go back to their constituents with.”

Forest City Ratner officials declined to comment yesterday.

Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

NYguy

September 6th, 2006, 09:03 AM

Daily News (editorial)

Develop, don't delay Brooklyn

News that Nets basketball team owner and developer Bruce Ratner will scale down the $4.2 billion Atlantic Yards project - potentially chopping 7% of nearly 7,000 apartments and condos planned for Prospect Heights, Brooklyn - comes as no surprise in a city where too many economic development decisions are based on politics rather than merit.

Ratner promises that even a shrunken Atlantic Yards will include 2,250 apartments for low- and middle-income tenants. Nine hundred units will be set aside for families of four who earn $21,270 to $35,450 a year. An additional 1,300 apartments will be aimed at middle-income New Yorkers - like teachers, cops and sanitation workers - making between $42,540 and $113,400 for a family of four.

This boon to working families must be maintained, along with the thousands of jobs the project will create. For the good of the city and the borough, Ratner should make no further trims to his project.

Ever since Ratner unveiled plans to build a world-class arena for his Nets - plus housing and commercial space - in an area dominated by empty lots and an MTA railyard, opponents have tried to kill the project by arguing that it's "out of scale" with the neighborhood. Now, they say no concession - not even a 50% reduction in the size of the buildings - will halt efforts to mire it in lawsuits.

Still, the project is a hit with New Yorkers: A poll by Charney Research shows that 71% of Gotham residents view Atlantic Yards favorably or very favorably, and 86% see its affordable housing and construction jobs for local residents as an important benefit.

All the more reason for Ratner to ignore the naysayers and deal instead with reasonable concerns of elected officials. Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno, who with Gov. Pataki will control approval of the project, have been quietly advising a small reduction in its scale, and the City Planning Commission is expected to make a similar recommendation in a few weeks.

Those concerns must be addressed. Meanwhile, Ratner should take care not to imagine that any changes to his plan, big or small, will placate a vocal minority that seems bent on blocking jobs, housing and the economic coup of bringing a New Jersey team to Brooklyn.

pianoman11686

September 6th, 2006, 02:46 PM

I'm fine with the slight reduction in scale, if in fact that was part of Ratner's original strategy. It's clear any reduction in scale, no matter how great, wouldn't please the opponents, so it's at least worthwhile to do it if it gets the politicians to shut up. Get rid of a few smaller buildings, or make them thinner. Do not reduce the height of Miss Brooklyn, or the other taller towers. Doing so only sets a questionable precedent for the remainder of Downtown Brooklyn. It's questionable because Williamsburg Savings Bank is not St. Paul's Cathedral, and Marty Markowitz is not the Queen of England.

SilentPandaesq

September 6th, 2006, 03:13 PM

and Marty Markowitz is not the Queen of England.

Well.....

ablarc

September 6th, 2006, 05:00 PM

Do not reduce the height of Miss Brooklyn, or the other taller towers. Doing so only sets a questionable precedent for the remainder of Downtown Brooklyn. It's questionable because Williamsburg Savings Bank is not St. Paul's Cathedral...
...and furthermore London now has numerous buildings taller than St. Paul's.

pianoman11686

September 6th, 2006, 05:45 PM

Well, that would make the height-reductionists' position all the more untenable, wouldn't it?

kliq6

September 7th, 2006, 04:16 PM

cut the scrapers in size and build 8 instead of what they have now and people will be happy and it gets passed one two three, stays this way and Silver kills it

TonyO

September 8th, 2006, 09:44 AM

Improving Brooklyn?

BY EDWARD GLAESER
September 8, 2006
URL: http://www.nysun.com/article/39305
editorial

New York City has progressed from the declining industrial Gotham of the age of Beame to the glittering financial capital of the age of Mayor Bloomberg. While previous urban booms were marked by modest housing cost increases and massive construction, this turnaround saw modest construction and massive price increases. In the entire decade of the 1990s, the city permitted only 21,000 units. In 1960 alone the city permitted 13,000 units. The construction slowdown and the resulting high prices reflect increasingly tough regulatory environment championed by anti-growth community groups.

As a student of land use warfare, I feel lucky to be able to watch the epic battle brewing between community groups defending old Brooklyn and Atlantic Yards' developer Bruce Ratner. Mr. Ratner's proposal has Moses (Robert that is) like proportions — 6,000 apartments, more than two million square feet of commercial space, and a 19,000 seat arena for the Nets on 22 acres.

The proposal of Frank Gehry's skyscraper may finally give Brooklyn an iconic tower to rival Manhattan's art deco marvels.The project is a boon for housing affordability, not because of its so-called affordable units, but because it increases the city's total housing stock. True affordability doesn't mean a small number of artificially cheap units, but a large number of units that reduce prices for everyone. Atlantic Yard's 6,000 units would be a good start.

The enemies of Atlantic Yards have four reasonable complaints.

First, they complain that the process has been undemocratic. Since the days of Jane Jacobs, this has been standard fare for anti-growth groups. These groups would prefer direct democracy and local control rather than delegating decisions to representatives democratically elected to balance competing city-wide interests. I think that the orderly decision-making associated with representative government is more likely to look after interests of the entire city, but I understand the appeal of recreating an Athenian polis on Flatbush Avenue.

The second complaint attacks the use of eminent domain in assembling the site. My Scottish Enlightenment ideals make me sympathetic to any complaint about governmental excess. I too get queasy when the government takes private property. Eminent domain does, however, serve a purpose when it prevents hold-up problems associated with small landowners blocking a large project. Atlantic Yards appears to be a relatively benign use of eminent domain since the private land being contentiously taken is a modest share of the overall site, which is primarily owned by the government and the developer.

The third complaint alleges that the city is giving Forest City Ratner a sweetheart deal. The subsidies to the developer include tax abatements and the right to lease the land under the prospective arena for one dollar. There are also allegations about the government's guarantee to rent office space, but government rental payments, unless they are grossly inflated, are a fee for services rendered, not a subsidy. I'm not sure that the city got a great deal, but we should probably give them the benefit of the doubt. After all, Mayor Bloomberg is no neophyte at the bargaining table and he is far too rich to be corrupt. Moreover, much of the subsidy goes to the Nets, not the builder. As my allegiance is to the Knicks, I am skeptical of subsidizing their rivals, but subsidizing sports teams is standard fare.

The final complaint is that the scale of the project would completely change the community's character. There is no debating this one. Just as Manhattan was completely changed when skyscrapers were built during the middle years of the 20th century, big time density would change Brooklyn. Community groups correctly emphasize that some people lose from urban change, and they have every right to ask for some compensation. Still, we shouldn't destroy New York's dynamism just because some people prefer the status quo. Local residents own their own property, they don't have the right to control their entire neighborhood. Thousands of other New Yorkers will be better off from Atlantic Yards construction because new units will make housing more affordable and new office space will reduce the cost of doing business in New York.

Perhaps more money can be squeezed out of Mr. Ratner, especially in exchange for allowing higher densities. Perhaps the city can do more to compensate the current residents. But I can't see the case for lopping floors off of Mr. Gehry's skyscraper. Any serious project will impose costs on current residents by radically building up Brooklyn. Restricting heights will just destroy the project's benefits without significantly reducing those costs.

Mr. Glaeser is the Glimp professor of economics at Harvard, director of the Taubman Center for State and Local Government, and a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute.

Teno

September 8th, 2006, 01:54 PM

The project is a boon for housing affordability, not because of its so-called affordable units, but because it increases the city's total housing stock. True affordability doesn't mean a small number of artificially cheap units, but a large number of units that reduce prices for everyone. Atlantic Yard's 6,000 units would be a good start.

This is an important point. Those who oppose AY seem to completely ignore this serious problem and the part AY plays in solving it.

Perhaps more money can be squeezed out of Mr. Ratner, especially in exchange for allowing higher densities.

This was a point I made a few pages ago. The community groups spend so much energy demonizing Ratner that they did not bother to come to the negotiating table with him. Get him to pay for public amenities in Brooklyn. It is rumored that he is looking to pay for the Visual Arts Library on Flatbush. A beautiful addition to the build up of the BAM Arts District that will encourage national and international attention. Which brings life, activity, money, and jobs into downtown Brooklyn.

Community groups correctly emphasize that some people lose from urban change, and they have every right to ask for some compensation. Still, we shouldn't destroy New York's dynamism just because some people prefer the status quo. Local residents own their own property, they don't have the right to control their entire neighborhood. Thousands of other New Yorkers will be better off from Atlantic Yards construction because new units will make housing more affordable and new office space will reduce the cost of doing business in New York.

Another example of how the opposition has not looked past their own wants to the needs of the greater community.

TREPYE

September 8th, 2006, 04:05 PM

One thing that is becoming more apparent to me right now is that Ratner knew he had to scale AY down at one point. How else do you figure this project ballooning from about 4500 units to around 7000. I believe that he artificially inflated (by this I mean that he never actually expected to get 7000 units done) so that he could bring it back down again and it could look like he scaled it down. Sorta like Macy' jacking up the original price of a product 30% and then having a 50% off sale so that it looks like a better deal. Smart move. Hopefully he could fend off those annoying NIMBY's and get this project on track.

Transic

September 8th, 2006, 04:34 PM

In Big Slow Brooklyn Build,
Is It Affordable Housing Last?

By Matthew Schuerman

What if Bruce Ratner never finished his gargantuan arena-and-housing development in central Brooklyn? Or, quite similarly but more likely, what if he put off fulfilling his commitment to affordable housing for years and years?

Construction schedules in a 1,400-page state study of the Atlantic Yards project show that Mr. Ratner is going to build the sexy and lucrative parts of his 22-acre mini-polis first, including a basketball arena for the New Jersey Nets and the tallest tower in Brooklyn.

More than four-fifths of the subsidized housing, as well as seven acres of open space, will begin construction only in the second phase, between 2011 and 2016.

That’s only if the project stays on schedule. State Assemblyman James Brennan, who represents neighborhoods to the west of the site, said he believes that Mr. Ratner, the chief executive of Forest City Ratner, will only follow through on the affordable housing if he makes enough money in the first phase.

“The point is that if the venture is not successful or not as successful as planned, much of the affordable housing will be at risk or not happen,” Mr. Brennan said. “The real-estate market is softening across the nation, interest rates have gone up, and three million square feet is a lot of feet to sell.”

In a Sept. 1 letter to Charles Gargano, the state official in charge of reviewing the project, Mr. Brennan asked the state to “enter into arrangements with Forest City Ratner to assure the public that the 2,250 units of affordable housing will be developed as planned and that construction of all of these units will be included in Phase 1 of the project, scheduled to begin in 2007.”

A spokesman for Forest City, Joe DePlasco, said that “FCRC is committed to building affordable housing as part of the Phase 1 plan.” Forest City would not comment further.

The draft environmental impact statement shows that 404 “affordable” units will be finished by 2010. Some of those units would cost as much as $2,658 a month, in today’s dollars, for a two-bedroom.

At the same time, Mr. Ratner is also getting approval for an alternative scheme that would replace some of the residential space with commercial, should the market shift. That version, according to the study, “would include fewer additional new low-to moderate-income units.”

As the project nears approval by Mr. Gargano’s Empire State Development Corporation, two newspapers, The New York Times and The New York Sun, have recently carried stories citing “government officials and executives” and “state officials,” respectively, saying that Mr. Ratner is planning to scale down the 8.66-million-gross-square-foot project by 6 to 8 percent, and that Mr. Ratner may even knock off a few feet from the tallest tower, Miss Brooklyn, now at 650 feet.

Mr. Ratner’s spokesman, Joe DePlasco, would not comment, but earlier told The Observer that all of Forest City, including the Atlantic Yards project director, James Stuckey, took the last week of August off for vacation, casting doubt on whether actual revisions, or even just talk of them, were underway.

At the same time, developers typically make token concessions when facing as much controversy as Mr. Ratner. Now that The Times has written that he is planning to reduce the project’s scale, he is in a tight spot.

The Mayor, for one, would be all in favor of the project getting a trim—which may explain the recent tone of coverage. He doesn’t have as much power over the project as Governor Pataki, but Mr. Bloomberg is the one who is sticking around come November.

“I think that some very modest adjustments may be appropriate,” Deputy Mayor Dan Doctoroff said. “It is one of the things we’re looking at right now. We don’t believe they need to be very major.

“We’ve had conversations with them and they have been receptive.”

Still, even an 8 percent drop would only bring Atlantic Yards in line with the eight-million-square-foot project Mr. Ratner first announced back in December 2003.

The small group of critics worried about Atlantic Yards’ financial viability see in its 22-acre footprint and 650-foot height not just an affront to the neighborliness of Prospect Heights, but rather a huge market risk that could fail, change radically, require a bailout, or take forever to finish.

Even though the entire project will be designed by Frank Gehry and Laurie Olin, it will also be, as The Observer’s blog, The Real Estate, reported in July, twice as dense as any residential neighborhood in the country. Right now, for example, the densest census tract is two square blocks in West Harlem occupied by a former Mitchell-Lama high-rise, with a density of 229,713 inhabitants per square mile. Atlantic Yards, with an estimated population of 15,000 to 18,000, will have a density of between 436,363 and 523,636 residents per mile.

“The question of whether people will buy these apartments is an almost impossible question to answer,” said Julia Vitullo-Martin, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute. “This project is going to have a lot of trouble covering its expenses.”

“When you add a projected 50 percent affordable housing—whatever that means—and when you include a money-hemorrhaging sports franchise, the economics of it are illusory to me,” an experienced developer who has done work in Brooklyn said. “But I hope it will happen.”

If Mr. Ratner builds 2,000 luxury condominiums and rentals and just a smattering of apartments priced below $2,000 a month in the first phase, as the schedules propose, then Mr. Ratner will make enough of a profit to see the project through.

That sort of market patience is exactly what makes Forest City Ratner, and its parent company, Forest City Enterprises, an attractive buy on the stock market. But it signals trouble for city and state leaders like Mayor Bloomberg and Governor Pataki, who have predicated their support on the $6 billion in tax revenues that the project is supposed to deliver. Much of that revenue is from the income taxes that will materialize only if the development brings thousands of new residents into Brooklyn.

“The quality that Forest City has is that they are very disciplined about moving forward in stages,” said Rich Moore, an analyst at RBC Capital Markets who covers Forest City Enterprises. “They build one office tower and see if they are doing well, and if they are not, there is always the option of waiting until the market catches up to them or of altering their plans.”

Mr. Ratner’s first major triumph in the borough of Brooklyn, the MetroTech Center office complex downtown, offers an object lesson in how long phased projects can take. When he first broke ground in 1989, his company expected to complete the 11-building complex within five years. But Mr. Ratner had a hard time finding tenants, and so construction slowed.

The final building in the complex, 9 MetroTech Center South, got underway in late 2001 only because of the Sept. 11 attacks, which chased Empire Blue Cross Blue Shield across the East River into the waiting arms of Mr. Ratner, who needed an anchor tenant.

Nine MetroTech Center South finally opened in late 2003, nine years after the complex was supposed to be finished. A subsequent tower, for the state court system, joined Mr. Ratner’s portfolio after Chase Manhattan Bank insisted on owning its own buildings.

The other object lesson is Manhattan Plaza, first proposed in the early 1970s by Richard Ravitch. Originally it was conceived under New York’s Mitchell-Lama program, which gave developers low-cost loans in exchange for keeping rents affordable for the middle class. But when construction costs soared, the rents that the middle class could afford to pay would no longer suffice to repay the loan. So the city’s housing department got special dispensation to use federal operating subsidies from the Section 8 program—which was supposed to benefit low-income families.

In other words, Manhattan Plaza was subsidized twice, and under one of the subsidies, upper-middle-class individuals—the complex’s tenants have included Larry David and Kenny Kramer, among others—got help with money intended for New York’s poor.

The late Robert Schur, a former deputy housing commissioner for the city, once estimated that the public would contribute $485 million over the 40-year lifetime of the deal. That was in 1977 dollars.

New York’s housing finance system has become more sophisticated in the intervening years, but Ms. Vitullo-Martin warned that if the second phase is abandoned or delayed, Prospect Heights will face an even larger hole than the railroad trench Atlantic Yards is supposed to cover up.

The project would also spread over four surrounding blocks, which together have more than 70 buildings that would be demolished, according to the draft environmental impact statement conducted for the ESDC. Some 410 residents and 27 business will be displaced, the study says. All evictions and demolitions will occur in Phase 1 in order to make way for construction staging areas and parking lots.

Mr. Ratner’s project is already behind schedule, and it has not yet cleared its first regulatory hurdle. The public comment period closes Sept. 29, and the ESDC board is likely to issue the first and most important approval some time later this fall.

When Mr. Ratner submitted his bid to buy the M.T.A. rail yards last summer, he predicted basketball could begin in the fall of 2008 and the entire project would be finished by 2013.

Since then, he has pushed back the first tip-off almost a year, to Oct. 15, 2009. The completion of the second phase, with most of the affordable housing and open space in it, has been delayed even longer, however, until Dec. 30, 2016.

The new schedule allows Mr. Ratner to build an additional office-condo building in the first phase.

Mr. Ratner must make a large upfront investment that may make him less willing to postpone the second phase, but it is not as large as it seems. Last summer’s bid to the M.T.A. said that it would cost $182 million to create a new train yard. Those relocation costs, though, will be offset by $200 million or more in cash grants from the city and the state.

And while his bid book dressed up the moving expense as part of Forest City’s lucrative offer to the M.T.A.—a way to construct a more spacious atmosphere for extracting sewage from commuter cars, which is apparently a primary function of the facility—it turns out that Mr. Ratner needed to get the yard out of the way for his plans. He is sinking the Frank Gehry–designed arena below ground, where the train yard currently is, and will construct a bi-level parking garage right next door, according to construction plans included in the state study.

Another major capital investment that the project requires—a $99 million train yard platform that will provide the base for rental buildings, including affordable units—will not be completed for another six years, according to the revised schedule included in the state study.

ACORN, the nonprofit housing organization that pushed for the subsidized housing, said it supports Mr. Ratner’s approach and is confident that all 2,250 units will be built.

“Right now we are absolutely comfortable with the phasing assumptions that are being used by the ESDC,” spokesman Jonathan Rosen said.

ACORN is widely seen as the bulldog that will keep Mr. Ratner true to his promise, in part because it stands to make money by marketing the affordable units. In May, 2005, Bruce Ratner and ACORN executive director Bertha Lewis signed an agreement designating the number of affordable units to be included—but that document does not mention when those units must be built.

In fact, a month later, Ms. Lewis and Mr. Ratner signed another pact that stipulated that “the developers may change the development phases in their sole discretion prior to commencement of the first development phase.”

Mr. Brennan, the State Assemblyman, wants to force Mr. Ratner into a binding agreement with the state—rather than a nonprofit group such as ACORN—to deliver those subsidized units.

He suggests providing Mr. Ratner with up to $590 million in operating subsidies, tax credits and free land over 30 years.

That would increase the government’s bill by $268,181 for each affordable apartment.

In return for that money, Mr. Ratner would scale down his project by 34 percent.

NY Observer - http://nyobserver.com/20060911/20060911_Matthew_Schuerman_pageone_financialpress. asp

pianoman11686

September 13th, 2006, 02:47 PM

At Atlantic Yards Hearing, a Gathering Small and Civil

By NICHOLAS CONFESSORE and ANN FARMER

Published: September 13, 2006

For the first time — and probably the last — nobody else wanted to speak about Atlantic Yards.

Unlike nearly every other public discussion concerning the proposed project to be built near Downtown Brooklyn, a community forum held yesterday at the New York City College of Technology was heavily underattended.

Only a few dozen people showed up to the college’s cavernous auditorium, and by 7 p.m., with an hour more to go, everyone who had signed up earlier to speak had spoken.

“I get to say my testimony and vote, too,” said Patrick Witt, a client services representative for Bear Stearns who lives in Clinton Hill. “You can’t beat that.”

The forum sponsor, the Empire State Development Corporation, decided earlier this year to schedule it on the same day as the statewide primary election. Perhaps because so few came, it was also the most polite discussion yet on the $4.2 billion residential, commercial and arena project. If approved, the development would be built by the Forest City Ratner Companies, the development partner in building a new Midtown headquarters for The New York Times.

Previous hearings have generally been both oversubscribed and highly uncivil, but many of yesterday’s attendees were able to speak nearly uninterrupted by boos or catcalls.

But that discussion was largely one-sided. Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn, the umbrella organization for individuals and groups opposed to the project, called on opponents to boycott yesterday’s meeting, urging them instead to “participate in the electoral process.” Yesterday’s session was thus dominated by project supporters.

Eduardo Cerutti, 44, a carpenter, said he supported the project for one reason: “Our jobs,” he said. “This’ll be 10 years of work for us.”

Mr. Cerutti, who like other members of his union carried a pro-Yards sign that read “Yes In My Backyard,” allowed that he lived on Long Island. “But I work in Manhattan and Brooklyn all the time,” he said. “So this is my backyard.”

Yesterday’s hearing was to allow for public comment on a draft environmental impact statement issued by the development corporation in July. Some speakers criticized the project’s potential to create traffic and hurt air quality, among other concerns.

But, for the most part, attendees debated the project’s general worth, or lack of it, in terms that have changed little since the project was proposed in 2003.

One attendee, Henry Charles, delivered a stemwinder against the American political system before concluding that “Bruce Ratner can now rob New York City.”

But Paul Hamilton, who owns a small apartment building on the project site and said he was in negotiations to sell it to Forest City Ratner, praised the developer.

“I love that neighborhood,” he said, “and I have loved it during decades of neglect by the city and private developers, and I love it now as it is poised for new life.”

Ahalia Smith, a Fort Greene native who now lives in Park Slope, attacked opponents of the project who “live in brownstones” at which the union members cheered loudly. Ms. Smith then attacked Forest City for sidestepping a rigorous public review of the project, at which the applause died down.

The single public hearing required by state law was held on Aug. 23, following the Empire State Development Corporation’s July release of a draft environmental impact statement to the public. Yesterday’s event, called a “community forum,” was originally planned to be the final forum sponsored by the corporation before Sept. 23, the original deadline for submitting written comments.

But after community groups and politicians called on the corporation to extend the public comment period, the corporation added one week and a second community forum, to be held on Monday.

Under state law, events called “public hearings” must be followed by at least 30 days of public comment period. By billing the second and third events as community forums, the corporation avoided having to extend the public comment period through mid-October.

“It allows us to have an additional period of public input without extending the deadline for written comments,” said Jessica Copen, a spokeswoman for the corporation. Ms. Copen said the corporation was expecting an influx of written submissions on the last day of the comment period and needed to ensure enough time to review them, as required by law.

Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

NYguy

September 13th, 2006, 07:08 PM

At Atlantic Yards Hearing, a Gathering Small and Civil

Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn, the umbrella organization for individuals and groups opposed to the project, called on opponents to boycott yesterday’s meeting, urging them instead to “participate in the electoral process.” Yesterday’s session was thus dominated by project supporters.

Yesterday’s event, called a “community forum,” was originally planned to be the final forum sponsored by the corporation before Sept. 23, the original deadline for submitting written comments. But after community groups and politicians called on the corporation to extend the public comment period, the corporation added one week and a second community forum, to be held on Monday.

Under state law, events called “public hearings” must be followed by at least 30 days of public comment period. By billing the second and third events as community forums, the corporation avoided having to extend the public comment period through mid-October. “It allows us to have an additional period of public input without extending the deadline for written comments,” said Jessica Copen, a spokeswoman for the corporation.

Enough commenting. People's minds are already made up about this project. Get on with it.

NYatKNIGHT

September 19th, 2006, 05:44 PM

September 19, 2006

With an Eye Toward New Brooklyn Arena, Nets Extend Lease in New Jersey

By RICHARD SANDOMIR

The New Jersey Nets, who once planned to move into an arena proposed for the Atlantic Yards in Brooklyn as early as 2006, extended their lease at Continental Arena in New Jersey yesterday through the 2012-13 season.

The lease extension provides the team with time to adjust to further delays in the 22-acre Atlantic Yards project. The 19,000-seat, glass-walled arena, to be designed by Frank Gehry, is a critical part of the project, which includes residential and office towers and retail space.

The extension allows the Nets to move to Brooklyn without financial penalties, and without violating the terms of their lease, if they give proper notice to the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority, which owns Continental Arena in the Meadowlands Sports Complex.

Assuming that construction begins in 2007, the Nets anticipate that they will move to Brooklyn in the fall of 2009.

“This is just responsible planning,” said Brett D. Yormark, the chief executive of the Nets. “It’s always nice to have options. We will be in Brooklyn for the 2009-10 season, so we needed something in between.”

The team’s current lease was to expire after the 2007-8 season. The extension includes the coming National Basketball Association season and the next one.

Mr. Yormark declined to project whether any further delays in the approval of Atlantic Yards, near Downtown Brooklyn, would jeopardize the opening of the arena, scheduled for 2009. Lawsuits over the demolition of buildings on the project site have been part of the reason for the delays. But government approvals are also required, and there is no prescribed timetable for them.

“When I came on board, the understanding is it would be a 2009-10 opening,” he said. “From all indications, that’s what it will be.”

In the original forecast, made in 2004, the team was expected to move to Brooklyn in 2006.

The Atlantic Yards project, which is being built by Forest City Ratner, the development partner for The New York Times Company in building its new headquarters in Midtown Manhattan, has been criticized for its density and the height of its high-rise office towers. Forest City plans to cut the size of the complex by 6 to 8 percent, according to government officials and executives working with the developer. Bruce C. Ratner, the president of Forest City, is the principal owner of the Nets.

If the team moves somewhere other than Brooklyn, it could be assessed penalties as high as $12.1 million under the lease agreement.

“We know they want to move to Brooklyn,” said George R. Zoffinger, the chief executive of the sports authority. “This agreement will not stop them, but it gives them a certainty of a place to play if that doesn’t work out.”

The extension also rewrites the formula for calculating the Nets’ rent from a varying percentage of ticket sales and other fees to a roster of per-game payments that rise from $48,864 in the first 50 games (the preseason, regular season and early playoff rounds) to $60,000 if they advance further in the playoffs.

Mr. Zoffinger said the new formula was meant to give the sports authority a profit on Nets games, reversing years of Nets-related financial losses that have been as high as $1 million annually.

The team has engaged in various marketing strategies, including inviting prospective season-ticket buyers to the homes of existing seat-holders for barbecues attended by Mr. Ratner, players and coaches. That was to keep fans from abandoning the team because it is leaving New Jersey.

Copyright 2006 (http://www.nytimes.com/ref/membercenter/help/copyright.html) The New York Times Company (http://www.nytco.com/)

Kris

September 22nd, 2006, 05:39 AM

September 22, 2006
Brooklyn Group to Propose Changes to Yards Project
By NICHOLAS CONFESSORE

A group of neighborhood and civic associations will propose a series of changes to Brooklyn’s controversial Atlantic Yards real estate development this weekend, taking a new tack in the bitter debate over the project. The effort will diverge markedly from the strategy of other project skeptics, notably Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn, a coalition of neighborhood groups taking a harder line against the development.

The group will prescribe substantial reductions in the project’s size and an increase in the percentage of subsidized housing allotted to poor families, among other changes, but will not take a position against eminent domain.

“Nobody’s happy with the way eminent domain has been used in this project, but that’s a legal issue, not a mitigation issue,” said Gib Veconi of the Prospect Heights Neighborhood Development Council, part of the group.

Leaders of Develop Don’t Destroy, who have also called for the project to be scaled back, insist that it should not be built at all if it requires eminent domain.

The groups, including the Pratt Area Community Council, the Municipal Art Society, the Boerum Hill Association and the Park Slope Civic Council, will unveil the proposed changes on a new Web site, BrooklynSpeaks.net, on Saturday, with less than a week until a state-mandated public comment period ends.

Members of BrooklynSpeaks.net say they hope to create room for negotiation in the highly polarized debate between the project’s developer, Forest City Ratner Companies, and its most vocal critics, focusing on mitigating the project’s impact rather than blocking it altogether.

“We know that there are many people out there who don’t want to be forced into a love-it-or-hate-it position, but believe it needs to be changed,” said Jo Anne Simon, who heads the Boerum Hill Association’s Atlantic Yards task force.

Joe DePlasco, a spokesman for Forest City, said that the developer was “pleased to see that these groups want to talk about ways to improve what we believe is a very exciting project for the people of Brooklyn. We look forward to meeting with them and discussing their ideas.”

Forest City is the development partner on the new headquarters for The New York Times Company.

Leaders of several neighborhood organizations said yesterday that they had begun discussions with the Municipal Art Society in June after the society sponsored a public critique of the project’s design. Some of the society’s proposed design principles, including scaling back the project’s square footage and limiting the closing of city streets to create a “superblock,” will be included in the new set of proposals.

In June, Develop Don’t Destroy officials criticized the art society, saying that by not disavowing the planned arena or the eminent domain required to build it, the society had conceded too much to the developer. Daniel Goldstein, the spokesman for Develop Don’t Destroy, echoed those criticisms yesterday.

“One of their key principles is to respect the neighborhood,” Mr. Goldstein said. “And by ignoring eminent domain and the arena, they are disrespecting the neighborhood.” He said the arena could not be built without eliminating some city streets.

The new effort follows a series of legal and political setbacks for opponents of the project. A lawsuit filed against the project in January by Develop Don’t Destroy and several of the groups now involved with BrooklynSpeaks.net has been stymied in court. And in several Democratic primaries in Brooklyn this month, candidates who had campaigned strongly against the project were defeated by candidates supporting it.

All of the groups involved in BrooklynSpeaks.net remain critical of the current plan for the yards, which would place an 8.7 million-square-foot residential, office and arena complex on a 22-acre site near Downtown Brooklyn. They say they will oppose the project’s approval by state authorities unless significant changes are made.

Kent Barwick, the president of the art society, said the new Web site was an attempt to find “the reasonable middle ground.”

“This is the voices of many different Brooklyn groups,” Mr. Barwick said, “uniting around a set of principles that could be described as not stopping the project, but fixing it, so that it works for Brooklyn.”

Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

ablarc

September 22nd, 2006, 08:07 AM

“This is the voices of many different Brooklyn groups,” Mr. Barwick said, “uniting around a set of principles that could be described as not stopping the project, but fixing it, so that it works for Brooklyn.”
And yet not a single concrete proposal mentioned in the entire article.

Opposition now last ditch and headed down the drain (deo gratias).

ZippyTheChimp

September 22nd, 2006, 08:22 AM

And yet not a single concrete proposal mentioned in the entire article.

The groups, including the Pratt Area Community Council, the Municipal Art Society, the Boerum Hill Association and the Park Slope Civic Council, will unveil the proposed changes on a new Web site, BrooklynSpeaks.net, on Saturday Website went online today. Saturday is tomorrow.

krulltime

September 26th, 2006, 01:08 AM

City Planners Recommend 8% Reduction in Atlantic Yards

http://graphics10.nytimes.com/images/2006/09/26/nyregion/600_yards.jpg
An illustration of the Atlantic Yards project includes the tower known as Miss Brooklyn, center. The
Williamsburgh Savings Bank is at far left.

By CHARLES V. BAGLI
Published: September 26, 2006

The City Planning Commission is recommending that the developer Forest City Ratner reduce the size of its $4.2 billion Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn by 8 percent, eliminating about 600 apartments but leaving the tallest tower in the complex untouched.

At its meeting yesterday, the commission said the developer should cut back the massive project, which stretches three long blocks along Atlantic Avenue from Flatbush to Vanderbilt Avenues, from 8.65 million square feet to roughly 8 million square feet. The Atlantic Yards proposal embraces a glass-walled arena for the New Jersey Nets basketball team, more than 6,000 apartments, 16 towers and a hotel on 22 acres near Downtown Brooklyn.

The recommendations do not call for the developer to reduce the height of the project’s tallest building, as the Brooklyn borough president, Marty Markowitz, many civic leaders and local residents had hoped. Known as Miss Brooklyn — its architect, Frank Gehry, described it as a bride with flowing veils — the 650-foot tower would loom about 10 stories over the nearby Williamsburgh Savings Bank building, a 512-foot clock tower that has dominated the borough’s skyline for decades.

The planning commission concluded that Miss Brooklyn’s height was appropriate for the location of the building, at the busy intersection of Flatbush and Atlantic Avenues. But the bank building, which is being converted into condominiums, did figure into a recommendation that the developer reduce the height of a different tower, on an islandlike parcel across Flatbush Avenue from Miss Brooklyn. Planners said that tower should be cut by 100 feet to a height of 250 feet, because it would otherwise “detract” from views of the clock tower.

The recommendations also called on the developer to reduce the height of two more buildings and to increase the amount of open space to 8 acres from 7 acres.

The planning commission does not have a formal role in the review process under way with the state’s Economic Development Corporation. But planners have been working closely with Forest City Ratner on refining the Atlantic Yards plan in response to critics who fear that the project would overwhelm the surrounding brownstone neighborhoods and clog an already congested area with traffic. It was not clear if the recommendations would be legally binding even if the developer accepted them.

“City Planning has been enormously helpful throughout the development process,” said Joe DePlasco, a spokesman for Forest City Ratner, the developer of several major projects, including a new headquarters in Midtown for The New York Times Company. “We look forward to reviewing their most recent recommendations and working with them to ensure the overall success of the Atlantic Yards project.” The developer is expected to embrace the recommendations. As one executive who works with Forest City put it, “A lot of this was precooked.” Critics and supporters had long anticipated that Forest City would make cuts in the project in order to make it more politically palatable.

Many of the recommendations pleased Mr. Markowitz, the borough president, even if they did not call for reducing the height of Miss Brooklyn. But critics say the city did not go far enough.

“They’re calling for the maximum visibility of the Williamsburgh Savings Bank, and that was my intention as well,” Mr. Markowitz said. “The good news here is that the city is saying it’s the right project at the right time and at the right location.”

He said he would continue to “fine-tune the project so that it maximizes the benefits and minimizes the impacts.” Forest City has promised that half of the 4,500 rental apartments in the complex would be reserved for low-, moderate- and middle-income residents. The planners recommended yesterday that 30 percent of the units built in the first phase be set aside for subsidized housing.

City Councilwoman Letitia James, who represents the neighborhood, said the reductions were “inadequate” and would only help to “further the Manhattanization of Brooklyn.”

She said she regretted that the planners failed to discuss how to mitigate the traffic problems brought on by the arena and the dense housing development, or the extensive use of public subsidies and eminent domain.

Daniel Goldstein, a spokesman for Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn, called the reductions “insignificant.”

“Even if it was scaled back by 50 percent, it would still be one of the most dense residential complexes in the country,” he said. “Whether it’s 5 percent or 50 percent, it does not make any difference, as long as they continue to use eminent domain.”

From the beginning of the project three years ago, Atlantic Yards has had the support of Gov. George E. Pataki, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, Mr. Markowitz and others. Under those circumstances, critics like Mr. Goldstein said, no project is going to come under the proper level of scrutiny.

Councilman Bill DeBlasio of Park Slope, who calls himself a project supporter, said more changes were needed. “We need to go farther than what City Planning has called for,” he said. “I think we can reduce the height, while continuing to maintain the affordable housing component.”

Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

pianoman11686

September 26th, 2006, 01:29 AM

The City Planning Commission is recommending that the developer Forest City Ratner reduce the size of its $4.2 billion Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn by 8 percent, eliminating about 600 apartments but leaving the tallest tower in the complex untouched.

Well, at least they didn't cave on the height reduction for Miss Brooklyn.

The recommendations also called on the developer to reduce the height of two more buildings and to increase the amount of open space to 8 acres from 7 acres.

I can't believe I'm saying this, but that actually might be a good thing. More open space = less footprint of buildings on the site. I'm curious to know, however, how they intend to balance that, while reducing height. Maybe the majority of the apartment paring will occur at the shortened towers.

Daniel Goldstein, a spokesman for Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn, called the reductions “insignificant.”

“Even if it was scaled back by 50 percent, it would still be one of the most dense residential complexes in the country,” he said. “Whether it’s 5 percent or 50 percent, it does not make any difference, as long as they continue to use eminent domain.”

Broken record.

Councilman Bill DeBlasio of Park Slope, who calls himself a project supporter, said more changes were needed. “We need to go farther than what City Planning has called for,” he said. “I think we can reduce the height, while continuing to maintain the affordable housing component.”

Not likely. Where are you going to fit all those extra units? If you don't build up, you have to build out. I'd rather gain some more extra space and give up some sun, than vice versa.

aural iNK

September 26th, 2006, 01:35 AM

Building tall and narrow doesn't take away as much sun as building short and fat. I can not understand why these people are so hellbent on height.

Vengineer

September 26th, 2006, 02:00 AM

Well I'm relieved. 8% seems alot better than 28%.

TonyO

September 26th, 2006, 11:13 AM

NY Post

RATNER'S TALL ORDER OK'D

By RICH CALDER

September 26, 2006 -- Bruce Ratner's dream of building the tallest tower in Brooklyn won the backing of the city's Planning Commission yesterday, but the rest of his megadevelopment at Atlantic Yards would have to be scaled back by 8 percent.

City planners, during a meeting yesterday, raved about the Frank Gehry-designed, 620-foot-high "Miss Brooklyn" tower proposed for the intersection of Atlantic and Flatbush avenues.

But the commission members requested that Ratner reduce the size of several other towers in the project, including a high-rise proposed for Dean Street and Sixth Avenue that they said should be chopped from 428 feet to 240 feet.

The commission is expected to send a letter to the Empire State Development Corp. also requesting that two other buildings proposed for Atlantic Avenue be built at lower heights and that the 22-acre project include at least 8 acres of open space instead of the 7 acres called for by Ratner.

The EDSC, which is overseeing the project, could snub the Planning Commission's proposed changes with a two-thirds majority vote, but that's unlikely considering the city's financial backing for the plan.

rich.calder@nypost.com

antinimby

September 26th, 2006, 02:18 PM

Well I'm relieved. 8% seems alot better than 28%.That's just a RECOMMENDATION. If you asked the NIMBYs, they probably won't be satisfied unless it was closer 80% or even 100%.

Nothing over 3 stories and green spaces all around.

kurokevin

September 26th, 2006, 03:15 PM

This will do the NIMBY's nicely. Just one floor and lots of green space. Notice how Ghery remains faithful to the initial designs by keeping Miss Brooklyn's wooden front stoop.

Strattonport

September 26th, 2006, 04:38 PM

Chalk up the bombed out look for the "nostalgic" feel everyone is wanting these days.

Teno

September 26th, 2006, 06:17 PM

City Councilwoman Letitia James, who represents the neighborhood, said the reductions were “inadequate” and would only help to “further the Manhattanization of Brooklyn.”

“Even if it was scaled back by 50 percent, it would still be one of the most dense residential complexes in the country,” he said. “Whether it’s 5 percent or 50 percent, it does not make any difference, as long as they continue to use eminent domain.”

These two statements are signs of extreme short sightedness and an obvious lack of understanding of what Brooklyn as well as New York City will be in the next 20 years.

Time moves on you cannot hold back change in the name of nostalgia.

TREPYE

September 26th, 2006, 06:35 PM

NY Post

RATNER'S TALL ORDER OK'D

By RICH CALDER

September 26, 2006 --

But the commission members requested that Ratner reduce the size of several other towers in the project, including a high-rise proposed for Dean Street and Sixth Avenue that they said should be chopped from 428 feet to 240 feet.

Great idea. Definitely a good second choice to the shrinking of Miss Brooklyn. They should have looked to have added more open space to at least 10 acres even if some of the other towers we given some more height. NIMBY shortsightedness again cost the are project some valuable green space.

ablarc

September 26th, 2006, 08:26 PM

City Councilwoman Letitia James, who represents the neighborhood, said the reductions were “inadequate” and would only help to “further the Manhattanization of Brooklyn.”
Ms James, it's now the HongKongization of Manhattan and the Shanghaiization of Brooklyn. As for all those brownstones: that's the BackBayization of Park Slope.

pianoman11686

September 27th, 2006, 08:14 PM

NY1 News (http://www.ny1.com/ny1/content/index.jsp?stid=1&aid=62940)

City Planning Commission Votes To Decrease Size Of Atlantic Yards Project

September 27, 2006

The City Planning Commission voted unanimously Wednesday on recommendations to decrease the size of the Atlantic Yards project.

The project has sparked many protests in the past but Wednesday's vote went off with little fan fare. That does not mean everyone is happy with the plan.

"Because it is located at the intersection of three of the borough's major commercial thoroughfares, a level of density is appropriate," said City Planning Commission Chair Amanda Burden. "It will bring vitality, investment, energy and excitement to this great borough."

"The adverse impacts of this proposed project outweigh all of the social benefits. They include traffic mitigation. They include the displacement of a significant number of poor people and people of color," said Brooklyn City Councilmember Letitia James. "It will result in instant gentrification."

The panel has recommended that developer Bruce Ratner reduce the size of three towers, eliminate an estimated 382 apartments and add an acre of open space.

However, the proposed building known as "Miss Brooklyn" would not be scaled down, making it the tallest building in the borough.

Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz says even with the changes, it will be impossible to make everyone happy.

"There are some groups that under any circumstance will never support this, either because they're against eminent domain, which will be very modestly used in this project, extremely modestly," he said. "There are those that are against major developments and they are not going to be swayed."

Critics say even a scaled down project is too big and, ultimately, the City Planning's recommendations won't matter because the project still needs approval from the state Public Authorities Control board, which includes Governor George Pataki, State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and State Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno.

"City Planning has no say in this project. It's a recommendation," said Daniel Goldstein of Develop-Don't Destroy Brooklyn. "I think that it's a sad day yesterday for city planning and urban planners in general, because what we have is a massive plan with no urban planning going on, just recommendations."
A spokesperson for Forest City Ratner says the company will work with the planning department to ensure the success of the project.

Copyright © 2006 NY1 News.

ablarc

September 27th, 2006, 09:05 PM

^

com‧pro‧mise ˈkɒm prəˌmaɪz

–noun

1. a settlement of differences by mutual concessions; an agreement reached by adjustment of conflicting or opposing claims, principles, etc., by reciprocal modification of demands.

2. the result of such a settlement.

3. something intermediate between different things

–verb

1. to make a compromise or compromises

2. to make a dishonorable or shameful concession

.

Strattonport

September 27th, 2006, 10:26 PM

This is pathetic. The NIMBY's strike again.

Want cheaper rents? How about letting these developers build as much housing as they can among the space? As long as there isn't a sufficient amount of housing to sarisfy NYC's ppulation, rents will always be high.

pianoman11686

September 28th, 2006, 01:20 AM

Atlantic Yards Developer Accepts 8% Reduction in Project

By NICHOLAS CONFESSORE

Published: September 28, 2006

The developer of the Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn said yesterday that the company would support changes proposed by the city planning commission earlier this week, including an 8 percent reduction in the project’s size, additional public space and changes to the designs of several buildings.

Those changes were discussed at Monday’s meeting of the planning commission and formally proposed in a letter to the developer, Forest City Ratner, released yesterday by Amanda M. Burden, the commission’s chairwoman.

Ms. Burden also said the developer would ensure that at least 30 percent of the apartments built during the project’s first phase will be below-market rental units. A total of 2,250 such rental units are planned for the project, which will have 8.7 million square feet. The developer, according to the letter, has also committed to building the remaining 70 percent during the second phase.

That commitment will be stipulated in housing and infrastructure subsidies that the city is negotiating with Forest City, which is also the development partner in building a new Midtown headquarters for The New York Times Company.

“From our perspective, we’re agreeing to their suggestions,” said James P. Stuckey, an executive vice president with Forest City. “We think their strategic cuts make sense from a planning point of view, and allow the affordable housing to get built.”

Because the developer has not disclosed financial projections, however, it is difficult to determine if further cuts would have made it impossible for the developer to include the full allotment of low-cost housing.

The company’s agreement was to some extent preordained: yesterday’s formal recommendations followed months of discussion. Moreover, the new reduction only brings the project back to the original size proposed in 2003. Critics and supporters of the project have called for it to be shrunk between a third and a half.

Ms. Burden yesterday defended the relatively modest reduction in scale, saying that the project, which would extend east from the intersection of Flatbush and Atlantic Avenues near Downtown Brooklyn, would be in an ideal location for a high-density development. “It is a transit hub,” she added. “It is at the crossroads of two wide avenues in Brooklyn. It can accommodate density, and density brings excitement, foot traffic, jobs.”

The developer will also adopt suggestions to maximize retail use of the street level, leave more room between the project’s residential buildings and widen entrances leading from surrounding streets into the project’s open space.

The Empire State Development Corporation, which is sponsoring the $4.5 billion residential, office and arena development, must still formally incorporate the new design guidelines into the general project plan, which it is likely to do. Under state law, the development corporation may reject the commission’s recommendations with a two-thirds vote of its board.

Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

ablarc

September 28th, 2006, 08:12 AM

The developer will also adopt suggestions to maximize retail use of the street level...
This sounds good and urban.

leave more room between the project’s residential buildings...
This sounds like it could lead to the same old "buildings in a park" that brought us the projects.

and widen entrances leading from surrounding streets into the project’s open space.
This sounds spatially suburban. Pedestrians can find entrances without being hit over the head.

antinimby

September 28th, 2006, 01:30 PM

This sounds like it could lead to the same old "buildings in a park" that brought us the projects...This sounds spatially suburban. Pedestrians can find entrances without being hit over the head.Correct.

This is what the NIMBYs like and are asking for.
Of course all of this is to appease them.

It's like all the past urban planning mistakes that were made, were never learned from.

I mean, stuff like this is all over the city and right in their backyards, yet it's like they don't even know it.

Ironic that Robert Moses-like development is being championed by the present-day NIMBYs.

Clueless people - now determining what New York will look like.

The future is not looking bright.

http://graphics10.nytimes.com/images/2006/09/23/nyregion/23stuy650.2.jpg

aural iNK

September 28th, 2006, 01:42 PM

I can certainly think of many places where "buildings in a park" does not succeed. Can anyone inform me of a development that has made it work?

JCMAN320

September 28th, 2006, 05:35 PM

Coming to Times Square, an Advertising Campaign by the Nets

By RICHARD SANDOMIR
Published: September 27, 2006

The Nets, at least three years from leaving the Meadowlands for Brooklyn, are taking over advertising turf in Times Square.

A 70-by-45-foot billboard featuring Vince Carter, Jason Kidd and Richard Jefferson will hang from the side of a movie multiplex and face Eighth Avenue, just off West 42nd Street, by Friday. A smaller one, featuring only Kidd, will be mounted next week above a Modell’s Sporting Goods store around the corner on West 42nd Street.

It will not be lost on those who drive past the larger billboard or stare at it as they dash out of the Port Authority Bus Terminal that the advertising is less than a half-mile from Madison Square Garden. The Nets insist that renting prime space to showcase their stars so close to the Garden is not a competitive swat at the Knicks.(bullshit)

Still, the billboard’s slogan, “The Hottest Show in Town ... Just 15 Minutes Off Broadway,” is a reminder that the Nets won 49 games last season and lost to Miami in the Eastern Conference semifinals, while the Knicks won only 23 games and endured a bizarre season of controversy and conflict.

“This area is adjacent to one of the biggest transportation hubs in the Northeast,” said Brett Yormark, the chief executive of the Nets. “A lot of people commute from New Jersey, so this will help reinforce our message.”

Two years ago, the Knicks had their own across-the-Hudson marketing idea, buying ad space on New Jersey Transit trains and platforms, and on billboards in the northern and central parts of the state.

The Nets are trying to build on their belief that they can become a regional team, hoping to keep fans going to Continental Arena as they plan their move to a glass-enclosed arena proposed for a site near downtown Brooklyn.

“We want to stay true to our core audience in New Jersey, but also to give a sampling opportunity to fans across the river,” Yormark said.

The Times Square billboards are part of an overall plan to raise the awareness of the Nets and, ultimately, to sell more season tickets. At this point last year, the team was on pace to sell 1,850 new season tickets. This year, Yormark said the Nets expected to sell 3,000 more.

Sixty percent of the season-ticket base lives in New Jersey, he added.

Another element of the campaign is the team’s first television advertising campaign in at least five years, with two commercials, one starring Carter, which will start running today, and a second one starring Kidd in November.

The Carter ad includes the voice of Marv Albert, the Nets’ announcer on the YES Network, and an instrumental track from the song “Dirt Off Your Shoulder” by Jay-Z, the rapper, music executive and a part owner of the Nets. The lyrics of the popular song contain some notably foul language.

Jay-Z figures in another one of the team’s ticket-selling tactics. Fans buying a package of tickets costing $85 and up for the Nets’ first three home games (Nov. 1 against the Raptors, Nov. 8 against the Jazz and Nov. 10 against the Heat) will receive a free copy of his new album, “Kingdom Come.”

“We’ve never offered this kind of plan and never married sports and entertainment like this,” Yormark said.

Yet another part of the marketing push will run for a month starting next week at the Secaucus Junction train station, where all the advertising will be Nets-related. In all, there will be 45 Nets signs with five train themes, including “The Conductor” (Kidd), “On Track for Three” (Jefferson) and “The Brakeman” (Jason Collins).

By the way the Knicks are the sorriest excuse for a basketball team I have ever seen. I see the Nets taking over the NY market from the Knicks especially if the Knicks continue like this.

lofter1

September 28th, 2006, 05:50 PM

Coming to Times Square, an Advertising Campaign by the Nets

A 70-by-45-foot billboard featuring Vince Carter, Jason Kidd and Richard Jefferson will hang from the side of a movie multiplex and face Eighth Avenue, just off West 42nd Street, by Friday.

that will be the big blue-greenish wall at the east side of the 1 TS / Times Square Plaza site, found on this thread: #442 (http://www.wirednewyork.com/forum/showpost.php?p=116088&postcount=442) and the bottom of which is seen at the left below ...

http://img74.imageshack.us/img74/4122/pict0100timessqplazatreessmallgq2.jpg

Kris

September 29th, 2006, 05:35 AM

September 29, 2006
More Find Fault With Atlantic Yards Review
By NICHOLAS CONFESSORE

On the final day for public comment on the state’s draft environmental review of the Atlantic Yards project, a coalition of Brooklyn neighborhood associations, churches and businesses will today be the latest to sharply criticize the review.

The criticisms are in a report that asks why the environmental review provided no evidence for its assertion that police and fire department response times would be unaffected by the project, which would house upward of 15,000 residents in an area now home to several hundred.

A 60-day period for public comment on the review, issued in late July by the Empire State Development Corporation, ends today. The state agency will consider the comments before making a final report.

In assessing the costs and benefits of the project, the coalition’s report also finds that the development corporation failed to account for the costs of most of the subsidies the city and state plan to offer the project’s developer, Forest City Ratner Companies. The report says the development corporation also failed to estimate the added costs of proposals to mitigate the project’s impacts, like building schools.

The report was prepared by a team of environmental engineers on behalf of the coalition, known as the Council of Brooklyn Neighborhoods, with financing from the City Council. Though the coalition is itself neutral on the $4.2 billion residential, commercial and arena project, some of its member groups have been involved in lawsuits — so far unsuccessful and being appealed — alleging that the review process was tainted by conflicts of interest. Some are also involved with Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn, a separate coalition of groups that strongly oppose Atlantic Yards.

The report to be issued today joins hundreds of other responses to the draft review submitted separately by the coalition’s member associations, other community groups and organizations and Brooklyn residents.

The group Friends and Residents of Greater Gowanus, for example, took issue with the review’s contention that the toilets of thousands of new residents would not significantly increase sewage overflow into the Gowanus Canal.

“The report will be taken into consideration along with all the comments we receive on this project,” said Deborah Wetzel, a spokeswoman for the development corporation.

Forest City Ratner is the development partner in building a new Midtown headquarters for The New York Times Company.

The report assesses computer models of the project that Forest City overlaid into street-level photographs, which were later incorporated into the state review. Those models, the report finds, contain “serious workmanship and/or methodological errors,” providing a false impression of how the project would look when completed.

It also faults the development corporation’s assessment of how the project might drive gentrification in neighborhoods like Prospect Heights and Fort Greene, a key issue in debate over the project.

Supporters of the project say that its roughly 2,250 units of below-market housing will ensure poor and working-class families a place in the neighborhood. But the report says that the environmental review’s tally of incomes and property values is too imprecise to properly examine those effects.

Therese Urban, co-chairwoman of the Council of Brooklyn Neighborhoods, said in a statement, “Due to the number and profound nature of the errors and shortcomings” of the draft environmental impact statement, her group “does not believe the current document can be approved.”

Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

NYguy

September 29th, 2006, 09:13 PM

[Sixty percent of the season-ticket base lives in New Jersey, he added.

Wow, I would have expected it to be much higher.

Transic

September 30th, 2006, 07:04 AM

Here's the entire report of the response to the Atlantic Yards DEIS from the Council of Brooklyn Neighborhoods. (Caution: .pdf file 229 pages):

http://www.cbrooklynneighborhoods.homestead.com/CBN_DEIS_Response_9-29-06.pdf

JCMAN320

October 1st, 2006, 05:09 PM

NYGuy the percentage will be higher once this season commeces this year. Don't forget even in there years of futility the season tickets percentages were higher because they were bad and the season tickets were cheap. With the amazing recent sucess of the Nets and how they have surged past the Knicks in terms of success over the last 5 years and higher prices now that they are good and with the possible move to Brooklyn can you blame some New Jerseyeans for saying basically f*** this shit it ain't worth it the stress and drama. That is whats happening because I've spoken to people at the games and that is why they dropped season tickets and just buy mini plans or single tickets and some people can't afford it too as they make the prices of the lower seats higher than at the Garden.

We don't want to root for another NY team we do that enough already. We want a team to call our own and keep our teams. So I mean it will be higher this year than 60% but can you honestly blame us with all the drama.

BPC

October 1st, 2006, 05:30 PM

We don't want to root for another NY team we do that enough already.

New Yorkers have to do that even more, with the Jets, Giants and Red Bulls all located in NJ. Even without the Nets, NJ still will have way more professional sports franchises than other suburban states without major metropolises.

pianoman11686

October 1st, 2006, 06:47 PM

We don't want to root for another NY team we do that enough already. We want a team to call our own and keep our teams. So I mean it will be higher this year than 60% but can you honestly blame us with all the drama.

Honestly, I think you're building up the drama much more than it is in reality. The fact that a move by a sports franchise is ever even considered - in this case, mainly because of financial problems - is a signal that something is not right. Despite the recent success of the Nets, they're still losing money. And if New Jersey, as the "victim" in losing a beloved team is looking for someone to blame, it should be itself - for failing to show the expected support of a team that is a consistent playoff contender.

Personally, I don't understand your aversion to this move. If it's accessibility, I would think it's easier to get to Atlantic Yards from Jersey City than it is to get to the Meadowlands, or even Newark. (Well, unless you like driving to every game). If it's hoping for the continued success of the team, I would think they have a better shot of being a long-term playoff contender if they start getting more revenue, and signing better players. Ditto for hoping that the Nets actually become a "respected" team in the NBA.

So the only reason left is that you, for whatever reason, just want to be able to refer to them as the New Jersey Nets, as opposed to Brooklyn, or New York Nets. In my opinion, that's an issue of pride, and shows that you don't really care for the team itself. It's not as if a move to Brooklyn will preclude you from following them as closely. Games will still be televised, and you can still go to the occasional game. More importantly, it's still the same team. And if you truly enjoy being a fan, it's not all about location. It's about liking your team's players, their style of play, and hopefully, sharing in their success.

Drama indeed.

JCMAN320

October 1st, 2006, 07:42 PM

BPC still we have to deal with the Giants and Jets being called New York teams when they have played here for about 30 years. Also the Red Bulls have always been a Jersey team and never played one day in NY limits and now they call themselves a NY team which is pardon the pun but a load of bull. Also you have Devils fans in NY too.

Piano a few things.

It is true about the fans here in Jersey not wanting to buy season tickets because of the move and higher prices. I go to the games and a fan and here it when people talk in the stands.

I do love the team. I have been a fan since my first game when I was 6 years old. The politicans didn't do enough to get the Newark Arena started 5 years earlier when none of this was being discussed so they would stay. I love the Nets from their roots here as the New Jersey Americans, there showboat style of play, and their never say die attitude. The NBA owes the Nets a lot of props for the intorduction of the 24 sec shot clock, the 3 pointer, the slam dunk (which was outlawed in the NBA until Dr. J and the Nets came in and made it legal because of the popularity of Dr. J doing it), and the all star game was a result of the Nets star Dr. J along with the stars of the Pacers and Nuggets. All of this wasn't part of the NBA till the Nets, Nuggets, Pacers, and Spurs, came into the league.

I will stay a fan only if the they keep the Nets name. If they change it all bets are off. If they try to seperate the Nets from Jersey and make it a seperate history all bets are off. The Nets say they were founded in 1967 in Teaneck, New Jersey as the New Jersey Americans and they don't keep it a seperate history. I also think that they will find almost impossible to keep the Jersey history seperate from the Brooklyn history considering most of their fan base will still be in New Jersey and they have there most succesful years in the NBA since the ABA days in New Jersey. They won their first of 5 Atlantic Division titles and 2 Eastern Conference Titles and two trips to the Finals in a row while in New Jersey. I hope that before the move they will win the the NBA Championship in New Jersey so it just makes their history here so much richer and stronger and then they can go in peace. I will still be a fan like old time BK Dodgers and NY Giants fans that are here still root for them even though they are in Cali. I do consider it a good thing that they are still close and not moving far and I will still go to games as often as I do now. But I have alot of Jersey pride and considering I'm not a hockey fan and not a Devils fan, even though they are a amazing hockey team, to me the Nets are the ONLY pure New Jersey team also considering the organization started in New Jersey and have been in New Jersey for about 30 years.

No getting out to Newark is easier than Atlantic Yards because it would be a short bus ride to JSQ and then a one seat PATH ride to Newark Penn and then a two block walk to the Newark Arena. To get to Atlantic Yards I have to get on the light-rail from Westside take it to Exchange Place; get on the PATH for one stop to WTC; then get on the 2 or 3 train to Atlantic Yards. Also even while they will still be in the Meadowlands when the Rail Link is finished it will still be easier to get out there. Also I don't mind drving out there and tail gating before the game.

I do realize that they will make more money in Brooklyn, but it is bitter sweet. I still have hope the move will fail and that they will stay in New Jersey and I'm allowed too its called being a fan.

No lets keep this fourm for the development and not a fan debate.

pianoman11686

October 2nd, 2006, 04:15 PM

I will stay a fan only if the they keep the Nets name. If they change it all bets are off. If they try to seperate the Nets from Jersey and make it a seperate history all bets are off.

Thank you for proving my point.

No lets keep this fourm for the development and not a fan debate.

Fine by me. I'm not the one recounting the team's entire history.

asg

October 12th, 2006, 10:10 PM

http://www.newyorker.com/images/rubrics/ru_THE_SKY_LINE.gif

GEHRY-RIGGED
Two New York projects show how to use Frank Gehry and how not to.
by PAUL GOLDBERGER
Issue of 2006-10-16
Posted 2006-10-09

how not to:
http://www.newyorker.com/images/spacer.gif
This cluster of skyscrapers extending twenty-two acres around a new basketball arena for the Nets is the biggest project he has ever undertaken, and it has been the subject of bitter controversy for months. (Last month, following recommendations from the City Planning Commission, the plans were scaled back by eight per cent, but the project remains enormous.) Opponents complain that the sixteen residential towers will create a wall between the neighborhoods of Fort Greene and Prospect Heights. So far, they have cast the developer, Bruce Ratner, as the villain, suggesting that he is cynically using Gehry’s name to add prestige to an ill-conceived scheme. In an open letter to Gehry published in Slate, the novelist Jonathan Lethem wrote, “I’ve been struggling to understand how someone of your sensibilities can have drifted into such an unfortunate alliance, with such potentially disastrous results.”
Yet Gehry’s design is a large part of the problem. He told me that he accepted the job in part because he has never taken on this kind of urban challenge, but his talents hardly seem suited to it. Gehry’s great success has come from architectural jewels that sparkle against the background of the rest of a city—the Bilbao Guggenheim; the Walt Disney Concert Hall, in Los Angeles. In Brooklyn, the task is to create a coherent cityscape that relates comfortably to its surroundings. Gehry tried to do this by grouping some understated towers around a few very elaborate ones. (The six-hundred-and-twenty-foot-high main tower, foolishly named Miss Brooklyn, is full of self-conscious Gehryisms.) Rather than giving a sense of foreground and background, the juxtaposition of plain and fancy just looks like a few Gehrys bought for full price next to several bought at discount.
Gehry has told me that he sees the project as a kind of homage to the old Manhattan sky line, but the romance of that vista is a happy accident of diverse buildings in a tight web of streets. Atlantic Yards, by contrast, involves eliminating streets, and has the look more of a single structure spanning multiple blocks than of a townscape that has grown organically. Gehry perhaps conceived of the whole thing as one huge object that could play off against the city—a gigantic version of one of his jewels. The problem with trying to do Bilbao on this scale is that it ceases to be an eccentric counterpoint to the context. It is the context.
Buried within the construction is the building that was the catalyst for the entire project—an arena for the Nets, the basketball team purchased by Ratner and which he intends to move from New Jersey to Brooklyn. The arena is the best part of Gehry’s plan. Its glass-enclosed spaces bring vibrancy to the intersection of Atlantic and Flatbush Avenues, and it will contain lots of public areas, not just for spectators but for anyone passing through. Such exclamation points in a cityscape are something Gehry knows how to create better than anyone. That’s what Diller asked him to do, and it worked. Ratner’s exclamation point, however, unlike Diller’s, can’t pay for itself, and Ratner is using it as a loss leader to justify an enormous real-estate venture. Although the site cries out for development, neither Ratner nor Gehry has a convincing idea of how this should be done. Ratner seems to have been less interested in using Gehry’s architectural talent to best advantage than in trying to leverage his celebrity to make an unpopular development more palatable. Gehry, for his part, clearly loved the idea of taking on the biggest project in New York. But even the most famous architect in the world has limits.

krulltime

October 20th, 2006, 03:17 AM

Study Shows Data for Claim of Atlantic Yards’ Benefits

By NICHOLAS CONFESSORE
October 20, 2006

A state agency has released documentation for its estimates of the economic impact of the controversial Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn, just weeks after the agency’s chairman said he would not make it public until after the agency’s board votes on the project later this year.

In promoting the $4.2 billion mixed-use real estate project, the agency, the Empire State Development Corporation, has asserted that the project would generate $1.4 billion worth of tax revenues beyond what building it would cost the city and state in subsidies and other assistance. Since the agency supplied that figure in July, however, it had declined to release the study supporting it, despite requests from elected officials in the area, Brooklyn residents and journalists.

In an interview with WNET television two weeks ago, Charles A. Gargano, the agency’s chairman, said the figure was based on “internal documents, working documents” that were exempt from the state’s Freedom of Information Law.

Jessica Copen, a spokeswoman for Mr. Gargano, maintained yesterday that the documents were privileged, but said the agency had decided to make them public this week as a gesture of “good government.”

Atlantic Yards is planned for 8.7 million square feet near Downtown Brooklyn and would include housing, office and retail space and an arena for the Nets basketball team. According to the study, the project would generate $1.9 billion in sales and income tax revenue for the city and state over 30 years, in today’s dollars.

About $160 million of that would represent one-time revenues from the project’s construction, and $1.4 billion would come from taxes generated over the 30 years by the more than 6,500 new jobs the agency estimates the project would create, directly and indirectly.

Agency officials estimate that the project would generate an additional $366 million in taxes on hotel visitors, arena tickets and concessions and the earnings of Nets players.

In return, the study estimates, taxpayers would contribute $492.9 million to the project. That would include direct subsidies of $200 million, bond financing costs and sales and mortgage recording tax exemptions.

The analysis does not include the $100 million the project’s developer, Forest City Ratner, has agreed to pay the Metropolitan Transportation Authority for development rights over the Vanderbilt railyards, which make up about a third of the project site.

Forest City Ratner is also the development partner in building a new Midtown headquarters for The New York Times Company.

Because it is hard to determine how many residential tenants of the project would be new to New York, the analysis excludes them as a source of new revenue, as well as the cost for possible increases in municipal services they might require.

Perhaps more significantly, the study also excludes public subsidies for the project’s planned 2,250 units of housing priced below market rates. Those subsidies are still under negotiation, but could substantially increase the public cost of the project.

The agency’s study “does not disclose the public cost of the Ratner project, and the claimed benefits are highly speculative,” said Daniel Goldstein, a spokesman for Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn, a coalition of groups opposed to the project. “We can only assume the E.S.D.C. is hiding the public cost because it is too ugly or controversial to disclose, while the developer’s profit is enormous.”

Aside from uncertainty over the magnitude of public subsidies for the project, the new study leaves unanswered major questions about the Atlantic Yards’ long-term finances.

“That is a skeleton projection of state and local tax revenue,” said Assemblyman James F. Brennan of Brooklyn. Mr. Brennan has requested a detailed accounting of the project’s financial return to Forest City — figures not covered in the new study — and for the costs of each element of the mixed-use project, like the arena.

Such requests have so far been rebuffed. Mr. Brennan said he believed that a fuller financial picture might undercut supporters’ contention that the project’s enormous size and density could not be reduced without endangering its economic viability.

“We don’t know how much money the arena’s going to make,” Mr. Brennan said. “We don’t know how much the private rental housing is going to make. We don’t know how much the luxury housing and commercial property will make. Therefore, we do not know whether the arena or the affordable housing are independently economically viable. If they are, or if they only need minimal subsidy, then there is no rationale for the size.”

Joe DePlasco, a spokesman for Forest City Ratner, said the company had complied with all disclosure requirements.

“We are in the midst of a public review process and have provided to relevant agencies required information involving the Atlantic Yards project,” he said.

Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Eugenious

October 20th, 2006, 11:13 AM

What a yuppie scumbag this Goldstein fellow is, clearly Brooklyn stands to gain and most residents of Brooklyn stand to gain from the whole project. These people are yuppie scum that should be put in jail for interfering with a public good. As far as this project goes the good far outweigns any kind of concerns from these yuppies.

MidtownGuy

October 20th, 2006, 11:27 AM

The opposition is made of ignorant knee-jerk nimbys. They don't give a damn about what's good for Brooklyn, and they're too stupid to recognize it when it's in front of them.
"change the character of Brooklyn": If I hear that idiot phrase one more time I'll scream.
Yuppie scum is the right moniker for them, Eugenious.
These people want to mummify Brooklyn in amber, and I hate them for it.

antinimby

October 23rd, 2006, 07:25 PM

On the Block

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2006/10/21/nyregion/22atlantic.xlarge1.jpg

By JENNIFER BLEYER
Published: October 22, 2006 (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/22/nyregion/thecity/22intr.html)

NOT since the Dodgers departed in 1957 has there been a slugfest in Brooklyn like the one over Atlantic Yards.

The plan is colossal — 16 high-rise buildings and an 18,000-seat basketball arena on 22 acres near the borough’s busy downtown — and fans and opponents have matched its magnitude with their own statistics. The developer, Forest City Ratner, which is also the development partner of The New York Times Company for its new headquarters in Midtown, says that the $4.2 billion project will bring 4,000 permanent jobs, billions of dollars in tax revenue and more than 6,000 units of housing. Opponents counter that the plan will corral $2 billion in public money and tax breaks, crowd 15,000 new residents into the area and clog local streets with thousands more cars.

Ever since the idea was floated in 2003, the sides have also framed their appeals broadly, citing big-picture concerns about urban policy and socioeconomic justice.

Less noticed amid the large numbers and loud clamor is the sound of the street: the skepticism and dread, or hope and excitement, of people who live and work near Atlantic Yards.

But that sound is there, on the neighborhood’s sidewalks and stoops, in its stores and coffee shops, in its kitchens and parlors. There is the Nets fan dreaming of walking to home games. The mother worried about steering her stroller across an even busier Flatbush Avenue. The teacher hoping that one apartment in the tall towers has her name on it. And the gardener fretting over the shade thrown by those same towers.

Brooklyn Voices:

Nine neighbors all see Brooklyn's Atlantic Yards plan through lenses colored by their own lives.

The Basketball Fan (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/22/nyregion/thecity/22burw.html)
Kelly Burwell, Resident, Crown Heights

The Homemaker (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/22/nyregion/thecity/22doyl.html)
Audrey Doyle, Resident, Fort Greene

The Investor (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/22/nyregion/thecity/22morr.html)
Christopher Morris, Real Estate Developer

The Retiree (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/22/nyregion/thecity/22davi.html)
Mildred Davis, Resident, Fort Greene

The Merchant (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/22/nyregion/thecity/22beck.html)
Ludlow Beckett, Owner of Yu Interiors, Fort Greene

The Gardener (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/22/nyregion/thecity/22crow.html)
Jon Crow, Coordinator, Brooklyn Bear's Community Garden

The Apartment Seeker (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/22/nyregion/thecity/22cole.html)
Mildred Coleman, Teacher, Crown Heights

The Mother (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/22/nyregion/thecity/22cayl.html)
Sarah Caylor, Resident, Fort Greene

The Business Hopeful (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/22/nyregion/thecity/22saun.html)
Brian Saunders, Resident, Crown Heights

Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

antinimby

October 23rd, 2006, 07:35 PM

I suggest clicking on each of those links in the above article to read some of the comments from those people. They range from interesting to downright funny.

Eugenious

October 23rd, 2006, 08:44 PM

The Homemaker (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/22/nyregion/thecity/22doyl.html)
Audrey Doyle, Resident, Fort Greene

"...People who can afford very high housing prices have to be well off, and I would suspect that most of those new people would be white. I’m fearful of the neighborhood changing so much that we wouldn’t want to live here."

Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Yeah those evil white people! what a joke these people are! I'm all for diversity but cmon ...lets feel sorry for all the black people that wont be able to afford living in brooklyn anymore...Blacks are some of the staunchest supporters of Atlantic Yards!

Teno

October 23rd, 2006, 10:01 PM

Yeah those evil white people! what a joke these people are! I'm all for diversity but cmon ...lets feel sorry for all the black people that wont be able to afford living in brooklyn anymore

You left out half of her point.

People in public housing and people who own $2 million brownstones live side by side. I absolutely like that mix. I have friends and acquaintances in the neighborhood who are white from the Midwest, and some who immigrated from Argentina or India, and quite a few Caribbean neighbors. There’s a Chinese family on the street and a few doors down there’s a Japanese family.

Her point was as much about financial diversity as it was racial diversity. She's concerned about rich people (who are mostly white) pricing middle class people (of many different racial and ethnic backgrounds) out of the area. That is a legitimate concern.

Blacks are some of the staunchest supporters of Atlantic Yards!

Black people are not monolithic. People do think differently. Of the people that do support AY that support is not unconditional.

antinimby

October 24th, 2006, 08:09 AM

You left out half of her point.

People in public housing and people who own $2 million brownstones live side by side. I absolutely like that mix. I have friends and acquaintances in the neighborhood who are white from the Midwest, and some who immigrated from Argentina or India, and quite a few Caribbean neighbors. There’s a Chinese family on the street and a few doors down there’s a Japanese family.

Her point was as much about financial diversity as it was racial diversity. She's concerned about rich people (who are mostly white) pricing middle class people (of many different racial and ethnic backgrounds) out of the area. That is a legitimate concern.

Black people are not monolithic. People do think differently. Of the people that do support AY that support is not unconditional.How does she know what the future will bring?

Who's to say that the diversity in the city won't be reflected among the residents at Atlantic Yards as well?

If anything, Atlantic Yards will do more to help stabilize, if not boost, the minority population in the area by bringing in more affordable apartments and jobs.

If not for this and other development projects, the poorer population of that area will be displaced even faster.

By bringing newer units onto the market, the demand for the lower-priced, older units won't be as high thus sparing them from getting converted to more expensive condos or rentals.

Teno

October 24th, 2006, 01:12 PM

How does she know what the future will bring?

She did not predict the future.

Who's to say that the diversity in the city won't be reflected among the residents at Atlantic Yards as well?

She did not state in a definite sense what Atlantic Yards would bring. She raised her concern that it could homogenize a diverse neighborhood.

If anything, Atlantic Yards will do more to help stabilize, if not boost, the minority population in the area by bringing in more affordable apartments and jobs.

It probably will but that is not necessarily automatic. Its a human trait to naturally want to gravitate to people who are like you. Diversity is not automatic.

If not for this and other development projects, the poorer population of that area will be displaced even faster.
By bringing newer units onto the market, the demand for the lower-priced, older units won't be as high thus sparing them from getting converted to more expensive condos or rentals.

That may happen, but something different could happen.

EugeneNYC

October 24th, 2006, 01:24 PM

Is there any construction going on? What's the schedule?

antinimby

October 24th, 2006, 05:46 PM

She did not predict the future.She did not say it in so many words, but that clearly was what she believe would likely happen. Otherwise, why be concerned?

She did not state in a definite sense what Atlantic Yards would bring.Of course.
She herself wasn't certain enough of the validity of her own concerns.

She raised her concern that it could homogenize a diverse neighborhood.Again, she has doubts about her own concerns otherwise she would state it more in a definite sense, as you call it.

It probably will but that is not necessarily automatic.Now you're starting to sound like her. Uncertainty seems to be contagious.

Its a human trait to naturally want to gravitate to people who are like you.Are you certain about that? What makes you an expert on human social behavior?

Diversity is not automatic.Homogeneity is not automatic either.

That may happen, but something different could happen.That's like saying it could rain tomorrow or it might not.

Jesus. :rolleyes:

lofter1

October 24th, 2006, 07:45 PM

"Jesus!" is right -- parse, parse, parse :eek: ...

BigMac

October 26th, 2006, 02:47 PM

Curbed
October 26, 2006

Legal Shot Fired in Brooklyn's Atlantic Yards Fight

By Robert

The fight over Atlantic Yards is going to court. (Again.) Ten property owners and tenants on the site where Forest City Ratner would like to build Atlantic Yards have filed a Federal suit to stop the development. This should be the lawsuit over the project and the key legal issue, as expected, is eminent domain, and whether the state's use of it to take property is constitutional.

The suit names all the major players in the development--Governor George Pataki, Forest City Ratner President Bruce Ratner, Empire State Development Corporation Chairman Charles Gargano, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Deputy Mayor Dan Doctoroff and others--as defendants. (For the lawyer in you, the PDF of the actual complaint can be found here (http://www.dddb.net/documents/legal/eminentdomain/EDcomplaint061026.pdf).) The outcome of eminent domain litigation will either clear the final obstacle to the project or send it back to the drawing board. Stay tuned.

· Announcement of Lawsuit (http://dddb.net/php/press/061026EDsuit.php) [dddb.net]

Copyright © 2006 Curbed

MidtownGuy

October 26th, 2006, 02:55 PM

Ouch!
:eek:

Transic

October 27th, 2006, 12:16 AM

http://ny.metro.us/metro/local/ap/NY_Atlantic_Yards_Suit.html

Brooklynites sue over Atlantic Yards eminent domain

by larry mcshane / associated press writer
OCT 26, 2006 6:20 PM EDT

NEW YORK (AP) -- A group of Brooklyn property owners and tenants facing eviction for developer Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards project filed a federal lawsuit Thursday charging the seizure of their property under eminent domain was unconstitutional.

"This is a case about a conscious effort to circumvent community input and the lawful processes of open government; about the misuse of the government's power to take property by eminent domain; and, ultimately, about a betrayal of public trust in service of the interest of a private developer," said the filing in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn.

The suit targets the $4.2 billion project, designed by renowned architect Frank Gehry, which would create a new sports arena for the New Jersey Nets along with 16 surrounding towers holding 606,000 square feet of office space, 6,860 units of housing, retail space and a hotel.

The tallest building would rise 58 stories above the existing railyard in downtown Brooklyn, and the contentious project would bring a major league sports franchise back to the borough for the first time since the Dodgers bolted in 1957. Ratner is the owner of the Nets.

Joe DePlasco, a spokesman for Forest City Ratner Companies, said the developer had spent the last three years trying to negotiate "fair and beneficial" deals with local residents and businesses. The company owns or controls 89 percent of the land needed for the project.

"However, a handful of people have either refused to speak with us or, for whatever reason, we have been unable to reach an agreement with others," DePlasco said. "It is disappointing that they have decided to take this action, but it is not unexpected."

Plaintiff Daniel Goldstein, spokesman for the anti-Atlantic Yard group Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn, said the motivation for the lawsuit was simple.

"We want to stay in our homes, keep our businesses, and keep our properties," said Goldstein, who owns a Brooklyn condominium. "Our case, at its core, is very simple: Bruce Ratner does not have the right to ask Gov. Pataki to take my home ... and the governor does not have the right to oblige Mr. Ratner."

The suit identified the defendants as Ratner, Gov. George Pataki, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Deputy Mayor Dan Doctoroff and Empire State Development Corp. Chairman Charles Gargano, among others. The lawsuit seeks to permanently block the defendants from seizing the property, and asks for unspecified compensatory and punitive damages.

"I think this is just a delaying tactic, and I assume there's no real merit to the case," Bloomberg said. "This is a project whose time has come, that we need in this city."

The Atlantic Yards project, according to DePlasco, will provide more than 2,200 new units of affordable housing, create more than 15,000 jobs and generate more than $1.4 billion in tax revenue for the city and state.

LeCom

October 27th, 2006, 12:42 AM

To all who wonder why NYC will not match anywhere near Dubai or Chinese development anytime soon, the Atlantic Yards fiasco is the answer.

Kris

October 27th, 2006, 05:08 AM

October 27, 2006
Suit Against Atlantic Yards Challenges Eminent Domain
By THOMAS J. LUECK

In a widely anticipated legal maneuver, opponents of the Atlantic Yards project filed suit in federal court yesterday, challenging the state’s authority to use its eminent-domain powers to acquire property and make way for the $4.2 billion development near Downtown Brooklyn.

The plaintiffs in the case were 10 people who the developer, Forest City Ratner, said have refused offers or resisted negotiations to buy their homes or businesses, or to be relocated to other rental apartments. The suit was filed in United States District Court in Brooklyn.

The plaintiffs’ lawyers, from firms in Manhattan and Albany and from South Brooklyn Legal Services, said the use of eminent domain would be unconstitutional because it would result in the transfer of private property to a developer without the public benefit that eminent domain is intended to bestow.

“The Atlantic Yards proposal is premised on the abuse of eminent domain,” said Matthew D. Brinckerhoff, the plaintiffs’ lead lawyer. It would mean “the taking of one citizen’s property to benefit a powerful and influential private citizen,” he said.

That citizen, Bruce Ratner, the president of Forest City Ratner, was named as a defendant, along with Gov. George E. Pataki and his chief development official, Charles A. Gargano, the chairman of the Empire State Development Corporation. Other defendants include Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and Daniel L. Doctoroff, the deputy mayor for economic development and rebuilding.

Mayor Bloomberg said yesterday that opponents of the Atlantic Yards project, who have long protested the use of eminent domain, were “misguided” and called the suit a “delaying tactic.”

“This is a project whose time has come,” Mr. Bloomberg said.

Jessica Copen, a spokeswoman for Mr. Gargano, declined to comment, saying that Mr. Gargano’s staff had not received a copy of the suit.

Joe DePlasco, a spokesman for Forest City Ratner, said the lawsuit was disappointing, but not unexpected. “We have tried everything in our power to negotiate fair and beneficial transactions,” he said. “However, a small group of people have either refused to speak with us or, for whatever reason, we have been unable to reach an agreement.”

The Atlantic Yards project would include 8.7 million square feet of housing, office and retail space and a basketball arena for the Nets.

If eminent domain were used by the state, it would be intended to complete the process of assembling property needed for the project, some of which the developer has negotiated to buy from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

Forest City Ratner said yesterday that it controls 89 percent of the land needed to complete the project. Forest City said it has control of 93 percent of the condominiums and co-ops on the site and 66 percent of the commercial property.

Forest City is also the development partner in building a new Midtown headquarters for The New York Times Company.

The lawsuit comes at a time of heightened public scrutiny around the country of the use of eminent domain, with a groundswell of sentiment in some regions that it has been used too often to unfairly seize private property.

Mr. Brinckerhoff said yesterday that the plaintiffs’ case was supported by a United States Supreme Court ruling in 2005 that said the city of New London, Conn., could proceed with a large-scale plan to replace a faded residential neighborhood with offices and commercial development, over the objections of 15 homeowners, who refused offers for their homes and wanted to stay.

Even though those plaintiffs lost, Mr. Brinckerhoff said the case, Kelo v. New London, buttressed the arguments of the plaintiffs in Brooklyn because of what the Supreme Court said the government could not do, including using eminent domain simply to transfer property from one individual to another without sufficient public benefits.

Daniel Goldstein, one of the plaintiffs and a member of Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn, said yesterday that the suit may heighten nationwide awareness of the conflict in Brooklyn and help raise money for the group’s legal bills.

Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Transic

October 30th, 2006, 04:54 AM

http://ny.metro.us/metro/local/article/Plotting_offense_in_Atlantic_Yards_fight/5408.html

Plotting offense in Atlantic Yards fight

Attorney for project foes says developer-driven Brooklyn plan is unconstitutional

by patrick arden / metro new york
OCT 30, 2006

Last year the U.S. Supreme Court gave states broad powers to seize private property for projects benefiting the public. Yet last week a group of Brooklynites in the way of Bruce Ratner’s Atlantic Yards project filed a federal lawsuit alleging that the $4.2 billion development would rely on an unconstitutional use of eminent domain. Plaintiffs’ lead attorney Matthew Brinckerhoff explained how he intends to prove that Ratner’s plan for a basketball arena surrounded by 16 towers does not meet the court’s definition of public use.

How can you file a lawsuit before eminent domain has been used by the state?

The plaintiffs in this case have an absolute right to have their constitutional claims heard in federal court, and if we wait any longer that right will be jeopardized. We know that this will be approved in the next few days or weeks, and in advance of that we need to get into court, we need to get discovery, where we get to question people under oath and get documents that will support what we already know ... that the purpose of this taking is to benefit Forest City Ratner.

Didn’t the Supreme Court give the state the right to use eminent domain?

The Supreme Court has always said, from the beginning of this nation, that you cannot take private property for a private benefit, and that is what this is.

The Empire State Development Corporation claims the project would revitalize a “blighted” area. What do you say?

Forest City Ratner has bought up large portions of this area and left them fallow to deteriorate. To the extent that there’s any argument that there is blight, it was created by the defendants in this case.

Why are you naming Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Deputy Mayor Daniel Doctoroff in the suit?

The city officials signed a memorandum of understanding with Forest City Ratner and the state that allowed this process to get off the ground by bypassing all local review. If this had been handled appropriately, the City Council would have a say in what’s happening here. Instead, Bloomberg and others in his administration decided they did not want to have that kind of public process.

Forest City Ratner says it already controls 89 percent of the land. What will stop this project now?

We will find documents that support our theory that this decision was made long ago, and that everything that’s been taking place over the last year or two was preordained. That will, of course, support our case. We have plenty of evidence that shows this process was corrupt and driven by Forest City Ratner, which is enough to have a court decide what the true motive was here.

Suits are expensive. How will your clients fund it?

A better question is, how is Forest City Ratner funding this project? That has yet to be revealed.

Fahzee

October 30th, 2006, 05:26 PM

http://ny.metro.us/metro/local/article/Plotting_offense_in_Atlantic_Yards_fight/5408.html

Suits are expensive. How will your clients fund it?

A better question is, how is Forest City Ratner funding this project? That has yet to be revealed.

_____

Nice deflection.

Jack Krohn

October 31st, 2006, 11:01 AM

Having some down time, I compiled a list of contradictions exhibited by Atlantic Yards opponents. By “opponents”, I mean anyone from formal organizations like DDDB to web sites like NoLandGrab to comments from people who post on blogs. At first, I counted on naming only four or five, but as I continued, I was amazed at how easy it was to think of more than that. Without further adieu, here they are:

<LI class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Declaring ad nauseam that the AY will create “instant gentrification”, while simultaneously insisting that it will thwart development on Vanderbilt Ave and make the general area unlivable. <LI class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Complaining that the people who drive to the Nets games will have no place to park – and then screeching when Ratner proposes a temporary parking lot near Vanderbilt Avenue . <LI class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Complaining that the public commenting period is too short and presents only two opportunities for the public to testify – and then, after the period is extended and another chance to testify added, urging people not to attend. <LI class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Repeatedly endorsing candidates who haven’t a snowball’s chance in hell of winning and then declaring victory after losing miserably at the polls. <LI class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Insisting that the opposition represents a broad base of races and ethnicities, but every demonstration, march, or fundraiser shows a turnout that is vastly white. <LI class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Complaining that the density of the project is too high, but kicking and screaming when the idea of moving the affordable units offsite is proposed. <LI class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Claiming that density is the issue, only to switch to eminent domain when someone suggests size reduction as a solution. (Or vice versa) <LI class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Claiming that a person’s neighborhood should not be a factor in their opinions, and then repeatedly asking project supporters if they reside in or near the footprint. <LI class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Claiming that the project will make the area too expensive for poor and working-class residents, but never considering how the steady influx of college-educated professionals (i.e. THEM) has been doing just that for years. <LI class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Criticizing AY for being “out of context” development, but then endorsing a plan that contains buildings of 25+ stories. <LI class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Repeatedly claiming that Ratner is corrupt, only to (a) put the girlfriend of a prominent spokesperson on the payroll of DDDB, (b) delete from the DDDB archives a press release regarding an opponent’s racial faux paus, and (c) endorsing a political candidate who supports a murderous dictator in Africa. <LI class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Criticizing a BUILD employee for driving a Cadillac, but conveniently turning a blind eye to the obvious wealth of several prominent project opponents. <LI class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Claiming on dailyheights.com in April, 2005 that DDDB is a 501c3 (http://www.dailyheights.com/archives/423 (http://www.dailyheights.com/archives/423), comment #6), only to declare on dddb.net in September, 2006 that DDDB is a *pending* 501c3 (http://www.dddb.net/php/latestnews_ArcTxtSrch.php (http://www.dddb.net/php/latestnews_ArcTxtSrch.php), 9/11/06).
Accusing anyone and everyone who supports the project of being a paid Ratner stooge, but accepting at face value to sincerity of anyone who opposes it.

Jack Krohn

October 31st, 2006, 01:50 PM

Not sure what went wrong with my first attempt, but I'll give it another try here. If the same thing happens again, I hope that it's legible.

Having some down time, I compiled a list of contradictions exhibited by Atlantic Yards opponents. By “opponents”, I mean anyone from formal organizations like DDDB to web sites like NoLandGrab to comments from people who post on blogs. At first, I counted on naming only four or five, but as I continued, I was amazed at how easy it was to think of more than that. Without further adieu, here they are:

Declaring ad nauseam that the AY will create “instant gentrification”, while simultaneously insisting that it will thwart development on Vanderbilt Ave and make the general area unlivable.
Complaining that the people who drive to the Nets games will have no place to park – and then screeching when Ratner proposes a temporary parking lot near Vanderbilt Avenue .
Complaining that the public commenting period is too short and presents only two opportunities for the public to testify – and then, after the period is extended and another chance to testify added, urging people not to attend.
Repeatedly endorsing candidates who haven’t a snowball’s chance in hell of winning and then declaring victory after losing miserably at the polls.
Insisting that the opposition represents a broad base of races and ethnicities, but every demonstration, march, or fundraiser shows a turnout that is vastly white.
Complaining that the density of the project is too high, but kicking and screaming when the idea of moving the affordable units offsite is proposed.
Claiming that density is the issue, only to switch to eminent domain when someone suggests size reduction as a solution. (Or vice versa)
Claiming that a person’s neighborhood should not be a factor in their opinions, and then repeatedly asking project supporters if they reside in or near the footprint.
Claiming that the project will make the area too expensive for poor and working-class residents, but never considering how the steady influx of college-educated professionals (i.e. THEM) has been doing just that for years.
Criticizing AY for being “out of context” development, but then endorsing a plan that contains buildings of 25+ stories.
Repeatedly claiming that Ratner is corrupt, only to (a) put the girlfriend of a prominent spokesperson on the payroll of DDDB, (b) delete from the DDDB archives a press release regarding an opponent’s racial faux paus, and (c) endorsing a political candidate who supports a murderous dictator in Africa.
Criticizing a BUILD employee for driving a Cadillac, but conveniently turning a blind eye to the obvious wealth of several prominent project opponents.
Claiming on dailyheights.com in April, 2005 that DDDB is a 501c3 (http://www.dailyheights.com/archives/423 (http://www.dailyheights.com/archives/423), comment #6), only to declare on dddb.net in September, 2006 that DDDB is a *pending* 501c3 (http://www.dddb.net/php/latestnews_ArcTxtSrch.php (http://www.dddb.net/php/latestnews_ArcTxtSrch.php), 9/11/06).
Accusing anyone and everyone who supports the project of being a paid Ratner stooge, but accepting at face value to sincerity of anyone who opposes it.

ablarc

October 31st, 2006, 06:56 PM

^ Entertaining list.

JCMAN320

November 1st, 2006, 05:48 PM

In Shift, Newark Mayor Backs Hockey Arena After Team Agrees to Offer Local Aid

By ANDREW JACOBS
Published: October 31, 2006

NEWARK, Oct. 30 — The devil was still lurking in the details, but Mayor Cory Booker decided on Monday to officially embrace the hockey arena that he had once promised to vanquish.

After months of negotiations with the owner of the Devils, the mayor held a news conference to trumpet a series of modest concessions he had wrung from the team, which will move next year from the Meadowlands to the $365 million stadium that is rapidly taking shape a few hundred yards from City Hall.

“I am now a hockey fan, and not just any hockey fan, but a Devils fan,” Mr. Booker said, standing beside Jeff Vanderbeek, the team’s owner, who was clearly relieved to finally have the backing of the city’s popular new mayor.

Mr. Vanderbeek acknowledged that discussions had been fraught at times. “Adversity does breed togetherness, if you get through it,” he said with a smile.

The agreement requires the team to provide $625,000 each year for youth sports and recreation, the construction and renovation of city parks and a labor apprenticeship program for minority residents. Mr. Vanderbeek also agreed to distribute 4,500 free tickets to local children each year, and return to the city the development rights for a key parcel of vacant land that Mr. Booker valued at $3 million to $5 million.

Mr. Vanderbeek also assured the mayor that he would go out of his way to provide permanent arena jobs to Newark residents and not interfere with labor organizers seeking to unionize concession workers.

During the campaign, Mr. Booker criticized the arena deal made by his predecessor, Sharpe James, calling it a “boondoggle” and a “betrayal of public trust” for committing $210 million in municipal money that he said could have been better spent on the commonweal. Once he was elected, he said again and again, the deal would have to be renegotiated.

But as mayor, Mr. Booker quickly discovered that unraveling the deal was all but impossible. Nullifying the terms of the agreement would have opened the city to costly litigation, and the ensuing fight would have sent the wrong message to the real estate developers and civic boosters who have been eagerly awaiting a new dawn for this downtrodden city.

Except for using the bureaucracy to slow a project on a tight deadline, Mr. Booker found himself with little leverage. “When you sit at the negotiating table, you don’t always get everything that you want,” he said, explaining his newfound affection for hockey. “It was a challenging situation, so instead of looking for ways to stop the project, we had to look at ways to go forward.”

Mr. Booker’s announcement brought great relief to business leaders. Arthur Stern, chief executive of the Cogswell Realty Group, who is creating some of the city’s first luxury housing in an Art Deco office tower a few blocks from the arena, said many developers were sitting on the sidelines awaiting the resolution of the impasse. “This is a great day for Newark,” he said. “I think the arena is going to stimulate development just as the performing arts center did. Ten years from now, the skepticism will be a distant memory.”

Whether the 18,000-seat arena becomes a crowd pleaser remains to be seen. There are doubters who question if it will draw sufficient numbers of suburbanites. The Devils’ current home in the Meadowlands rarely sells out, though the team has won the Stanley Cup three times in the past dozen years.

Then there is the issue of what will become of the Continental Arena in the Meadowlands after the Devils move nine miles south to Newark next October. Although older and thin on those coveted luxury boxes, the arena could end up competing for the same rock concerts and ice-skating extravaganzas that the Newark arena needs to stay financially viable. Newark and Devils officials would be thrilled if the state decided either to tear down the Meadowlands arena or to convert it to some other use. The Booker administration would also love to lure the Nets basketball team if plans for a new home in Brooklyn come to naught.

With the arena’s arrival here now certain, longtime observers relished the moment, saying it was another step in Newark’s long climb from urban obsolescence. Clement Price, a history professor at Rutgers University’s Newark campus, said the arena is as much a symbol as a steel-and-concrete catalyst for economic development. “I’m not a big hockey fan,” he said, “but this project is another acknowledgment that cities like Newark can become beacons of civic culture, entertainment, education and, in this case, sports.”

Mr. Booker may agree with such sentiments, although he may wish that the symbolism cost City Hall a little less money. Although on Monday he was gamely swooning for the news media about his new love for hockey, his boosterism had its limits. When a red-and-black Devils jersey, emblazed with “Booker” and “07,” was brought out for the signing of the agreement, it was suggested that the mayor put it on for the cameras. Mr. Booker smiled and held the shirt in front of him as if it were an ugly baby. “Wow, this is great,” he said.

Then he handed the shirt to an assistant and got down to business.

This means that if this Brooklyn arena takes any longer or fails, the state can force the CAA to close leaving the Nets no choice but to play in Newark and at that point Ratner might as well give up and sell the team. Also this means that Newark will activly pursue the Nets.

pianoman11686

November 1st, 2006, 06:35 PM

This means that if this Brooklyn arena takes any longer or fails, the state can force the CAA to close leaving the Nets no choice but to play in Newark and at that point Ratner might as well give up and sell the team. Also this means that Newark will activly pursue the Nets.

How exactly did you arrive at that conclusion? There was only one, very general mention of the Nets in the entire article, and it sounded like little more than wishful thinking at that. There's absolutely no way Ratner would be forced to move the team to Newark and/or sell it. He could move it anywhere.

Also, I hardly think posting an entire article about an arena in Newark, where only one sentence makes mention of the thread topic, is appropriate.

ZippyTheChimp

November 1st, 2006, 07:20 PM

But it was in boldface.

Oh wait, that wasn't from the article.

Then it must be this:
http://www.gifs-cliparts-kostenlos.de/images/gifs/Cheerleader/1/cheerleader-14.gif

JCMAN320

November 1st, 2006, 09:12 PM

Well see Piano. If Newark does pursue the Nets then it is added presure considering the fact that this arena is almost half way through completion the Nets will have a state of the art arena abotu 7 miles away and they can't get a shovel in the ground in Brooklyn making Newark very tempting. With this being the newest arena in the country if the Nets move I feel confident they will get another NBA franchise to replace them. Doesn't change the fact that I will still be a Nets fan, just good for New Jersey.

Transic

November 1st, 2006, 11:06 PM

I doubt 3 NBA teams in the metro area can work. Heck, I have no clue how 3 NHL teams have managed to stay in business...unless hockey equipment is bought at a discount. ;)

In any case, congratulations would be (I think) in order for Newark for getting that new arena. I'm about as sure it would make for a nice basketball venue as well...for Seton Hall.

investordude

November 2nd, 2006, 04:36 PM

If the end result is AY gets a retail or office complex instead of a basketball stadium or film and TV facilities, I think that would be better. Basketball isn't the highest end land use given the location, and I wonder if it would even be on the table if Brooklyn had improved as much as it has recently when AY was first proposed.

Newark, (which hasn't gentrified as much as Brooklyn and where development on the scale of Atlantic Yards of Jersey City seems unlikely in the near future) seems like a better place to put a basketball stadium, and a good economic development for them.

Teno

November 2nd, 2006, 04:48 PM

The basketball arena is actually the one part most people agree upon.

Its the scale of the residential towers that the opponents are against.

krulltime

November 12th, 2006, 02:53 AM

Perspectives on the Atlantic Yards Development Through the Prism of Race

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2006/11/12/nyregion/12yards.large1.jpg
‘Conspiracy against Blacks’ James E. Caldwell heads a job-training group and supports the project.

By NICHOLAS CONFESSORE
November 12, 2006

It was the first of three public hearings on the $4.2 billion Atlantic Yards development, and Umar Jordan, a 51-year-old resident of Bushwick, Brooklyn, strode to the front of the auditorium and offered a vigorous defense of the proposal. “I’m here to speak for the underprivileged, the people that don’t get the opportunity to work, the brothers that just came over out of prison,” he said.

Those who opposed the plan, he said, were not true Brooklynites. Their concerns about traffic and noise were trivial. And stopping the project would force “young black men” into a life of crime. “I suggest you go back up to Pleasantville,” he concluded.

It was not the first time race has bubbled up to the roiling, overheated surface of the Atlantic Yards debate, where charges of dishonesty and bad faith fly with abandon. Indeed, take any major debate about urban development in Brooklyn in recent years, and sooner or later, the issue of race has moved front and center — usually linked to the question of who wins and who loses.

Some of the racial rhetoric in this fight has inverted the classic development squabble in which affluent, usually white New Yorkers tolerate ambitious development, while working-class people, often minorities in struggling neighborhoods, fear they will not enjoy its fruits.

Like Mr. Jordan, many of the most fervent supporters of Atlantic Yards present the project as a beacon of hope for black residents living near the proposed 8.7-million-square-foot project.

Critics of the project — black and white — see merely the same old development debate, punctuated by what they describe as a cynical race ploy. They say the project’s developer, Forest City Ratner, has deliberately stirred up an imagined racial divide over the project, enlisting its black allies to falsely cast affluent white residents as the chief source of opposition and as insensitive to the needs of black Brooklynites.

“I think race was used from Day 1 to window-dress the project,” said the Rev. Clinton Miller, pastor of Brown Memorial Baptist Church in Fort Greene.

Bruce C. Ratner, Forest City’s chief executive, is white, as are most of his executives. Several local community organizations with black leaders receive funds from the developer as part of a “community benefits agreement” they negotiated last year.

But a closer look at the coalitions lined up for and against the project, and the arguments they have mustered, suggests that Atlantic Yards has drawn no true color line in Brooklyn, but only a blur of intersecting agendas, opinions and constituencies, both black and white.

The project, designed by Frank Gehry, would radically alter the neighborhoods near Downtown Brooklyn where it would be built, with residential and office towers and a basketball arena for the Nets. Proponents say the project would provide more jobs and low-cost housing where they are urgently needed.

When pressed, however, nearly all of those involved in the debate played down the suggestion that opinion on Atlantic Yards cleaves to any purely racial contour.

They point out that the project’s leading political booster, Borough President Marty Markowitz, is white, and its leading opponent, Councilwoman Letitia James, is black.

In neighborhoods around the project site, they say, the pressures of class and gentrification have been as potent as race — though both sides say they believe those pressures favor their view of the project.

“Some of my friends are in the opposition, and they’re blacker than I am,” said the Rev. Herbert Daughtry, a supporter and well-known Brooklyn pastor. “It ain’t a straight race question.”

Joe DePlasco, a spokesman for the developer, denied in a statement that Forest City had tried to use race to build public support for the project, or to isolate opponents.

“People say a lot of things, but at the end of the day you can only do what you think is right,” he said in a statement.

“From the start,” the statement continued, “we have reached out to diverse groups from all over Brooklyn — from Crown Heights to Marine Park from Sunset Park to Park Slope — to ensure that this project reflects the realities of life in this borough and addresses the unprecedented need for affordable housing, local jobs, small business development, health care, educational and training programs.”

He added, “Atlantic Yards is, among other things, all about inclusion, and we have worked hard to make it that way.”

Forest City, which is also the development partner in building a new Midtown headquarters for The New York Times, would not comment directly on past statements by its supporters.

In recent conversations, however, many of those involved in the Atlantic Yards debate spoke at length about the role that race has played — and not played — in shaping opinion on the project.

Though Brooklyn as a whole has been losing white residents for decades, the number living near the project site — in neighborhoods like Fort Greene, Boerum Hill and Prospect Heights — has grown steadily in recent years, according to census data.

Those new arrivals are more likely to be affluent and highly educated, especially compared with residents of the nearby public housing projects, where most residents are black and many are unemployed.

As white transplants have boosted the area’s median incomes, they have also forced up housing prices. In Fort Greene, for example, which borders the project site to the north, average apartment prices rose faster from 2004 to 2005 than in any other Brooklyn neighborhood.

“If you live nearby, you have a nice home and you have a job, you’re probably not that excited by the benefits, and you’re swamped by the drawbacks,” said Brad Lander, director of the Pratt Center for Community Development, citing the project’s potential to worsen traffic and overshadow the brownstone communities nearby.

“If you live a little farther away, and you don’t have a job and a nice house, then you probably get a lot more of the benefits,” Mr. Lander added. “None of that is about race per se. But when you layer on that the people who live nearby are more likely to be whiter and wealthier, and the people who live farther out are more likely to be people of color without good jobs or housing, the race elements have become stronger.”

That is one reason, say opponents and supporters alike, for the high-level interest in the project among the area’s black working-class and poor residents. Thousands of people, most of them black, packed a July information session about the project’s subsidized housing.

“The devil could bring in a project and say it’s jobs and affordable housing, and some of us will go for it, because we’re on a survival level,” said City Councilman Charles Barron.

But Mr. Barron also calls the project “instant gentrification,” a view shared by many opponents.

Atlantic Yards would include a substantial portion of subsidized housing for families at different income levels; but only about one-seventh of the project’s roughly 6,500 housing units would be classified as affordable for tenants making less than half of the median income for the New York City area.

Mr. Barron and other critics say a different project could provide as much or more moderately priced housing, with less negative impact on the area.

Most recent public polls about the project show supporters outnumbering opponents. But those polls have generally been too small to reliably measure sentiment among specific ethnic or racial groups in Brooklyn or the city as a whole.

In interviews, activists on both sides said they believed support and opposition cut across racial and class lines.

But some in the debate previously expressed less benign views.

Last year, James E. Caldwell, the president of Brooklyn United for Innovative Local Development, a job-training group known as Build, said it would be a “conspiracy against blacks” if Forest City did not win its bid for rights to build over the railyards on the site. Bertha Lewis, the New York executive director of Acorn, a national advocacy group for low-income people, attributed concern over the project to “white liberals.”

Interviewed recently, both Mr. Caldwell and Ms. Lewis backed away from those remarks. “Everybody said crazy things on both sides,” Ms. Lewis said. “I’ve apologized to folks, and folks have apologized to me.”

Both Build and Acorn — as well as a group Mr. Daughtry heads — receive funds from Forest City under the community benefits agreement. And both have been instrumental in turning out black participants who boost the project at community meetings, rallies and hearings. That, opponents say, has helped fuel perceptions that black support for the project is high.

In May, in an e-mail message to a Daily News reporter, the spokesman for Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn, Daniel Goldstein, wrote of ties between those groups and what he termed their “wealthy white masters,” referring to Forest City. The reporter later wrote about the message, which sparked an outcry from the project’s black supporters.

Mr. Goldstein apologized for what he termed “unfortunate remarks.” But he and some black allies say his underlying criticism of Forest City and its supporters was legitimate.

“Interestingly enough, the African-American leaders who have supported us, or who we have worked with, every single one I spoke to said, ‘Sorry about what happened, you didn’t really say anything wrong, but you weren’t the person to say it,’ ” Mr. Goldstein said.

Opponents of the project say they had to fight against a perception that black Brooklynites tend to favor the project. Ms. James said that because black opponents of the project were likely to be less well-off, “they just don’t have the luxury of going to these meetings and reading 2,000-page documents.”

Others, however, suggest that the main anti-Yards organizations — their manpower, energy and funds provided largely by white members — have not reached out effectively to the older, more established network of black community activists.

“The problem that whites who are organizing are having, groups like Develop Don’t Destroy, is that they really are a one-issue organization,” said Bob Law, a radio program host and business owner who is a member of Develop Don’t Destroy’s advisory board.

Mr. Law does not spare Forest City. He said that the developer tried to “inject race” into the debate, urging its surrogates to cast whites as solely concerned with traffic and building height, and blacks as interested in basketball, housing and jobs.

But the leading opponents of the project, Mr. Law said, “are only concerned with the project, so they play into Ratner’s hands.”

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2006/11/12/nyregion/12yards.graphic.jpg

Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

ablarc

November 12th, 2006, 10:08 AM

^ It's all been said before. Time to close the debate and get on with building.

lofter1

November 12th, 2006, 10:24 AM

The graphic showing the racial divide along Flatbush is an eye-opener ...

Xemu

November 12th, 2006, 12:09 PM

The graphic showing the racial divide along Flatbush is an eye-opener ...
It really is amazing. I wonder how different it will look after the next census.

JerseyBrett

November 12th, 2006, 05:37 PM

What neighborhood is that to the east of Flatbush Avenue? Bed-Stuy? Fort Greene?

MidtownGuy

November 12th, 2006, 06:24 PM

Fort Green.

posterboy

November 13th, 2006, 10:12 AM

Prospect Heights to the south of Atlantic Ave and Fort Green to the north, with Clinton Hill and then Bed-Stuy to the east.

I've been living in the area for seven years, so I'm very curious to see how this will turn out (and not just AY, but also all the developments in downton and Gowanus).

Transic

November 16th, 2006, 12:52 AM

http://ny.metro.us/metro/local/article/Atlantic_Yards_plan_moves_along/5738.html

Atlantic Yards plan moves along

by amy zimmer / metro new york
NOV 16, 2006

BROOKLYN — Bruce Ratner’s $4.2 billion plan to build a basketball arena and 16 highrises got another step closer to approval yesterday when the state agency overseeing the development released its final environmental impact statement.

This document incorporates the 8 percent reduction the city called for, but the current scale isn’t much different from Ratner’s original 8 million-square-foot estimate from 2003. The project ballooned to 9.132 million square feet in 2005 and has been scaled back since.

Frank Gehry’s main tower, dubbed Miss Brooklyn, will remain 620-feet tall, despite Borough President Marty Markowitz’s request that it be shorter than the Williamsburgh Savings Bank’s 512-foot clocktower. Commercial space has been cut roughly 493,000 square feet from its planned 606,000 square feet. The final EIS anticipates 1,300 office jobs, which is nearly 50 percent fewer than estimated in a draft EIS released in July.

The Empire State Development Corporation must now approve the plan before it heads for final approval from the Public Authorities Control Board — the governor, Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver. It was not clear yesterday whether this vote would occur before Gov. George Pataki leaves office.

Gov.-elect Eliot Spitzer has voiced general support of the project. But the vote could come down to Silver, who killed the West Side Stadium and delayed Moynihan station. His spokesman Skip Carrier recently told Metro it was too early to say what Silver would do. “Each of these projects rise and fall on its own merits,” Carrier said. “The speaker will continue to review it.”

TREPYE

November 16th, 2006, 02:22 AM

But the vote could come down to Silver, who killed the West Side Stadium and delayed Moynihan station. His spokesman Skip Carrier recently told Metro it was too early to say what Silver would do. “Each of these projects rise and fall on its own merits,” Carrier said. “The speaker will continue to review it.”

This guy has way too much unmerited power. This Governor-Bruno-Silver system has to change. Its totalitarian and anti democratic to have three people in charge of such developments that could impact neighborhoods, boroughs, cities. Not to mention the vulnerability for corruption (please see MSG-Silver). I would rather see referendums, as complicated as they may be at least it is a hell of a lot more democratic than this 3 person panel garbage.

ZippyTheChimp

November 16th, 2006, 08:22 AM

^
You do realize that the PACB vote only comes into play in state agency owned property, such as AY,
over which the city has little land-use control, right? This represents a miniscule percentage of city real estate.

I would be more concerned with the power of agencies such as the MTA. The mayor and City Council were bystanders during the transit strike. Or maybe the NY State Dormitory Authority, that has allowed Fiterman Hall to wallow for five years. How about the LMDC, dominated by Pataki and the NY State EDC.

I would rather see referendums, as complicated as they may be at least it is a hell of a lot more democraticPlebicites don't guarantee the correct choice.

NYguy

November 16th, 2006, 10:34 AM

NY Sun

Ratner Project Could Soon Face Its Final Showdown

By DAVID LOMBINO
November 16, 2006

Before the end of the year, the fate of Atlantic Yards could fall into the hands of the Public Authorities Control Board, a once a little-known Albany bureaucratic backwater that has become something of a graveyard for large projects.

Yesterday, the state's Empire State Development Corporation released the final environmental impact statement for developer Bruce Ratner's $4.2 billion project to build a basketball arena and 16 mostly residential towers on 22 acres near downtown Brooklyn.

The board of the development corporation is expected to sign off on the environmental statement and the general project plan as early as a November 28 meeting, according to a state official. This could set up another showdown at the Public Authorities Control Board next month, where the spotlight once again will fall on the speaker of the Assembly, Sheldon Silver, as one of three voting members of the board. Mr. Silver used his vote on the control board to kill Mayor Bloomberg's West Side stadium project and Governor Pataki's Moynihan Station plan, enraging both leaders.

Mr. Silver, whose direction is famously hard to read, has said he backs the Brooklyn project. When Mr. Silver halted Mr. Pataki's efforts to break ground on the Moynihan project before leaving office, some political observers suggested he was running interference for incoming governor, Eliot Spitzer. Mr. Silver said he merely favors a much larger plan to move Madison Square Garden.

With the Atlantic Yards project, Mr. Silver's political calculus is still emerging, experts say. Unlike Moynihan Station, Atlantic Yards has vigorous support from Mr. Bloomberg and a host of elected officials, who cite jobs and increased housing.

Yesterday, a spokesman for Mr. Silver said he had not yet received the final environmental impact statement.

The director of New York Civic, Henry Stern, an outspoken critic of Mr. Silver, said the speaker would likely wave it through.

"If he were free to make a decision on the merits, I suspect he would support it," Mr. Stern said. "If Spitzer asks him not to do it, he might not do it."

If final approval is stalled until after January 1, project supporters fear that Mr. Spitzer may want to take a fresh new look at it and create further delays. There is less uncertainty, they say, under Mr. Pataki.

With a changing real estate landscape, some development experts have said that the residential component of Mr. Ratner's project looks increasingly less profitable the longer it takes to build.

Some opponents of the project are focusing their stall tactics on the Public Authorities Control Board. A spokesman for Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn, Daniel Goldstein, said the project should not be "rammed through in the dying days of a lame duck Pataki administration."

Mr. Goldstein said he hoped the board would at least postpone a vote until after a court decides on the eminent domain lawsuit filed last month by the group and several property owners who will be displaced by the development.

The hundreds of pages released yesterday, making up the final environmental impact statement, are a requirement for approval under state law. It outlines the predicted environmental impact of the huge project, including traffic, parking, shadows, air quality, transit, and neighborhood quality as well as measures to mitigate its effects. It lists unmitigated or unavoidable effects and alternatives to the project.

At a public hearing on the draft environmental impact statement in August, thousands of Brooklynites queued for hours outside New York City Technical College to comment on it. The state reported receiving more than 1,800 comments regarding its draft statement, and it responded to many in the document released yesterday.

The project, however, appeared to change little. Three buildings were reduced in size, the number of residential units contained in the project decreased by about 8%, as expected, and the amount of commercial space was more drastically reduced, along with assumptions about related office jobs. Despite complaints from opponents on the scale of the development, the total square footage of the project remains close to the amount that was initially planned. The state agreed to add a school to the project's footprint.

ablarc

November 16th, 2006, 11:03 AM

Plebiscites don't guarantee the correct choice.
What does? It's an imperfect universe. In Iran, North Korea and Cuba they have sort of philosopher-kings. Anyway, one person's correct choice is another's...

ZippyTheChimp

November 16th, 2006, 11:15 AM

That's very true.

But a direct referendum would make it almost impossible to get anything built; because, if you filter out issues of historic injustice, opponents are always more involved, more passionate, and thus, more represented than supporters.

Universally, people are more energized when they are against something. The high voter turnout of the recent election was not support for Democrats, but a reaction to negatives, like Iraq and corruption.

Teno

November 16th, 2006, 03:00 PM

Ratner adds PS to Yards

Tries to sweeten deal but critics unsatisfied

BY DENISE ROMANO and ELIZABETH HAYS
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS

In a bid to quiet critics, developer Bruce Ratner plans to add a school to his controversial Atlantic Yards Nets arena complex and free subway rides for all ticket-holders.

But opponents said the changes don't go far enough to solve anticipated crowding and traffic at the 22-acre site - and accused state officials of trying to ram the project through before Eliot Spitzer becomes governor Jan. 1.

"There's no way that in the last days of a lame duck administration any decision should be made about this project," said Daniel Goldstein of Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn, which is suing to stop the project.

The new details came as state officials yesterday approved the final environmental impact statement for the project, which includes an arena and 16 residential and office towers.

The Empire State Development Corp. is expected to approve the project by the end of the month, and officials hope to get it before the Public Authorities Control Board for final approval before Gov. Pataki steps down.

"We're trying to get projects done," said ESDC Chairman Charles Gargano, a Pataki appointee who will be ousted Jan.1.

"Should we delay them because we are at the end of this administration? Of course not."

Under the new plan, Ratner will provide space for a 650-seat school, including spots for 270 elementary students, 320 middle-schoolers and 60 special-education students.

But critics say the state's own numbers show the project would create a shortfall of 1,372 elementary seats in the area when finished in 2016.

"It doesn't go nearly far enough," said District 15 Community Education Council President Mary-Powel Thomas.

It is not clear whether Ratner or the city would pay to build the school, or whether the space would be given for free or leased.

Also at yesterday's meeting, an overheated Gargano lashed out at Madison Square Garden for allegedly working to derail the Daniel Moynihan train station proposal in Manhattan, and said he "wouldn't put it past them" to scuttle the Atlantic Yards project, too.

"They have tried to sabotage a number of projects," said Gargano, who also blamed the Garden for killing the Jets stadium project in Manhattan last year. "Based on recent experience, I wouldn't doubt it."

MSG officials said they "are not commenting on this speculation except to say that we are disappointed in the remarks."

Ratner officials declined to comment.

Originally published on November 16, 2006

investordude

November 16th, 2006, 03:04 PM

http://www.brooklynpapers.com/html/issues/_vol29/29_42/29_42nets6.html

By the way, there is a middle ground between a plebiscite and a corrupt backroom knows as a representative government - if the legislature wants to make itself responsible for approving the executives decision, that is the prerogative they have, but I don't think they can or should have the power to delegate their voting rights to a single leader, which is the de facto legislative system in Albany.

TREPYE

November 16th, 2006, 03:11 PM

Ratner adds PS to Yards

Tries to sweeten deal but critics unsatisfied

BY DENISE ROMANO and ELIZABETH HAYS
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS

"They have tried to sabotage a number of projects," said Gargano, who also blamed the Garden for killing the Jets stadium project in Manhattan last year. "Based on recent experience, I wouldn't doubt it."

MSG officials said they "are not commenting on this speculation except to say that we are disappointed in the remarks."

Ratner officials declined to comment.

Originally published on November 16, 2006

The State Assembly, State Senate, Governor's Office, or somebody should start seriously investigating Silver's ties with MSG before he derails another great project at the favor of MSG.

kliq6

November 16th, 2006, 03:25 PM

Blooms is right on the money, even though im still against this whole project

TREPYE

November 22nd, 2006, 03:53 PM

<sigh!> :rolleyes: Shocking....

From Crains NewYorkBusiness.com....

http://www.newyorkbusiness.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061122/FREE/61122007/1079/newsletter01

Agency error delays Atlantic Yards approval

State approval of the Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn will likely be pushed back to 2007 due to an error by the Empire State Development Corp.

By: Erik Engquist (http://www.newyorkbusiness.com/apps/pbcs.dll/personalia?ID=18&category=contact)
Published: November 22, 2006 - 12:29 pm

New York state approval of the controversial Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn will likely be pushed back to 2007 because of a technical error by the Empire State Development Corp.

The ESDC failed to incorporate some public comments into the final environmental impact statement that its board certified last week. The document will have to be reprinted and certified again at Monday's meeting of the board.

The board must then wait another 10 days to recertify the document and certify the general project plan, environmental findings and property seizures for the $4.2 billion project. It would then go to the state comptroller's office for a review that could take seven days.

Only then could it proceed to the Public Authorities Control Board, the final stage of the state approval process. The governor controls one of the three PACB votes. Unanimous consent from the board is required for the project to move forward under its current financing arrangement.

The delay carries a modest risk for the project, which includes a 19,000-seat arena for the New Jersey Nets, offices, retail space, more than 6,000 apartments and eight acres of open space.

Gov. George Pataki, whose term ends Dec. 31, is an enthusiastic supporter of the project. Governor-elect Eliot Spitzer has also said he favors the project, but has expressed a desire to look more closely at its financing.

The other two PACB votes will be cast by Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, who have each allocated $33 million in state funds to build infrastructure for Atlantic Yards. Mr. Pataki contributed another $34 million.

State approval is not the project's largest hurdle. A greater threat is an October lawsuit by local residents, who could lose their homes and small businesses.

Entire contents © 2006 Crain Communications, Inc. (http://www.crain.com/) |

ablarc

November 22nd, 2006, 06:06 PM

Glitch after glitch.

BrooklynRider

November 25th, 2006, 06:11 PM

I believe that this project could already be underway had the yards been parceled and Ratner obliged to first fulfill the arena, commercial, hotel towers on the triangular lot at Flatbush and Atlantic. The sheer size, volume and unignorable impact of this project on the local area are what keeps it mired in the muck.

JCMAN320

November 25th, 2006, 08:22 PM

ld876

November 25th, 2006, 10:31 PM

pianoman11686

November 25th, 2006, 10:49 PM

There are better things he can be doing with his money. Much better.

lofter1

November 25th, 2006, 11:02 PM

That's one of the nice things about making big money -- you can spend it as you like ...

pianoman11686

November 25th, 2006, 11:21 PM

Right, but I imagine that the people who are against this project, and who are probably falling over Heath Ledger for his contributions, are the same people who demand celebrities to start charities to end world hunger, disease, etc. It just seems a little odd that he chose this particular channel for his money, that's all. Not that I'd ever chide him for doing so; it's his money, he can do whatever he pleases.

lofter1

November 26th, 2006, 12:21 AM

I'd be willing to bet that Heath also uses some of his money to fund other causes, such as those you mention ...

Another thing about makiing good money -- you have more to spread around in various areas where you feel influence / help is needed.

investordude

November 26th, 2006, 03:48 AM

Sounds to me like either Silver or Spitzer have some sort of gentleman's agreement with Pataki to let them take a look at the project before approving it. Thoughts?

lofter1

November 26th, 2006, 10:34 AM

Doubt that it's an agreement between those 3 ^^^

More likely is that lower-level functionaries give the higher-ups access to whatever paperwork they want to see.

TREPYE

November 27th, 2006, 01:30 AM

From Netsdaily.com:

'Brokeback' Star to Raise Funds to Keep Nets Out of Brooklyn

Heath Ledger, Australian-born star of "Brokeback Mountain" and "The Patriot" among others, expects to do some fund-raising to help his neighbors stop Bruce Ratner's plans for Atlantic Yards. The Nets' new arena is the centerpiece of the planned $4.2 billion mini-city in downtown Brooklyn. Ledger and his wife, actress Michelle Williams, are Brooklyn residents who had previously lent their names to anti-Ratner efforts

I know that this is about NIMBY's using his money and image to fight this project but who the hell is this new comer aussie-boy get to get involved in this?? He's lived here like a year or something and he is going to tell some of us who have lived in Brooklyn our entire lives what is right for this borough. Gitdahelloutahere with that ultra-BS and go back down under will ya Heath!

antinimby

November 27th, 2006, 02:04 AM

Don't cha know?

It's just hip to fight for the "small guy" against "da man."

Teno

November 28th, 2006, 09:32 PM

I know that this is about NIMBY's using his money and image to fight this project but who the hell is this new comer aussie-boy get to get involved in this??

Hopefully at the least he has done his homework and learned all sides of the issue.

The fact that no one was proposing anything for Atlantic Yards before this proposal. And the fact that it will cost a lot of money for anyone to develop. Which consequently means they will want to make a lot of money. Business is not philanthropy.

The fact that Ratner offered residence money, relocation help and affordable housing in the new development. The fact that most people took the offer. The fact that the few who refuse to leave are not the marginalized poor.

The fact that he has offered to help fund some Brooklyn community projects such as the long stalled Brooklyn Visual Performing Arts Library.

In the bigger picture hopefully he understands Brooklyn's population is projected to increase over next 15-20 years to 3 million. Brooklyn is currently in a housing shortage. Because of these two variables the over all cost of housing is on a vertical incline.

If he knows all of this and still feels Atlantic Yards is not in Brooklyn's best interest, I can understand that as anyone has the right to disagree. But I would challenge the naysayers to offer a viable alternative plan to deal with the current housing shortage and future growth.

antinimby

November 28th, 2006, 10:05 PM

Oh for heaven's sake.

For the last time, it's just not PC to fight for a rich developer against the "community" regardless of who is right or wrong.

Don't you guys get it?

investordude

November 28th, 2006, 10:18 PM

I think Heath is doing this for his own self interest. It's not some Hollywood stunt - he has the provincial personal desire to keep his nabe quiet and free of, say, tourists looking for his house. I don't think this outweights the housing shortage, lack of interesting retail, increased segregtation of neighorhoods, or higher taxes that will result if the project doesn't get built, but I'll give him the credit for pursuing his own self interest without apology rather than claiming he's on some lefty Hollywood kick.

lofter1

November 28th, 2006, 11:33 PM

Let's not forget that Ratner originally promised a PUBLIC park area on top of the arena -- but has now reneged on that.

pianoman11686

November 29th, 2006, 02:02 AM

Oh for heaven's sake.

For the last time, it's just not PC to fight for a rich developer against the "community" regardless of who is right or wrong.

Don't you guys get it?

This raises an interesting point. It seems to me that most actors in this continuing drama are motivated by self-interest: Ratner (obviously), the residents who try to get as much money out of him as possible, the opponents who don't want a tall, dense development nearby, and the poorer folk who want the construction jobs and affordable housing. Is there really an idealistic undertone for someone like Heath Ledger taking up the side of the opponents? Are they really the "little guy"? (Let's just put aside Daniel Goldstein et al for a moment.) Just how noble is the cause of supporting NIMBYism? As a NIMBY, you can list all the reasons you can think of to oppose a project, but in the end, it must come down to what will most directly, and substantially, affect your life and your property.

Now, if Ledger is indeed acting in self-interest, I have nothing against it; he's more than justified in doing so. But if he's pouring his time and money into something that he believes is politically correct, because he will therefore seem like an altruist, then I can't justify it. Why? Because this isn't an ideological issue; it's a monetary one. And usually, what happens in the end is determined by who has more money. That's why NIMBYism is most prevalent and most effective in wealthier districts, while poor neighborhoods regularly have little to say about major, life-altering projects that are proposed therein.

Heath may be well off, but he's not that well off. He's not going to singlehandedly lead a vanquishing of the enemy. Like I said, if he's in it for himself, then let him do what he pleases. But if he's in it to appear like the Knight in Shining White Armor of Atlantic Yards, I think it's an idiotic waste of money on his part.

ablarc

November 29th, 2006, 09:13 AM

Couple corollaries to your theorem, pianoman:

1. NIMBYs often err about what's in their financial interest. They predict their properties will be devalued by projects that actually bring them financial bonanzas.

2. As you draw bigger circles round the project's epicenter, financial benefits and demerits grow more diffuse. For example, you could argue that all Brooklynites' property values and pocketbooks will benefit somewhat from Atlantic Yards' halo effect or you could argue that all Brooklynites will be hurt financially --though you'd be an idiot if you argued that.

3. Similarly, you could say that fiscally all New Yorkers benefit subtly when their city grows or is enhanced.

4. At some point you can draw a big enough circle to include me in my Sunbelt exile. If you do, you'll find me benefitting from a completed and artistically uncompromised Atlantic Yards. I'll have something new to visit excitedly on my next trip, I'll be coming by even sooner, more often, filled with pride at being an American, a connoisseur of Gotham, a prescient observer of the urban scene, a citizen of the world and a human being. I'll be anxious to usher around my relatives and provincial redneck friends. And I'll be bringing plenty money for New Yorkers' pockets. Who knows: I might even eat dinner in a reborn Gage and Tollner and go to a Nets game.

5. As an informed North Dakotan who never visits the Big Apple I could feel good about America's resilience and continued can-do attitude. Show them furr'ners how it's done in the good ol' US of A. ...We got artists.

BigMac

November 29th, 2006, 04:31 PM

Streetsblog
November 29, 2006

What Went Wrong at Atlantic Yards?

An Interview With Kent Barwick, President of the Municipal Art Society

http://www.streetsblog.org/wp-content/uploads/2006/11_27-30/Kent_Headshot.jpg
"There is disappointment, annoyance, and anger because there hasn't been any way for anyone to have a voice. Who is listening to the people living around Atlantic Yards?"

With the Pataki Adminstration scrambling to beat the buzzer (http://atlanticyardsreport.blogspot.com/2006/11/feis-reissued-for-december-showdown.html) and win approval for Forest City Enterprise's "Atlantic Yards" mega-project before the inauguration of Governor-Elect Eliot Spitzer, journalist Ezra Goldstein talks to Municipal Art Society (http://www.mas.org/) President Kent Barwick about the problems that arise when communities are locked out of the development process in their own neighborhoods.

Municipal Art Society President Kent Barwick has been attacked for not condemning Forest City Enterprises plan to drop 17 high rises and a 19,000-seat basketball arena in the middle of Prospect Heights, Brooklyn. He has also been criticized for being too concerned about process when, say his critics, the basic concepts behind the immense Atlantic Yards project are fatally flawed. To Barwick, however, process is paramount, and Atlantic Yards is the poster child for what goes wrong when process is ignored.

Barwick says that the people of Brooklyn and their elected representatives have been shut out of planning for Atlantic Yards and all major decisions have been made behind closed doors. The result is a poorly designed project that has polarized the community and that squanders both opportunity and public trust.

The project can be saved, he says, but only if people are given the chance not just to speak but to be heard. That would happen if the state recognizes that, properly, its client at Atlantic Yards is the citizens and government of New York City, not a private developer.

That is no radical notion, argues Barwick. It is law and policy embedded in regulations and the city charter, thanks in large part to agreements he and the MAS helped hammer out two decades ago after a prolonged battle with the Koch administration over the proposed sale to a private developer of publicly owned land on Columbus Circle.

The city, says Barwick, is obligated to solicit ideas from the public, develop a master plan, put out an RFP (a request for proposals) and then consider bids from several developers before it can give up a significant piece of land. More public hearings follow before construction is allowed to begin. It may be a cumbersome and imperfect process, Barwick admits, but in project after project, the end result has been far superior to the initial concept.

http://www.streetsblog.org/wp-content/uploads/2006/11_27-30/atlantic_yards2.jpg

At Atlantic Yards, a private company developed plans for the 22-acre site before Brooklyn's communities had a chance to say a word, and long before a token RFP was issued. The community boards, guaranteed participation in neighborhood planning in the 1975 and 1989 revisions to the city charter, were completely shut out of the process, as were Brooklyn's democratically elected City Council members. The developer never publicly asked the advice of the highly capable (and taxpayer funded) staff at the Department of City Planning which had just completed a major rezoning of Downtown Brooklyn adjacent to the project's footprint.

The first time Brooklyn residents heard that Forest City Ratner Companies intended to build 16 skyscrapers and an arena in the middle of their borough, it was presented largely as a fait accompli. That was allowed to happen because the city had ceded responsibility for the site to the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC), and the ESDC, bluntly, operates above the law. The ESDC has the power to override New York City law and policy, and that is precisely what it has done.

The ESDC was established in the 1960s as the Urban Development Corporation (UDC) with the best of intentions, says Barwick. Its primary function was to get economically mixed housing built outside poor neighborhoods, and "Governor Rockefeller recognized that you couldn't integrate society if you didn't have a way to break through local zoning laws. The UDC act gave the state the mechanism when necessary to break local zoning codes to achieve a higher purpose."

But, Barwick says, "that has evolved now into a situation where virtually all major projects in the state use the UDC act, because it is virtually impervious to challenge. UDC projects don't have to conform to local zoning, or pay any attention to historic preservation, and they give the state the power of eminent domain."

UDC projects also "bypass virtually every opportunity there is for citizens to voice their opinion."

http://www.streetsblog.org/wp-content/uploads/2006/11_27-30/atlantic_yards.jpg

Barwick describes the public hearings on the Draft Environmental Impact Statement for Atlantic Yards, which came more than two years after Forest City Ratner first presented plans for the site, as "the beginning and the end of the public process." The unelected, unaccountable officials at the ESDC can override even this small bit of public input because they have the power to ignore the final environmental impact statement.

Barwick describes multiple negative repercussions of this non-inclusive, top-down, closed-door process. Large segments of the community have been pushed into warring pro and con camps, and not just the state but also the developer have forsaken input that could have vastly improved the plans for Atlantic Yards.

"There is disappointment, annoyance, and anger because there hasn't been any way for anyone to have a voice," he said. "Who is listening to the people living around Atlantic Yards? There's nowhere for them to go and talk, and what processes there are have been anti-democratic and frankly discourteous, and no one should be astonished that many people are angry and disaffected."

http://www.streetsblog.org/wp-content/uploads/2006/11_27-30/ratner_hands_off.jpg

As a result of the way Atlantic Yards has been mishandled, said Barwick, "a lot of people ended up either in an organized cheering section or sending in $10 donations to fund a lawsuit against eminent domain. I'm not demeaning either of these positions, but it's not exactly a public approval process leading to a better project."

Barwick insists that the project still can be turned around if the people are invited into the process. This faith in the benefits of citizen participation is the cornerstone of one of the Municipal Art Society's major ongoing initiatives: the Campaign for Community Based Planning (http://www.mas.org/viewarticle.php?id=1339&category=53). The campaign would mandate citizen involvement working through community boards to shape the future of their neighborhoods. (Not surprisingly, the campaign's web site (http://www.mas.org/viewarticle.php?id=1260) provides links to the Atlantic Yards DEIS and General Project Plan as "exemplars of those things wrong with the existing system.")

"In our view, the potential for people to be involved in the future of their own neighborhoods is obvious," said Barwick.

In community based planning's ideal model, government decides on overarching needs, because, said Barwick, "there are some decisions that can only be made on a citywide or regional or state level, like where highways or subways should go, or how health care delivery systems should operate, or how much growth a community should be encouraged to absorb, or how many units of low-income housing need to be built.

"But once a central government has made major decisions, most of the other decisions are ones that local communities are better equipped to handle. They know the physical and human landscape better than anyone else. It is essentially a dialogue: elected government sets standards or targets, but how those targets are realized is determined locally."

It's not a plebiscite or a poll, Barwick insisted, and elected officials eventuarlly make the final decisions, but those decisions are wiser when the public is involved. "Of course it's a more cumbersome process than having [ESDC chairman] Charles Gargano and [Deputy Mayor] Dan Doctoroff in a room," he said, "but you also have a better result."

http://www.streetsblog.org/wp-content/uploads/2006/11_27-30/DeanPlaygroundProjected.jpg

By Barwick's reckoning, he has sat through hundreds of public hearings over the years, which included a stint as chairman of the Landmarks Preservation Commission. "I have never gone away from a public hearing without having learned something," Barwick observed.

Barwick describes how MAS gathered ideas from some 10,000 people after the destruction of the World Trade Center for its project, Imagine New York: Giving Voice to the People's Visions (http://www.imagineny.org/index.html). Ordinary citizens, he said, had excellent ideas for what should be built on the WTC site-ideas that have been largely ignored by the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, a subsidiary of the ESDC.

Barwick argues further that NIMBY (not in my backyard) is not the rule when the public gets involved, contrary to what is said by some defenders of ESDC involvement in Atlantic Yards. "We are aware of community based plans that have been implemented in more than 50 communities," he said, "and they have been much more responsive to absorbing growth than critics assume." (Community based planning is state law in Minnesota, and has been widely used in such cities as Seattle, Baltimore, Washington, and Rochester),

Barwick does not think it is too late to salvage at least part of Atlantic Yards. "I don't think this project is substantially designed in its later phases," he said, pointing out that it could be a decade before construction begins on much of the housing and retail space even if the ESDC rubber stamps the project this winter. "Battery Park City and Riverside South got redesigned several times before they got built," observes Barwick.

"There's no reason a new governor couldn't open up the process and get good design people involved. Even neutral architects I have talked to give a failing grade to the developer's plans for open space, retail space, circulation, and the like. I would like to see the governor create a board above suspicion that has the trust of the public to guide the project from here on out.

"I'm not saying [developer] Bruce Ratner is a bad guy or a crook. I don't think he is. But there's no public present. No public official present. This project is far too big and far too important to be left to a private developer. It must involve the public."

Get the process right, Barwick argues, and good ideas will follow. Get the process right, and Atlantic Yards could still be saved from itself.

For information on the Community Based Planning Campaign, see the Municipal Art Society (http://www.mas.org/) web site and download their booklet, Livable Neighborhoods for a Livable City (http://www.mas.org/images/media/original/LivableNeighborhoodsReport2005.pdf) (PDF). Also see the Brooklyn Speaks (http://www.brooklynspeaks.net/) web site. This article was originally published in the Park Slope Civic Council (http://www.parkslopeciviccouncil.org/) newsletter.

© 2006 New York City Streets Renaissance

pianoman11686

November 29th, 2006, 05:49 PM

Couple corollaries to your theorem, pianoman:

4. At some point you can draw a big enough circle to include me in my Sunbelt exile. If you do, you'll find me benefitting [...]. And I'll be bringing plenty money for New Yorkers' pockets. Who knows: I might even eat dinner in a reborn Gage and Tollner and go to a Nets game.

5. As an informed North Dakotan who never visits the Big Apple I could feel good about America's resilience and continued can-do attitude. Show them furr'ners how it's done in the good ol' US of A. ...We got artists.

Now, the difficult question arises: who deserves to influence the project? Is it a function solely of proximity, or of the type of borderless beneficence that you suggest? And furthermore, how exactly do we arrive at that decision? Is it the politicians that define the public review process? The developers? Anyone who is monetarily involved?

The above article takes a stab at the issue:

This project is far too big and far too important to be left to a private developer. It must involve the public."

But I don't think that suffices. What are the definitions of "big" and "important"? Total square footage? Total cost? Is it the fact that it's located in a heavily populated area? And shouldn't there be a distinction between projects involving private money, on private land, versus public money on public land?

That article leaves many more questions than it does answers.

kliq6

November 29th, 2006, 05:58 PM

the rushing of this new EIS will in the end be a good reason for another lawsuit that will pushthis back for another 6 months and into Spitzer reign

pianoman11686

November 29th, 2006, 06:08 PM

For good reason, or just frivolity?

Teno

November 29th, 2006, 11:57 PM

I guess depending on how you feel about it. Ratner worked to make the proposal as bullet proof as possible before presenting it to the public. I'm sure he knew some people would just say no - no matter what he did.

That is pretty much what happened. Community opposition has only worked to completely stop the project. As far as I can see their was little reflection on how the project would benefit Brooklyn. The focus is only on their individual wishes. And not the benefit of the whole.

It was possible for them to negotiate with Ratner and attempt to get as much as possible out of him for the neighborhood. They did not really offer any terms of negotiation with the threat of opposing the development if their wishes were not met.

It may be a cumbersome and imperfect process, Barwick admits, but in project after project, the end result has been far superior to the initial concept.

I don't know if this works well as a broad philosophy. Once you allow many voices into a process all you really get are many more opinions from people who all serve their own particular desires.

It seems the recent development boom in NY has mostly been met with opposition from neighborhood groups who do not want their neighborhood to change. Without regard to how they benefit NY as a whole.

JCMAN320

December 3rd, 2006, 09:07 PM

Hi, ho Silver!

By Mike Lupica of the Daily News

It would be a fine thing for Brooklyn to have a major league team again. It would be a fine thing for the Nets to come over from Jersey and give the Knicks a real run for their money, because maybe real competition for the basketball dollar would make James Dolan, as weak a caretaker as Madison Square Garden has ever had, either pick up his game or just get out of the sports business. Bruce Ratner is allowed to move his team. Just not like this.

From the start, Ratner has tried to make himself out to be some kind of sports philanthropist as he tries to pull off one of the great broad-daylight real estate grabs in the history of Brooklyn and maybe the whole city. Everybody except the politicians who have rolled over for him on this - most prominent among these are George Pataki, outgoing governor and would-be Presidential candidate, Charles (Rubber Stamp) Gargano of the Empire State Development Corporation and Peter Kalikow of the MTA - have known from the start that this is a real-estate killing that needed a sports team, and the Nets were handy.

You bet Ratner wants to build a modern basketball palace for the Nets. He wants to build 16 high-rises around it much more. This was never just about bringing big-time sports back to a borough that hasn't had bigtime sports since the Dodgers left town 50 years ago. It was about turning a whole section of Brooklyn into Forest City Ratner's vision of a Brooklyn Times Square, no matter how many residents had to be shoved out of the way, no matter how many neighborhoods had to be trampled.

Now Ratner and the politicians arrive in the late innings, desperate to push the whole thing through before Pataki, who actually thinks he can be President, runs off to campaign in Iowa and Eliot Spitzer becomes governor of New York. Spitzer has made his chops as a star politician in this city because of his integrity and his fearlessness. He can use all that now and let everybody scrambling to get the Atlantic Yards Project deal done know that he wants nothing further done until he becomes the top guy in the state after the first of the year.

Which brings us to Assembly Speaker Shelly Silver.

Silver stood up to Pataki and Michael Bloomberg on the West Side Stadium and the thing never got past the three-man Public Authorities Control Board. Now he has to do it again. Tell them that he is all for the Nets coming to Brooklyn, just not in a Macy's parade of Ratner high-rises.

Gargano, who may aspire to higher hackdom if Pataki does make a run at the White House, has rolled over on this from the start. Gargano actually had people at the Empire State Development Corporation working through Thanksgiving to clean up the Final Environmental Impact Statement for Atlantic Yards. It was probably just Gargano being the diligent public servant he's always been, surely had nothing to do with Pataki being on the clock.

All along, it is as if there could only be one vision of developing Atlantic Yards: Ratner's $4.2 billion vision. Pataki went along with him, Gargano went along with him, so did Kalikow of the MTA, who constantly sells out his own as he sells off MTA property, always in the name of progress.

Shelly Silver can be the one to stop this between now and the end of the year, tell Ratner to bring the project back to him in miniature, not as something that eats up neighborhoods and homes in the name of Ratner. After that they can all let the new governor decide. All Silver has to do is use the same principles he did in standing in there against the West Side Stadium, another place where big politicians and big developers used sports as a shield.

If this was only about basketball, Ratner would have torn down his shopping mall in that neighborhood, the Atlantic Center Mall, something with the charm of Alcatraz, and built his basketball arena there. Instead, he builds more towers on top of that, three more, making it 19 for the neighborhood, not 16. The guy walks in and buys Brooklyn and nobody stops him.

Shelly Silver can stop him and should stop him.

Ask yourself a question: If these guys aren't afraid of what might happen when we have a tough governor in office instead of one who has been shuffling towards the door for years, why did Gargano have his people working during Thanksgiving to fix up that Environmental Impact Statement?

What was the rush?

To the end, these guys don't want to operate in the open, they want to work out of back rooms. There are people in Brooklyn, good tough brave people, who have fought Ratner from the start. In the late innings they need help from Shelly Silver. The city needs him. Again.

investordude

December 3rd, 2006, 09:46 PM

I'm not convinced Silver will do much more than delay this project for Spitzer, who will probably make minor tweaks: http://www.brooklyndowntownstar.com/StoryDisplay.asp?PID=4&NewsStoryID=4900&Headline=Yards%20End%20Game%20Gets%20FEIS-ty

If you read, it doesn't sound like he's especially against this. Personally, my favored outcome is they built the buildings but not the stadium, as I've said before. Cities have a bizarre tendency to overstate the benefits of stadiums and understate the benefits of everything else. Put in on a marsh in Jersey, and give Brooklyn high value land uses like market rate condos, hotels, etc.

But I'm dreaming - the stadium will get approved and the project will get approved too with minor concessions after Spitzer comes into office and "cleans up" the corruption in the project.

Eugenious

December 3rd, 2006, 10:12 PM

Hi, ho Silver!

If this was only about basketball, Ratner would have torn down his shopping mall in that neighborhood, the Atlantic Center Mall, something with the charm of Alcatraz, and built his basketball arena there.

He's wrong about the mall, that thing is much worse than Alcatraz - it's like a soviet tractor factory.

from a Slate article
http://www.slate.com/id/2143634/

"3) Ratner's abhorrent track record. Have you had a close look at what he has already inflicted on Brooklyn? First came Metrotech, as blandly Orwellian as its name. Then the shameful failed mall, the Atlantic Center, dubbed by architectural historian Francis Morrone as "the ugliest building in Brooklyn." Offered as a supposed benefit to the local economy, its forbidding design was explained by Ratner to the New York Times thusly: "Look, you're in an urban area, you're next to projects, you've got tough kids." It was behind those chilly facades that you recently unveiled your latest models, at a tightly managed press conference that squelched any risk of dissent. How can it have felt for you to stand in such a horrid structure making your case for your proposed collaboration with its builder—while shutting out the possibility of true debate? After all, it's these dim, soul-crushing buildings that created such distrust in Brooklynites in the first place."

Now that I think about it Ratner does have a bad record in Brooklyn. You know what I agree with the NIMBY's on this one.

MidtownGuy

December 4th, 2006, 02:25 AM

A basketball stadium in that location will be great for Brooklynites, so I don't agree with the assessment at all in this specific case, investordude.

As for Ratner's existing developments in the area- it's true that they're hideous... but Gehry didn't design those, and I'm hoping he won't disappoint when designs for Atlantic Yards become final. I should add, however, that none of the iterations thus far have satisfied me.

This will one of the largest projects of Ghery's career (notwithstanding supersession by some future Chinese or Dubai project), so he better not muck it up. I don't think he will.

investordude

December 4th, 2006, 06:49 AM

It's easy to say a basketball stadium would be great for Brooklyn, but how and why? I think there's a group of people who are nostalgic for Ebbetts Field and think Brooklyn won't be great until it gets a sports team again. But - the reality is Ebbetts Field eventually closed, and that should be a warning about the viability and value of a sports stadium relative to other uses.

I don't have a strong feeling about the stadium, which seems basically neutral to me. I just think the condos and office space that needs to go forward to help Brooklyn - if the Dolan's want to block the stadium, I say let them go ahead as long as economic development goes forward here.

lofter1

December 4th, 2006, 10:40 AM

The arena will have total of ~ 19,000 seats.

What percentage of those 19,000 seats will be controlled by corporate ticket holders?

What remaining percentage will be controlled by season ticket holders?

How man seats will be left and available for the guy or gal on the street to attend games at this arena -- which is being touted as good for Brooklyn?

Since Ratner has reneged on his former promise that the area atop the arena will be a publically accessible park / open space it appears that what is being proposed / built will be more of a private club rather than a public amenity.

ZippyTheChimp

December 4th, 2006, 12:34 PM

The municipal revenue from sports franchises is always overblown, but arenas are better integrated into the urban landscape than stadiums. They are 1/4 to 1/3 the size, and more easily used for events other than the primary sport. MSG has always been a successful enterprise.

investordude

December 4th, 2006, 12:50 PM

I have misgivings about the stadium, but corporate interest in them is a plus. I think it's ridiculous to have a class warfare argument about a basketball stadium. But in terms of economics, seems like corporations pay for advertising and for box seats. This, which represents a largish portion of what money stadiums make, subsidizes the costs for other people who buy season tickets.

I have no idea what proportion of Brooklynites versus others want season tickets, nor do I see think it really matters in the grand scheme of things. If you want a class warfare argument, we can talk about whether schools are being shortchanged, etc, but I'm not impressed about who buys tickets to a basketball game.

TREPYE

December 4th, 2006, 01:04 PM

I think what this arena does is make Brooklyn a destination for tourist and people from other parts of NYC-metropolitan area. Once you get past Coney Island theme parks, the Brooklyn Heights Promenade, and the Prospect Park Museums what is there to do in Brooklyn? Brooklyn needs to have a lot more involvement in a tourist itinerary and I think that an arena is a good way to give the borough more prominence.

Just imagine during nationally televised a Brooklyn Nets game they show the arena with a backdrop of those funky Ghery designed buildings. It may just work on people curiosities and make them check the area out. Of course with this you have to make sure that the area will be somewhat trendy via opening more restaurants, bars, etc. Also, connect the arena's accessibility to the New Brooklyn Bridge Park (via trolley, or whatever), which I'm sure it's going to be a great tourist draw as well.

Eugenious

December 4th, 2006, 02:19 PM

Just imagine during nationally televised a Brooklyn Nets game they show the arena with a backdrop of those funky Ghery designed buildings. It

It all sounds great on paper but think about it, this guy has ruined one huge track of land already with the Atlantic Mall, they should make him tear it down and built the Arena on the same plot of land. The displaced retail could be intergrated into the Arena and the surrounding buildings.

Why cant they build somethnig like this in Brooklyn? You would think the biggest borough of New York City would be the place to build something as attractive and aweinspiring as this. Instead we get a stalinist slab of concrete hell.

A futuristic mall is new Turkish playground
http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/12/04/style/design12_28.php

pianoman11686

December 4th, 2006, 03:27 PM

Eugenious, I think you're missing a fairly important, broader point here. If you want your neighborhood to gain a new structure that looks like "a million bucks", it's got to somehow be related to something that's "a million bucks."

What kind of retail and restaurants are in this shopping center again? KMart? KFC? Do you ever see those kinds of institutions in upscale malls? I don't think so.

If you think Ratner should have poured a lot more money into the mall, then he should have found better tenants willing to pay higher prices to be there. Problem is, you can't find a Nordstrom's, a Ruth's Chris Steakhouse, or a Bvlgari to set up shop in a predominantly lower-income neighborhood. Why don't you go back to that article about the shopping center in Turkey and read what kind of clothing designers and retailers are interested in being there.

Let's see what happens to land values once Atlantic Yards gets built. If there is a greater demand for higher-end uses, I wouldn't be surprised to see the shopping mall get a complete makeover to accommodate those more lucrative enterprises.

ablarc

December 4th, 2006, 05:55 PM

Let's see what happens to land values once Atlantic Yards gets built. If there is a greater demand for higher-end uses, I wouldn't be surprised to see the shopping mall get a complete makeover to accommodate those more lucrative enterprises.
Good point.

investordude

December 4th, 2006, 08:11 PM

As wealthier tenants move into new condos in Fort Greene, you'll get the stores you like and stop complaining about the mall. As it stands, the Target and Chuck-E-Cheese seem like pretty useful stores for the stroller set, including the affluent stroller set, so the retail in the mall is already a plus in my opinion.

Could use a few good restaurants, but the surrounding nabe has great food.

lofter1

December 4th, 2006, 08:13 PM

What kind of $$ does Ratner's existing POS mall generate?

Teno

December 4th, 2006, 09:01 PM

How man seats will be left and available for the guy or gal on the street to attend games at this arena -- which is being touted as good for Brooklyn?

I don't see this situation as being much different from MSG.

The only way I've ever had good seats at the Knicks is through a friend of mine whose boss has corporate season tickets.

Since Ratner has reneged on his former promise that the area atop the arena will be a publically accessible park / open space it appears that what is being proposed / built will be more of a private club rather than a public amenity.

What's with the obsession with that park on the roof. At this point practically any decision can be changed.

What kind of retail and restaurants are in this shopping center again? KMart? KFC?

I agree even though the mall isn't really for me, just like Fulton Street it does serve the needs/wants of the neighborhood.

It will be interesting to see how things change around here as higher income people move in bringing higher end restaurants and stores. Hopefully everyone will be able to coexist.

What kind of $$ does Ratner's existing POS mall generate?

All I can say for sure is that Target is a busy place.

lofter1

December 4th, 2006, 09:58 PM

What's with the obsession with that park on the roof.

Don't you mean the "not the park" on the roof?

I just don't like it when people lie. And I use it as a basis to judge how that person will perform in the future.

At this point practically any decision can be changed.

Oh, wait ... excuse me ... I'm laughing so hard I can hardly type ...

If you believe for one second that in the future Ratner will make good on the park that he originally presented and then took away (can you keep that straight?) you are far more optimistic than I'll ever be ;)

Eugenious

December 4th, 2006, 10:45 PM

What kind of $$ does Ratner's existing POS mall generate?

The Target alone pulled in over $1 mil on black Friday.

Just imagine if this mall was built with PRINCIPLES and VISION and IMAGINATION.

Have you ever heard of The self-fulfilling prophecy ?

The self-fulfilling prophecy is, in the beginning, a false definition of the situation evoking a new behaviour which makes the original false conception come true.

You do NOT build a monstrosity that is so repulsive just because it is a low income area. It has nothing to do with the tenants, I've been in Florida and North Carolina where they have very tasteful and acceptable malls(if there's such a thing) which are not upscale at all.

The whole point of architecture is to UPLIFT and IMPROVE an area and the experience of the human beings that pass by it, the objective is NOT to "fit in" to the depressing land scape.

Ratner should be ashamed of himself, McKim Mead & White are turning over in their graves.

Teno

December 4th, 2006, 11:00 PM

If you believe for one second that in the future Ratner will make good on the park that he originally presented and then took away (can you keep that straight?) you are far more optimistic than I'll ever be

I was actually saying the opposite.

That at this point the status of the park is able to be changed from public to private.

I have misgivings about the stadium, but corporate interest in them is a plus.

Sports teams do create popularity, civic pride, and mind share for a city. I'm not sure if their is really any way to measure this but it does increase awareness.

antinimby

December 4th, 2006, 11:14 PM

The Target alone pulled in over $1 mil on black Friday.Just goes to show that you don't need to do things right in order to be successful in this city.

It's all about incompetency here.

O'Hara and Kaufman are as competent in designing buildings as a two year-old with Down's Syndrome and yet they are thriving like you don't believe in this city.

So much for "if you can make it here, you can make it anywhere."

Ha!

You do NOT build a monstrosity that is so repulsive just because it is a low income area. It has nothing to do with the tenants, I've been in Florida and North Carolina where they have very tasteful and acceptable malls(if there's such a thing) which are not upscale at all.My point about this city once again.

Complacent and too proud for their own good New Yorkers will quickly dismiss these other places as backwaters but it's us that are falling back.

Even Jersey City is showing us up.

pianoman11686

December 4th, 2006, 11:41 PM

The self-fulfilling prophecy is, in the beginning, a[/I] false [I]definition of the situation evoking a new behaviour which makes the original false conception come

You do NOT build a monstrosity that is so repulsive just because it is a low income area. It has nothing to do with the tenants, I've been in Florida and North Carolina where they have very tasteful and acceptable malls(if there's such a thing) which are not upscale at all.

The self-fulfilling prophecy is nonsense, when applied to a situation like this.

I don't know where you shopped in North Carolina. In the Durham area, there are two main, enclosed shopping malls. One of them is Northgate - a dingy, old POS with a Sears as its anchor tenant, a crappy food court, and a tire center plunked right in the middle of the parking lot. Thankfully, it's turned a little better recently as Macy's has rehabbed its building (built at a later time and detached from the main concourse), but this was part of a broader corporate effort to rehab all its stores. Needless to say, the area around it is filled with older houses which, by the lack of their maintenance, leads me to believe they're very cheap. The other mall is Southpoint, among the tenants is a Nordstrom, Cheesecake Factory, Coach, Swarovski, and a kickass food court. Needless to say, it's within the "new Durham" area - lots of gated communities, golf courses, and new condos.

There's a reason Short Hills Mall is in Short Hills, and not in Newark. There's a reason Roosevelt Field is in Nassau County, and not in Queens. There's a reason Bloomingdale's is in SoHo and not in the Lower East Side. There's a reason Time Warner Center has retailers like Pink, Coach, and Sephora, while the new Harlem mall will have Costco and Target.

I've got nothing against retail serving the needs of the community. Different neighborhoods have different needs, and it seems like Atlantic Center fills that role well. But the look and feel of a shopping mall has everything to do with what kinds of retailers lease there, which has everything to do with how much money they can charge for their products, which has everything to do with who will be shopping there. To pretend that all neighborhoods, no matter what the income level, should have equally impressive malls that cost the same amount to build, is ridiculous. Sure, there's some room for variation, but not much.

Could Ratner have spent more money on Atlantic Center and still made a profit? In all likelihood, yes. But it wouldn't even be close to Time Warner Center, and yet some of us still think that one's design is inadequate.

Eugenious

December 5th, 2006, 12:17 AM

Could Ratner have spent more money on Atlantic Center and still made a profit? In all likelihood, yes. But it wouldn't even be close to Time Warner Center, and yet some of us still think that one's design is inadequate.

Your argument is POS. First of all I never said the Atlantic Mall has to look like the Mall at Short Hills or Roosevelt Field. All I said was that when you build a ugly garbage dumb looking mall that makes King's Plaza seem elegant you are doing a disservice to not only the neighborhood and it's residents but the city.

New York is supposed to be a world class city, this piece of crap does not belong here. Brooklyn deserves a world class mall, just as they are selling the $750/sqf lofts and condos in the area they should have built the mall to cater to the future residents as well as the current.

And about the self-fulfilling prophecy it is NOT non-sense. When you build schools that look like prisons you'll have more criminals, when you build housing projects that are uniform and depressing you will get hopelessness and drug addiction, when you build malls that look like Atlantic Mall you enforce the stereotype that good architecture can only be built in rich neighborhoods and FOR rich people. Working class people deserve better.

lofter1

December 5th, 2006, 12:27 AM

I was actually saying the opposite.

That at this point the status of the park is able to be changed from public to private.

Hello!!! Ratner has already done that ...

pianoman11686

December 5th, 2006, 01:26 AM

Your argument is POS. First of all I never said the Atlantic Mall has to look like the Mall at Short Hills or Roosevelt Field. All I said was that when you build a ugly garbage dumb looking mall that makes King's Plaza seem elegant you are doing a disservice to not only the neighborhood and it's residents but the city.

All things considered, you don't have to respond to my post by saying it's a "POS". That leads me to believe you have no rationale to back up your argument.

You specifically said you wanted to see a visionary, imaginative, architecturally-inspiring mall, and provided a link to a mall whose design you would have liked to see instead. I say this without any exaggeration: that mall looks a hell of a lot more impressive, and expensive, than Short Hills or Roosevelt Field.

New York is supposed to be a world class city, this piece of crap does not belong here. Brooklyn deserves a world class mall, just as they are selling the $750/sqf lofts and condos in the area they should have built the mall to cater to the future residents as well as the current.

You pretend as if all of New York and all of Brooklyn are world class, and equally deserving of world-class architecture and retail. That is just simply not the reality. There's a reason wealthier parts of the city look nicer, aesthetically, than poorer areas; it simply costs more to build nicer stuff.

And your suggestion that Ratner should have expected the $750/square foot lofts and condos is equally implausible. Atlantic Center was built more than 10 years ago, way before the real estate boom even began raising prices in the outer boroughs. A few excerpts from an article in a thread about the mall (http://www.wirednewyork.com/forum/showpost.php?p=28067&postcount=2) sums it up nicely:

Although critics have long called the mall an eyesore and complained about its seemingly incoherent design, there are reasons for its structure and layout, reasons embedded in both the perception and the reality of race, class, economics and crime in late 20th-century Brooklyn.

Planned and built in the early 1990's, when the area there - at the crossroads of Fort Greene, Prospect Heights and Downtown Brooklyn - was just beginning to emerge from a cocoon of high crime and bleak prospects, the center was intended not as an oasis but as the target of a kind of consumer dive-bombing: customers would dart into one place, grab what they needed and quickly leave.

The isolation of stores and lack of gathering locations inside the building was intentional, said its developer, Bruce Ratner of Forest City Ratner, driven by the needs of skittish national retailers and the notion that urban malls had failed because they became magnets for loitering teenagers who frightened the shoppers away.

[...]

Mr. Ratner said it took near-Herculean efforts of persuasion, plus low rents and say in how the mall was designed, to bring in the original tenants, mainly big box retailers selling a variety of discount goods. So creating a perception of safety was paramount, Forest City Ratner executives said.

To see how much things have changed, you can look at the much more recently built Atlantic Terminal Mall nearby, which is aesthetically more pleasing, and also serves a different retail base than the original tenants of Atlantic Center:

http://graphics7.nytimes.com/images/2004/08/08/realestate/sqft.184.1.650.jpg

And about the self-fulfilling prophecy it is NOT non-sense. When you build schools that look like prisons you'll have more criminals, when you build housing projects that are uniform and depressing you will get hopelessness and drug addiction, when you build malls that look like Atlantic Mall you enforce the stereotype that good architecture can only be built in rich neighborhoods and FOR rich people. Working class people deserve better.

Schools and housing projects are municipal projects, a completely different breed altogether. Still, it's interesting that you bring those up, because Ratner himself is in the midst of building a new school for the city in his Beekman Street Tower, while filling the void of housing projects by providing lower income housing at Atlantic Yards. Both projects are designed by a world-class architect.

While I agree that architecture has a social role to play, I think you're still ignoring the limits of economics. You say working class people deserve better...but who is to pay for it? You presuppose that either Ratner should have spent more money out of pocket to make Atlantic Center a more beautiful place, while still providing the lower-income-serving retailers that the neighborhood needed, or that upscale retailers should have moved into Atlantic Center, paid higher rents to justify the higher cost of construction, all in the face of a crime-ridden, low-income neighborhood with an exposed rail depot in the backyard. Neither of those two options makes any logical sense.

The glimmer of hope is that real estate has gotten more expensive, crime has gone down, and now, Ratner is ready to build an architecturally ambitious project across the street, which will almost certainly include some highend retail spaces. Funny thing is, many people in the neighborhood are against something that would actually help make Brooklyn world class.

Teno

December 5th, 2006, 02:44 AM

The Target alone pulled in over $1 mil on black Friday.

Just goes to show that you don't need to do things right in order to be successful in this city.

It's all about incompetency here.

No its capitalism at work. I would like something better too, but it works for its market.

Hello!!! Ratner has already done that ...

Shall we dance while in our circular argument.

Eugenious

December 5th, 2006, 11:31 AM

All things considered, you don't have to respond to my post by saying it's a "POS". That leads me to believe you have no rationale to back up your argument.

I just stated my rationale! When you build a mall a temple to commerce you have to inspire people to shop there! and I provided a link to a fresh inspiring design that was built in a country that has half the GDP of NY state.

You specifically said you wanted to see a visionary, imaginative, architecturally-inspiring mall, and provided a link to a mall whose design you would have liked to see instead. I say this without any exaggeration: that mall looks a hell of a lot more impressive, and expensive, than Short Hills or Roosevelt Field.

See my response above, it probably cost less than the Atlantic Mall to build.

You pretend as if all of New York and all of Brooklyn are world class, and equally deserving of world-class architecture and retail. That is just simply not the reality. There's a reason wealthier parts of the city look nicer, aesthetically, than poorer areas; it simply costs more to build nicer stuff.

I dont pretend anything, I simply said that if you are investing a large sum of capital in a project it makes sense that it actually serves a civic purpose and provides a positive contribution to the environment. It does cost more to build grand and expensive, but form and function goes hand in hand. And you are already paying more jsut to build in ny, so why not be pragmatic and prudent with the design instead of get rich quick and the lowest common denominator.

And your suggestion that Ratner should have expected the $750/square foot lofts and condos is equally implausible. Atlantic Center was built more than 10 years ago, way before the real estate boom even began raising prices in the outer boroughs. A few excerpts from an article in a thread about the mall (http://www.wirednewyork.com/forum/showpost.php?p=28067&postcount=2) sums it up nicely:

This just shows the shortsightedness of the vision of this developer and his architects. When they could not see the value and the business potential. This is before 9/11 and cost and construction as well as design were also much lower than now. So the whole correlation between property values and design is one that is a correlation NOT a causation.

Schools and housing projects are municipal projects, a completely different breed altogether. Still, it's interesting that you bring those up, because Ratner himself is in the midst of building a new school for the city in his Beekman Street Tower, while filling the void of housing projects by providing lower income housing at Atlantic Yards. Both projects are designed by a world-class architect.

Yes, but his approach is still one of steamrolling a project through without addressing general concerns. The school and the low income housing are used to affect public opinion nothing more nothing less. The low income housing is a very small part of the whole project FYI. And I dont see how a projects designation as a public municipal project or a private development matters in this case. Commonly accepted principles apply to all development, be it financed by the public or private capital. In fact municipal projects have an excuse in that they work with public money so they are less flexible in terms of vision and creativity. While private money has the flexibility to do the creative and attractive design.

While I agree that architecture has a social role to play, I think you're still ignoring the limits of economics. You say working class people deserve better...but who is to pay for it? You presuppose that either Ratner should have spent more money out of pocket to make Atlantic Center a more beautiful place, while still providing the lower-income-serving retailers that the neighborhood needed, or that upscale retailers should have moved into Atlantic Center, paid higher rents to justify the higher cost of construction, all in the face of a crime-ridden, low-income neighborhood with an exposed rail depot in the backyard. Neither of those two options makes any logical sense.

You seem to be confusing what I'm tring to say here, all I am saying is that something does not have to be expensive to be attractive. Compare a Honda Civic with a Acura. Just because one is less expensive does not mean the Acura is actually better looking than the Civic. I happen to think it's one of the best looking cars on the road. Same applies to architecture, it does not have to be expensive to be attractive.

The glimmer of hope is that real estate has gotten more expensive, crime has gone down, and now, Ratner is ready to build an architecturally ambitious project across the street, which will almost certainly include some highend retail spaces. Funny thing is, many people in the neighborhood are against something that would actually help make Brooklyn world class.

And thank god for that, but I am always hesitant to let a known criminal near a baby, you never know when he's going to commit another crime.

pianoman11686

December 5th, 2006, 08:46 PM

I just stated my rationale! When you build a mall a temple to commerce you have to inspire people to shop there! and I provided a link to a fresh inspiring design that was built in a country that has half the GDP of NY state.

The GDP argument is irrelevant when you consider that Istanbul singlehandedly contributes about 20% of it. It is by far the most important center of commerce in the country. And, after doing some quick research, it turns out that shopping mall is being built in the Levent district, which is the largest center of finance (read: money) in the city. Does this place (http://www.turkey.gen.tr/index.php/Image:Levent_istanbul.jpg) look like it's doing worse economically than Atlantic Yards was 10 years ago? I don't think so.

Another thing: just because you build a mall, doesn't make it a temple to commerce. There is a big difference between building a destination mall, like the one in Levent, than a shopping center that predominantly serves the needs of the local community. The new mall in Turkey is attracting high-end European designers; Atlantic Center had trouble securing tenants like Pathmark, Party City, and the DMV when it first opened. Big difference.

See my response above, it probably cost less than the Atlantic Mall to build.

See my response above, as well as any other time I have mentioned that an expensive mall cannot exist without upscale retailers. Why can't you get your head around that fairly simple concept?

I dont pretend anything, I simply said that if you are investing a large sum of capital in a project it makes sense that it actually serves a civic purpose and provides a positive contribution to the environment. It does cost more to build grand and expensive, but form and function goes hand in hand. And you are already paying more jsut to build in ny, so why not be pragmatic and prudent with the design instead of get rich quick and the lowest common denominator.

Again, your logic is off. Since it already costs more to build here than in other areas, developers are forced to cut costs on things like architectural fees and expensive materials just to meet a reasonable ROI. Being pragmatic and prudent would mean exactly what I'm talking about: build something that meets the needs of the neighborhood and keep costs down to be able to accommodate discount retailers.

Also: form does not unquestionably go hand in hand with function. A Four Seasons Hotel and a Comfort Inn accomplish the same function: they provide rooms for their guests to sleep in. Yet, one costs several times as much as the other to construct. Accordingly, one also charges much higher room rates, and one also serves a customer base that is much wealthier than the other's.

This just shows the shortsightedness of the vision of this developer and his architects. When they could not see the value and the business potential. This is before 9/11 and cost and construction as well as design were also much lower than now. So the whole correlation between property values and design is one that is a correlation NOT a causation.

Of course it's causation. Higher property values mean wealthier residents. Wealthier residents mean a stronger demand for upscale retail. Upscale retail wants to be located in glitzy malls or in wealthy neighborhoods, right next to its customer base.

Atlantic Center was opened in 1996. I assume it took more than a couple years to plan, design, and construct it. Did you even read the excerpts I provided from that article? Do you remember how bleak things were in the early 90's? If I'm not mistaken, 1994 was the peak of crime in New York City. And you're telling me a developer should have poured money into an expensive mall in the middle of one of those crime-ridden neighborhoods? That's not shortsightedness; that's madness.

Yes, but his approach is still one of steamrolling a project through without addressing general concerns. The school and the low income housing are used to affect public opinion nothing more nothing less. The low income housing is a very small part of the whole project FYI. And I dont see how a projects designation as a public municipal project or a private development matters in this case. Commonly accepted principles apply to all development, be it financed by the public or private capital. In fact municipal projects have an excuse in that they work with public money so they are less flexible in terms of vision and creativity. While private money has the flexibility to do the creative and attractive design.

So you're actually giving the government an excuse for building crappy-looking schools and housing projects? Just something to think about: the government has an almost unlimited potential for revenue. All it has to do is raise taxes. Private developers rely almost exclusively on money that individuals or businesses risk by investing into a project, anticipating that they get a return on their investment.

Another thing: there's a big difference between where someone lives or goes to school, versus where someone shops. You spend at the very least 6-8 hours everyday in your home or school, but only an hour or two a week at shopping centers.

You seem to be confusing what I'm tring to say here, all I am saying is that something does not have to be expensive to be attractive. Compare a Honda Civic with a Acura. Just because one is less expensive does not mean the Acura is actually better looking than the Civic. I happen to think it's one of the best looking cars on the road. Same applies to architecture, it does not have to be expensive to be attractive.

This comparison between cars and architecture came up in a separate discussion some time ago. Here's the big difference: one is a product that nearly every consumer can buy. The other serves a much larger purpose. In this discussion, that purpose is to enable consumers to buy other items. The only way in which the shoppers actually "pay for" the architecture is related to the prices they pay their retailers. And again, it all ties back to how much the retailers are willing to pay to be located in the shopping center. That's why discount retailers (Wal-Mart, Target, KMart) are almost universally housed in bland, big boxes that have no architectural appeal, while upscale retailers like Saks, Versace, and Louis Vuitton always have the nicest stores, both inside and out. Take a stroll down Fifth Avenue sometime, and compare how it looks in the 50s to how it looks in the 40s. You'll see what I'm talking about.

Eugenious

December 6th, 2006, 11:54 AM

The GDP argument is irrelevant when you consider that Istanbul singlehandedly contributes about 20% of it. It is by far the most important center of commerce in the country. And, after doing some quick research, it turns out that shopping mall is being built in the Levent district, which is the largest center of finance (read: money) in the city. Does this place (http://www.turkey.gen.tr/index.php/Image:Levent_istanbul.jpg) look like it's doing worse economically than Atlantic Yards was 10 years ago? I don't think so.

So you are saying Brooklyn does not contribute to the economy of New York City? You are upsetting alot of people from Brooklyn with you statements. Brooklyn has better infrastracture, better diversity, and more businesses than Instanbul. Not to mention lower unemployment (5.6%) and a resilient economy not deflated by inflation of more than (10% in Turkey). Brooklyn has the most resilient economy of NYC having only dipped 0.3% after 9/11 while other boroughs saw double digit losses. Istanbul ten years ago was only marginally better then perhaps downtown Brooklyn, but there is no reason that hideous architecture was still being built while over there they increasingly are building world class projects.

Another thing: just because you build a mall, doesn't make it a temple to commerce. There is a big difference between building a destination mall, like the one in Levent, than a shopping center that predominantly serves the needs of the local community. The new mall in Turkey is attracting high-end European designers; Atlantic Center had trouble securing tenants like Pathmark, Party City, and the DMV when it first opened. Big difference.

The reason why Atlantic center has trouble securing even low profile tenants dates back 40-50 years and is based on the institutional destruction and neglect undertaken in New York City by various corrupt mayors and others like Robert Moses etc. In the 90's you had a recovering Brooklyn as a borough and it was vastlty better than the 70's and the 80's. While a decade saw alot of change it was all started in the early 90's as crime started to fall and welfare rolls leveled off. The only reason why the Instanbul is able to attract these type of project and high end retail in the Mall is the support and backing of the government and confidence in the future. Your arguement that a city in Turkey had a better business climate than Brooklyn, one of the oldest and largest cities in America is laughable.

See my response above, as well as any other time I have mentioned that an expensive mall cannot exist without upscale retailers. Why can't you get your head around that fairly simple concept?

You are equating attractive with expensive, same as you cant comprehend that something does not have to be luxurious to be acceptable and well designed.

Again, your logic is off. Since it already costs more to build here than in other areas, developers are forced to cut costs on things like architectural fees and expensive materials just to meet a reasonable ROI. Being pragmatic and prudent would mean exactly what I'm talking about: build something that meets the needs of the neighborhood and keep costs down to be able to accommodate discount retailers.

No, your logic is off. When you build a mall that has been deemed a dismal failure for it's ability to repulse all shoppers other than welfare moms, it is certainly because it did NOT meet the needs of a neighborhood. It does not take alot to make money when you such a densely populated area. The fact that it has failed is the fault of the developer.

Also: form does not unquestionably go hand in hand with function. A Four Seasons Hotel and a Comfort Inn accomplish the same function: they provide rooms for their guests to sleep in. Yet, one costs several times as much as the other to construct. Accordingly, one also charges much higher room rates, and one also serves a customer base that is much wealthier than the other's.

Yes but a Comfort Inn certainly adheres to certain architectural principles and is acceptably attractive at the minimum? Get my point? There is a certain low level of acceptable design that is required for a succesul hotel be it use of attractive materials, basic comforts etc. Same applies to this situation, it wouldnt have taken much to design something minimaly attractive - instead what was done did not meet even the low standards of the neighborhood which is why it failed, miserably.

Of course it's causation. Higher property values mean wealthier residents. Wealthier residents mean a stronger demand for upscale retail. Upscale retail wants to be located in glitzy malls or in wealthy neighborhoods, right next to its customer base.

That is a false arguement. While I agree that upscale retail is usually found in Glitzy Malls and Wealthy neighborhoods there are many exceptions to the rule, there are various political and economic incentives like tax breakes and company initiatives that bring upscale retail to a neighborhood. You CAN have upscale to or upmarket retail in a neighborhood that is say 30% upper middle class, 30% middle class and 40% low income. Attractiveness of a downtown area such as downtown brooklyn is due to its walkability the abundance of grocery stores and movie theaters, bars etc. These are things that support a vibrant community and encourage people to shop and come back to an area. The fact that Ratner did not see this 10 years ago shows the shortsightedness and backwards thinking that only the lowest common denominator can work in the area.

Atlantic Center was opened in 1996. I assume it took more than a couple years to plan, design, and construct it. Did you even read the excerpts I provided from that article? Do you remember how bleak things were in the early 90's? If I'm not mistaken, 1994 was the peak of crime in New York City. And you're telling me a developer should have poured money into an expensive mall in the middle of one of those crime-ridden neighborhoods? That's not shortsightedness; that's madness.

It was not the peak, things were MUCH worse in Brooklyn in the 70-80's (crack epidemic) than in the early 90's you seem to be confused. And again you are putting words in my mouth I never claimed that I wanted the devloper to put in an upscale mall in this area in 1994, what I said is that what was done was not even minimally acceptable in with the low standards if the neighborhood. Regardless of what Ratner now says were his excuses it is a fact.

So you're actually giving the government an excuse for building crappy-looking schools and housing projects? Just something to think about: the government has an almost unlimited potential for revenue. All it has to do is raise taxes. Private developers rely almost exclusively on money that individuals or businesses risk by investing into a project, anticipating that they get a return on their investment.

Yes ofcourse like raising taxes is a posibility in the city. You are crazy if you think it is easier to raise taxes than to raise capital. And since private developers rely on investors that anticipate a return it should be easier to construct something the least bit attractive than something ugly and horrendous.

Another thing: there's a big difference between where someone lives or goes to school, versus where someone shops. You spend at the very least 6-8 hours everyday in your home or school, but only an hour or two a week at shopping centers.

And? does that mean it has to be less attractive?

This comparison between cars and architecture came up in a separate discussion some time ago. Here's the big difference: one is a product that nearly every consumer can buy. The other serves a much larger purpose. In this discussion, that purpose is to enable consumers to buy other items. The only way in which the shoppers actually "pay for" the architecture is related to the prices they pay their retailers. And again, it all ties back to how much the retailers are willing to pay to be located in the shopping center. That's why discount retailers (Wal-Mart, Target, KMart) are almost universally housed in bland, big boxes that have no architectural appeal, while upscale retailers like Saks, Versace, and Louis Vuitton always have the nicest stores, both inside and out. Take a stroll down Fifth Avenue sometime, and compare how it looks in the 50s to how it looks in the 40s. You'll see what I'm talking about.

And there is no upscale retailers that are in big bland boxes? Cost reduction and quality are not opposites. Even a basic shopping center has to establish a consistent deliverable retail store standard. You are missing my whole point.

pianoman11686

December 6th, 2006, 03:44 PM

This back and forth thing is starting to get old. So, before we go any further, I'll point out what is fundamentally wrong with your arguments. Firstly, you continue to cite generalities to support your position, whereas I've given you concrete examples of why things work the way they do. Secondly, you make comparisons that are just not appropriate. And thirdly, you ignore plain realities and assume that your idealized view of everyone "getting what they deserve" is not only possible, but easy to achieve. Now, let's get into the specifics:

So you are saying Brooklyn does not contribute to the economy of New York City? You are upsetting alot of people from Brooklyn with you statements. Brooklyn has better infrastracture, better diversity, and more businesses than Instanbul. Not to mention lower unemployment (5.6%) and a resilient economy not deflated by inflation of more than (10% in Turkey). Brooklyn has the most resilient economy of NYC having only dipped 0.3% after 9/11 while other boroughs saw double digit losses. Istanbul ten years ago was only marginally better then perhaps downtown Brooklyn, but there is no reason that hideous architecture was still being built while over there they increasingly are building world class projects.

Two problems with that paragraph: you're comparing a borough of 2.5 million people to a city of almost 9 million. You're also assuming that Brooklyn plays as crucial a role to the US economy as Istanbul does to the Turkish. (It doesn't). Furthermore, we're talking about Istanbul now; not ten years ago, now. Since you already admit that it was doing better economically ten years ago than Brooklyn was, it must be doing a whole lot better now than Brooklyn was doing ten years ago. Final problem: you assume that Downtown Brooklyn plays as vital a role to the NYC economy as the Levent district plays to Istanbul's. Downtown Brooklyn is a center for back office jobs and high vacancies. Levent is the booming financial hub of Istanbul. Big difference.

The reason why Atlantic center has trouble securing even low profile tenants dates back 40-50 years and is based on the institutional destruction and neglect undertaken in New York City by various corrupt mayors and others like Robert Moses etc. In the 90's you had a recovering Brooklyn as a borough and it was vastlty better than the 70's and the 80's. While a decade saw alot of change it was all started in the early 90's as crime started to fall and welfare rolls leveled off. The only reason why the Instanbul is able to attract these type of project and high end retail in the Mall is the support and backing of the government and confidence in the future. Your arguement that a city in Turkey had a better business climate than Brooklyn, one of the oldest and largest cities in America is laughable.

I have no idea why you're bringing up government involvement in Istanbul and Atlantic Yards, when we are talking about Ratner's privately financed shopping center.

You are equating attractive with expensive, same as you cant comprehend that something does not have to be luxurious to be acceptable and well designed.

Then why do you equate the new mall in Istanbul with what Atlantic Center should have been? I urge you: please, look at the tenant lists for both, and compare what kind of retailers occupy the spaces.

No, your logic is off. When you build a mall that has been deemed a dismal failure for it's ability to repulse all shoppers other than welfare moms, it is certainly because it did NOT meet the needs of a neighborhood. It does not take alot to make money when you such a densely populated area. The fact that it has failed is the fault of the developer.

You would consider a mall that, out of 394,000 total square feet, has only 14,000 square feet currently vacant, a failure? The fact that it is almost completely leased means that retailers find it a suitable location to do business. In turn, that means customers must be frequenting it to "fulfill their needs," or else the retailers would pack up and leave.

Yes but a Comfort Inn certainly adheres to certain architectural principles and is acceptably attractive at the minimum? Get my point? There is a certain low level of acceptable design that is required for a succesul hotel be it use of attractive materials, basic comforts etc. Same applies to this situation, it wouldnt have taken much to design something minimaly attractive - instead what was done did not meet even the low standards of the neighborhood which is why it failed, miserably.

Have you checked out the NYC Hotel News thread recently? Do you know who Sam Chang is? Why don't you find out what types of hotels he's putting up, and what hotel brands are doing their business in them. I'd be surprised if you thought all those Comfort Inns and Sheraton Four Points are meeting your "low level of acceptable design." Yet, in spite of this, they have almost no vacancies to speak of, and charge rates upwards of 200 bucks a night. Go figure.

That is a false arguement. While I agree that upscale retail is usually found in Glitzy Malls and Wealthy neighborhoods there are many exceptions to the rule, there are various political and economic incentives like tax breakes and company initiatives that bring upscale retail to a neighborhood. You CAN have upscale to or upmarket retail in a neighborhood that is say 30% upper middle class, 30% middle class and 40% low income. Attractiveness of a downtown area such as downtown brooklyn is due to its walkability the abundance of grocery stores and movie theaters, bars etc. These are things that support a vibrant community and encourage people to shop and come back to an area. The fact that Ratner did not see this 10 years ago shows the shortsightedness and backwards thinking that only the lowest common denominator can work in the area.

I've given you examples. Give me a concrete one that proves your contention that "there are many exceptions." And if there are, then why would political and economic incentives be needed?

It was not the peak, things were MUCH worse in Brooklyn in the 70-80's (crack epidemic) than in the early 90's you seem to be confused. And again you are putting words in my mouth I never claimed that I wanted the devloper to put in an upscale mall in this area in 1994, what I said is that what was done was not even minimally acceptable in with the low standards if the neighborhood. Regardless of what Ratner now says were his excuses it is a fact.

I know for a fact that the crack cocaine epidemic reached its peak in the late 80s/early 90s, as did crime overall. I also know for a fact that that area of Brooklyn was experiencing a population decline up until at least the early 90s, precisely when Ratner was planning this shopping center. And, for the final time, I ask you to consider the crucial role that any developer's potential retail tenants play in the design and marketing process.

Yes ofcourse like raising taxes is a posibility in the city. You are crazy if you think it is easier to raise taxes than to raise capital. And since private developers rely on investors that anticipate a return it should be easier to construct something the least bit attractive than something ugly and horrendous.

In case you missed it, here's the point again: in one case, people are risking their own money, hoping to get it back at a future time. In another, government is dumping its money to build public infrastructure. To put it in still another way: in one case, people invest money to build something; in another, money is a sunk cost to build something.

And? does that mean it has to be less attractive?

No. It means you were providing yet another inapplicable analogy.

And there is no upscale retailers that are in big bland boxes? Cost reduction and quality are not opposites. Even a basic shopping center has to establish a consistent deliverable retail store standard. You are missing my whole point.

You're missing mine. Architects can only do so much to achieve good design, if cost is the limiting factor (as it is in the vast majority of cases).

Still haven't walked down Fifth Avenue yet, huh? You should get around to it when you have a chance. In the mean time, I'd be interested to see if you can find a Wal-Mart or a Target that looks just like a Macy's or a Nordstrom. Inside and out.

BrooklynRider

December 6th, 2006, 04:22 PM

To see how much things have changed, you can look at the much more recently built Atlantic Terminal Mall nearby, which is aesthetically more pleasing, and also serves a different retail base than the original tenants of Atlantic Center.

The Atlantic Terminal shows how little was learned by Ratner. He used the same moronic "faux-stadium" design as the Atlantic Center and created another building that has the an even worse pedestrian flow pattern than Atlantic Center, which ws just back and forth.

The design of Atlantic Terminal turns it back on the existing Fort Green community in favor of Flatbush and Atlantic Avenues, although not as egregiously as Atlantic Center.

The retail base is serving the same clientele regardless of intent. The stores are actually down-market versions of retail by the same name in other areas. Target is definitely the anchor, but this is no destination design. It has the advantage of sitting atop the busiest transportation hub in Brooklyn and for that reason Ratner knew he could get away with another horrendous, offensive building design and still get the rents he desired.

It isn't as if the Atlantic Center was a fluke mistake. The pattern and history of Ratner constructing crap buildings that turn their backs on their respective neighborhoods is evidence enough that he has contempt for the community.

The Ratner developments in Manhattan treat their neighbors and neighborhoods much differently than those in Brooklyn. His buildings in Brooklyn are direct descendents of the monstrosities built in Times Square during the 1970's/80's like the Minskoff Building, Marriott Marquis, and Crown Plaza that were designed to protect tenants from the dangerous community outside.

antinimby

December 6th, 2006, 06:31 PM

Okay, so the question now is why would Ratner do such a terrible job for Atlantic Terminal / Center?

Is it cost?

Can a better designed place cost that much more?

Better design does not necessarily mean more complexity or change in material.

It can be as simple as changing the layout and eliminating blank walls and such.

I can't imagine he would intentionally want those places to be lousily designed, eventhough he knows it'll be profitable nevertheless.

pianoman11686

December 6th, 2006, 11:29 PM

The Atlantic Terminal shows how little was learned by Ratner. He used the same moronic "faux-stadium" design as the Atlantic Center and created another building that has the an even worse pedestrian flow pattern than Atlantic Center, which ws just back and forth.

Not sure about the pedestrian flow pattern, but from what I've heard about Atlantic Center, the newer Atlantic Terminal is much nicer on the inside.

The retail base is serving the same clientele regardless of intent. The stores are actually down-market versions of retail by the same name in other areas. Target is definitely the anchor, but this is no destination design.

You're right - it's not a destination mall. It has everyday, regular stores that serve the needs of the community.

From the same article that I quoted earlier (written shortly before Atlantic Terminal opened for business):

"We decided to redo the interior and do as best we could with the exterior," Mr. Ratner said. "Honestly, it isn't beautiful. It's not architecturally outstanding. It's kept clean, and we do try and take care of it. It's not as bad as a strip center in the burbs, I mean, but it's not something that we would build again."

Back before it was built, the site, part of an area designated for urban renewal, was altogether different. Desolate at night, the neighborhood was known for drug dealing and prostitution; a hotel for the homeless, the Brooklyn Arms, was there as well, said Kathryn S. Wylde, president of the Partnership for New York City, whose housing subsidiary developed homes there.

Times were also shaky economically. Kenneth K. Fisher, the former city councilman who represented downtown Brooklyn, said it was difficult to convince businesses that the area would draw their target customers.

"You would bring investors over the Brooklyn Bridge," he said, "and they would only see the color of people's skin on Fulton Street, and they didn't see the color of their American Express cards." (In fact, executives at Forest City Ratner said, the mall is now doing $580 in sales per square foot, higher than the average American mall.)

[...]

As crime has fallen, though, the company has become more adept at policing its property, and executives have realized that customers visiting the Atlantic Center want to shop at more than one store. So the developers have revisited some of the old assumptions and are altering the design.

Outside, executives said, many of the more garish elements, like the center's enormous blue-and-beige A logos and multicolored signs, will come off. The outside will be painted to match the brick and terra cotta colors of the Bank of New York building that houses the Atlantic Terminal across the street.

Entrances will be more clearly marked, and awnings will be added to create a pedestrian corridor outside. Plans also call for new columns with clearer and more tasteful directional signs.

Have these changes been made, and does it now look any better?

BrooklynRider

December 6th, 2006, 11:42 PM

Changes were made. It's just as hideous except it is painted to match the brick and terra cotta colors of the Bank of New York building, entrances are more clearly marked, and awnings were added to catch the pigeon shit falling from the roof, which I guess creates a safer pedestrian corridor outside. Ugly as it is, the best thing about Atlantic Terminal is that is blocks the view of Atlantic Center (partially at least).

bkmonkey

December 7th, 2006, 12:02 AM

The Atlantic Terminal is a great mall.... much better than Atlantic Center. From my understanding, it holds the second most profitable target in the country...

The architecture isn't first rate.. but i wouldn't call it ugly. It's perfectly handsome.. and when the Atlantic Yards is complete.. it will fit in more..

Atlantic Center... well thats another story

antinimby

December 7th, 2006, 12:46 AM

Lots of talk about Atlantic Center and Atlantic Terminal but very little for readers to look at.

So here goes...

Atlantic Center

Location: 625 Atlantic Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11217

Square Footage: 393,713

Opening: November 1996

Featured Shops: Party City, Sports Authority, Marshalls, DMV, Pathmark, Macy's, House and Home, Circuit City, Funco Land, Old Navy, Bony's, Office Max, Cell 2000, and Buccs.

http://www.fcrc.com/images/projects/mainatlanticcenter.jpg

http://www.fcrc.com/images/projects/galac5b.jpg

http://www.fcrc.com/images/projects/galac6b.jpg

Atlantic Terminal

Location: 139 Flatbush Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11217

Square Footage: 373,000

Opening: March 2004

Featured Shops: The Children's Place, Houlihan's, Target, DSW, Starbuck's Coffee, Mrs. Fields, Atlantic Terminal News, MTA Ticket Office, Payless ShoeSource, Rockaway Bedding, Verizon Wireless, McDonald's, Bath & Body Works, Mandee, Atlantic Terminal Dental, Avenue, Red Lobster, Daffy's, and Chuck E. Cheese's.

http://www.fcrc.com/images/projects/atlanticterminal.jpg

http://www.fcrc.com/images/projects/galat21b.jpg

http://www.fcrc.com/images/projects/galat22b.jpg

http://www.fcrc.com/images/projects/galat20b.jpg

From http://www.fcrc.com/index.asp

krulltime

December 7th, 2006, 12:49 AM

Last-Ditch Maneuvering on Atlantic Yards Project

By NICHOLAS CONFESSORE
December 7, 2006

More than two years of costly warfare over the proposed Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn has exhausted and bruised both supporters and opponents. But as the battle enters its proverbial 13th round this month, critics of the $4.2 billion project are mounting a last-ditch political outreach effort to delay final approval until a new administration is in place in Albany.

The project’s sponsors, meanwhile, are rushing to get the project approved before Gov. George E. Pataki leaves office.

The board of the Empire State Development Corporation, the state agency overseeing the project, is to vote tomorrow on whether to approve the final project plan. They will also vote on authorizing any needed condemnations on the 22-acre site where the developer Forest City Ratner hopes to build an eight-million-square-foot residential, commercial and arena complex.

The board’s approval is practically a foregone conclusion, however, and both sides are already focusing on the final stage of the political battle: a possible vote this month by the Public Authorities Control Board. The votes on that board are controlled by Mr. Pataki, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and the Senate majority leader, Joseph L. Bruno.

Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn, an umbrella organization of groups that want to stop the project, filed suit last month in federal court to challenge the likely condemnation of several properties on the site. On Tuesday, the group delivered thousands of letters from city residents to Mr. Pataki, Mr. Bruno and Mr. Silver urging them not to approve the project until the lawsuit is resolved.

The group also recently hired a lobbyist to contend with the considerable Albany firepower of Forest City Ratner and the array of New York politicians, unions and business groups allied with the company.

A second coalition, known as Brooklyn Speaks, hopes to force changes to the project, like significantly reducing its size. The coalition includes several national and local civic groups with influence, including the Municipal Arts Society and the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

A spokesman for Forest City Ratner, which is also the development partner in a new Midtown headquarters for The New York Times Company, declined to comment on any efforts it has made to influence the upcoming votes.

The Public Authorities Control Board must unanimously approve Atlantic Yards for it to move forward. And though Mr. Pataki, Mr. Bruno and Mr. Silver have all expressed support for the project, it must still traverse the gantlet of Albany power politics.

Mr. Pataki, a likely Republican candidate for president, is said to be eager to establish a physical legacy of his 12 years in office, especially after other major projects, including the West Side stadium, have been killed or delayed.

More often than not, his antagonist on the board has been Mr. Silver, who last month described Charles A. Gargano, the Empire State Development Corporation chairman, as the “most corrupt member” of Mr. Pataki’s administration. Mr. Silver has often criticized Mr. Pataki as having withheld key information about state projects. Mr. Pataki, in turn, has typically rejected those charges as political posturing. Such debates have delayed a number of projects in the past, and a Pataki aide said a similar fate might await this one.

Officially, however, Mr. Silver supports the project, and the Assembly has already appropriated $33 million for it. In an interview, Mr. Silver said his staff was awaiting details of the project’s long-term financing.

“We are not looking to be negative,” Mr. Silver said. “We haven’t seen the financials. When we do, we will make a decision.”

Late last month, three Assembly members from neighborhoods near the project site — James F. Brennan, Joan L. Millman and Annette Robinson — sent a letter urging Mr. Silver to delay the project until it could be modified. Mr. Silver hinted that he would listen closely to their criticisms, describing them as “very effective members.”

Hakeem Jeffries, an assemblyman-elect whose district would include most of the project, said that he had expressed his concerns to Mr. Silver privately but that he would wait until after tomorrow’s vote to articulate them more formally.

If the project approval were delayed into next year, Governor-elect Eliot Spitzer’s representative would replace Mr. Pataki’s on the board. Aides to Mr. Spitzer have recently begun a more intensive review of the Yards project, among others, which they said was intended chiefly to bring Mr. Spitzer up to speed on the projects’ details. But a senior policy adviser to Mr. Spitzer said last week that an intervention was not out of the question.

“If we thought it were a seriously flawed proposal, we would encourage people to hold it until we had an opportunity to make further review of it,” said the adviser, who was granted anonymity so he could speak openly about Mr. Spitzer’s thinking on the matter.

Though Mr. Spitzer supports development over the railyards, critics of the Atlantic Yards plan believe that he would be more sympathetic than Mr. Pataki to the idea of modifications, should the project fall into his lap. He has spoken in the past about wanting a closer look at financial projections out of concern that the state might be forced to contribute more money than expected.

The project’s sponsors have held such information closely, rejecting numerous requests under freedom of information laws from journalists, politicians and Brooklyn residents.

Critics of the project hope that Mr. Silver and his staff will pry more information out of Forest City and the development corporation before the speaker will approve it. That information, they believe, could reframe public debate on terms more favorable to those who would like to change the project.

“Disclosure of the finances might reveal that they would make a profit even without the giant density of the project, and that there is no compelling rationale for the current size, and that a downsizing is fully achievable with the developer continuing to earn a generous rate of return,” Assemblyman Brennan said.

Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

ablarc

December 7th, 2006, 09:21 AM

“Disclosure of the finances might reveal that they would make a profit even without the giant density of the project, and that there is no compelling rationale for the current size, and that a downsizing is fully achievable with the developer continuing to earn a generous rate of return,” Assemblyman Brennan said.
Maybe ...but what exactly makes it so desirable?

Why --in New York-- are folks so hell-bent on making projects small?

Isn't this New York?

Oh ... it's lil' ol' New York !!

lofter1

December 7th, 2006, 09:45 AM

This project will be built -- in some form or other.

Whatever it ends up being, rest assured it won't be "small". Maybe not as large in all aspects as what is now proposed -- but "small" & little will never be applicable.

investordude

December 7th, 2006, 10:01 AM

I actually think Silver will delay it for a few months but end up approving essentially the same project.

Eugenious

December 7th, 2006, 12:19 PM

This back and forth thing is starting to get old. So, before we go any further, I'll point out what is fundamentally wrong with your arguments.

It is getting old, and your hollier than thou' attitude is not helping.

Firstly, you continue to cite generalities to support your position, whereas I've given you concrete examples of why things work the way they do.

Sure you have, you're concrete examples use the same generalities as we are discussing this project IN GENERAL terms and are not doing a through project based analysis detail by detail.

Secondly, you make comparisons that are just not appropriate. And thirdly, you ignore plain realities and assume that your idealized view of everyone "getting what they deserve" is not only possible, but easy to achieve. Now, let's get into the specifics:

Not appropriate for YOU maybe, but I think majority of the posters on this board would agree with me. Please show me a single instance where I have ignored plain realities and presented an idealized view? You mean just because I'm saying brooklyn deserves a little more than the lowest common denominator I exhibit an "idealized view"?

Two problems with that paragraph: you're comparing a borough of 2.5 million people to a city of almost 9 million. You're also assuming that Brooklyn plays as crucial a role to the US economy as Istanbul does to the Turkish. (It doesn't). Furthermore, we're talking about Istanbul now; not ten years ago, now. Since you already admit that it was doing better economically ten years ago than Brooklyn was, it must be doing a whole lot better now than Brooklyn was doing ten years ago. Final problem: you assume that Downtown Brooklyn plays as vital a role to the NYC economy as the Levent district plays to Istanbul's. Downtown Brooklyn is a center for back office jobs and high vacancies. Levent is the booming financial hub of Istanbul. Big difference.

Again you fail to see my point. The point I'm trying to make is that Brooklyn continiously get typecast as "low-income" and thus not worthy of anything other than the barely acceptable (Atlantic terminal) and the lowest common denominator (Atlantic Center). I never said I was directly comparing to the Levent mall. I used it an as example of top notch design and planning.

I have no idea why you're bringing up government involvement in Istanbul and Atlantic Yards, when we are talking about Ratner's privately financed shopping center.

And government has nothing to do with Atlantic Yards? $1.9 billion in public subsidies is not government involvement? Do you know something we dont?

Then why do you equate the new mall in Istanbul with what Atlantic Center should have been? I urge you: please, look at the tenant lists for both, and compare what kind of retailers occupy the spaces.

No respectable retailer would want to be in a ugly pos like the Atlantic Center. and I was never saying it should have been like the mall in Instanbul. It could never be that.

You would consider a mall that, out of 394,000 total square feet, has only 14,000 square feet currently vacant, a failure? The fact that it is almost completely leased means that retailers find it a suitable location to do business. In turn, that means customers must be frequenting it to "fulfill their needs," or else the retailers would pack up and leave.

Well now it is 10 years after construction, and having been atleast 25-50% vacant for the majority of those years. A mall in such a densely populated and accesible area such a downtown Booklyn should'nt have any vacant space. I wonder who's to blame for that?

u checked out the NYC Hotel News thread recently? Do you know who Sam Chang is? Why don't you find out what types of hotels he's putting up, and what hotel brands are doing their business in them. I'd be surprised if you thought all those Comfort Inns and Sheraton Four Points are meeting your "low level of acceptable design." Yet, in spite of this, they have almost no vacancies to speak of, and charge rates upwards of 200 bucks a night. Go figure.

Everyone knows there is a shortage of hotel rooms in NYC and this is a result of that, has nothing to do with design.

I've given you examples. Give me a concrete one that proves your contention that "there are many exceptions." And if there are, then why would political and economic incentives be needed?

Because incentives are always needed especially in areas which are trying to attract invesment. And there are many upscale malls in Virginia/Washington DC area which (i know of) are in proximity to middle income/lower income areas. For example the Potomac Mall has various upscale factory outlets and is not in a particularly upscale area.

I know for a fact that the crack cocaine epidemic reached its peak in the late 80s/early 90s, as did crime overall. I also know for a fact that that area of Brooklyn was experiencing a population decline up until at least the early 90s, precisely when Ratner was planning this shopping center. And, for the final time, I ask you to consider the crucial role that any developer's potential retail tenants play in the design and marketing process.

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crack_epidemic: "The Crack Epidemic refers to a 5-year time period between 1985 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1985) and 1990 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1990) in which there was a huge surge in the use of crack/cocaine (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cocaine#Crack_cocaine). It affected all cities of the United States (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States). The cities most severely impacted by the crack epidemic included New York (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City), Los Angeles (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles) and Houston (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Houston). The crack epidemic officially ended in 1990..."

The mall was opened in 1996, that's six full years after the crack epidemic. And again I urge you to consider that potential tennats while playing a major role in the planning process are not architects and are not responsible for design of the building.

In case you missed it, here's the point again: in one case, people are risking their own money, hoping to get it back at a future time. In another, government is dumping its money to build public infrastructure. To put it in still another way: in one case, people invest money to build something; in another, money is a sunk cost to build something.

Government money is never sunk cost as long as it increases property and sales taxes and in the end stimulates the economy. Advertising, marketing etc. can be sunk costs as well as a failed government project such as a dam that is built but is environmentally unsound and so has to be destroyed.

No. It means you were providing yet another inapplicable analogy.

Yes, and you're analogies are supper applicable and relevant...you're sense of superiority is amusing.

You're missing mine. Architects can only do so much to achieve good design, if cost is the limiting factor (as it is in the vast majority of cases).

Yes, but it should not override their responsibility to the shareholder as well as all the stakeholders to deliver.

Still haven't walked down Fifth Avenue yet, huh? You should get around to it when you have a chance. In the mean time, I'd be interested to see if you can find a Wal-Mart or a Target that looks just like a Macy's or a Nordstrom. Inside and out.

Low and behold the downtown Minneapolis Target ! Sure looks better than the atlantic mall doesnt it, perhaps not Saks good but still better than the prison like Ratner projects!

http://www.cgstock.com/pics/2056.jpg

and Macy's in Willow Grove PA, sure doesnt look like the one in herald square does it? oh I thought all macy's look just like one another?

http://www.keatingweb.com/html/images/buildingCorp/ret/macys.jpg

I dont know about you but I'll take the Target hands down!

NoyokA

December 7th, 2006, 12:38 PM

Low and behold the downtown Minneapolis Target ! Sure looks better than the atlantic mall doesnt it, perhaps not Saks good but still better than the prison like Ratner projects!

http://www.cgstock.com/pics/2056.jpg

Not to nitpick but isnt that Target's WHQ in the background, they would look kind of stupid if they built any run of the mill store there.

investordude

December 7th, 2006, 01:11 PM

Look, I'm all for Brooklyn rising, but Minneapolis Target is, as you mentioned, in downtown Minneapolis. Therefore, its surrounded by highly paid office workers in one of the best educated major metros in the US. At the time the Atlantic Center was built, downtown Brooklyn was the second or third most important commercial area of New York, surrounded by what at the time was a poor neighborhood knows as a somewhat crime ridden area. Also construction costs in the midwest are extremely cheap, so you can build a nicer building for less money.

So, you have richer, better educated customers and cheaper construction costs and you get a nicer looking building. Is this a surprise?

pianoman11686

December 7th, 2006, 09:04 PM

Sure you have, you're concrete examples use the same generalities as we are discussing this project IN GENERAL terms and are not doing a through project based analysis detail by detail.

There's a big difference between what I was doing (providing examples that prove my generalizations) and what you were doing (just stating generalizations). But let's drop the whole generalization thing, because you've clearly changed your approach with this latest post.

Not appropriate for YOU maybe, but I think majority of the posters on this board would agree with me. Please show me a single instance where I have ignored plain realities and presented an idealized view? You mean just because I'm saying brooklyn deserves a little more than the lowest common denominator I exhibit an "idealized view"?

This is what started it all:

Why cant they build somethnig like this in Brooklyn? You would think the biggest borough of New York City would be the place to build something as attractive and aweinspiring as this. (followed by link to Levent mall)

If you've backed off that rather extreme position, and now only believe that Ratner should've built "a little more than the lowest common denominator," then I applaud you for that. But when I look at photos of Atlantic Center, I find it at least a little more than the lowest common denominator. I see tons of strip malls in Jersey, North Carolina, Long Island, that are many times uglier than that.

Again you fail to see my point. The point I'm trying to make is that Brooklyn continiously get typecast as "low-income" and thus not worthy of anything other than the barely acceptable (Atlantic terminal) and the lowest common denominator (Atlantic Center). I never said I was directly comparing to the Levent mall. I used it an as example of top notch design and planning.

I'll say it again: at the time Atlantic Center was built and planned, the socioeconomic background of the area was bleak. It was not an area that even discount retailers were excited about entering, and the prospect of making a big investment amid such lack of confidence from politicians, retailers, etc. must have been a lot less exciting than it is these days.

And government has nothing to do with Atlantic Yards? $1.9 billion in public subsidies is not government involvement? Do you know something we dont?

As far as I know, this discussion is not talking about Atlantic Yards. If it were, I'd have to ask you to justify Ratner's hiring of, arguably, the world's most famous architect to design the entire complex for Brooklyn.

No respectable retailer would want to be in a ugly pos like the Atlantic Center. and I was never saying it should have been like the mall in Instanbul. It could never be that.

Respectable equates with upscale, or at least middlescale, in this discussion. Ratner found tenants, and they were all discount retailers (plus the DMV).

Well now it is 10 years after construction, and having been atleast 25-50% vacant for the majority of those years. A mall in such a densely populated and accesible area such a downtown Booklyn should'nt have any vacant space. I wonder who's to blame for that?

By your logic (given in the previous quote), "no respectable retailer" would want to be there. Yet, the mall is almost fully leased. What does that mean? You don't approve of the retailers that are there now?

Everyone knows there is a shortage of hotel rooms in NYC and this is a result of that, has nothing to do with design.

You do realize that that statement goes against everything you have been arguing for, right? I thought good design, in your opinion, had nothing to do with demand or the potential customers; it should be used everywhere, to differing degrees. Yet, despite that, Manhattan is getting plenty of new crap hotels. Isn't it "deserving of something better than the common denominator?" If Brooklyn's a world class city, certainly Manhattan is too, right?

BTW: I've seen numerous articles recently that say the city, as a whole, is still vastly underserved by retail.

Because incentives are always needed especially in areas which are trying to attract invesment. And there are many upscale malls in Virginia/Washington DC area which (i know of) are in proximity to middle income/lower income areas. For example the Potomac Mall has various upscale factory outlets and is not in a particularly upscale area.

Okay, now we're getting to the core of what you believe. If incentives are needed to attract investment, then you must think that the local government should have given Ratner more incentives to build a nicer mall. Did they?

The mall was opened in 1996, that's six full years after the crack epidemic. And again I urge you to consider that potential tennats while playing a major role in the planning process are not architects and are not responsible for design of the building.

I've already mentioned this at least one time before: it takes several years to plan, finance, and construct a shopping center. I think construction alone took two years, which means Ratner was planning this at the most, 2 or 3 years after the peak of crime in New York and the end of the crack epidemic. Does that sound like a hospitable environment for new investment?

Architects are not the developer's customers. The potential tenants/retailers are. The amount they are willing to pay to do business in your building is directly related to how much you can spend on the construction. Included in that are things like architectural fees. Why is it that the wealthiest universities, museums, and developers catering to the superrich always get the starchitects to design their new buildings?

Government money is never sunk cost as long as it increases property and sales taxes and in the end stimulates the economy. Advertising, marketing etc. can be sunk costs as well as a failed government project such as a dam that is built but is environmentally unsound and so has to be destroyed.

This is unrelated to what we're mainly talking about here, but...advertising and marketing are sunk costs? Are you kidding? They're arguably the most important means of increasing a company's sales. And last time I checked, crappy public schools and housing projects do not increase neighborhing property taxes. They tend to, in fact, bring down land values around them.

Yes, and you're analogies are supper applicable and relevant...you're sense of superiority is amusing.

Name one that hasn't been. Right off the bat, I can name three of yours that haven't been applicable: Civic vs. Acura, Levent district vs. Atlantic Yards, housing projects vs. private-built shopping malls.

Low and behold the downtown Minneapolis Target ! Sure looks better than the atlantic mall doesnt it, perhaps not Saks good but still better than the prison like Ratner projects!

and Macy's in Willow Grove PA, sure doesnt look like the one in herald square does it? oh I thought all macy's look just like one another?

I dont know about you but I'll take the Target hands down!

And, you've given two more inapplicable analogies. As someone's already mentioned, Minneapolis is Target's world headquarters. That store is the retail chain's flagship. Just as Macy's Herald Square is that chain's flagship. It's the same principle that applies to destination retail vs. neighborhood-serving retail. The Levent Mall is an example of a mall that the entire city of Istanbul will shop at; Atlantic Center is a place where people in the immediate area shop.

No matter, though, I'll give you some more examples to chew on: Home Depot vs. Restoration Hardware; Pathmark vs. Whole Foods; Sizzler vs. Morton's Steakhouse; Holiday Inn vs. Westin.

You can look at any of the above pairs, and make accurate, generalized statements about the differences in quality/cost of design of their buildings, the quality/cost of the products they sell, and the income levels of customers.

BPC

December 8th, 2006, 12:10 AM

I'm no Ratner fan, and I think his Atlantic Yards plan sucks, but frankly his shopping malls look like every other mall in the country, and he ought to be lauded for bringing economic development to underdeveloped areas, rather than just building strip malls in the suburbs and on farmland like every other real estate developer out there. There are a lot better reasons to oppose the Atlantic Yards plan then the look of Ratner's two Brooklyn malls.

NYguy

December 8th, 2006, 09:28 AM

Daily News

Ratner set to seize land
State could OK eminent domain at Yards site today

BY ELIZABETH HAYS

Let the real battle over eminent domain at Atlantic Yards begin.

As state honchos work to push through the controversial project before Gov. Pataki leaves office, officials are expected as early as today to give developer Bruce Ratner the green light to take over private property at the site.

"I feel I have a right to stay in my house - especially in America," said homeowner Ioana Sarbu, who is originally from Romania and lives with her husband on Dean St. in the midst of the proposed site.

The move will most likely come at a key meeting - squeezed in on a Friday afternoon - of the Empire State Development Corp. The agency's members also are poised today to give final approval to the project's 18,000-seat Nets arena and 16 residential and commercial towers.

Forest City Ratner officials would not provide a full list of properties at the 22-acre site that are at risk of being taken over by the state, though they said they have bought or control 89% of the site.

But in documents released this summer, Ratner said there were 118 people in 60 households at risk of being forced out by eminent domain, and 13 businesses with 185 employees.

They include the well-known neighborhood bar Freddy's, a thriving industrial design company, and a Holocaust survivor and building owner.

"Everything was taken away from me and my family by the Nazis and their cohorts," wrote Louis Piller, who owns a building on Pacific St., in a recent letter to state officials opposing the project. "It is unbelievable that I am once again the victim of forced confiscation, this time in a democratic country."

If the use of eminent domain is approved and condemnation letters are sent out, opponents have 30 days to appeal. If they lose, they will be forced to sell their properties at "fair market value."

About two dozen residents already have filed a lawsuit in federal court arguing it is unconstitutional to use eminent domain to make way for a private project.

Another 13 rent-stabilized tenants are expected to file their own lawsuit in Manhattan Supreme Court if eminent domain is authorized.

Ratner officials have offered to find displaced renters comparable apartments while the project is being built and to move them back when it is completed.

An approval today by the ESDC would leave just one remaining hurdle for the project, besides the lawsuits - a unanimous vote by the three-member Public Authorities Control Board, notorious for scuttling the West Side stadium plan and the Moynihan station proposal.

Opponents and several elected officials are urging Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, the only Democrat on the panel, to delay approval until Gov.-elect Eliot Spitzer takes over Jan. 1.

__________________________________________________ ___________

(Brooklyn Papers)

Ad-nauseum!
New document reveals Yards’ mega-billboards

http://www.brooklynpapers.com/html/issues/_vol29/29_48/29_48yardsbillboards.jpg

Illuminated signs on the Miss Brooklyn tower would be 150-feet tall. City zoning that forbids signs that big is being superceded by the state.

By Gersh Kuntzman

The Atlantic Yards project is a threat to one of America’s national treasures — Brooklyn’s brownstone blocks — two preservation groups charged this week, citing new state renderings that show 15-story illuminated advertising billboards on either side of the development’s main building.

The National Trust for Historic Preservation and the group Scenic America both said that the 16-tower arena, residential and office space project would overwhelm the brownstone blocks in neighboring Prospect Heights, Fort Greene and Boerum Hill.

And Scenic America raised a new issue: Two 150-foot-tall illuminated billboards on either side of the “Urban Room” atrium at the intersection of Flatbush and Atlantic avenues would constantly bathe “Brooklyn’s famed brownstones ... in the light from 15-story beer ads,” said Kevin Fry, the group’s president.

The billboards only came to light last week, as part of the state’s hurriedly prepared final environmental impact statement for the $4.2-billion project (see rendering left).

Such billboards are illegal under New York City zoning — but that law is one of many local codes being superceded by the state in its approval of Atlantic Yards.

“Times Square should not be exported to Brooklyn,” Fry said at a press conference this week on low-rise Fort Greene Place, just two blocks from where the 620-foot “Miss Brooklyn” tower would rise.

Atlantic Yards developer Bruce Ratner has said that light from the signs would only be turned up to maximum settings on game nights — but Fry retorted that the Atlantic Yards approval process gave him little reason to believe Ratner could be reigned in.

“They have exempted themselves from the law [so] there will be no real way to ensure that they will not max out the [lights],” he said.

Roberta Lane of the National Trust echoed Fry’s sentiment.

“Brooklyn’s brownstones are a national treasure and preserving them should be a national concern,” she said.

Neither Ratner nor the Empire State Development Corporation would return calls for comment on the preservation groups’ charges.

But the state’s final environmental impact statement claims that the “signage scheme” will focus “lighting and signage at the intersection of Flatbush and Atlantic Avenues and away from residential neighborhoods.”

The lighting “is not a significant adverse impact,” the report concluded.

Fry was unconvinced.

“A ‘Blade Runner’ dystopia is emerging … where every blank wall is covered with light-emitting diodes and the public has no choice,” he said. “The project demonstrates a total disregard for the wishes of the people of Brooklyn and for the fundamental character of the community.”

lofter1

December 8th, 2006, 09:46 AM

What kind of BS is this ???

Forest City Ratner officials would not provide a full list of properties at the 22-acre site that are at risk of being taken over by the state, though they said they have bought or control 89% of the site.

BrooklynRider

December 8th, 2006, 05:13 PM

If the state goes for this abuse of eminent doman, they really need to explain the footprint and why some properties were being spared or, more likely, given special favor. Ratner gave favor to other developers while screwing small owners. That little notch in the footprint is something to be investigated.

NYguy

December 8th, 2006, 06:18 PM

What kind of BS is this ???

I guess if you're on that list, you already know. If you're not on that list, well...

NYguy

December 8th, 2006, 06:38 PM

Brooklyn Papers

Atlantic Yards moves forward
Date with George, Joe and Shelly awaits

By Gersh Kuntzman
December 8, 2006

The fate of Bruce Ratner’s Atlantic Yards project is now in the hands of the three men in the room.

In a highly expected vote on Friday, the board of the Empire State Development Corporation approved the general project plan and the final environmental impact statement for Ratner’s $4-billion, 16-tower arena, residential and office space mega-development.

“This project is good for Brooklyn,” said ESDC Chairman Charles Gargano after the unanimous board vote. “I understand that there is some opposition — there is on all projects — but by and large, this is a good project.”

The vote sends final approval of Atlantic Yards to the state’s Public Authorities Control Board, whose membership is comprised of Gov. Pataki, Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno (R–Rensselaer) and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver (D–Manhattan).

A “no” vote from any one of the state’s most-powerful men would kill Atlantic Yards — though all three have said they support the project.

Yards opponents have called on the PACB to delay its vote until after Eliot Spitzer takes over as governor so that he can put his stamp on a project that would begin construction during his administration — and would cause significant impacts on traffic, transit and other infrastructure that the new governor would have to deal with in years to come.

Others are calling for the PACB to delay the vote until a federal judge rules on an existing lawsuit over the state’s use of its power to condemn privately owned buildings in the 22-acre Atlantic Yards footprint and hand them over to Ratner.

The developer owns almost 90 percent of the land on which he hopes to build his complex, but needs the state to condemn additional buildings.

Nearly a dozen landowners in the footprint filed suit in October, arguing that the state’s use of eminent domain would violate the law because Ratner was selected as the developer of the state-owned Vanderbilt rail yards in a sham public-approval process rather than on the merits of his proposal.

Many legal experts said the suit is a longshot.

Also Friday, a lawyer for 13 remaining rent-stabilized tenants within Ratner’s footprint sued the state on the grounds that the just-approved general project plan does not protect them in the event that Atlantic Yards is never built.

The lawyer, George Locker, argued that developers who want to “evict [a] tenant in order to demolish [a] building, must obtain permission from the New York State Division of Housing and Community Renewal. FCRC has not done so.”

The lawsuit also argues that only a jury — not a quasi-independent authority like the ESDC — has the right to condemn land.

ESDC officials said Friday that the plan cannot go forward without the use of eminent domain, but were not worried about the suits.

“We feel confident that we will get by these lawsuits,” Gargano said.

The project plan approved by the state on Friday admits that Atlantic Yards — which is the largest single-developer project in Brooklyn history — would cause massive, and in some cases irreparable, trauma to already clogged streets and subway trains and other strained infrastructure.

But project boosters, among them Pataki, Mayor Bloomberg and Borough President Markowitz, say those impacts are eclipsed by the benefits of Atlantic Yards: 2,250 units of below-market-rate housing, eight acres of open space, 1,500 construction jobs per year over the life of the project, a renovated rail yard, a 19,000-seat Frank Gehry–designed arena for the New Jersey Nets, and eliminating urban “blight” in a neighborhood where brownstones routinely sell for $1.5 million.

But opponents disagree.

“Ratner’s project is illegal, illegitimate, ill-conceived and irresponsible,” said Daniel Goldstein of Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn. Goldstein is one of the residents of the footprint who have sued.

Gargano called on the PACB to quickly approve the project — and alluded to the fact that Silver recently used his vote to delay the Moynihan station project.

“Losing Moynihan station was a horrible thing for New York City,” Gargano said.

lofter1

December 9th, 2006, 06:32 PM

Seems that the biggest BS-er is Gargano ...

What kind of BS is this ???

Originally Posted by NYguy http://www.wirednewyork.com/forum/images/buttons/viewpost.gif (http://www.wirednewyork.com/forum/showthread.php?p=134863#post134863)

Forest City Ratner officials would not provide a full list of properties at the 22-acre site that are at risk of being taken over by the state, though they said they have bought or control 89% of the site.

A Nod for Atlantic Yards, and Then a Lawsuit

nytimes.com (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/09/nyregion/09yards.html)
By NICHOLAS CONFESSORE
December 9, 2006

The board of the state agency sponsoring the proposed Atlantic Yards project near Downtown Brooklyn voted unanimously yesterday to approve it, while also voting to authorize any building condemnations that may be required.

Within hours of the vote, 13 tenants living in two buildings on the proposed project site filed suit against the agency, the Empire State Development Corporation, charging that the board had authorized the buildings’ condemnation without permission from state housing officials to erase the tenants’ rent-stabilized leases.

The buildings, at 473 Dean Street and 624 Pacific Street, were bought in the last two years by the project’s developer, Forest City Ratner, which is also the development partner in building a new Midtown headquarters for The New York Times Company.

The 22-acre residential and commercial project in Brooklyn, which would include a basketball arena for the Nets, still faces a final decision by the state’s Public Authorities Control Board, and any condemnations would not happen immediately if approval is given.

But George S. Locker, a lawyer for the tenants, said that Forest City and the development agency’s chairman, Charles A. Gargano, who presided over yesterday’s vote, had deliberately misled the tenants about the potential for condemnation.

“His public statements about eminent domain, and Forest City Ratner’s, have in common that they were both dishonest and deceptive,” Mr. Locker said, “and they were both designed to give reassurances about the noncondemnation of tenants when in fact that’s exactly what’s going to happen.”

It would be up to a State Supreme Court justice in Manhattan, where the suit was filed, to decide what legal import Mr. Gargano’s comments have. But even by the standards of development-speak, where hyperbolic promises and grand rhetorical gestures are the norm, some of those comments have left allies and opponents alike perplexed.

Last May, Mr. Gargano suggested that the condemnations had already occurred, telling a reporter that the development agency “didn’t need to use eminent domain” and that “the amount of condemnation that we had to do was very small.”

During a subsequent television appearance, Mr. Gargano characterized the condemnations that might occur as “friendly,” meaning unchallenged, though several apartment owners have long said that they planned to fight the condemnations in court. (Under the state’s eminent domain law, the condemnations of the Pacific and Dean Street buildings would be friendly because Forest City Ratner owns them, not the tenants; Mr. Locker argues that housing laws nevertheless give the tenants rights ignored by the development agency.)

On a radio program on Thursday, a day before the vote on future condemnations, Mr. Gargano seemed to indicate that no such decision would be made. “There is nothing about that tomorrow,” he said in an interview on WNYC.

Asked about those statements at a news conference yesterday, Mr. Gargano grew testy and denied that he had made them. When the statements were read to him, he suggested that he had been misheard.

Later in the day, he called this reporter to clarify his previous comments.

“Obviously, I knew very clearly that this project had not yet used condemnation,” Mr. Gargano said. “And I have known from the beginning that if they had to use condemnation, it would be very small.”

He declined to comment directly on the new lawsuit yesterday.

The board meeting itself was largely anticlimactic. In approving the project, the board formalized a reduction in the project’s size, to 8 million from 8.7 million square feet — about the size of the original plan unveiled in 2003. The slightly lower price tag, at slightly less than $4 billion, will still be significantly higher than originally projected.

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and Gov. George E. Pataki both issued statements praising the board’s vote, as did James P. Stuckey, the Forest City official in charge of the project, who said it offered “very real benefits for Brooklyn,” like jobs and housing.

Supporters and opponents have already turned their focus to a coming vote by the Public Authorities Control Board, which will have the final say. The votes on that board are controlled equally by the Republican governor; Sheldon Silver, the Democratic Assembly speaker; and Joseph L. Bruno, the Republican Senate majority leader.

All three publicly support the project, but Mr. Silver and Mr. Pataki have clashed over other large development efforts. The project’s supporters are worried that Mr. Silver will decide to postpone the vote, as yet unscheduled, until next year, when Eliot Spitzer will be the governor.

Mr. Gargano said yesterday that he was confident that the project would be approved by the Public Authorities Control Board by the end of the year. He said his staff members had been involved in discussions with Mr. Silver’s and Mr. Bruno’s staff members. “They are given all of the information they possibly need,” Mr. Gargano said.

Many community groups, local and national civic organizations, and some elected officials continued yesterday to call on Albany officials to delay final approval of the project until questions about its financing and environmental impact were resolved.

Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Transic

December 9th, 2006, 07:09 PM

So does anyone here actually thinks the "Three Amigos" will take a vote on this project before the year is out?

lofter1

December 9th, 2006, 07:30 PM

my 2 cents: Fat Chance

Dynamicdezzy

December 9th, 2006, 09:10 PM

spitzer is going to look nice with the moynihan/msg project and atlantic yards under his belt....

Transic

December 9th, 2006, 10:30 PM

^ Well, there has to be a reason why the Dolans have kept quiet up until now. They probably knew in advance that the two huge projects may inadvertently (or advertently, if you believe the conspiracy theories) "become tied to each other." That scenario might about to happen come the new year.

But Pataki also knows this and he might try to offer Silver something too good to pass up which Spitzer may not support in exchange for that last "legacy vote" before he steps aside on 01/01/07. I don't know what that is or whether that would be legal but it may be something we haven't looked into and discussed ad nauseum. That's why I'm not dismissing it outright.

NYguy

December 10th, 2006, 09:00 AM

So does anyone here actually thinks the "Three Amigos" will take a vote on this project before the year is out?

Honestly, I don't think Silver really cares about what goes on in Brooklyn. And Spitzer doesn't have enough doubts about this development to try and hold it up until he takes office. I'd be surprised if this wasn't one of the last things to go through before Pataki leaves.

JCMAN320

December 10th, 2006, 03:58 PM

Nets could be up for sale before Atlantic Yards starts??!?!?!

From AtalnticYards Report blgspot:

Nets for sale? Revised ESDC document gives Ratner an out

There's a tantalizing hint in the revised Atlantic Yards General Project Plan (GPP) issued today by the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) that the money-losing New Jersey Nets might be for sale before the planned Brooklyn Arena opens in 2009.

The revised GPP, issued as part of the ESDC's approval of Atlantic Yards, includes a section on Transferability that did not appear in the GPP released in July.

It states, in part:
In addition, in the event the Nets professional basketball franchise is sold to another entity prior to the completion of the Arena, Project Sponsors may transfer their interest in the Arena to the purchasing entity or its affiliate, provided ESDC and the City are reasonably satisfied that such entity can satisfactorily complete the development of the Arena or if such entity retains the Project Sponsors to develop the Arena.

The Nets' web site describes principal owner Bruce Ratner as "[f]irmly committed to making the Nets a successful organization on and off the court." But the clause in the GPP suggests that, when Ratner agreed to buy the Nets, and the city got behind the effort, the development deal was first and foremost.

lofter1

December 10th, 2006, 04:11 PM

ha, ha ^^^ that would be a "bait & switch" of legendary proportions.

BigMac

December 11th, 2006, 12:12 PM

Metro
December 11, 2006

Last shot for Atlantic Yards?

Arena needs approval from Public Authorities Control Review Board

By Amy Zimmer

BROOKLYN — Developer Bruce Ratner’s $4.2 billion Atlantic Yards plan to build an arena for the New Jersey Nets and 16 residential and office towers won approval on Friday from the state agency overseeing it, but has one hurdle left: the Public Authorities Control Review Board.

Board members Gov. George Pataki, State Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver must agree unanimously for the project to move forward.

Project supporters are concerned that Silver (D-Manhattan), whose vote killed the proposed West Side stadium and delayed the transformation of the Farley Post Office into the new Moynihan Station transit hub, may postpone this vote.

Though governor-elect Eliot Spitzer has expressed support for the plan, critics of the project’s scale hope he might propose reductions. The Public Authorities Control Board’s next meeting is scheduled for Dec. 20.

That’s why opponents of the plan — Brooklyn’s largest ever single-developer project — are expected to rally on City Hall’s steps today calling for the board to delay its vote.

Environmental and political watchdog groups will be joined by local politicians to raise questions about impacts on traffic, shadows, sanitation and other city services, as well as its financing.

Daniel Goldstein, spokesman for anti-Ratner coalition Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn, called the state’s analysis of the project “deeply flawed,” and asked: “Why are they pushing this thing through five days before Christmas and 10 days before Pataki leaves office?”

In Friday’s approval, the Empire State Development Corporation also authorized the use of eminent domain to seize properties in the 22-acre footprint.

Goldstein filed a federal lawsuit in October with nine other property owners, claiming the state’s seizure of their homes and businesses would be unconstitutional because it would take private property and transfer it to enrich a private developer.

Ratner already owns roughly 90 percent of the land where he hopes to build, but on Friday, 13 rent stabilized tenants who are tenants in Ratner-owned buildings filed a lawsuit in state Supreme Court against the state agency, claiming that a landlord who refuses to renew their leases and demolish the buildings must get permission from the state’s Division of Housing and Community Renewal.

“We believe [the PACB] should wait until the [lawsuits are] resolved,” Goldstein said.

Silver has yet to be briefed on the project, his spokesman Skip Carrier said yesterday, adding, “They know we have questions.”

© 2006 Metro

JCMAN320

December 13th, 2006, 11:42 PM

From DDDB.net:

The Missing Half-Billion Dollars
ESDC Cuts Atlantic Yards Revenue Projections by One-Third
Atlantic Yards Financial House of Cards Continues to Crumble,
Emphasizing Need for PACB to Postpone Its Vote

NEW YORK, NY-- The Empire State Development Corporation’s (ESDC) new net tax revenue projections for the Forest City Ratner Atlantic Yards development proposal have been reduced since July from $1.4 billion to $944 million--a nearly one-third decrease, according to ESDC documents examined by journalist Norman Oder in his Atlantic Yards Report blog

This nearly one-third decline in new net tax revenue goes unexplained in the modified General Project Plan approved in fifteen minutes by four members of the ESDC board and its Chairman Gargano on December 8th. The new revenue number is still drastically inflated as the ESDC does not include numerous public costs and subsidies such as: public utility relocation, “extraordinary infrastructure costs,” housing subsidies, schools, sanitation, emergency services, hospital, police, fire, and costs from increased traffic.

When those public costs are accounted for, which the ESDC has refused to do, the $4 billion development plan might not provide any new net tax revenue.

“This new information shows that the Empire State Development Corporation is incapable of being a transparent, honest broker and shines a glaring spotlight on the fact that the Atlantic Yards plan is a financial house of cards. There has never been any reason to believe the ESDC’s Atlantic Yards financial projections,” said Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn spokesman Daniel Goldstein. “Speaker Silver, Majority Leader Bruno, Governor Pataki, and Comptroller Hevesi cannot possibly allow a PACB vote on Atlantic Yards next week when the financials on the project are so precarious and lacking in reality. With this bombshell half-billion tax revenue cut one wonders: Why should the public and elected officials trust anything that comes out of ESDC headquarters regarding Forest City Ratner’s Atlantic Yards?”...

antinimby

December 14th, 2006, 05:54 AM

I take anything posted on DDDB's site with a grain of salt.

ZippyTheChimp

December 14th, 2006, 07:49 AM

December 14, 2006

Agency Cuts Atlantic Yards Revenue Estimate

By NICHOLAS CONFESSORE

A state development corporation has drastically decreased its projections for the amount of sales and income tax revenue it expects from the proposed Atlantic Yards project near Downtown Brooklyn.

According to revised estimates prepared by the Empire State Development Corporation, which is sponsoring the $4 billion residential, commercial and arena project, it would generate $944 million in new revenue aside from what that the city and state have pledged in subsidies.

That represents a drop of one-third, or nearly half a billion dollars, from the estimate the development agency released in July, which put new tax revenues at $1.4 billion. Under current plans, taxpayers would provide $453.5 million for the project, including a direct contribution of $200 million from the city and state, sales and mortgage recording tax exemptions, and bond financing.

The drop in estimated tax revenue came after the project’s overall size was cut by about 8 percent.

The new estimate was issued on Friday, when the development agency’s board voted to approve the mixed-use project, which would be built by Forest City Ratner Companies. Forest City is also the development partner in building a new Midtown headquarters for The New York Times Company.

The project still requires approval by the state’s Public Authorities Control Board. Votes on that board are controlled equally by Gov. George E. Pataki, a Republican; Sheldon Silver, the Assembly speaker, a Democrat; and Joseph L. Bruno, the Senate majority leader, a Republican.

Mr. Silver and Governor-elect Eliot Spitzer, a fellow Democrat, have said they believe that the project’s financing requires more scrutiny before it is approved. The issue is one of many on the negotiating table in Albany during Mr. Pataki’s waning days in office, and he hopes to get the project approved before he leaves.

The new estimate was included in a statement and other documents issued by the development agency on Friday, but the difference went unremarked in both the brief board meeting that preceded the approval vote and the news conference that Charles A. Gargano, the agency’s chairman, held shortly afterward.

Norman Oder, a journalist who has a blog devoted to the Atlantic Yards project, noticed the change later and wrote about it yesterday.

A majority of the project’s eight million square feet would be taken up by apartments. But officials at the development agency said that most of the half-billion-dollar revision reflected a cut in the amount of commercial space to be included in the project. Between the project plan issued in July and the one approved last week, that figure dropped from 606,000 square feet to 336,000.

Commercial square footage usually generates far more tax revenue than residential space because it creates more indirect economic activity, like well-paying jobs in business services and administrative support. And residential space produces less estimated revenue, in part because tenants’ income taxes are counted where they work, not where they live.

Under the new estimates, the project would produce about 5,000 new jobs statewide, down from nearly 7,400 in the plan issued in July.

The estimates themselves are largely educated guesswork, relying on assumptions about how many new jobs would be created in a given square footage and how much revenue those jobs would produce.

But it was unclear how a loss of less than 300,000 square feet of office space could account for about a half a billion dollars less in tax revenue, especially considering the project's overall size.

"The cutback on the commercial side is going to have an effect, because that is where the revenue is," said Doug Turetsky, a spokesman for the city's Independent Budget Office. Mr. Turetsky said that the office had not examined the studies behind the estimates, but that "on its face, it seems like a large revenue falloff given the amount of commercial space being cut back." The development corporation said it planned to release a memo within a few days to explain its estimates.

Opponents of the project said the new projected revenue might be less than the development corporation predicts, because its analysis leaves out the costs of likely housing subsidies and additional city services.

In a statement, Daniel Goldstein, a spokesman for Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn, called the project "a financial house of cards."

Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

lofter1

December 14th, 2006, 10:59 AM

Agency Cuts Atlantic Yards Revenue Estimate

... it was unclear how a loss of less than 300,000 square feet of office space could account for about a half a billion dollars less in tax revenue, especially considering the project's overall size.

"The cutback on the commercial side is going to have an effect, because that is where the revenue is," said Doug Turetsky, a spokesman for the city's Independent Budget Office. Mr. Turetsky said that the office had not examined the studies behind the estimates, but that "on its face, it seems like a large revenue falloff given the amount of commercial space being cut back."

As Ricky (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0043208/quotes) used to say to Lucy:
"You got some 'splainin' to do."

MidtownGuy

December 14th, 2006, 11:04 AM

well, it looks like we have to abandon the cutbacks and build even Biggger :)
Muhuha ha ha

JCMAN320

December 14th, 2006, 12:59 PM

I take anything posted on DDDB's site with a grain of salt.

As you were saying antinimby......

investordude

December 14th, 2006, 03:02 PM

I'm in favor of them pointing out that cutbacks decrease taxes from the project and increase them for other New Yorkers. The way to push this forward is to couple it more concretely with a tax cut. I'd take a tax cut over a "community benefits agreement" that isn't a tax cut anyday, as long as they have the same fiscal impact.

Teno

December 14th, 2006, 04:59 PM

This part is being left out.

The estimates themselves are largely educated guesswork, relying on assumptions about how many new jobs would be created in a given square footage and how much revenue those jobs would produce.

But it was unclear how a loss of less than 300,000 square feet of office space could account for about a half a billion dollars less in tax revenue, especially considering the project's overall size.

No one really knows for sure what long term impact will be.

Looking at Bloomberg's own projections of NY having 9 million citizens by 2030. There is nothing but more demand for everything.

antinimby

December 15th, 2006, 02:00 AM

JCMan, regardless I would still never believe everything they say for obvious reasons as they tend to be a bit biased, if you know what I mean. ;)

BigMac

December 18th, 2006, 12:39 PM

New York Times
December 18, 2006

Fate of Project in Brooklyn Hinges on Nod of One Man

By NICHOLAS CONFESSORE

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2006/12/18/nyregion/18silver.600.jpg
Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, who has helped block several large development projects, at a news conference in Albany on Thursday.

Sheldon Silver could always just say no.

That is the nightmare facing Forest City Ratner, the real estate developer whose $4 billion Atlantic Yards project must now be approved by an obscure state oversight board on which Mr. Silver, the state Assembly speaker, controls one of three votes.

Over three years, Forest City has assembled an astonishingly wide and deep political coalition behind the Brooklyn project, ranging from outgoing Gov. George E. Pataki to Acorn, the liberal advocacy group for low-income people. The developer has endured thousands of pages of studies and reviews, staged hundreds of meetings and hearings, beat back lawsuits and persisted in the face of a growing and energetic coalition of opponents and critics.

But now — once again — the fate of a multibillion-dollar project comes down to Mr. Silver, a politician who has not hesitated to delay or halt grand development plans when he deems it appropriate.

It was Mr. Silver, along with Joseph L. Bruno, the Senate majority leader, who effectively killed the West Side Stadium last year by withholding his vote on the Public Authorities Control Board. And in October, Mr. Silver delayed another major project, the $900 million Moynihan Station, questioning the financing behind it.

It remains unclear whether Atlantic Yards, which is to include an arena for the Nets, will meet a similar fate. Mr. Silver has said he generally supports the project, along with Mr. Bruno and Mr. Pataki. Each controls one vote on the board, and the three must vote together to approve a project. They have already set aside $100 million in state funds for Atlantic Yards, and at a news conference on Thursday, Mr. Silver called the Brooklyn project “worthy of the area.”

But behind those words lies an array of conflicting agendas and political forces. They include not just the substance of the Yards proposal, but also the divisions between local Assembly members on the project, the lobbying of numerous unions and civic groups and the enduring power politics and rivalries of Albany itself.

Mr. Silver’s vote against Moynihan Station launched a still-simmering war of words between Mr. Silver and Charles A. Gargano, the chairman of the Empire State Development Corporation, the state agency overseeing Moynihan Station and the Atlantic Yards project. Mr. Gargano suggested Mr. Silver was crooked, and Mr. Silver returned the favor. Most recently, on Thursday, he called Mr. Gargano “a dismal failure” as chairman.

Pataki administration officials have suggested that Mr. Silver is eager to deny the governor a legacy project. Mr. Pataki has not yet scheduled a vote on the Yards for the control board’s final meeting this year, on Wednesday. That suggests that the governor, with only days left in office, feels he would have more to lose than Mr. Silver would in any showdown.

“Because of the fact that approval requires the vote of all three members, there’s an effort to build consensus for these projects,” said Scott Reif, a spokesman for the governor. “Right now we’re in a review and discussion phase.”

But the speaker, having already helped delay or kill two major city projects, might not want to face blame for blocking a third.

Mr. Silver must also contend with the variety of interests represented by his members, and in a town saturated with lobbyists, he is prickly about being lobbied too hard. Many Atlantic Yards supporters are reluctant to speak on the record about the control board vote.

“I think undue pressure frequently backfires,” said James F. Brennan, a Brooklyn assemblyman who has criticized the project and sought to reduce its size — 8 million square feet — significantly.

Several of his colleagues from north Brooklyn have made similar requests, including Hakeem Jeffries, the assemblyman-elect from the 57th District, which includes most of the 22-acre project site.

“I’ve articulated my concerns to the speaker in writing, and beyond that, I think it would be counterproductive at this time to discuss the matter publicly,” said Mr. Jeffries, who said he was “confident” that Mr. Silver would take into account the views of the Brooklyn delegation.
That includes, however, a cluster of state lawmakers from south Brooklyn, who are almost unequivocal in their support of the project as it now stands. Forest City Ratner’s chief lobbyist, Bruce Bender, is close to those members; like many of them, he began his career in the area’s leading political organization, the Thomas Jefferson Democratic Club.

“Speaker Silver has always acted with the city’s and state’s best interests at heart, and we are confident he will continue to do what is best for New York,” Mr. Bender said.

Forest City is also well connected in Albany circles beyond the Brooklyn legislators. Indeed, for several years after the 9/11 attacks, Mr. Silver convened the Democratic caucus’s annual retreat in a hotel the company owned in Battery Park City, near ground zero. (Forest City is also the development partner in building a new Midtown headquarters for The New York Times Company.)

Technically, the Public Authorities Control Board has a relatively narrow function: ensuring the integrity and propriety of the state’s financial commitments to development projects. And some close to Mr. Silver insisted that he would not use a potential vote as a lever to force unrelated changes to Atlantic Yards, so long as its finances were in order.

“He will continue to be careful that the P.A.C.B. is not a forum for horse-trading or policy judgments and remains a fiscal watchdog over irresponsible state authorities, like E.S.D.C.,” the Empire State Development Corporation, said Richard L. Brodsky, a Westchester assemblyman who is chairman of the committee that oversees public authorities.

Even on those grounds, however, the project faces some hurdles. Both Forest City Ratner and the development corporation have so far kept the project’s financial projections secret. No one else knows how much the developer expects to make from the Atlantic Yards, how big it needs to be to turn a profit, or how much profit will be needed to sustain its more popular elements, including about 2,250 units of moderately priced housing.

In recent days, the development corporation has turned over some financial information to Mr. Silver’s control board staff. But Eileen Larrabee, a spokeswoman for Mr. Silver, described it as “very cursory information, basically what’s available on the Web.”

She added, “We have asked for some detailed financial and economic information that has not yet been provided.”

Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

BrooklynRider

December 18th, 2006, 02:50 PM

It would seem that these estimates ought to be formulated by an independent party, especially when the developer is at the public till.

If you read through this thread the strongest arguments against Ratner were/are: he builds atrocious buildings that show contempt for the community he is building in and he never delivers on the estimated tax and job generation (i.e., his numbers never ever bear out and are not just a little off - they are WAY off.)

NYguy

December 19th, 2006, 12:06 AM

Courier-Life Publications
(editorial)

Atlantic Yards: The Time Has Come

12/18/2006

For three years, the borough has debated the merits of Bruce Ratner’s Atlantic Yards project: up, down and sideways.

Ratner first introduced his plan in 2003 with hopes of bringing the New Jersey Nets to Brooklyn, and to build a new arena to accommodate the move at the Flatbush and Atlantic avenues intersection.

While the Nets arena was a cornerstone of the project, Ratner hired famed architect Frank Gehry, who constructed a master design for the site detailing a 22-acre project, which included 16 high rise buildings comprised of retail and office space, as well as 6,430 units of housing, and eight acres of publicly accessible open space.

In the course of the three years since the plan was first introduced, the Forest City Ratner Companies (FCRC) has negotiated a Community Benefits Agreement (CBA) with eight locally-based organizations and has agreed to, among other items, build affordable housing, a guarantee of jobs, plus business opportunities for people of color and an intergenerational community facility.

The project has also faced stiff opposition along the way, particularly in regard to the use of eminent domain, plus concerns about increased traffic, as well as height and density issues.

Last week, the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) approved the project and sent it before the state Public Authorities Control Board for a final approval.

It is now time for this newspaper to weigh in on the plan. And it is with fierce Brooklyn pride that we give the project a huge thumbs up for the following reasons.

The more than $4 billion project opens up tremendous opportunities for both jobs and entrepreneurs throughout the borough and the impending construction will include thousands of union jobs and opportunities for people of color, and openings for other minorities to gain entrance into these jobs through apprentice programs shepherded by the CBA.

Once the project is built, there will be opportunities for landscaping, building maintenance, concessions, office and retail work, and a hundred ancillary services that will create opportunities, big and small, to a vast swath of boroughites.

The 2,225 units of affordable housing will give police, teachers and firefighters an affordable alternative so they can live and pay taxes in the city where they work. Likewise, 10 percent of the affordable units will go towards seniors on fixed incomes who have given their lifeblood to the city.

FCRC has also agreed to allow the arena to be used for community events, such as college and high school activities and games. The arena will also bring special events, such as circuses, concerts and conventions to the borough and all the side opportunities that come along with them.

Centrally located adjacent to New York’s third largest subway hub, with 10 subway lines and the LIRR, the site provides easy access from all five boroughs and Long Island.

And then there is basketball, a life force for many in the borough. Having the Nets in Brooklyn will foster a new and exciting spirit in the borough for generations to come. A price tag can’t be put on that spirit.

But at the very heart of the matter is the transformation this project will bring to the borough…or better said, the crowning of the borough’s current transformation, which has turned it into the city’s true crown jewel. Brooklyn has always been a quiet place for borough insiders; today, it is the final stop for singles and families from across the city seeking its ever-growing lures.

The Atlantic Yards project will be the final and perhaps the most important piece of this transformation, assuring the momentum of growth and prosperity for generations to come. It is not an overstatement that one day, in the very near future, people will see Brooklyn as New York City’s capitol and that other borough merely a pleasant getaway across the Brooklyn Bridge.

So the time has come to embrace the project, welcome it, even cheer it on.

ablarc

December 19th, 2006, 12:14 AM

^ Finally someone makes sense.

I like the idea that Brooklyn may in time become New York's epicenter. Far-fetched but certainly positive thinking. Though it won't take it to those heights, Atlantic Yards is certainly a huge step in that direction.

Viva Brooklyn.

NYguy

December 19th, 2006, 12:14 AM

The time has come for the other boroughs to shine. Manhattan can't contain it all.

antinimby

December 19th, 2006, 01:35 AM

I hear a lot of Manhattan resentment from outer borough people but I don't think it's anybody's fault except themselves.

Every time someone comes along to propose something in the boroughs, people always whine and complain about the "Manhattan-izing" of so and so and that they don't want to see this or that in their neighborhoods.

No wonder companies look right past Queens and Brooklyn for the more welcoming New Jersey cities across the Hudson.

They got no one to blame but themselves.

krulltime

December 19th, 2006, 11:36 AM

Shift in Atlantic Yards Financials Puts Pressure on Silver To Delay

BY DAVID LOMBINO - Staff Reporter of the Sun
December 19, 2006

Pressure is mounting on the Assembly speaker, Sheldon Silver, to postpone final approval of the $4 billion Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn.

After reviewing financial information about developer Forest City Ratner's plan to build a basketball arena and 16 mostly residential towers on 22 acres in Prospect Heights, Assemblyman Richard Brodsky, a Democrat of Westchester who heads the Assembly committee that oversees public authorities, said yesterday the figures on the project's costs and benefits had "substantially changed."

"As of right now, I need to know more of the facts than I saw today," Mr. Brodsky said.

Mr. Brodsky joined a growing chorus of civic groups and local elected officials who are asking for a more detailed financial picture on the largest development project in Brooklyn's history. The project could appear before the Public Authorities Control Board for final approval tomorrow.

On the steps of City Hall yesterday, a group of civic organizations, including the Municipal Art Society, the Regional Plan Association, the Citizen's Union, and the Natural Resources Defense Council, rallied for a postponement of a final vote based on the lack of financial transparency and the failure to address traffic and other environmental concerns.

A source close to the incoming Spitzer administration said yesterday that the Pataki administration could try to tie the approval of Atlantic Yards to the approval of the $900 million Moynihan Station transit project, which the control board rejected in November based on opposition from Mr. Silver.

State officials disclosed yesterday that Moynihan Station project would also appear Wednesday before the Public Authorities Control Board, although they said no substantive changes to the plan have been made.

Governor Pataki and Mayor Bloomberg strongly support the plan based on the promise of 2,250 units of affordable housing and job creation. Previously, Mr. Silver, who controls one of three votes on the Public Authorities Control Board, said he supports the Brooklyn project. A spokesman for Mr. Silver, Charles Carrier, said the speaker is still discussing the project and reviewing additional information.

Yesterday, Mr. Brodsky focused his questions of Mr. Gargano at the project's shifting goal posts. Recently, state projections on the amount of tax revenues from Atlantic Yards dropped by about a third, to $944 million from $1.4 billion. Projections about the number of jobs and the amount of personal income derived from the development also dropped sharply, and the discount rate applied to the calculations appeared to drop to 3% from 6%, boosting financial projections.

© 2006 The New York Sun, One SL, LLC.

BigMac

December 19th, 2006, 01:36 PM

NY1
Decemebr 19, 2006

Ratner To Wait Until 2007 For PACB Decision On Atlantic Rail Yards

http://www.ny1.com/ny1/content/images/live/109/216572.jpg

It could be a few more weeks before developer Bruce Ratner finds out if his controversial Atlantic Yards project will go forward.

NY1 has learned the plan will not get the green light from the state before the end of the year.

According to a source briefed on the matter, as of now, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver will not give final approval to the project before January 1st. There's word he still has financial questions about Atlantic Yards, which includes office and apartment towers and a sports arena for the Nets basketball team.

Officially, a Silver spokesman says the speaker hasn't decided. But Silver is said to be ready to either vote no or not vote at all if the projects are put before him at a meeting of the Public Authorities Control Board this week.

Copyright © 2006 NY1 News

ablarc

December 19th, 2006, 06:12 PM

^ There he goes again. The de facto ruler of New York development. As near as we come in this country to absolute power vested in one man.

Can you see how much capacity exists here for Silver to increase his power or his wealth, or both? All he has to do is keep his dealings secret.

BrooklynRider

December 19th, 2006, 06:34 PM

Rather odd to go after Silver when it is Ratner's fishy financials that are the very foundation of this delay. We have no idea how much money the public is putting up to subsidize this project and we know for c ertain that Ratner's estimates for tax genberation were decreased by $500M. That REVISED figure happened to be buried in a report that Ratner was probably hoping no one would read.

Well, the people read it and liars and cheats do not "pass go" and do not "collect $200." This is real life with real implications for taxpayers and the community. It isn't some game of "see how much we can slide by an unsuspecting public." Happily, Ratner may have met his match - not in Silver - but in a very well organized and intensely cohesive coalition that isn't going to have this horrendous proposal shoved down their throats.

We can leave the contingency for "if the Nets are sold and don't come to the arena as planned" for later in the thread. Ratner has been a liar EVERY step ofthe way and his credibility is in the toilet.

For a while, I really thought he was going to get this through, but he has miscalculated on so many levels. Ultimately, it is his arrogance that defines and defeats him.

lesterp4

December 19th, 2006, 06:47 PM

I don't understand how this one man (Silver) has the power to derail so many projects. If the board has 3 members why isn't it a majority of 2 and not a unanimous decision. That gives the holdout the power.

ablarc

December 19th, 2006, 06:58 PM

lofter1

December 19th, 2006, 07:11 PM

You can't blame Silver for the rules -- they were in place before he came on the scene.

tmg

December 19th, 2006, 07:46 PM

I've never been a fan of Sheldon Silver, but I'm grateful for his efforts to establish a high standard for accountability and transparency when the government seeks to play the real estate game. Developers will soon learn that the safest and fastest route to approval is through the public arena, not through secret deals and cooked numbers.

Hopefully Ratner learns this lesson quickly and this project gets off to a quick start in early 2007.

ZippyTheChimp

December 19th, 2006, 07:55 PM

The culprit here is Gargano.

The EDC is supposed to oversee the financial arrabgements.

Gargano buried the report at AY, he lied at Moynihan Station, and he inflated numbers at the Westside railyards.

He is the most incompetent (or corrupt, take your pick) chairman ever to head the EDC.

TREPYE

December 19th, 2006, 08:02 PM

MSG boss Jim Dolan is being way too calm about this. I could still see him adamant and squealing like a stuck pig when Cablevision had that dispute with the YES network and when the Westside Stadium was lurking. Now that there is another arena/team (bigger threat than a Football stadium) that is going to be part of the NYC scene he has this calm aura about him as if he was saying "I got a 'Silver' bullet in my barrel ready to shoot it down."

Transic

December 20th, 2006, 03:35 AM

^ Maybe you're right. However, don't the Dolans stand to benefit from a possible relocation of MSG a block or so to the west, opening the way for a new Penn Station? I think they'd accept a direct competitor in another borough as long as they can realize the potential windfall that would come with a remaking of that area. Anyway, back on topic:

http://ny.metro.us/metro/local/article/Atlantic_Yards_future_unclear_on_eve_of_vote_/6245.html

Atlantic Yards future unclear on eve of vote

by amy zimmer / metro new york
DEC 20, 2006

MANHATTAN — A vote on developer Bruce Ratner’s $4 billion Atlantic Yards plan is down to the wire.

All eyes are on Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver. He has killed the West Side Stadium, delayed Moynihan Station, and may derail the plan to bring the New Jersey Nets to Brooklyn at today’s meeting of the Public Authorities Control Board.

The plan, which would create an arena and 16 high-rises, needs unanimous assent from board members Gov. George Pataki, Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno and Silver.

Yesterday, news reports cited sources claiming the speaker was planning to vote “no” or to delay the final vote until Gov. Eliot Spitzer takes office.

Silver’s spokesman Skip Carrier denied those reports, but he did not say the speaker would vote “yes” either.

“We have a significant amount of information that was provided today and discussions continue,” Carrier said. “We wanted a better understanding of the financial aspects because the project has changed recently, even significantly.”

For example, the state revised projected tax revenues from $1.4 billion to $944 million.

Earlier this week several local politicians and organizations called on the PACB to delay until Spitzer’s term begins on Jan. 1.

Pataki’s spokeswoman Joanna Rose said Atlantic Yards “is on the agenda” and there were “ongoing meetings” with Silver.

In response to rumors circulating that Silver may delay the vote, Charles Gargano, chairman of the Empire State Development Corporation, the state agency overseeing the project, said, “You never know with Silver. He has been doing that of late. We’ll answer any questions he might have. Whether the project is delayed this month, it will certainly go forward next year.”

NYguy

December 20th, 2006, 09:01 AM

NY Post

SHELDON CLOSE TO BROOKLYN ARENA OK

By FREDRIC U. DICKER and RICH CALDER
December 20, 2006

http://www.nypost.com/seven/12202006/photos/news002.jpg

SILVER LINING: Sheldon Silver could approve yards plan today.
Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver today is set to give the nearly $4 billion Atlantic Yards project for Brooklyn a green light.

The Manhattan Democrat told the Post he'll likely have his appointee vote in favor of the controversial project at today's Public Authorities Control Board meeting, with one caveat: that Gov. Pataki not link it to "pork barrel" projects Silver opposes.

The move would allow a lame-duck Pataki to take credit for the project - which would include an NBA arena and 16 skyscrapers filled with residential and commercial space - before Eliot Spitzer replaces him as governor on Jan. 1.

But Silver cautioned that his mind could change if the Pataki administration mixes $100 million in state funding for Atlantic Yards into a bigger pot with funds for other projects.

"If [Pataki] puts it on the PACB agenda as an individual item, not one item that is contained in a big package of pork and everything, it's a good bet that I would support it," he said.

Jessica Copen, a spokeswoman for the Empire State Development Corp., said Atlantic Yards would be presented to the PACB "on its own."

Besides the public project funding, the board will be asked to back the development company's decision to condemn private property by eminent domain for Atlantic Yards.

Silver, at the request of Madison Square Garden owners Jim and Charles Dolan, previously ordered his PACB appointee to block approvals of two other Pataki-backed projects: the Jets' West Side Stadium and the Moynihan Train Station.

But Jim Dolan recently said he isn't scared of the competition Ratner's arena would bring the Garden and has no intention of asking Silver to reject it.

Unanimous approval of the three-member board is needed, and the other two seats - controlled by Pataki and Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno - support Atlantic Yards.

Ratner has acquired 85 percent of the 22 acres in downtown Brooklyn eyed for the project through private real estate transactions - including the Atlantic rail yard from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

The remaining 15 percent - which includes 57 households and 13 businesses - would have to be condemned, and project opponents have already filed two lawsuits trying to block the process.

Silver also disputed a NY1 report yesterday that said he planned to hold the project up until after Spitzer takes over as governor. Spitzer has said he favors Atlantic Yards, but has questions about its financing.