NEW YORK | Atlantic Yards Development News

[seeya14]

the development dedicated to building a new vision for downtown Brooklyn and creating an exciting new home for Brooklyn’s very own NBA franchise: the Brooklyn Nets.

This development is not just about basketball. Atlantic Yards will be a dynamic mix of affordable, middle-income and market-rate housing, commercial offices, retail establishments and a boutique hotel surrounded by over seven acres of beautifully landscaped publicly accessible open space.

http://www.developdontdestroy.org/php/latestnews_ArchiveDate.php
atlanticyards.com

[seeya14]

http://www.frontinc.com/slides/atlantic_yards01.jpg

http://www.frontinc.com/slides/atlantic_yards02.jpg

http://meanderthal.typepad.com/dope/images/sizematters.png

[Ginza]

looks great keep us updated on this project

[seeya14]

itz a very controversial project,,, designer: frank o gehry has remodeled da project twice,,, n still da controversies r goin on,,,, will try n upload more info on dis,,

[TalB]

Click here (http://www.pbase.com/jonathanbarkey/aydemolition&page=all) to see the protest that was held on Monday mainly by Develope Don't Destroy Brooklyn, who is oppossed to this project.

[seeya14]

http://www.atlanticyards.com/html/ay/projectplan.html

[seeya14]

http://www.atlanticyards.com/html/ay/projectplan.html

[Don Omar]

http://img217.imageshack.us/img217/538/crazyladyxq1.jpg

hahaha please
the Taj Mahal, really?
I guess the rail yards are a religious monument to some people.

[nygirl]

These people are a small number. They would like to think they aren't and would probably have lots of fun being snooty pr*cks with the moust incorrect data they can find to debate nonsense with you. It's the same repetitive dribble.
The majority of these folks are living in Brooklyn 1946. They ARE and ALWAYS be protesting for themselves. Forget what this could mean to Brooklyn. Oh well it'll go up ontop of all those picket signs and I can't wait to be the first one to step infront of someone and tell them to hit the road. Lots of people around the area and park slope I know involved with someone or something connected to this. Although none of them care that much and would welcome it. Don't get too worked up over the protesters they won't leave a dent on this in the short run.

[Don Omar]

http://img20.imageshack.us/img20/4827/atlanticyardsbrooklynnd6.jpg

its going to be great

[Smallville]

^^

NIMBY's :ohno:

Are the New Jersey Nets really moving to Brooklyn to become the Brooklyn Nets or the New York Nets? I am sorry I don't keep up with the NBA that much. But this is the first time I have heard of this.

Looks like a fantastic project. Hope it gets built.

[arbeiter]

It's clear you folks have no idea about the local politics surrounding this development. It's clearly out of proportion with the neighborhood and involves destroying housing and perfectly useable buildings.

[nygirl]

Well arbeiter isn't this now ratner's land? The developer should be able to put anything he damn well pleases on his parcel of land. The people who have issues with it were just dealt a bad hand. Oh well. Local politics surrounding this development is what I call "caca". Out of proportion to the neighborhood may be accurate, but I still say build it. I have no doubt that this thing is going to go up. I feel no compassion for the people opposed though and cannot wait until the first crane is erected right infront of their protests.

[seeya14]

http://www.atlanticyards.com/html/ay/projectplan.html[url]

[Dallas star]

Looks amazing but I don't think this will fit in maybe it should be placed somewhere else!

[TalB]

These people are a small number. They would like to think they aren't and would probably have lots of fun being snooty pr*cks with the moust incorrect data they can find to debate nonsense with you. It's the same repetitive dribble.
The majority of these folks are living in Brooklyn 1946. They ARE and ALWAYS be protesting for themselves. Forget what this could mean to Brooklyn. Oh well it'll go up ontop of all those picket signs and I can't wait to be the first one to step infront of someone and tell them to hit the road. Lots of people around the area and park slope I know involved with someone or something connected to this. Although none of them care that much and would welcome it. Don't get too worked up over the protesters they won't leave a dent on this in the short run.
Actually, Develope Don't Destroy Brooklyn represents a number of groups living in Brooklyn as well as the rest of NYC, and click here (http://dddb.net/php/opposition.php) if you don't believe me. They are not fighting the project b/c they will be living with it, they are fighting the project b/c it will be on their property hence they are NOMBYs (Not On My Backyard) rather than NIMBYs. Also, their alternative to the Atlantic Yds is not to leave them undeveloped, they do support an alternative, and that is both the Extell and UNITY plans, which features real affordable housing, union jobs for the community, a better scale, builds only on the railyards, and has been prommised by a developer who will NOT use subsidized bonds unlike Forest City Ratner. If you are saying that they are rich, greedy snobs, then why are they paying rents that are below the market rates? Another reason they don't support it, is b/c this project will use emminent domain on those who refuse to sell their homes if they haven't already, and this can promise them even less than what Ratner is giving to them. As for the supporters, all they do is repeat the same jiborish Ratner and his drones have already given as well as use personal attacks on the oppositions such as calling them transplanted Manhattanites or from somewhere just for not being born and raised in Brooklyn like they were. Even though I don't live in Brooklyn or even the rest of NYC for that matter, I still oppose it for the fact that it will use my tax dollars to which Ratner will not even give a penny for this project. BTW, if they didn't really make a dent, Ratner would have been starting on this project two years ago rather than still facing court problems from them.

[nygirl]

you'll have to forgive me on this but while you will have the slightly extreme on one side you will have the slighty extreme on the otherside.

[Scruffy88]

something about a wall collapse while demolising a building has halted further demolition until further notice giving the naysayers a minor win. on NY1 news this morning. Don't have accompanying links to support

[Don Omar]

^^

Project Halted in Brooklyn for Inquiry Into Accident

By ANDY NEWMAN
Published: April 28, 2007

One day after the partial collapse of a building being prepared for demolition to make way for the Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn, the state and the developer announced that work would be stopped pending the outcome of the city’s investigation into the accident.

Workers for the developer, Forest City Ratner, were removing asbestos from a former industrial bakery on Thursday morning when a 200-foot parapet on top of the building fell five stories onto Pacific Street. No one was hurt, but several cars were damaged, and a homeless shelter next door was evacuated for much of the day.

Opponents of the project had tried in vain to have the 97-year-old building at 800 Pacific Street, known as the Ward Bread Bakery complex, designated a city landmark. The bakery’s planned destruction had been cast as a symbol of the changes that the project — 8 million square feet of high-rise housing, office space and a basketball arena — would visit upon the neighborhood, which is near Downtown Brooklyn.

Yesterday, opponents of the project applauded the decision to halt work, which was announced in separate news releases by Forest City Ratner and the Empire State Development Corporation, the state agency that approved the project last year.

“We were very encouraged that the E.S.D.C. understands the gravity of what happened,” said Jim Vogel, spokesman for the Council of Brooklyn Neighborhoods, a coalition that is among the plaintiffs in a suit that seeks to overturn the agency’s approval of the project.

“We also are very encouraged that they took the appropriate actions in stopping the demolition until the problem causing this can be identified,” Mr. Vogel said.

The accident occurred six days after a State Supreme Court justice declined to issue a restraining order temporarily halting demolition of nine vacant buildings at the site. Opponents seeking the court order had argued that demolition should not be allowed before a hearing on the suit challenging state approval of the project, scheduled for Thursday .

It remained unclear if the asbestos work, being done on the roof with what Forest City Ratner called “hand-held chippers,” contributed to the parapet’s collapse. Fire officials said on Thursday that the building might have been weakened by the recent northeaster.

Mr. Vogel said that the development corporation had declared the building sound a year ago. “How can it go from being a sound building to being in imminent danger of collapsing on people within a year?” he asked.

In March, the Buildings Department declared the building fit for demolition, and Forest City officials said they planned to finish removing asbestos and obtain a final demolition permit within two months.

In a statement yesterday, the department said, “In the coming days, the Buildings Department will be meeting with the developer’s engineers to review demolition plans for the Atlantic Yards sites to ensure safe means and methods are employed.”

[TalB]

If they happen to win the lawsuit on 5/3 at the NYS Supreme Court, then the project is officially dead!

[arbeiter]

My perspective regarding the Atlantic Yards is this:

NYC is booming economically like it hasn't in a long time - Atlantic Yards obviously need to be redeveloped; environmentally and in terms of urban planning, a brownfield site in the middle of a major city is the ripest fruit to pick. However, some people on here seem to think we need to whore ourselves out to Ratner as if we're begging for any kind of commercial development. We're not; the scale and incentives used to develop this were more than what are necessary. That's issue number 1 - we're developing this as if we're Syracuse and will take anything we can get. Just because the yards need to be redeveloped don't mean we need to overdo it!

Issue #2 is that Ratner has a history of building large projects in Brooklyn, and all were made with promises that were never kept. MetroTech frankly sucks; it's a soulless office park in the middle of downtown Brooklyn with underutilized train stations (shocking but true), with inward facing buildings that go completely against the character of the neighborhood. The Target portion of Atlantic Station was originally supposed to be much better-looking and more in scale with the neighborhood; instead we got a bunch of big boxes plopped over a decayed commuter rail station. So Brooklynites have a reason to not believe in Ratner's 'truth'.

Issue #3 is that this project would be profitable at a scale slightly smaller, which is all most people were asking for. WHY does it have to be so big as to force people out of their homes, businesses to relocate, and puts 3-story brownstones up against 40-story condo towers? Brooklyn has a history of having development forced upon it completely out of the scale of the urban fabric.

Issue #4 is that this arena plus the new residences will put strain on an overcrowded transit node (Atlantic/Pacific). It's already a nightmare to drive around there, much less take the train, so where are the considerations for that?

Issue #5 is completely subjective: Frank Gehry is tired. By the time this thing is completed, he'll be known as overwrought and passe. We picked the most obvious, mainstream architect to build this. Don't people notice that Gehry has a kooky Picasso-like building going up in a dozen other cities?

That is all.

[Hanshin-Tigress]

how tall will those buildings be?

[seeya14]

http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/3667/1536/1600/189324/AYSitePlanGPP.jpg

[seeya14]

Miss Brooklyn, though shorter, would still block the clock
It was a concession, right? Among several relatively minor changes announced Wednesday, Forest City Ratner agreed to lower the announced 620-foot Miss Brooklyn tower a sliver below that of the iconic 512-foot Williamsburgh Savings Bank nearby.

[Bluewarning]

I can see where some people are coming from. That arena looks pretty funky. I would have to see a daytime rendering of it.

By the way, when exactly are the Nets moving?

[Taylorhoge]

Personally Metrotech helped Downtown Brooklyn have a skyline.It also helped with the nearby tech schools as well.

[arbeiter]

Personally Metrotech helped Downtown Brooklyn have a skyline.It also helped with the nearby tech schools as well.

Personally? How did it personally help it? And isn't a sustainable office project with good connectivity with the neighborhood and streetfronts more important than a 'skyline'? Brooklyn already has hundreds of high-rises.

What nearby tech schools? Brooklyn Tech High School? How did it help? I am kind of baffled by your uninformed response.

[patextreme]

i've seen this in Discovery chanel

[Taylorhoge]

Well BK Tech high school isnt the only one around you still have Poly Tech and BK Design tech as well as a few others.I miss interpretated for what I said I was really tired and a little out of it when I stated Metrotech helped downtown BK

[TalB]

I find the statement on how Metrotech Center helped downtown Brooklyn to be rather misleading. First off, it's a private project, and they do not do anything to help local revenue except their own. Another thing, is that if MTC was really a plus for the neighborhood, then why did unemployment there happen to increase after it was built? The answer is that it was not built for the community. As a matter of fact, when JP Morgan Chase located there, rather than hiring people from the area, they just relocated jobs from Manhattan. People are not allowed to cut through this complex by car or on foot in the blocks it cuts off. Also, it has numerous garages that were off limits to people that were either just for the tennants or for loading docks. BTW, Ratner used the same method he is using for the Atlantic Yds by having blacks fight for this project and later on be cheated in the end by having nothing once he wins. Again, MTC was also built by subsidized bonds, and Ratner paid nothing for it.

[Don Omar]

http://bp0.blogger.com/_mJPzxRaCL64/RjVBMfWQfwI/AAAAAAAAADE/DdTNkahR53Q/s1600/CompletionDates4_lg(2).jpg

[Don Omar]

Dan Doctoroff Discovers Communities

http://nymag.com/daily/intel/20070426doctoroff.jpg
Doctoroff pursuing his Olympic dream in 2005.

by Alec Appelbaum
4/26/07
nymag.com (http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2007/04/dan_doctoroff_discovers_commun.html)

Dan Doctoroff has a big title — Deputy Mayor for Economic Development and Rebuilding — and even bigger ambitions. But as he hits the hustings to sell the mayor's environmentally friendly PlaNYC 2030 package he's finally started embracing small-ball politics. PlaNYC's proposal to build potentially huge housing complexes on decks over rail yards and highways, he said at a New School forum this morning, will proceed at a pace set by the affected community boards — not by Olympic committees or neighborhood-swallowing developers. "The lesson of Hudson Yards and Atlantic Yards is to get communities involved upfront," he told us after the event, though he wouldn't specify which areas he sees as ripe for this affordable-housing development. "We've learned, before we even go public with an idea, to reach out to the local community." Imagine that! (Oh, also, he confirmed the key non-word is pronounced "plan-why-see." Now you know.)

[Taylorhoge]

I find the statement on how Metrotech Center helped downtown Brooklyn to be rather misleading. First off, it's a private project, and they do not do anything to help local revenue except their own. Another thing, is that if MTC was really a plus for the neighborhood, then why did unemployment there happen to increase after it was built? The answer is that it was not built for the community. As a matter of fact, when JP Morgan Chase located there, rather than hiring people from the area, they just relocated jobs from Manhattan. People are not allowed to cut through this complex by car or on foot in the blocks it cuts off. Also, it has numerous garages that were off limits to people that were either just for the tennants or for loading docks. BTW, Ratner used the same method he is using for the Atlantic Yds by having blacks fight for this project and later on be cheated in the end by having nothing once he wins. Again, MTC was also built by subsidized bonds, and Ratner paid nothing for it.

After hearing that then im definaley not in support of Ratner it seemed when I was there it seemed like alot of people from Brooklyn worked there and yes that true about the parking garages being only used for tenets.

[TalB]

The same goes with his other two Brooklyn projects such as his malls. Again he used subsidized bonds to build them. The Altantic Ctr Mall couldn't even keep an anchor tennant. Originally it was Caldor's, then Macy's, and now Pathmark, plus there is no telling how long it will stay there. Residents in Ft Greene, Prospect Hts, and Crown Hts refer to that mall as the Ghetto Mall as it doesn't fit in with the area. I even remember walking through it, and the hallways are pretty narrow. Since business was not going very well and other businesses were moving out, Ratner just allowed for Pathmark to expand its space. As for the Atlantic Terminal, he ruined a beautiful terminal building by winning the air rights over it by placing offices over it that had the Bank of NY working there. Just like JP Morgan Chase, they to just relocated jobs from elsewhere rather than hiring people from the area. Even though the Atlantic Terminal Mall has more space, many of them are corperations like McDonalds, Starbucks, Target, Chuckie Cheeses, etc that are not only have their headquarters out of town, but also out of state. I will not be surprised if these will also be located at the base of Ratner's buildings at the Atlantic Yds Complex. The fact that malls are bridged to each other and has the Atlantic Ave subway hub, along with the LIRR, below it makes people even bypass the rest of the area just like how they will when the arena is built, plus the same is with MTC being by the Lawrence St station (M, R). In the end, Ratner's buildings in Brooklyn just take after how it works in the rest of Manhattan by isolating themselves from everything else.

[TalB]

http://www.nydailynews.com/boroughs/brooklyn/2007/05/11/2007-05-11_bizman_rips_ratner_over_nets_worth_in_la.html
Bizman rips Ratner over Nets worth in lawsuit

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

BY JOSE MARTINEZ
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Friday, May 11th 2007, 4:00 AM

A former investor in the New Jersey Nets is suing Bruce Ratner for allegedly stiffing him out of a spot in the ownership of the Brooklyn-bound NBA team.

Eugene Greene alleges that at Ratner's request, he sank $6 million into the Nets in 2003 and also raised more than $30 million from other investors. In exchange, Greene charges, he was promised a "key role in the team's organization."

The Manhattan businessman has filed a $20 million lawsuit against Ratner, charging that senior executives with Ratner's organization told him he had been "f----d" out of the deal.

"We strongly disagree with the plaintiff's assertion," said Joe DePlasco, a spokesman for Forest City Ratner. "We will defend ourselves vigorously in court."

The lawsuit, which was filed in Manhattan Supreme Court, is the latest legal battle for Ratner. The developer, who bought the Nets in 2004, has been sued repeatedly over his bid to build the Atlantic Yards megaproject, which would include an arena for the team in Prospect Heights.

According to court papers, in November 2003, Greene was brought into the group Ratner was assembling to buy the team from former owner Lewis Katz, and charged with lining up more investors.

"We need money, money, money," Ratner said, according to court papers. "And you need to get it for us."

"You will be the glue that helps run this team," Ratner allegedly told Greene.

But Greene wasn't picked for the team's Board of Governors once Ratner's bid to buy the Nets was approved in 2004. According to the suit, he then realized he "was not going to be compensated" for raising more than $30 million from investors.

"Through May of 2006, Greene communicated with a variety of senior executors in Ratner's organization to review his position on what had occurred," the lawsuit says. "Substantially all of those executives admitted and acknowledged to Greene, in words or substance, that he had been 'f----d.'"

A source said Greene had his $6 million investment returned.

Jonathan Sack, an attorney for Greene, did not return calls.

jmartinez@edit.nydailynews.com

[Max the Swede]

That's quite a development, finger's crossed

[TalB]

I think Marty Markowitz should be removed after what he did in firing all the Brooklyn CB6 members who oppossed to the project. Perhaps there should be a law on removing borough presidents either through impeachments or recalls. What he did should not go unpunished. On a sidenote, Adolfo Carrión, Jr., who is the borough president of The Bronx, did a similar thing to CB members who oppossed the new Yankee Stadium.

[nygirl]

http://www.nysun.com/article/56026

Federal Court Ruling Clears Obstacle From the Path of Atlantic Yards

By ELIOT BROWN
June 7, 2007

The $4 billion Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn took a major step forward yesterday when a federal judge dismissed a key lawsuit, removing a major hurdle that opponents had hoped would thwart the giant mixed-use development.

The project, which was approved by the state late last year, seeks to use eminent domain to clear property on a 22-acre site near downtown Brooklyn for a complex of 6,000-plus apartments and a Frank Gehry-designed basketball stadium for the New Jersey Nets.

The suit, filed by apartment owners, renters, and businesses, challenged the state's right to acquire the land and hand it over to a private development company, Forest City Ratner, arguing that it did not fulfill a public purpose, as is required for eminent domain.

U.S. District Court Judge Nicholas Garaufis's ruling rejected those arguments, bringing the state closer to moving forward with the property takings that would allow Forest City Ratner to begin construction of the complex.

A lawyer representing the project opponents, Matthew Brinckerhoff, vowed to appeal the decision, a move that he said would prevent the state from taking land for months.

"As long as this case is pending, they cannot proceed to the next step of the eminent domain process," Mr. Brinckerhoff said.

The Spitzer and Bloomberg administrations, and Forest City Ratner, yesterday issued statements praising the case's dismissal and hailing the benefits of the development.

"Today's decision is an important victory not only for Atlantic Yards but for Brooklyn as well," the chief executive of Forest City Ratner, Bruce Ratner, said in a statement.

A spokesman for the Empire State Development Corporation, Errol Cockfield, said the state wants to avoid using eminent domain and hopes landowners will settle with Forest City Ratner.

Should the development continue to be held up in court, the project could fall behind schedule; critics have questioned whether the Nets could move in for the 2009–10 season, as Forest City Ratner has suggested they will.

Oh boy talB! Wanna come to the first nets game with me in brooklyn?

[TalB]

Are you forgetting that the judge is allowing for an appeal? I doubt that DDDB is going to give up just b/c of this. Also, there is another case going on a separate courthouse. Unless Ratner is able to win all of the lawsuits, it isn't over yet. Also, a judge cannot deny appeals or they can be removed just for that. On a sidenote, if the court does rule Goldstien vs Pataki et all on saying that eminent domain for a private project is justified, it will be just like Plessy vs Ferguson on justifying segregation with the Jim Cro Laws as well as Barron vs Baltimore on saying that states can go against one's US constitutional rights with their own state's rights.

[Dale]

Good God! I thought this had been underway for months. Seems almost impossible to get something built in NYC.

[nygirl]

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

http://www.brooklyneagle.com/categor..._id=4&id=13338

Federal Case Against Atlantic Yards Project Dismissed
by Elizabeth Stull (court@brooklyneagle.net), published online 06-08-2007

Project’s Public Purpose Justifies Eminent Domain, Judge Says
By Elizabeth Stull
Brooklyn Daily Eagle

CADMAN PLAZA EAST — In a much-anticipated decision, Brooklyn federal Judge Nicholas Garaufis has dismissed two eminent domain challenges to Forest City Ratner Companies’ (FCRC) Atlantic Yards Project because they failed to show that the project would not serve a public purpose.

The relative merits of the project and whether it will achieve any of its objectives are political issues the court may not consider after the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Kelo v. New London, Conn., Garaufis observed in a footnote.

The plaintiffs in both cases are property owners and rent-subsidized tenants located in the footprint of the planned 22-acre development project. They challenged the state’s right to forcibly take their property by eminent domain, saying it violates the Constitution. Both cases, Daniel Goldstein et. al v. George E. Pataki and Aaron Piller et. al v. George Pataki, et. al, named several state and city defendants along with the project developer.

After reviewing the cases last winter at Garaufis’ request, Magistrate Judge Robert Levy recommended he abstain from reviewing them based on the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Burford v. Sun Oil. Under the Burford ruling, a case belongs in state court when the state’s strong interest in the matter outweighs the federal interest and the plaintiffs can have timely and adequate recourse in state court.

But Garaufis rejected this recommendation, and spent more than half of his 66-page decision distinguishing Burford and its progeny from the consolidated cases before him.

“In this case, in contrast to Burford and Alabama, the questions of state law are straightforward and largely duplicative of the questions of federal law that this court must address,” Garaufis wrote.

“[i]t is questions of federal law that predominate, as three of the Plaintiffs’ four claims are based on allegations that their federal constitutional rights have been violated. The three claims do not rely in any way on state law. Therefore, however much discretionary interpretation of state law this case may require — and I find that it requires none — the need to interpret state law is dwarfed by the need to interpret the U.S. Constitution.”

The federal district judge adopted Magistrate Levy’s recommendation to reject ripeness and a Younger abstention as grounds for dismissal. However, he dismissed the case on its merits, finding that the plaintiffs failed to state a valid claim.

Under the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, “private property [shall not] be taken for public use, without just compensation.” Therefore, when eminent domain is used to take private property, it must be for a public use and just compensation must be paid to the owner.

In this case, plaintiffs argued that the public use requirement is not met because the primary purpose of FCRC’s development project is to benefit FCRC — not to provide any public benefit.

The defendants moved to dismiss the case. They argued that FCRC’s planned sports arena for the Nets basketball team, as well as affordable housing and new office space, will generate economic benefits and jobs in a blighted central Brooklyn area.

The plaintiffs argued that the area is not blighted, that the project will generate minimal economic benefits and that it will not create jobs or increase available affordable housing.

The judge addressed each of the plaintiffs’ arguments and concluded they were quibbling over the project’s relative value, and did not show that it lacked any public value at all.

“Whether these [housing] units are sufficiently affordable may be an important political question, and if the citizens of Brooklyn are unsatisfied with the answers, then elected officials and their political parties may pay the price at the polls,” Garaufis wrote.

“The Constitution does not enshrine Plaintiffs’ value judgment that a taking lacks a public purpose if it results in ‘luxury’ as opposed to ‘affordable’ housing, and the constitutionality of this taking does not depend on the relative numbers of planned housing units priced at, above, or below market rate.”

The judge cited the Supreme Court's decision in Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, an anti-trust conspiracy case which held that plaintiffs must "nudge their claims across the line from conceivable to plausible

Bruce Ratner, president and CEO of Forest City Ratner Companies, hailed the decision as “an important victory not only for Atlantic Yards but for Brooklyn as well.

“This decision means we are one step closer to creating over 2,200 units of affordable housing, thousands of construction and office jobs and bringing the Nets to Brooklyn,” Ratner said.

The plaintiffs plan to appeal.

The lead attorney for the plaintiffs, Matthew Brinckerhoff, said, “We are confident that the appellate court will allow this case to proceed to trial, at which the citizens of New York will finally learn the real reason plaintiffs’ properties were selected to be forcibly taken, and why Ratner was chosen to reap an unprecedented financial windfall.”

The plaintiffs claim that more than half of FCRC’s $4 billion Atlantic Yards Project would be subsidized by New York State. The developer has reportedly requested at least $1.4 billion in tax-exempt housing bonds, $637 million in tax-exempt arena bonds, $205 million direct cash subsidy from New York City and $100 million direct cash subsidy from New York State, which adds up to $2.34 billion.

[TalB]

http://brooklynpaper.com/stories/30/23/30_23nipplehair.html

Ratner’s myth

To the editor,

You recently printed a letter from Alvin Pankin, who was commenting about a photograph previously published in The Paper (“Thank Ratner,” May 26).

Mr. Pankin spent the first paragraph saying good riddance to the three buildings in that photograph that Forest City Ratner has demolished in the Atlantic Yards project site.

In the second paragraph, Mr. Pankin, in a non-sequitur, trotted out the most-insidious mythological talking point that Mr. Ratner’s supporters use against critics of the project — that they are “new arrivals.”

This is an insidious myth, first because it couldn’t be more false. Having spent the past three plus years working with project opponents and critics who favor sensible development, I can say with assurance that most have deep generational roots in the borough, or have lived here a significant amount of time.

Also, some of the most fervent project opponents trace their Brooklyn roots back for centuries.

The myth is also insidious because there is no eligibility barometer to civic discourse.

But, to paraphrase Samuel Johnson, this sort of mythmaking is always the last refuge of those without a substantive argument.

On another point, Mr. Pankin may not have liked what the now-demolished buildings looked like, but they once housed residential tenants and successful businesses. Now they are rubble-strewn empty lots.

Daniel Goldstein, Prospect Heights

The writer is spokesman for Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn

Marty’s ‘purge’

To the editor,

I was outraged to read in your paper that Borough President Markowitz purged members of local community boards who voted against Bruce Ratner’s Atlantic Yards project.

What does he think this is, a Soviet Republic?

It’s bad enough that he’s been Ratner’s waterboy, ramming Atlantic Yards down our throats without holding Ratner accountable for solving the very real questions of transit and traffic.

Now, Markowitz is erasing any semblance of community voice.

Ratner may get his project built — Marty and his Tammany Hall buddies in Albany have seen to that — but Marty has cost himself the critical support of Brownstone Brooklyn with this outrage.

I will personally mobilize my block association and grassroots networks to run him out of town on a rail.

Scott Powell, Park Slope

[nygirl]

^^ Sure you will scott. 'pat' 'pat'

[TalB]

Brucey's right hand is no longer part of this landgrab.
http://www.nydailynews.com/boroughs/brooklyn/2007/06/15/2007-06-15_i_jumped_ship_sez_yards_big.html
I jumped ship, sez Yards big

Departed Forest City honcho denies he got axed from building project

BY JOTHAM SEDERSTROM
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Friday, June 15th 2007, 4:00 AM

Bruce Ratner's top lieutenant on the controversial Atlantic Yards project, James Stuckey, resigned this week from Forest City Ratner.

His sudden departure, and the fact that the company referred questions about his resignation to public relations guru Howard Rubenstein, fueled speculation by insiders that Stuckey's exit was a rocky one.

But Stuckey said yesterday his decision to leave his post as executive vice president of commercial development after 13 years with the company was not the result of a falling out between him and boss Bruce Ratner.

"There are other interests I want to pursue and, quite honestly, when you're working 18-hour days on a project as complicated as this, with a company as great as Forest City, it's very difficult to pursue those other interests," Stuckey told the Daily News in his first public comments since his departure.

He declined to divulge his future job prospects. And when asked if he had signed a confidentiality agreement prohibiting him from discussing the Atlantic Yards project or his own resignation critically, Stuckey declined to comment.

Stuckey was promoted to head the $4 billion project last year and quickly drew attention for his confident but bullish handling of its many legal and political obstacles.

His resignation comes one week after a judge dismissed a key lawsuit filed by 13 residential and business owners in Prospect Heights who were threatened by the state's controversial use of eminent domain in the project.

"I made a decision, especially given that we've now gotten this project approved and got past this federal lawsuit, that after doing this for 30 years, it was the time to make a change," said Stuckey, referring to three decades working for government and real estate entities, most significantly as president of the Public Development Corp.

But several people familiar with the company hinted that Forest City's image had been sullied after tussling with anti-Yards opponents.

"Let's be honest," said one source who knows Stuckey and is familiar with the project. "This project has been a pain in the a-- from the beginning, for everyone, and that couldn't have looked good for Stuckey."

Stuckey denied he had been pushed out of the company, and insisted he maintained good relationships with Ratner and Bruce Bender, executive vice president of governmental and public affairs.

"Absolutely not," Stuckey said of speculation of a falling out.

Ratner "is an incredible leader and an incredible visionary," he said. "With a project like this, obviously, people say the things they want to."

jsederstrom@nydailynews.com

[TalB]

http://www.davidyassky.com/2007/06/atlantic_yards_2.php
Atlantic Yards letter to Gov. Spitzer and Mayor Bloomberg

June 27, 2007

Dear Governor Spitzer and Mayor Bloomberg:

We write to you today to express our profound disappointment regarding one provision of the 421a legislation adopted by the State legislature. Specifically, we refer to A9293, Section 6 that makes separate affordability standards for “a multi-phase project that includes at least {2,500} TWENTY-FIVE HUNDRED dwelling units,” ie the Atlantic Yards Project.

The Atlantic Yards carve-out in the State’s 421a legislation makes exceptions for the development that apply to no other part of the exclusion zone: it provides the full 421a tax break—even for market-rate condos—while allowing offsite affordable housing for sections of the project, and raising the mandated affordable 1/5 of the development from a 60% AMI requirement to an average of 70%.

The most egregious aspect of the carve-out is the amount it will cost taxpayers. New York City has already approved $205 million for the project, and the State has pledged $100 million. The rewrite of the 421a legislation will cost taxpayers at least an additional $100 million and could reach $170 million in forfeited tax revenue.

Because of the size of the 421a tax break for Atlantic Yards, we ask that the money previously set aside for land acquisition aid--$100 million from the City and $100 million from the State—be withheld. This $200 million should not have been allocated in the first place—there is no justification for the government to subsidize a developer’s bottom line—and now, with this latest development, any distribution of this money is inexcusable.

Sincerely, David Yassky Letitia James
New York City Council New York City Council

[Dale]

Is this actually under construction at present ?

[TalB]

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/01/nyregion/01yardsxx.html?_r=1&ref=nyregion&oref=slogin
Official Sees Possible Risk in Big Project in Brooklyn

By NICHOLAS CONFESSORE and ANDY NEWMAN
Published: July 1, 2007

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2007/07/01/nyregion/01yards.600.jpg
Forest City Ratner

An illustration of a portion of the Atlantic Yards project near Downtown Brooklyn shows the tower known as Miss Brooklyn at center.

Ever since it was proposed, the Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn has simultaneously been the borough’s biggest, most controversial and least understood real estate development.

Critics have long suggested that the project is a taxpayer-subsidized bonanza for the developer, the project’s promised jobs and subsidized housing a kind of Trojan horse for the thousands of high-end apartments that come with them. But the developer, Forest City Ratner, and state officials overseeing the project have resisted divulging much information about the project’s financial structure, confining those criticisms to the realm of speculation.

That debate may be revived because of a lawsuit that has wrung free hundreds of pages of internal documents from the Empire State Development Corporation, the state agency overseeing the project. An analysis of the documents suggests that the Atlantic Yards behemoth — 8 million square feet of apartments, offices, stores and an arena planned for 22 acres near Downtown Brooklyn — may in fact be a delicate beast.

“The documents confirm that the overall project is risky,” said James F. Brennan, a Brooklyn assemblyman who, with State Senator Velmanette Montgomery, also of Brooklyn, sued the development corporation to obtain the documents. “This information should have been disclosed to the public before the project was approved.”

Interviews with real estate developers and brokers not connected to the project indicate that estimates of the construction costs for the project’s 6,430 apartments are low compared with some other developments in Brooklyn, where a residential building boom is pushing up construction prices. And Forest City’s projections for the future sale of the project’s roughly 2,000 condominium apartments seem optimistic, forecasting high volume at prices that have barely been tested in Brooklyn.

Mr. Brennan said he worried that Forest City could be forced to scale back or even abandon later phases of the project if the real estate market sours, putting at risk some of the 2,250 units of subsidized rental housing planned. Most of those units are scheduled to be built during the project’s later years of construction, as are most of the market-rate units.

“The affordable housing is the weakest link in a project that is otherwise financially very tight,” Mr. Brennan said. “This is disturbing, because the affordable housing was marketed as the main public benefit of the project.”

But Forest City officials said that they remained confident in their prospects and in those of the neighborhoods around the project site, where sleek condo developments and stylish coffee shops lie near public housing projects, abandoned auto repair shops and weedy vacant lots.

“Atlantic Yards does have a risk to it. It is a complicated project. And frankly, we understand that, and we’ve worked through that,” said Joanne M. Minieri, the company’s chief operating officer.

Bruce R. Bender, the company’s executive vice president, said Forest City was committed to building all of the subsidized housing and had promised state officials that at least 30 percent of all the apartments built during the project’s first phase would be lower-priced units.

“We said we will do 50 percent of rentals as affordable for low- and moderate-income families, and we will. And we made it legally binding,” he added. “Find someone else who does this and let us know.”

Company officials also referred to an independent audit of the financial projections that was commissioned by state development officials and performed by the consulting firm KPMG. That audit, which was released in December, judged Forest City’s business assumptions to be broadly sound, though it forecast a lower return for the project’s investors than Forest City did.

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

The documents, which Mr. Brennan provided to The New York Times, span from June 2003, when Forest City Ratner was in early discussions with the development corporation, to last November, the month before the project received final approval from the Public Authorities Control Board, which must sign off on large state-backed projects. The city and the state are contributing hundreds of millions of dollars, including direct subsidies, sales and mortgage recording tax exemptions, and tax-exempt bond financing.

In settling Mr. Brennan’s lawsuit, the development corporation agreed to release the documents without conceding that they were legally subject to the state’s freedom of information law.

The business plans from last October do not include information about one of the project’s buildings that was approved separately. And they represent only one snapshot of an ever-evolving, much-delayed project that still faces several lawsuits and has yet to begin rising in Brooklyn.

But the business plans — among the documents available to state officials before they approved the project — still offer an unprecedented look inside Atlantic Yards.

They indicate that Forest City and the project’s investors have paid a steep premium for design, most notably the services of Frank Gehry, among other architects. The documents cite architectural costs of just over $12 a square foot for the project, roughly three times the industry average.

They show that the basketball arena, widely assumed to be a money-loser whose chief purpose was to make the project more appealing to city leaders, is expected to be profitable by the 2012-13 basketball season, when it would bring in $20 million a year in net revenue. Bruce C. Ratner, the chief executive of Forest City Ratner, is the principal owner of the Nets of the National Basketball Association and intends to move the team from New Jersey.

The documents also provide a window into the considerable resources Forest City poured into early plans for the project, promoting it to the public, and getting it approved in a city that has proven inhospitable to some recent attempts at large-scale development. Those costs amounted to $19.5 million, according to one document, including money for litigation, public relations and Mr. Gehry’s initial designs.

The entire complex would bring an estimated profit of $609 million by 2015 if all the project’s elements, including the Nets, were sold by that year, according to the documents. (According to company officials, the sales figures were included to help value the project for investors, and the company has no plans to sell the complex.) The documents indicate that investors would make a modest return of 7.7 percent on the arena and 9.6 percent on the rest of the complex over 12 years despite significant construction and housing subsidies from the city and state.

Forest City itself would earn a development fee of 5 percent of the project’s total cost: roughly $200 million if the entire project is built as planned. Most of that, company executives said, would go toward recovering the company’s internal costs. They also said that Forest City owns a significant share of the project, in addition to being the developer.

But the company’s assessment of Brooklyn’s residential market and the project’s construction costs may provoke the most scrutiny.

The project’s 16 towers are scheduled to open in several increments, beginning in July 2009 with the completion of the signature tower, known as Miss Brooklyn, at Flatbush and Atlantic Avenues, and concluding in April 2015 with a condo tower at Dean Street and Carlton Avenue.

But their financial viability depends on Brooklyn’s high-end real estate boom penetrating from waterfront neighborhoods to the area farther inland, just east of Downtown Brooklyn, where Atlantic Yards will be built.

In Miss Brooklyn, Forest City expects to sell condos for an average of $889 a square foot. (Even so, the residential portion of the building will lose money, according to the documents; revenue from office space will make it profitable.) Projected prices for the rest of the project’s condos rise steadily until the opening of the last tower in 2015, where condos are expected to sell for $1,069 a square foot.

Real estate prices have grown rapidly in the gentrifying neighborhoods around the project, Fort Greene and Prospect Heights. But Andrew Gerringer, managing director of the development marketing group at Prudential Douglas Elliman, said that buyers did not yet view those neighborhoods as being as desirable as Williamsburg, Dumbo or Brooklyn Heights, waterfront districts where the borough’s luxury real estate is now concentrated.

A luxury building that Mr. Gerringer’s firm is marketing in Downtown Brooklyn is averaging about $750 a square foot in sales. On the waterfront, he said, “The high end of the market is probably blended at about $850 a foot, give or take.”

It is not clear yet whether those prices will spread quickly to other parts of Brooklyn. Mr. Gerringer said that, according to his firm’s research, the former Williamsburgh Savings Bank building — just blocks from Miss Brooklyn — had sold less than half of its units by the middle of May, with an average price per square foot of less than $800. The building’s developer, the Dermot Company, not long ago cut its prices by 10 percent across the board after sales stalled, he said, though they have picked up again.

Andrew C. MacArthur, a principal of the Dermot Company, said that he expected all of its apartments to sell by early 2008, including condos priced at up to $1,500 a square foot. But the company had not yet begun selling those units, he said.

Before the Atlantic Yards condos can be sold, however, they must be built. According to the documents, the “hard costs” for the towers — chiefly construction material and labor — range from $259 to $369 per gross square foot, the price tag for Miss Brooklyn.

A few developers said that they were currently building comparable buildings at similar costs. But most cited hard costs of $350 to $400 a square foot and higher, particularly when it came to the construction of high-end condos with union labor.

“We’re seeing in the neighborhood of $425 per foot” for new construction, Mr. MacArthur said.

Moreover, Forest City’s calculations appear to reflect only a modest increase in costs over roughly a decade of construction. A condominium tower scheduled to open in 2013 has hard costs of $314 a square foot; another one, opening in 2015, has an estimated hard cost of $324 a square foot.

One developer, who asked not to be named for fear of angering the city and state officials who support Atlantic Yards, whistled when told of the estimates.

“They aren’t really saying that, are they?” he said.

But Forest City executives said they believed the projections were accurate.

“I’m not surprised at everything that you’ve heard,” said Ms. Minieri, who noted that the developer’s last major project in Brooklyn, the MetroTech office complex, had had its share of naysayers.

She also said that hard costs for Atlantic Yards would be partly reduced by several factors. For example, all of the residential buildings include underground parking, and several feature ground-level retail space. Both are cheaper to build than apartment units, she said, and bring down the overall square-foot costs of those buildings.

Richard Moore, a real estate analyst at RBC Capital Markets, said that Forest City had a reputation for careful planning and very conservative investments. But he also noted that even the most competent developers could not easily predict how a long-term project like Atlantic Yards would turn out.

“I could see this project taking many forms over the years,” Mr. Moore said. “It could go either direction, I imagine.”

Charles V. Bagli and Ken Belson contributed reporting.

[Gaeus]

Brooklyn is a very nice place but I admit that it needs new changes like maybe modern buildings. I went to Brooklyn last month and I was fairly disappointed that there are some buildings that is a bit old and needs renovation. I hope this development will spark another growth for New York and a modern look for Brooklyn Skyline.

[TalB]

http://www.nypost.com/seven/07232007/news/regionalnews/ratners_plan_hits_big_nag_regionalnews_rich_calder.htm
RATNER'S PLAN HITS BIG $NAG

TAX DEAL IRKS CITY

By RICH CALDER

http://www.nypost.com/seven/07232007/photos/news008b.jpg
YARD WORK: Bruce Ratner is getting special breaks for developing Brooklyn's Atlantic Yards.

July 23, 2007 -- The Bloomberg administration is threatening to pull more than $100 million in city subsidies from the controversial Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn unless a deal providing massive tax breaks for developer Bruce Ratner is drastically revised.

"Pure and simple, it's a giveaway," a high-ranking city official told The Post.

At issue is an affordable-housing reform bill hastily passed by the state Legislature that included a special "carve-out" for Atlantic Yards.

The provision, quietly inserted by Assemblyman Vito Lopez (D-Brooklyn), would provide Ratner with an extra $300 million in property-tax benefits. It also exempts Atlantic Yards from a new definition of government-assisted affordable housing that limits it only to low-income households. Atlantic Yards could still include middle-income tenants.

Many developers, city officials fear, would hesitate to build "affordable" housing that excludes the middle class. A city memo says the bill could kill the construction of 10,000 subsidized units citywide for which middle-income families could qualify, including 5,000 units at Queens West.

Another provision eliminates - for Ratner only - the requirement that at least 20 percent of the housing units in each building in a complex be affordable.

Critics say it opens the door to Ratner "segregating" all of the project's 2,500 affordable-housing units into several buildings.

"More sinister, [Ratner] can build the market-rate housing first and wait a decade to do the affordable housing or, even worse, come back after the market-rate housing is done and then say, 'We can't afford to do the affordable housing,' " an official said.

The project plan currently calls for 30 percent of all housing built during the project's first phase to be affordable, and Ratner's staff says there's no plan to change that.

One high-ranking official at Ratner's company said, "Rather than working with Albany to create more affordable housing for New York, the Bloomberg administration is threatening to kill middle-income housing at Atlantic Yards unless they get what they want."

The city committed $205 million to Atlantic Yards to help Ratner acquire property and make infrastructure repairs. It might not hold back all the funds because the area needs the infrastructure repairs anyway.

Additional reporting by Tom Topousis

rich.calder@nypost.com

[SheistbugzzNY]

what is up with that, im confused why is there such a huge controvesy over this??

[TalB]

The reason is b/c there are people who actually live there, and they do not intend to sell their homes. If they refuse, then they will be forced to by emminent domain in which they will have to give up their homes for no matter what they decide on. Residents and workers in the surrounding areas opposed this project b/c it will cause the property tax to go up and they will eventually be priced out. Others who hate this project don't like the fact that this is their tax dollars that are going to be paying for this project rather than Bruce Ratner paying for it himself.

[Sentient Seas]

It seems to be a solid project to me.

[SheistbugzzNY]

I really hope this gets passed. But the taxpayers shouldn't have to shell out so much in taxes for it

[TalB]

I think that us taxpayers shouldn't be giving anything for this project or any other project that is privately owned.

[storms991]

Re-design the entire thing, Why do they build this abstract crap these days?? The buildings look a bit dodgy because of the weird angles

[TalB]

DDDB did come up with an alternative known as the Extell-Unity Plan.

http://www.cbrooklynneighborhoods.homestead.com/Extell_3.jpg

[BrooklynNYC]

I just want to be able to park and drive my car. Atlantic ave is gonna be such a parking lot after this is completed, and the congestion will certainly impact Ft. Greene, Park Slope, etc.

[storms991]

I thought people in New York prefer to take the subway over driving their cars?

[SmellyHongKongAir]

but ny subway is old? so its not comfortable

[nygirl]

^^ Eh, the trains aren't old. It does get uncomfortable though. Only when there are like 50 people in each car. That happens just about everyday at least once for me. The thing about New York is it has plans to revitalize it's trains, stations, and the way everything that works. It's just a plan and it won't happen for some time but when/if it does it will blow every other system out of the water not just on how large it will be everything about it will be revolutionary.

[hkskyline]

POLS SEEKING SAY ON ARENA
9 August 2007
New York Post

Saying the Atlantic Yards project lacks accountability, many Brooklyn politicians and civic groups want Gov. Spitzer to give the community significantly more input on the $4 billion project.

Councilwoman Letitia James and Assemblyman Jim Brennan were among local elected officials yesterday calling on the Empire State Development Corp. to create a new subsidiary corporation to directly oversee the state-approved NBA arena/residential complex.

The contingent said the new subsidiary's board should include community officials and leaders and that the ESDC should also devise "a stakeholder council" that would get project input from residents and report back to the new subsidiary.

[hkskyline]

Architecture: Battle for the Big Apple
With this stunning, yacht-like bulding, Frank Gehry finally has a foothold in Manhattan.
And now every other big name architect is hot on his heels
9 August 2007
The Guardian

New York makes exceptionally little virtue out of the fact that it is surrounded by water. Most of the time, you have to remind yourself that Manhattan is an island. Say New York and you tend to think of its core: the Empire State building, the Chrysler, Central Park. Architecturally, all the city's gems are huddled in the centre of the island, while mile upon mile of embankment is devoted to six-lane highways and Soviet- looking housing developments - the legacy of its 1940s planning guru Robert Moses.

It would take a Herculean effort to remove the highways and restore life to the city's waterfronts. But, gradually, a sense of purpose is being injected back into the fringes of Manhattan - through new buildings. Nowhere is that more visible than on the lower west side of the city, along the Hudson river, where a whole succession of designs by some of the world's top architects are now in planning or construction.

Top of the pile is Frank Gehry, who has just put the finishing touches to the headquarters of the internet conglomerate, InterActiveCorp. The building is Gehry's first to be completed in New York, a surprising fact in itself, as you would have expected one of the world's most famous architects to have made his mark by now in Manhattan - the ultimate showcase of modernist, or in his case postmodernist, architecture.

It has certainly been a long time coming. The Los Angeles-based designer has spent 20 years trying to gain a foothold on the island.

Two decades ago, Gehry drew up plans for a 61-storey skyscraper in Madison Square Garden. It came to nothing. Designs of an Ian Schrager hotel and a project in Times Square followed, with similar results. Most ambitious of all was to have been a new Guggenheim museum mooted in 2000, for the downtown waterfront near Wall Street. The design, described at the time as "cloudlike", was to have cost $800m and been twice the size of the building that made his name: the Bilbao Guggenheim, with its famous twisting titanium shell. That bit the dust, too.

After all those disappointments, Gehry has finally arrived in NYC - with a building that, fittingly, pays homage to the water. The IAC rises up from the old brick and rusting iron that is the meat-packing district of Chelsea like a shimmering white yacht, its sails puffed out in a gentle breeze. Viewed from the north, it really does appear to move, sailing southwards alongside the Hudson.

It is a building whose sheen changes with the seasons, and hour by hour. Earlier this year, when the city was deep in snow, the almost completed building looked like a glorified giant snowball. On the day I toured it, it glistened in blinding daylight, the clouds reflected across its upper windows.

The design is the product of a collaboration between Gehry and IAC's chairman, Barry Diller. The motif of a sailing boat was selected by Diller - a keen yachtsman, who moors his super-yacht opposite the building at Chelsea Piers - from a range of possibilities proposed by the architect. Diller also stipulated that he wanted the building to be made entirely of glass.

These desires presented huge technical problems. First, how to construct a curved building from glass? Gehry and his advisers came up with the solution: enormous 35ft by 22ft panels, each one bent to an alarming extent through a process carried out on site known as cold-warping. In some corners of the building, the glass twists 150 degrees from ground to roof,

Colour was more difficult still. Diller wanted the building to be uniformly white to enhance the sails allusion. But how could a building be white on the outside and still allow workers inside to see out? The solution they reached was to use frits, small white enamel dots that are silk-screened onto the glass below waist-height and above head-height, leaving an eye-level band of clear glass for untrammelled views.

From inside the building, this generates a pleasant hazy glow, a bit like watching a dream sequence in a movie. From the outside, when the blinds aren't drawn, it creates stripes of white (the frits) and black (clear glass), giving the building a resemblance to a Liquorice Allsort. At night, the stripes vanish and the building transforms itself into a fish-bowl: lit from within, it becomes transparent and glows orange. To heighten that translucent effect, the executive offices have been placed in the middle of the building, while underlings, with their open-plan work stations, get to enjoy breathtaking views over the Hudson. This is revolutionary thinking.

Gehry's first imprint on Manhattan has left some commentators faintly underwhelmed, though. At a mere nine storeys, it is a peanut of a building compared with Bilbao or the Walt Disney Concert Hall, his similarly exotic mass of twisted metal in Los Angeles. Alongside the swoops and curls of those buildings, the elegant curves of the IAC headquarters appear almost conservative. As you drive by it on the West Side Highway, it certainly holds your attention, but it doesn't scream at you as Gehry's trademark structures do.

That has inevitably prompted some expressions of disappointment. "The problem for as showy and spectacular an architect as Gehry is that people come to expect that from him," says Suzanne Stephens, of Architectural Record magazine. "They associate him with triple axles and the whole shebang."

The pared-down nature of the design is because Diller was looking for a relatively modest building to house up to 500 employees of his many internet firms. Being an office, it also required internal spaces that could house his businesses, which in turn forced compromises upon Gehry. But the unfamiliar simplicity is also, perhaps, a recognition on Gehry's part that if he keeps repeating his famous titanium look, astonishing though it is, he is at risk of being labelled a one-hit wonder.

At the moment the IAC building looks a little lost amid the surrounding wasteland. But all that is about to change. As interest in the shores of Manhattan grows, architects are descending on the area in droves, attracted by a disused elevated subway track, the High Line, which is being turned into an urban park. Shigeru Ban is already on site, on a plot adjacent to the IAC; and Jean Nouvel, Renzo Piano and Robert Stern all have schemes nearby. So intense is the scramble for sites that this stretch of Chelsea has been dubbed "architects' row".

How Gehry's building will emerge from this new architectural jungle is anybody's guess. "It's a bit of a gamble," says Stephens. "He clearly couldn't have had any idea of how the area would look when he began drawing his designs. The building could be enhanced by its new context, or it might not."

There is another, bigger gamble for Gehry on the New York horizon. Having just arrived here after so many years of struggle, the commissions are now pouring in. The next job is something of a folly: a state-of-the-art children's playground in Battery Park, the designs for which Gehry is donating as a way of thanking the city. But then comes Atlantic Yards. This gargantuan $4bn development in downtown Brooklyn has already invited a storm of protest from local residents, who dislike its high-rise nature. The project spans 22 acres and will include housing, offices, shops and a home for the New Jersey Nets basketball team.

As the project's lead architect, Gehry is at the centre of the dispute. On the one hand, he is being tugged by a highly organised protest movement that has managed to whittle down some of the more ambitious elements of his design, if not kill it off altogether. On the other, he is having to please a famously hard-nosed developer, Bruce Ratner, who will only stomach so much risk-taking from an architect. It doesn't bode particularly well for the outcome that Gehry has christened the tallest building in the scheme, a 511ft tower of glass and metal, "Miss Brooklyn". He says it is his "ego trip".

It is a gamble indeed. Gehry has finally arrived in New York. But when Atlantic Yards is completed in 2017, will he wish he had never done so? *

[SmellyHongKongAir]

^^ Eh, the trains aren't old. It does get uncomfortable though. Only when there are like 50 people in each car. That happens just about everyday at least once for me. The thing about New York is it has plans to revitalize it's trains, stations, and the way everything that works. It's just a plan and it won't happen for some time but when/if it does it will blow every other system out of the water not just on how large it will be everything about it will be revolutionary.

is there plans to have a new subway?
what is PATH? there is a station at the WTC? is it linked?

[hkskyline]

is there plans to have a new subway?
what is PATH? there is a station at the WTC? is it linked?

They're building a new subway line now (Second Avenue).

PATH is a train system that connects Manhattan to New Jersey, running trains underneath the Hudson between Midtown and WTC with Jersey City, Hoboken, and Newark.

[TalB]

The Extell Plan was thought up by Garry Barnett, who is the head of Extell Developement, and it was backed by DDDB b/c it met what they wanted.

[TalB]

http://www.nydailynews.com/boroughs/brooklyn/2007/08/10/2007-08-10_buildings_collapse_no_surprise.html
Building's collapse no surprise

Ratner knew of damage to Ward building, but didn't halt demolition - report

BY JOTHAM SEDERSTROM

DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Friday, August 10th 2007, 4:00 AM

Three months after the partial collapse of the Ward Baking Company building in Prospect Heights, engineers have determined the crash was due to nearly a century of water damage.

In a seven-page report issued July 25, the Buildings Department also laid blame on developer Forest City Ratner for not alerting a demolition crew to the extent of the damage.

"Forest City Ratner had been apprised of the deterioration of the facade and the parapet, but the extent of the deterioration and the risk of the collapse had apparently not been communicated to the crew that had been assigned the task of removing tar and asbestos," the report states.

Forest City and its subsidiary, Pacific Vanderbilt Development Co., were slapped with violations for failing to maintain an exterior building wall, and Gateway Demolition was hit for failing to protect its workers, a Buildings Department spokeswoman said.

Forest City also was cited for removing a sidewalk shed while locating a sewer line near the building and failing to replace it, the report states.

The report also determined that the Pacific St. building was so badly damaged that "even relatively passive construction activities" could have caused the collapse.

"The Building Code requires contractors to safeguard the public and property during construction," said agency spokeswoman Kate Lindquist. "At the same time, it requires the owners to maintain property in a safe and lawful condition."

The April 26 collapse - which occurred just days after demolition began on the controversial Atlantic Yards project - drew dozens of firefighters and forced the evacuation of about 300 people from a homeless shelter next door.

Forest City Ratner "should be heavily fined for this," said Daniel Goldstein, a member of the opposition group Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn. "Ratner's negligence is stark evidence that the community desperately needs the ombudsman promised by [state officials] over 93 days ago."

The Ward building, which the baking company once called "the snow-white temple of bread-making cleanliness," was cited by the Municipal Art Society for its terra-cotta tiles and considered for inclusion in the National Register of Historic Places.

Forest City executive Bruce Bender did not say yesterday why the demolition crew had begun work despite its knowledge that the building was in poor condition, but he said company officials would review the report.

"Our contractors were engaged in necessary predemolition asbestos-abatement work," Bender said. "We believed at the time that all safety measures were being taken."

jsederstrom@nydailynews.com

[SheistbugzzNY]

soo i teke it, nothins rele happenin wit this no more, or no1s posting.??

[TalB]

You will probably here more news around 10/9 when the lawsuit is being made.

[SheistbugzzNY]

00, ok thanks.

[TalB]

http://www.brooklynpaper.com/stories/30/37/30_37unityyards.html
Group has alternative to Ratner’s Atlantic Yards mega-development

By Gersh Kuntzman

The Brooklyn Paper

http://www.brooklynpaper.com/assets/photos/30/37/30_37_unityrender_z.jpg
The so-called “Unity” proposal, an alternative plan to Forest City Ratner’s Atlantic Yards project.

A coalition of community-based urban planners will unveil a new alternative to Bruce Ratner’s state-approved, already-under-construction Atlantic Yards mega-project on Monday, calling it the last best hope for sensible development on the controversial Prospect Heights site.

Planners behind the so-called “Unity” proposal say they were motivated to devise an alternative to Atlantic Yards by two concerns: that pending lawsuits — and the downturn in the real-estate market — make Ratner’s $4-billion project “not a done deal,” and that “there are better ways to build” on the site, said planner Marshall Brown, a former Fort Greene resident and architecture professor at the University of Cincinnati.

“Other supposedly ‘done deals’ — like the Jets stadium on the West Side and all the Columbus Circle projects before the Time-Warner Center — didn’t get built, so we need to be ready with an alternative,” Brown said. “Otherwise, we’ll be left with acres of empty land for decades.”

Brown said he and his fellow planners — former Planning Commissioner Ron Shiffman and Hunter College professor Tom Angotti — are mostly concerned that Ratner will only build the first phase of his project (the arena and several skyscrapers at the corner of Atlantic and Flatbush avenues) and then lose interest, run out of money, or give in to the declining market.

“But even if he builds the entire project, it’s going to take 20 years,” Brown said. “During that time, there will be many opportunities to influence what actually gets built. And we have a community-backed proposal ready to go.”

The “Unity” plan — which despite its common-ground-implying name, actually stands for “Understanding, Imagining and Transforming the Yards” — is the result of a series of public workshops and design sessions in April.

The resulting project would have 1,500 units — far fewer than Ratner’s 6,430 — with 60 percent reserved as “affordable,” far more than Ratner’s 35 percent.

And since the Unity plan would only be built on the Vanderbilt Yards, it would occupy just eight acres and require no condemnation. Ratner’s project covers 22 acres and would have the state seize private property via eminent domain.

The tallest building in the Unity plan would be “just under 400” feet, said Brown — and it would be at the eastern end of the site. Ratner would put his tallest building, the 511-foot Miss Brooklyn tower, at the already-busy corner of Atlantic and Flatbush.

“Ours is a simple and effective strategy,” Brown said. “The Atlantic-Flatbush intersection is already very congested. But Vanderbilt and Atlantic is underdeveloped. Our idea would create more density there and relieve congestion at the Flatbush Avenue end of the site.”

Brown called that “the definition of transit-oriented development”: “You don’t need to put the tallest buildings right on top of the transit hub at this site because the entire site is near the transit hub.”

Forest City Ratner did not answer a request to comment on the Unity Plan. The Empire State Development Corporation, which is overseeing the project, also declined to comment.

‘Unity’ vs. Ratner

The latest incarnation of a community-based “Unity” Plan for the Atlantic Yards site will be publicly unveiled next week — but The Brooklyn Paper got a sneak peak at a draft. Here’s how it compares to Bruce Ratner’s proposal.

Unity plan
Footprint: Eight acres
Total housing units (percent “affordable”): 1,500 (60 percent)
Tallest building: Less than 400 feet
Amount of open space: 4.5 acres
Basketball arena? No arena.
Requires condemnation of private property? No.

Ratner plan
Footprint: 22 acres
Total housing units (percent “affordable”): 6,430 (35 percent)
Tallest building: 511 feet (“Miss Brooklyn”)
Amount of open space: Eight acres
Basketball arena? 18,000-seat arena.
Requires condemnation of private property? Yes.

The “Unity” Plan will be presented publicly on Monday, Sept. 24 at the Soapbox Gallery (636 Dean St., between Carlton and Vanderbilt avenues), 6 pm.

©2007 The Brooklyn Paper

[philvia]

unity plan is borrrinngg as hell

[iLiR]

^^ I agree. The Ratner plan has more buildings, more open space, a basketball arena and I'm digging the "Miss Brooklyn" name of the tallest building. ;)

[TalB]

Here is the big difference between the two. The UNITY Plan is just building on the railyards itself, while the FCR Plan includes places where people actually live and work. BTW, the open space in the FCR Plan might be more, but it is a small part of the site, and most the so-called park space will be the backyards that only residents can use. The UNITY does have more housing units that are affordable as oppsed to FCR. A final thing, the developer of the UNITY Plan will be paying for the project himself and NOT with taxpayer money unlike the developer of the FCR Plan. As for Gehry, he I find a lot of his places to be overrated.

[TalB]

http://www.nydailynews.com/boroughs/brooklyn/2007/10/02/2007-10-02_atlantic_yards_evicting_tiny_town_day_ca.html
Atlantic Yards evicting Tiny Town day care
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

BY JOTHAM SEDERSTROM

Tuesday, October 2nd 2007, 4:00 AM

School's out - forever.

A city teacher who was weeks away from opening a day-care center near the Atlantic Yards project is being booted by developer Forest City Ratner.

The 15-year-old Crown Heights program, Tiny Town, was expected to reopen by October following $150,000 in renovations to a building on Dean St., said owner Shirley Milligan.

"That arena is going up, and I don't care what anybody does, but to take away my existence? That's despicable," said Milligan, 50, who began renovations after leasing the building at 487 Dean St. in 2004.

She decided to relocate the center - with about 45 children - in part because of a playground across the street from the Dean St. building.

Milligan claims real estate brokers told her then that the building would not be touched by Ratner's Prospect Heights development, which is expected to include an arena for pro basketball and 16 towers.

"I was looking at the center the other day with tears in my eyes and I was saying to myself, 'How could you put so much money into something that was going to be demolished?'"

Until earlier this year, the building was owned by Lisa Steiner, who gave Milligan a three-year, renewable commercial lease at $3,000 a month, according to Milligan.

The eviction petition filed by Forest City Ratner earlier this month charged Milligan neglected to pay $18,000 in back rent, even as Forest City offered to buy out the remainder of her lease.

"She was in a true Catch-22 situation," said Milligan's attorney, Michael Rikon, who said his client's lease expires in 2009. "She was just pouring money into opening a new business that looked like it was going to end before it began. I think she probably ran out of money."

Candace Carponter, a spokeswoman for the anti-Yards group Develop Don't Destroy, said the Dean St. building is being demolished prematurely to make way for additional parking for construction workers at the project.

"They're going to level a day care [center] to put up a parking lot for construction workers so they can park for the next 20 years," said Carponter.

Forest City Ratner spokesman Loren Riegelhaupt said a new day-care center will be included as part of the project. He also insisted the developer was booting Milligan because she had routinely failed to pay rent since earlier this year.

"Forest City offered to buy her out of her lease and to reimburse her for money she spent to fix up the space, along with forgiving back rent owed," said Riegelhaupt. "For reasons unknown to us, she decided instead to continue to withhold rent. Given her refusal to pay her rent, Forest City served papers notifying her that she will be evicted if she continues to not pay her rent."

jsederstrom@nydailynews.com

[philvia]

The UNITY does have more housing units that are affordable as oppsed to FCR.

Unity plan
Total housing units (percent “affordable”): 1,500 (60 percent)

Ratner plan
Total housing units (percent “affordable”): 6,430 (35 percent)

do the math talb

[Don Omar]

oooohhhh burn ^^

this project is dead to me

[Taylorhoge]

So I went over to the ite and poked around a little while and saw what was being knocked down it seems numerous wharehouses small tenements and a FDNY fire station the fireman who I talked to said he liked it alot he said the house they were in was falling apart and they were being promised new equipment as well

[TalB]

Unity plan
Total housing units (percent “affordable”): 1,500 (60 percent)

Ratner plan
Total housing units (percent “affordable”): 6,430 (35 percent)

do the math talb

Exactly how is 35% greater than 60% philvia?

[Reyas]

Exactly how is 35% greater than 60% philvia?

nevermind, Palindrome explained it nicely.

[palindrome]

Exactly how is 35% greater than 60% philvia?

60% of 1,500 = 900
35% of 6,430 = 2251


:bash: :bash:

[NewYork-wala]

http://www.nydailynews.com/boroughs/brooklyn/2007/10/02/2007-10-02_atlantic_yards_evicting_tiny_town_day_ca.html
Atlantic Yards evicting Tiny Town day care
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

BY JOTHAM SEDERSTROM

Tuesday, October 2nd 2007, 4:00 AM

School's out - forever.

A city teacher who was weeks away from opening a day-care center near the Atlantic Yards project is being booted by developer Forest City Ratner.

The 15-year-old Crown Heights program, Tiny Town, was expected to reopen by October following $150,000 in renovations to a building on Dean St., said owner Shirley Milligan.

"That arena is going up, and I don't care what anybody does, but to take away my existence? That's despicable," said Milligan, 50, who began renovations after leasing the building at 487 Dean St. in 2004.

She decided to relocate the center - with about 45 children - in part because of a playground across the street from the Dean St. building.

Milligan claims real estate brokers told her then that the building would not be touched by Ratner's Prospect Heights development, which is expected to include an arena for pro basketball and 16 towers.

"I was looking at the center the other day with tears in my eyes and I was saying to myself, 'How could you put so much money into something that was going to be demolished?'"

Until earlier this year, the building was owned by Lisa Steiner, who gave Milligan a three-year, renewable commercial lease at $3,000 a month, according to Milligan.

The eviction petition filed by Forest City Ratner earlier this month charged Milligan neglected to pay $18,000 in back rent, even as Forest City offered to buy out the remainder of her lease.

"She was in a true Catch-22 situation," said Milligan's attorney, Michael Rikon, who said his client's lease expires in 2009. "She was just pouring money into opening a new business that looked like it was going to end before it began. I think she probably ran out of money."

Candace Carponter, a spokeswoman for the anti-Yards group Develop Don't Destroy, said the Dean St. building is being demolished prematurely to make way for additional parking for construction workers at the project.

"They're going to level a day care [center] to put up a parking lot for construction workers so they can park for the next 20 years," said Carponter.

Forest City Ratner spokesman Loren Riegelhaupt said a new day-care center will be included as part of the project. He also insisted the developer was booting Milligan because she had routinely failed to pay rent since earlier this year.

"Forest City offered to buy her out of her lease and to reimburse her for money she spent to fix up the space, along with forgiving back rent owed," said Riegelhaupt. "For reasons unknown to us, she decided instead to continue to withhold rent. Given her refusal to pay her rent, Forest City served papers notifying her that she will be evicted if she continues to not pay her rent."

jsederstrom@nydailynews.com
Wow... That sucks... Ratner living up to his name!

[Don Omar]

yea 8th grade math

[Ralphkke]

Looks like a nice project to me:)

[TalB]

Tommorrow, will by the continuation of the case Goldstien vs Pataki et all. The courthouse will be at the US 2nd Court of Appeal, which is at 500 Pearl St in Manhattan. The case will start at 10 AM, though there is no time limit to how long it will be, but don't be dissapointed if you miss one hour of it, b/c I doubt it will be over by then. If the opposition wins this case, it will mean the end for that monstrousity.

[TalB]

http://www.villagevoice.com/specials/0743,various,78157,7.html
STILL DEVELOPING

Thank you for honoring Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn with your kudos in the "Best of New York" [October 17-23] category "Best Noble Failure." Our organization, and all the other organizations and individuals who have struggled against the biggest real-estate boondoggle in Brooklyn's history, certainly have a good sense of humor, and we enjoyed your "award."

At the same time, we always like to keep the public informed rather than misled. So here goes: There are two pending court cases we have organized and are funding. We are optimistic about [their outcomes]. Both of these cases will not be over for a long time.

If either the 26 community-group plaintiffs on the state case win, or if the plaintiffs fighting to keep their properties from being seized by the government for Bruce Ratner win, the Atlantic Yards project cannot go forward. Failure? "Dewey Defeats Truman!"

Daniel Goldstein
Spokesman, Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn

[TalB]

Since the opening of the Altantic Yds arena will not be ready by 2009, the Nets will be staying in the Meadowlands for another five years.
http://www.nba.com/nba_news/izod_071031.html
N.J. Gov. Jon Corzine: Izod Center Good for 5 More

By TOM CANAVAN
Posted Oct 31 2007 9:27PM

http://www.nba.com/media/izod_300_071031.jpg
Nathaniel S. Butler/NBAE/Getty Images

The future of the 26-year-old Izod Center, formerly Continental Airlines Arena, has been in question for the past few years following decisions by the two major tenants to move out.

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J., Oct. 31 (AP) -- The foundation has been laid for the refurbished IZOD Center to survive at least another five years, Gov. Jon Corzine said Wednesday at a ceremony to rename the 26-year-old arena in the Meadowlands sports complex.

"It doesn't seem like a dying arena to me,'' Corzine said when asked about the future of the building that had been known as the Continental Airlines Arena since 1996.

The future of the arena, which opened with a Bruce Springsteen concert in 1981, has been in question for the past few years following decisions by the two major tenants to move out.

The New Jersey Devils of the NHL moved to Newark this season, and the New Jersey Nets plan to leave for Brooklyn for the 2009-10 season. Nets owner Bruce Ratner said Wednesday that the planned arena in Brooklyn probably would not be ready for the start of that season, however.

The IZOD Center is also the site of about 200 concerts and family entertainment events annually.

"I was in business for a long time, and a five-year time frame is really a planning cycle,'' Corzine said after the ceremony and before the Nets tipped off their season with a game against the Chicago Bulls. "We've laid the foundation for a successful five years, and we will be looking at this as a business decision as time goes on.''

Corzine was cautiously optimistic about the arena's future once the Nets move.

"I am not prejudging any of that,'' he said. "We will look at it as a business person would in any kind of analysis. For the next five years we are in pretty good shape. We can maintain most of that time (with) the Nets and the family entertainment schedules that we have today and, if we grow that, there is plenty of reason to be optimistic.''

George Zoffinger, chief executive of the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority, said the arena would turn a profit this year for the first time since 1996.

Clothing maker IZOD, best known for its sports shirts, was awarded the naming rights in early October. The division of clothing and apparel maker Phillips-Van Heusen Corp. agreed to pay $1.4 million each year over the course of the five-year deal.

IZOD was a sponsor of the Nets before being awarded the naming rights.

Copyright 2007 by STATS LLC and Associated Press. Any commercial use or distribution without the express written consent of STATS LLC and Associated Press is strictly prohibited

[NovaWolverine]

shitty sponsor

[TalB]

Izod has sponsoring the Nets even before the arena was renamed, and the association with Continental Airlines is still there.

[TalB]

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/08/nyregion/08yards.html?ref=nyregion
Security Study Urged for Atlantic Yards

By ANDY NEWMAN
Published: November 8, 2007

Of the many criticisms leveled against the planned Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn, two of the major ones are that it would worsen traffic in an already congested area and that its 18,000-seat basketball arena might provide a tempting target for terrorists.

So when the city of Newark decided last month, just before the opening of its new downtown arena, to close some surrounding streets during events for security reasons, a chorus of questions arose in Brooklyn: Would the Atlantic Yards arena, sited at the clogged crossroads of two main arteries, Flatbush and Atlantic Avenues, require street closings, too?

Yesterday, a group of state and city lawmakers revealed that they had added their voices to the chorus and had sent a letter to Gov. Eliot Spitzer and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg urging an independent study of security at Atlantic Yards.

“We want to know how the situation in Brooklyn differs from that which has just occurred in Newark,” Assemblyman James F. Brennan said. He also noted that Newark’s police director, Garry F. McCarthy, had said, “You can’t construct an arena and put it right against a street in a post-9/11 world.”

A New York City police official, however, said yesterday that the Brooklyn arena would require no street closings.

“Our counterterrorism experts have examined the Atlantic Yards plans and they have met with those involved with its design and planned construction,” said Paul J. Browne, the Police Department’s chief spokesman. “They have been cooperative and receptive to N.Y.P.D. recommendations, which did not require street closings.”

Mr. Browne declined to offer further details, saying it was policy not to publicly discuss “any vulnerabilities we’ve identified.” The developer of Atlantic Yards, Forest City Ratner — a development partner in the new Midtown headquarters of The New York Times Company — said yesterday that it had been working closely with the police and other antiterrorism experts on the design of Atlantic Yards.

Plans for the Brooklyn arena, though preliminary, seem to show it set back farther from the street than the Newark arena, the Prudential Center. The Prudential Center is about 25 feet from both Edison Place and Mulberry Street in downtown Newark, while renderings of Atlantic Yards show the arena about 75 feet back from Atlantic Avenue and about 150 feet from Flatbush Avenue.

In Newark, the police have been closing one block of Mulberry Street and half a block of Edison Place during events, Mr. McCarthy said.

The Atlantic Yards plan — eight million square feet of high-rise housing, office space and an arena on a 22-acre swath near Downtown Brooklyn — is one of the largest development projects in the city’s history. It was approved last year by the state, and demolition and clearing have begun at the site. Plans for the arena, which would be home to the Nets basketball team, call for it to be used about 240 days a year. It is scheduled to open in 2009.

Even the project’s sponsor, the Empire State Development Corporation, has said that its traffic impacts would be considerable. A study the corporation conducted last year found that 68 out of 93 intersections near the site would have significantly more congestion at one or more peak hours, most markedly during the morning rush and after Saturday games. That evaluation did not take street closings into account.

The letter to the mayor and governor, sent on Oct. 29, was signed by seven elected officials in addition to Mr. Brennan, including some that have been relatively supportive of Atlantic Yards, like council members Bill de Blasio and David Yassky.

Mr. de Blasio recently announced his candidacy for the Brooklyn borough presidency, a post whose current occupant, Marty Markowitz, is one of the loudest supporters of Atlantic Yards. Term limits dictate that Mr. Markowitz will lose his seat in 2009.

[nygirl]

^^ :)

http://www.nypost.com/seven/11102007...ntic_80430.htm

COURT EVICTS RESIDENTS' SUIT VS. ATLANTIC YARDS

By RICH CALDER
November 10, 2007

A state appellate court yesterday tossed a lawsuit challenging the legality of the Empire State Development Corp.'s relocation plan for Brooklyn residents living in the 22-acre footprint of the controversial Atlantic Yards project.

"A review . . . reveals [that the ESDC] appropriately considered the impact that the displacement of all households within the project site would have on the socioeconomic profile and character of the community," the panel's written decision said.

George Locker, a lawyer for rent-stabilized tenants being forced to relocate because of the state-approved $4 billion NBA arena-residential-retail megaproject, said he planned to appeal the decision.

Developer Forest City Ratner and the ESDC hailed the decision. Ratner Executive Vice President Bruce Bender said, "We remain committed to ensuring the proper relocation of tenants," which includes the opportunity to live in the new development at the same rent.

The suit is one of four opposing the project. Project opponents are appealing a ruling against them in a federal suit challenging the state's use of eminent-domain powers to acquire property.


Atlantic Yards Opposition: Take a seat and shut your mouths ;)

[TalB]

Bear in mind that this case was about the tennants, who don't as much as a say as those who own their property. Norman Oder interperted that article over here (http://atlanticyardsreport.blogspot.com/) in that their lawyer will file appeal. Nevertheless, there are still other cases, so the fight isn't over just yet. Afterall, you don't want to be what the 2004 NY Yankees or the 2007 Cleveland Indians were against the Red Sox when they were just win one away from from beating them.

[Cojapo]

Afterall, you don't want to be what the 2004 NY Yankees or the 2007 Cleveland Indians were against the Red Sox when they were just win one away from from beating them.

Nice!!

[nygirl]

But completely irrelevant to the topic? Tal your analogies are so distasteful. What does baseball have to do with this construction site?
The fight isn't over just yet. Good that you added that because it will end. The hope is in opposition keeping this thing going,. They don't have a chance on this one so to continue stalling it is all they got.

[nygirl]

You also forgot to mention the usless Ny mets of 2007. Beat the mets, beat the mets.. come on everybody and beat tghe mets... yea those guys, the ones that took the entire season by storm and gave it all up at the very end. Same ones that didn't even swing in the playoffs. Keep bringing up useless analogies I'll be spiking them at you everytime kid. I know you think your slick but you are nowhere near that.. yer just greasy.

[TalB]

That analogy was to mention how one can grab a victory from the jaws of defeat in which it will most likely be Red Sox-esque for the opposition.

[nygirl]

yeah sure it was tal. I believe you were instigating a fight. Like I said, slick you are not.

[nygirl]

So in turn the opposite of that analogy to grab victory from jaws of defeat being redsox esque...

Would the analogy for total domination to then defeat just at the end of the battle be ny mets-esque?

Like... if the develop don't destroy brooklyn organization wins like every law suit all year long and then starts losing the last insignificant few at the end only to be completely shut down and out of the arguement all together, humiliated once again and oblivious to that embarrassing let down, leaving the courtroom like deer in head lights...

would they be like the mets?

Me likes these analogies because if forestCity Ratner is like the yankees then we can expect a new dynasty any time and consecutive wins over opposition this means multiple trophy projects every decade.. cool.

Wait if DDB is the red sox then does that mean they like get a few hard hits in the beggining and then spend a lifetime of misery and defeat later? Cool.

Then I guess if DDB was Redsox-esque then Forestcity Ratner would have to stop fighting the battle all together and make it extremely easy for DDB to look like actual winners when they're really historic losers...
So then ForestCity Ratner laying down and taking it would kinda be Rocky-esque, or cardnial-esque...

See how dumb that sounds?

[TalB]

First off, its DDDB, and they are not alone on this. There are other groups that are helping them such as No Land Grab, Fans For Fair Play, South Oxford Block Association, Field of Schemes, and other grassroots and non-profit organizations. BTW, I insist on you reading the Atlantic Yards Report by Norman Oder in which he states what is really being said behind the printed words. As for NIMBYs, they are not going to be living with this project b/c it would be built on their homes. Also, are you willing to pay for this project, b/c FCR isn't going to be giving a penny for this project in which it will be the entire state of NY? Since you brought up the Yankees, a Yankees-esque scenairo for FCR could be being overcofident and then loosing it all like the Yankees did in the last four ALDS.

[nygirl]

Oh dddb.. I mean that Red Sox-esque thingy majig...

Whateve Merry Gridlock and Eminent domain to all!!! Ho, Ho, Ho.. I'm sure it will effect you Tal, up in your place in pleasantville. Reading Norman Oders report in the Atlantic Yards wouldn't sway me.. I'm all for the project and care very little about who it effects in the long run. Shallow as that sounds..

I believe those Nimbys you speak of that won't be living in the project were offered just that.. but I could be wrong. I mean, your conspirasy theories just might be right. One thing about me on Nimbys in particular.. Don't give a horses ass about them.. and <^> them for always making things difficult for large and promising projects.. West Side and Jets Stadium, Con Ed site, Foster UES, and this among others...
Glad to see them losing a few for a change and I hope that more opposition is thwarted.
Key part of that analogy Tal.. last four ALDS.. and on another note before those last 4 ALDS they appeared in 8 others.. where were the mets? That was weak. Yea... yer cool.. bringing up baseball scenarios just to piss people off and you know it. Yer a weasily little worm and you always have been here. That is just truth. Pop off.

[TalB]

http://www.nysun.com/article/66577?page_no=1
Against Ratner's Domain

By STEVE ETTLINGER
November 16, 2007

A lawyer for Bruce Ratner and the Empire State Development Corporation stated that the Atlantic Yards mega-development, 16 skyscrapers and a sports arena, would "connect" neighborhoods.

This was at last month's hearing of the federal abuse of eminent domain case brought against the state of New York by a group of Brooklyn residents and business owners.

I nearly laughed out loud in the hushed courtroom — Mr. Ratner plans on eliminating, among other things, the street that I currently use to get to Fort Greene from Park Slope. He also wants to put up massive "superblocks" in what would be the densest residential area in America. Claiming that building big walls connects neighborhoods is doublespeak at its worst.

The defense lawyer, Preeta Bansal, spoke about the construction of a new subway entrance at Atlantic and Flatbush Avenues as one of the other public benefits. That got a mere chortle from me, as the current one needs no replacement — it is still under construction.

The final insult was when she said that local schools could use the arena. That's no public benefit at all in my book because Mr. Ratner plans on charging over $100,000 for such rentals. At that price, they can use the privately-owned Marriott in downtown Brooklyn. Mr. Ratner's purported public benefits are easily disputed, and they are the key to the court case.

The underlying argument was that the arena would be publicly owned and merely leased to Mr. Ratner. Truth is, he expects a 99-year lease for the princely sum of $1. If the public really will own it, why did Barclay's Bank agree to pay Mr. Ratner $400 million so it could be called the Barclay's Arena? It seems that if the arena were truly public, taxpayers would be getting that cash, not a private developer. The state's basis in this unusual case for taking private property from one owner and transferring it to another is the declaration of blight, but these properties were never considered blighted until Mr. Ratner asked the ESDC to condemn them, and only them. Isn't that putting the cart before the horse? They are not part of an urban renewal zone — they contain many recently renovated condos that were selling for close to $1 million a piece.

Tellingly, the ESDC admitted that it looked only at properties within the footprint of his project. Mr. Ratner, the ESDC, and even former key booster Marty Markowitz have confessed that he was the only developer ever involved, and that he initiated discussions. The city did not plan anything; indeed, there is no comprehensive civic plan for the entire site.

It is important to realize what's at stake here: If Mr. Ratner prevails, our traditionally sacred property rights will get trampled. And if the government follows the lead of a private developer's project, it will be a blow to the free market economy.

To add insult to injury, the ESDC, the lead government agency involved in the proposed takings, is not an elected body and operates outside of normal government constraint for developers, overriding zoning laws and the like. It's a perfect example of big government running roughshod over homeowners.

My hope is that the Second Circuit Court of Appeals will see this case in light of Kelo v. New London (2005). This landmark U.S. Supreme Court case ruled that private property can be turned over to a private developer under eminent domain, the catch being that the government is responsible for creating the redevelopment plan — not a private developer like Mr. Ratner.

The bottom line is that Mr. Ratner had eyed this site years ago and has engineered an abuse of eminent domain to acquire the land he needs.

If proof of that doesn't come from the discovery process sought in this case, just take a look at the shopping malls that he built on neighboring blocks: The Atlantic Center Mall opened in 1996 and the Atlantic Terminal that opened in 2004. Both were designed with a stadium look, complete with pennants and arches along the roof edge.

This is really a case for the Supreme Court — a struggle of the government versus private homeowners and the preservation of property rights. I think the right team is going to win.

Mr. Ettlinger, a popular science and popular reference writer, lives in Brooklyn.

[nygirl]

^ Are you going to just post some journalists biased opinions or anything factual any time soon? Seeing as how we obviously know what side Stever Ettlinger choose are we supposed to except he probably won't post all the facts, just the ones that back his opinion up? See an unbiased journalist would have been a better catch for article posting in here, someone who presents just facts without a hint of which side they take on the issue. Why should we even care what STEVE ETTLINGER thinks.. just give me the facts you boob. Oh lol the Nysun.. nevermind..

[TalB]

The NY Sun does have a comment section, so if you don't like what he said, then write it there, but don't use personal attacks or they won't allow for it.

[nygirl]

Actually Mr. Ettlinger has every right to voice his opinion in a newpaper. He isn't coming into the SSC forum and doing it. You just happen to have a knack for posting one sided articles and you post them quite often giving everyone the impression that this is how everyone thinks. I don't have the patience or time to search articles though I have read several in Newsday, the Daily news, and the times by journalists who are less one sided on this particular site. How convenient that you only post articles by journalists that share your biasy. What is the point of trying to inform everyone when it just expresses your views ? When do you post articles about good things going on down there,like the opponents losing trials and actual demo work being done? Oh wait... you hate this project and you want it to fail desperately..

Well then I'll have to call upon Nyguy to do his handywork, or get on Lexusnexus and contribute more articles myself. I warn you though, that there willbe more pro development arguements and articles than negative flooding this thread.

[TalB]

In reality, there is no such thing as a neutral article, and any editor or editorialists tends to be biased somewhere. Is Eroll Louis, a columnist for the Daily News, less biased on his statements on the Atlantic Yds in which he actually supports it? I have posted numerous articles regaurding this project, and some of them were positive, while others were negative. Regaurdless of their stance, I am just the messenger here. If the media wants to talk to Daniel Goldstien, other members of DDDB, or anyone else who opposes this project and place it in the article, they can. The bottom line is that you have your view and Stever Ettlinger has his, and I doubt that DDDB had convinced the Sun into allowing for his editorial. Currently, the project is not u/c, especially if Bruce Ratner looses the other two lawsuits, so it is not inevitable.

[TalB]

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/11/21/putting-the-atlantic-yards-arena-in-a-secure-place/
November 21, 2007, 4:43 pm

Putting the Atlantic Yards Arena in a Secure Place

By Andy Newman

Once the basketball arena at Atlantic Yards in Brooklyn gets built — assuming it does get built — it should be fairly obvious where it is. But until now, the precise location of where the arena is going to be has proved strangely elusive.

The location matters, somewhat, because elected officials and opponents