As a New Jerseyan, I'd be sad to see them go, but if it means we get a bunch of Brooklyn talls and a Frank Gehry building, then I'm all for it!


NYTIMES

A Grand Plan in Brooklyn for the Nets' Arena Complex
By CHARLES V. BAGLI

Published: December 11, 2003

The developer Bruce Ratner unveiled his plans yesterday to build a Frank Gehry-designed arena for the Nets basketball team near Downtown Brooklyn. He detailed his ambitious $2.5 billion commercial and residential project at a theatrical presentation attended by the mayor, a former basketball star and a best-selling rapper.

Whatever political juice and street credibility he gained — from Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, the former Nets and Knicks legend Bernard King and the performer Jay-Z — Mr. Ratner's presentation at Brooklyn Borough Hall was aimed mainly at the owners of the New Jersey Nets, who are selling the two-time Eastern Conference championship franchise.

A group led by Mr. Ratner of Forest City Ratner Companies has the highest bid, $275 million. But the sale of the National Basketball Association team has gone through many twists over the last six months, and another round of bidding is in the offing. The news conference was also a response to rivals who questioned whether Mr. Ratner could deliver on his promises.

Showing how pitched the battle will be, Gov. James E. McGreevey of New Jersey upped the ante after the Brooklyn news conference yesterday by saying that his state had secured $150 million to build a rail line to Continental Arena at the Meadowlands, the Nets' current home.

Mr. Ratner has a track record with such projects, having built, among other things, the seven-million-square-foot MetroTech Center complex nearby in Downtown Brooklyn. For the Nets project, he has assembled a group of well-heeled investors with Brooklyn roots, including Vincent Viola, chairman of the New York Mercantile Exchange, and Jay-Z. (Forest City Ratner is The New York Times Company's partner in developing the new Times headquarters on Eighth Avenue in Manhattan.)

Speaking of the Brooklyn project, Mr. Ratner said: "We are real. This is going to happen." He added, "If we don't get the team there will not be a project."

Mr. Bloomberg lent City Hall's support to the project, saying, "We're rooting hard" for it to succeed.

Outside the news conference, about two dozen residents distributed cookies in the shape of turkeys, an edible reference to their view of Mr. Ratner's proposal for the arena, office towers and apartment buildings. But the Brooklyn Borough president, Marty Markowitz, said the project would fill the hole left when the Brooklyn Dodgers moved to Los Angeles after the 1957 season, a moment that he said still reduces him to tears.

"Brooklyn is a world-class city, and it deserves a world-class team in a world-class arena designed by a world-class architect," he said. "This plan goes even further, creating thousands of apartments affordable to Brooklynites of every income and producing thousands of jobs."

Mr. Ratner said his effort began after Mr. Markowitz called urging him to buy the Nets and move the team to Brooklyn. The 21-acre project centers on the Long Island Rail Road yards at the intersection of Atlantic and Flatbush Avenues. Under the proposal, the tracks for the train storage yard would be moved to the east, allowing the developer to build the $435 million, 19,000-seat arena for basketball, topped by a park with a running track that could be converted to an ice rink in the winter.

The arena, which will be linked to the Atlantic Terminal subway and train lines, would be embraced by four tall office towers totaling 2.1 million square feet, with up to 4,500 apartments in buildings to the east.

Rather than walling itself off from the community, Mr. Ratner and Mr. Gehry said, the arena would be sheathed in glass, allowing patrons a view of Brooklyn night life and passers-by a look at the interior.

"This started with basketball, a Brooklyn sport," Mr. Ratner said. "This was always the site. But it became clear it was not economically viable without a real estate component. And Frank Gehry was the perfect architect for this site."

Mr. Gehry, who designed the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, and the Mighty Ducks hockey training facility in Anaheim, Calif., said he had never had an opportunity "to build a neighborhood from scratch in an urban setting."

He said the renderings and models on display yesterday were merely the first steps in the designs. "Don't worry about these funny shapes at this point," Mr. Gehry said. "These are just blocks, and we'll make something out of it."

Even some sports economists who have been critical of stadium and arena projects elsewhere are intrigued by Mr. Ratner's plans.

"It has all the ingredients to be successful," said Prof. Mark S. Rosentraub, a sports economist and the dean of Urban Affairs at Cleveland State University in Ohio. "It's a very attractive market. Add in the kind of housing that's being talked about and the retail opportunities, you have something that could work."

Mr. Ratner said that the project "will be almost exclusively privately financed," although taxes derived from elements of the project will be diverted to help pay for it. The developer also wants the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to turn over some of its land and the state to condemn the rest of it. Only one block, he said, had apartment buildings, with about 100 residents.

Mr. Ratner must also survive a grueling environmental review and community opposition.

Despite the developer's pledge to conduct a public review, Patti Hagan, a member of the Prospect Heights Action Coalition, said she was "appalled by the secrecy surrounding the project." She questioned why the city was intent on giving Mr. Ratner exclusive rights to public property without a review.

Are the NJ Devils moving as well?

This site has alot of pictures and info:

http://brooklynnets.net

Here are some models and captions from some newspapers:

http://www.nynewsday.com/media/photo/2003-12/10566297.jpg

Architect Frank Gehry, (far right), along with Bruce Ratner (far left), joined Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz to unveil a vision for a basketball arena and mixed-use complex in downtown Brooklyn. They hope to woo the New Jersey Nets.

http://www.nynewsday.com/media/photo/2003-12/10566442.jpg

Scale model of a design by architect Frank Gehry for a basketball arena and mixed-use complex in downtown Brooklyn. The presentation on Wednesday was part of a bid to woo the New Jersey Nets to Brooklyn.

http://www.nynewsday.com/media/photo/2003-12/10566430.jpg

Scale model of a design by architect Frank Gehry for a basketball arena and mixed-use complex in downtown Brooklyn. The presentation on Wednesday was part of a bid to woo the New Jersey Nets to Brooklyn.

http://www.nypost.com/photos/news12110309.jpg

HOOP DREAMS: Designer Frank Gehry's concept for a downtown Brooklyn arena includes a roof garden that could be frozen over in winter to create an ice-skating rink.

Good article:

Group unveils plan for arena and housing

By Glenn Thrush
December 11, 2003

If only Nets home games were as well-attended, star-studded or boisterous as Brooklyn's bid to woo the team from the swamps of New Jersey to the corner of Flatbush and Atlantic avenues.

At an event that was part planning session and part pep rally, developers yesterday unveiled a $2.5-billion proposal to build an arena and housing complex above the Atlantic Avenue rail hub in Fort Greene.

Superstar architect Frank Gehry joined Brooklyn-bred rapper Jay-Z, who is part of the project's investment group, ex-Knick and Net Bernard King and Mayor Michael Bloomberg to sell the Nets on relocating to Brooklyn.

"I'm in love with the whole thing," said Jay-Z, who wouldn't disclose how much he'll invest. "Let's get the Nets."

So far, Ratner has outbid a New Jersey-based partnership that includes developer Charles Kushner and Sen. Jon Corzine (D-N.J.).

Gehry's preliminary plans for a 19,000-seat arena would not require public financing, city officials said. Instead, the project would be funded by Ratner, his investors and tax revenue from 4,500 residential units and more than 2 million square feet of commercial and retail space.

NY1

Brooklyn Residents Say Proposed Sports Arena Threatens Their Homes

http://www.ny1.com/Content/images/live/56/110177.jpg

JANUARY 14TH, 2004

Brooklyn residents living near a proposed sports arena say their homes are being threatened.

Developer Bruce Ratner's proposal for a 20,000-seat arena over the MTA rail yards near Flatbush and Atlantic avenues drew resistance Wednesday from a group of protestors opposed to the plan. Protesters accuse Ratner of trying to take over private homes and businesses to complete his plan.

“Mr. Ratner is expecting the state to condemn as blighted and seize private property – the homes, the businesses - of more than three blocks of Prospect Heights in order to convey this land over to one private developer,” said Brooklyn resident Patty Hagen.

Former New York Yankee pitcher Jim Bouton says the same thing happened in his Massachusetts hometown when a new arena was built. He says residents will not reap any lasting benefits from the venue.

“The jobs that are attracted by sports arenas are very low-level jobs like popcorn salesman, Zamboni driver or ticket taker,” said Bouton. “The real money made at the stadium or the arena is made by the players and developers, and they take their money with them when the season is over.”

Top city and state officials have supported a plan to lure the New Jersey Nets to play at the proposed $2.5 billion arena in Brooklyn. A decision on the team's future is expected later this month.

DAILY NEWS

Say Nets deal near
But builder's rivals set for fight to death

By OHM YOUNGMISUK and LEO STANDORA

A city real estate developer is "extremely close" to buying the New Jersey Nets, sources said last night - but his dream of bringing the team to Brooklyn is still far from a slam dunk.

Builder Bruce Ratner is expected to soon ink a deal in which he would shell out about $300 million for the basketball franchise, sources familiar with the negotiations said.

"No papers have been signed yet, but it should be very soon, possibly within a few days," said a source close to Ratner. "The money is about right, but they're extremely close to a deal."

Another source said Ratner already has told government officials he's getting the team.

Both Ratner and Nets owner Lewis Katz declined to talk about the negotiations.

"If somebody is going to make a comment, it is not going to be me," said Katz, who has been seen with Ratner more and more in recent days.

Ratner upped his offer for the Nets from $275 million to $300 million last month after rap impresario Jay-Z joined forces with him. Two other groups are vying for the team, including one led by Sen. Jon Corzine (D-N.J.), who wants to keep the team in Jersey.

If the Ratner deal comes off, Brooklyn will have its first big league sports team since the Dodgers left in 1957. The Brooklyn Nets could be a reality by the 2006-07 season.

But Ratner's interest in the team is directly hinged to building an arena in downtown Brooklyn - a project that faces a number of hurdles:

Ratner can't write a check until 21 of the 28 other NBA owners approve the sale and the move from the Meadowlands to Brooklyn. There have been rumblings that the Knicks may lobby hard against the plan.

The city also would have to give Ratner the okay to build the proposed 20,000-seat arena. The Frank Gehry-designed stadium is part of a controversial $2.5 billion development that also includes Manhattan-sized office and residential towers.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority must grant Ratner air rights to build the arena over the Long Island Rail Road yard at Flatbush and Atlantic Aves.
If everything comes together, Ratner has said, construction on the stadium would begin next year.

Last month, Mayor Bloomberg hailed the plans as a way to revitalize Brooklyn, saying, "This is the place for a professional basketball team."

But critics contend the arena complex would overwhelm the low-rise communities of Fort Greene and Prospect Heights.

And while Ratner has estimated 100 people would be displaced under his plan, foes put the number at 1,000, and say more than 400 small-business jobs would be lost.

"Ratner doesn't give a damn about the neighborhood," said Patti Hagan of the Prospect Heights Action Coalition. "He's never walked around this community to find out who would be affected."

Nets Are Sold for $300 Million, and Dream Grows in Brooklyn
By RICHARD SANDOMIR and CHARLES V. BAGLI

Bruce C. Ratner, the developer who wants to move the New Jersey Nets to downtown Brooklyn, reached an agreement yesterday to buy the team for $300 million, defeating a similar offer by Charles Kushner and Senator Jon S. Corzine, the team said.

There is no guarantee that Mr. Ratner will be able to fulfill his vision in Brooklyn, where sports fans are still haunted by memories of the Dodgers' departure to Los Angeles after the 1957 season. The arena would be built on the same site the Dodgers were rebuffed from buying.

Mr. Ratner faces numerous obstacles, including having land condemned and having railroad tracks moved, before he can move the Nets to Brooklyn when the team's lease at Continental Arena expires in 2008.

But the first step in building a new arena for the Nets is complete: the purchase of the team. Without the team, Mr. Ratner has said, the $2.5 billion commercial and residential complex designed by Frank Gehry, with the Nets' arena as the centerpiece, would be dead.

Edwin Stier, president of the Nets' ownership group, Community Youth Organization, said: "We're in the final stages of negotiating an agreement with Bruce Ratner. The contract terms have been finalized and we're putting the paperwork together."

For most of the past week, Mr. Ratner and Mr. Kushner were able to examine long-withheld and detailed financial records about the team, allowing them to form substantial, final bids.

On Monday, Mr. Ratner formalized his month-old $300 million bid and negotiators began to clarify the elements of his offer, including the long-term salary obligations he would assume.

On Tuesday, Mr. Kushner presented two offers: one, of $267.5 million in cash, and a second, consisting of $200 million upfront and $100 million over several years, one official involved in the negotiations said. But that was considered inadequate, and the decision was made to complete the deal with Mr. Ratner.

Despite Mr. Kushner's willingness yesterday to raise his offer to $300 million upfront, the Nets and their negotiators decided that they had finished their contract with Mr. Ratner and chose not to consider Mr. Kushner's final bid.

"He just wasn't there," one executive who has been briefed throughout the talks said of Mr. Kushner. "Ratner wanted this thing so bad, he did what it took to get it."

Bob Sommer, a spokesman for Mr. Kushner, a Florham Park, N.J., real estate developer, said, "Charlie Kushner bid $300 million in cash today to keep this team in New Jersey and is disappointed in the result."

The C.Y.O. board agreed to the deal's terms, and the contract now goes for approval tomorrow to YankeeNets, the holding company for the Nets and the Yankees, which is on the verge of being dissolved. Approval is also needed from three-quarters of the teams in the National Basketball Association to buy the franchise and a simple majority to move it.

A move to Brooklyn would mean another move for the peripatetic franchise. It began life as the New Jersey Americans of the American Basketball Association in Teaneck, N.J., then played in Commack, N.Y.; West Hempstead, N.Y.; Nassau Coliseum in Uniondale, N.Y.; Piscataway, N.J.; and finally found permanence in 1981 when it became a tenant of what is now Continental Arena.

The Nets have often struggled on the court but won the Eastern Conference championship the past two seasons. Still, the Nets are next to last in average attendance among the N.B.A.'s 29 teams this season.

The team's value has exploded since Roy Boe paid $1.1 million for the A.B.A. franchise in 1969. At $300 million, the price is double what Community Youth Organization, led by Raymond Chambers and Lewis Katz, paid for it in 1998, a year before they merged it with the Yankees into YankeeNets. But it ranks behind the record $360 million paid in 2002 for the Boston Celtics.

The sale to Mr. Ratner, whose company is also the development partner of The New York Times Company in a new building for the newspaper's headquarters, culminates a six-month process.

First there were three bidders: Mr. Ratner, who started at $275 million; the Kushner group, which includes Mr. Corzine, the United States senator from New Jersey, and which opened at $250 million; and Charles B. Wang, the co-owner of the Islanders, at $265 million. They were later joined by Stuart Feldman, a venture capitalist who never publicly discussed his $257.5 million offer or his intentions for the team. Mr. Wang dropped out in frustration with the process, and Mr. Feldman was never a serious competitor.

The effort to sell the Nets has been marked by recriminations between owners of the Yankees and the Nets, as well as among Nets owners themselves.

"It took so long because the personality clashes at YankeeNets created an untenable situation," said Joseph Ravitch, a managing director of Goldman Sachs, one of the team's investment bankers. "The agreement reached in December to separate C.Y.O. from Yankee Holdings was a critical step in expediting the sale of the team."

Community Youth Organization bought the Nets with the idea of moving them to Newark to help revive its economy. Mr. Katz and Mr. Chambers pledged to pour the profits into a newly formed charity. But the team lost tens of millions of dollars and failed to complete a deal for an arena in Newark, leading to a split between Mr. Chambers and Mr. Katz and ultimately the decision to sell.

Earlier this week, George Zoffinger, president of the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority, which owns Continental Arena, criticized Mr. Katz and Alan Landis, another Nets owner, and vowed to block Mr. Ratner from taking the Nets name to Brooklyn.

"We think a lot of N.B.A. owners are going to want to be in this market," he said. "I suggest Ratner name the team after himself: the Brooklyn Rats. Katz and Landis will fit right in."

In the final stages of their partnership, Nets owners refused to provide bidders with access to financial information necessary to assess the team's value until they were assured last month that YankeeNets would adopt a plan to dissolve, an official involved in the negotiation said.

The Ratner group, whose partners include the hip-hop entrepreneur Jay-Z and Vincent Viola, chairman of the New York Mercantile Exchange, has been trying to create a proposal that would encounter little resistance from government officials and community opponents. Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has been an enthusiastic supporter of the project, but the administration of Gov. George E. Pataki has been been relatively quiet.

A top state official said the governor did not want to be accused of poaching on New Jersey assets and was concerned about the growing list of teams seeking hundreds of millions of dollars in state subsidies for new arenas and stadiums, including the Jets, the Yankees, the Mets, the Knicks and the Rangers.

The project has been embraced by many Brooklyn politicians as the antidote to the loss of the Dodgers and as the crystallization of the borough's economic comeback.

But Patti Hagan, a leader of the Prospect Park Heights Coalition, said the project would eliminate 237 jobs and homes for 864 people.

"This is an example of developer imperialism," she said. "The emperor has decided to take over 10 acres of private property and abolish all the jobs and homes that exist here. Mr. Ratner should know he has a fight on his hands."

In addition to community opposition, Mr. Ratner faces extensive attendance and revenue losses while the team stays in New Jersey before the move to Brooklyn.

Dean Bonham, a sports industry analyst, said: "There is no magic solution to keeping fans in the Meadowlands when you're potentially heading for Brooklyn. But I would deliver the message that a new era for basketball is dawning in New York, he's building a state-of-the-art facility and if you want to be part of something new and fun, come participate with us."

everything is coming to NYC, after the Jets, now the Nets!

If Nets go to Brooklyn... are they going to be called Brooklyn Nets or New York Nets??

They'll be the Brooklyn Nets most likely, since the Knicks already got the New York title.

They'll be the Brooklyn something. NJ is fighting to keep the "Nets" name in the state in case there will ever be an expansion franchise in NJ (the way Cleveland was able to keep the NFL Cleveland Browns name even if the organization was moved to Baltimore and became the Baltimore Ravens). But I find this weird since the NJ Nets were at one time the NY Nets.

We'll see. It all depends on whether NYC is able to rezone the land that they hope to build the arena on and on whether the NBA approves the move.

Originally posted by savethewtc

They'll be the Brooklyn Nets most likely, since the Knicks already got the New York title.

Yes, but there're LA Lakers and LA Clippers! hehe I'd prefer NY Nets rather than Brooklyn Nets...

Ask any Brooklyn resident and they'll tell you they're Brooklyn first, New Yorker second. Calling their team NY Nets will be a nod to the "imperialist" Manhattanites.

Huge floorplans and map:

http://graphics7.nytimes.com/images/2004/01/22/sports/0122_spt_NETS_stadium.gif

NY1

Nets Owners Approve Sale Of New Jersey Team To Brooklyn Developer

http://www.ny1.com/Content/images/live/56/111196.jpg

JANUARY 23RD, 2004

The owners of the New Jersey Nets have formally approved the sale of the team to Brooklyn developer Bruce Ratner in what could be the first step in returning major professional sports to the borough for the first time since 1957.

The decision, made by the Nets' ownership group Friday morning, was trumpeted in an afternoon press conference attended by Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Governor George Pataki, Senator Chuck Schumer and Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz.

"It's about time people not just here in New York but all over the world think of Brooklyn as a destination, and that's what this will do," said Pataki.

"It is also about values," said Ratner. "It's about the value of inclusion and diversity and housing for all incomes. It's the value of something as simple as affordable tickets so everyone can go to basketball games."

Ratner wants the Nets to become the centerpiece of a $2.5 billion complex in Prospect Heights. A 19,000-seat arena would sit amid thousands of apartments, hundreds of thousands of square feet of shopping space and more than two million square feet of offices.

Ratner's plan still faces major hurdles. The Nets' move would have to be approved by the NBA, and the construction of the sporting complex would require the approval of numerous government agencies.

Most of the project would sit atop a Long Island Railroad yard owned by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, a state agency controlled by Pataki.

From the state, Ratner needs both air rights and a condemnation power to take nearby homes and businesses. The developer estimates about 150 homes would be affected, although neighbors fear the number would be higher.

The complex is already facing resistance from a number of area residents who would be forced out of their homes.

Among those who would be displaced are residents of a converted warehouse that has become home to many artists. Right now they're living on what would be center court.

“We believe it's entirely possible for him to build his arena on land he already owns,” said Prospect Heights resident Joel Towers. “He does not have to condemn our homes. He owns something called the Atlantic Center Mall on the other side of Atlantic Avenue. He himself has told us as recently as October that he's not particularly proud of that building and he could do us all a favor by condemning his own land as opposed to our land.”

Area residents were out Thursday to protest the potential construction of the new complex. They say they will take their fight to the courts if necessary.

Meanwhile on his radio show today, Mayor Bloomberg said he understands why people are concerned.

"I'm sympathetic to people who don't like something like this moving in to their neighborhood," he said. "Generally speaking, this guy Ratner is a very responsible developer. If you go back and look at his track record when he developed MetroTech, which made an enormous difference in this city, he treated people very well. People that get a lot of money to move or better apartments tend to say, 'Oh, well I didn't think it would be this bad. It's good. I'm happy to do it.'"

The Nets were founded in 1967 as the New Jersey Americans of the now-defunct American Basketball Association. They changed their name to the New York Nets when they moved to Long Island in 1968, then become the New Jersey Nets when they moved back to New Jersey to join the NBA in 1976.

The team has played in the Meadowlands Sports Complex since 1981. After a number of lean years in the 1980's and 90's, the Nets have made consecutive trips to the NBA Finals in the last two years.

Brooklyn has not fielded a major professional sports team since the Major League Baseball Dodgers left the borough for Los Angeles in 1957.

--------------------------------
NY1 also has a poll asking what the name of the team should be:

http://www.ny1.com/ny/Polls/index.html?topicintid=15&subtopicintid=141&pollactivequestionintid=1283

Huge pic:

http://www.bball.net/documents/jpg/09_urban_room.jpg

http://graphics7.nytimes.com/images/2004/01/21/sports/21ARAT-xlg.jpg

By Derek2k3:

http://galleries.soaringtowers.org/albums/Derek2k3/DSCN0857.sized.jpg

http://galleries.soaringtowers.org/albums/Derek2k3/DSCN0868.sized.jpg

http://galleries.soaringtowers.org/albums/Derek2k3/Brooklyn_Nets_Stadium_1_BrooklynHoops_Frank_Gehry.sized.jpg

http://galleries.soaringtowers.org/albums/Derek2k3/DSCN0850.sized.jpg

http://galleries.soaringtowers.org/albums/Derek2k3/DSCN0840.sized.jpg

NETS MAY BLOW KEY BANK $HOT

By BRAD HAMILTON

NY Post

February 15, 2004 -- The Nets to Brooklyn? Not so fast.

Developer Bruce Ratner is up against a formidable foe in his bid to bring the NBA title contenders to Atlantic Avenue, said sources close to the deal:

His own bankers.

Ratner is preparing a full-court press to get JPMorgan Chase to loan him the hundreds of millions in investment capital he needs for the 10-building megaplex, which includes an arena for the team, offices, shops and apartments.

His game plan for the $450 million arena features a report now being worked up by two notable critics of sports facilities, experts Andrew Zimbalist and Richard Lipsky, whom Ratner hired to show that New York City would come out ahead if the Nets crossed the Hudson.

So far, Chase has committed just $150 million toward the $300 million purchase price of the Nets. Goldman Sachs crunched numbers on the sale but hasn't become a lender.

A bigger issue is getting bank bucks for the rest of the site.

And that's no slam-dunk, since Ratner hasn't yet inked any prospective tenants for the 3 million square feet of office space he plans to construct, sources said.

"No one wants to lend on a speculative project," said one commercial real-estate source who knows Ratner.

All the new proposed cubicles, corner offices and executive boardrooms - a vast array of office space larger than that at the Empire State Building - don't come cheap.

The offices alone at Atlantic Avenue could cost up to $1.5 billion to build, and they make up the biggest piece of Ratner's $2.5 billion development.

Meanwhile, Ratner has struggled to find occupants for other projects, including his stalled Times Square tower and an unfinished high-rise above the Brooklyn Long Island Rail Road terminal, which sits across the street from the proposed arena.

The stakes could hardly be higher - the project costs are half the total value of Forest City Ratner, his $5 billion Cleveland family business.

Meanwhile, the clock is ticking. Within the next three months, Ratner will get a grilling from the NBA's Board of Governors, a group that represents all 29 franchise owners and can veto any proposed sale, one source close to the Nets said. Rattner, who needs the support of 22 owners to win approval for the move - and the Knicks' Jim Dolan is firmly against it - faces tough questions about paying for the 19,000-seat arena.

The team's mounting losses will also spur concern.

Their average attendance this year, just over 14,000, puts them second to last in the league (above only Atlanta), prompting losses estimated at about $20 million a year.

NY Post

QUEENS POL TRIES TO MAKE A STEAL FOR NETS

By GERSH KUNTZMAN

February 19, 2004 -- Yes, in his back yard.

A Queens councilman showed up unannounced yesterday at a rally against a Brooklyn arena for the New Jersey Nets, and promptly offered his Long Island City district as the team's logical new home.

"We would welcome this team in Queens," said Councilman Eric Gioia, upstaging an announcement by Nets opponents that they had hired noted civil-rights lawyer Norman Siegel to fight Bruce Ratner's plans to build a $450 million arena for his newly purchased basketball team.

Ratner's plan would require the condemnation of several buildings and displace hundreds of people. Yesterday, many of those homeowners carried posters reading "Develop, Don't Destroy" and "Stop Illegal Eminent Domain."

Supporters of Ratner say opponents are simply suffering from the NIMBY - Not In My Back Yard - syndrome. But Gioia disagreed: "It's an awful burden to ask people to move out of homes and something you should only do if there's an extraordinary public need. A basketball arena is not that."

Gioia said he will ask city and state agencies to consider putting the Nets in an arena built over the Sunnyside rail yards or next to Shea Stadium in Flushing.

A spokesman for Ratner, Joe DePlasco, said, "We thank the councilman for his support, but we are confident that we have the best location possible in Brooklyn."

New York Giants / New York Jets, New York Yankees / New York Mets, New York Knicks / New York Nets(?)

Originally posted by Labtec

New York Giants / New York Jets, New York Yankees / New York Mets, New York Knicks / New York Nets(?)

They call themselves the NY Giants, but they're in NJ. Same with the Jets but maybe they'll really be the New York Jets in a few years.

Mets, Yankees, yes.... Islanders and Rangers too.

The New York Knicks.... but should the Nets move to Brooklyn they should be the Brooklyn Nets. No other way to call them. If they're in Queens, they should be the NY Nets. But if they're in Brooklyn, Brooklyn's got to represent.

NY1

Opponents Of Nets Arena In Brooklyn Plan Alternative

http://www.ny1.com/Content/images/live/58/115954.JPG

MARCH 08TH, 2004

After months of protesting, opponents of a new arena for the Nets in Brooklyn that would displace hundreds of residents have adopted a new tactic, drawing up development plans of their own.

“We are not against development,” City Councilwoman Letitia James said at a rally on the steps of City Hall Sunday. “But we are for development that makes sense – development on a human scale.”

James announced she will hold a planning workshop later this month to gather community input.

In addition to the arena, developer Bruce Ratner's plan calls for four office towers and 13 residential complexes. It hasn't proved popular with local residents. One of the main objections is that it's been a closed process, without any public hearings or any meaningful input from Brooklyn residents.

“The scheme, the plot for this whole arena plus buildings has been developed in a way to shut people out,” said Congressman Major Owens. “It comes from the top.”

“We should and must demand that we be part of the process of the process of determining what will be there,” said state Senator Valmanette Montgomery. “We want a public process from top to bottom.”

Many residents say the complex simply isn't needed, and they object to being kicked out of their homes by the government to make way for a private development.

“I think the simple point is the use of eminent domain for something like this is just not right,” said Ross Bonadonna, who faces eviction. “It's not democratic, and it's not about people.”

Details of the alternative development haven't yet been decided, but the plan would not seize private property and likely won't include an arena. However, Representative Owens said an arena could go elsewhere.

“The Brooklyn Navy Yard is the ideal place for an arena,” Owens said. “Fine, bring the Nets to Brooklyn. Put them in the Brooklyn Navy Yard. We own that.”

Whatever the alternative plan looks like, proponents say it will be reached by community consensus.

“People want to be at the table,” James said. “You cannot go forward. Democracy does not call for the development of a community without input from the community.”

- Bobby Cuza

Newsday

Ratner may spare building to save plan

By Glenn Thrush
Staff Writer

April 11, 2004, 9:05 PM EDT

There's something in the way he moves...

Nets owner Bruce Ratner is thinking about using giant rollers to move one or more occupied residential buildings that would otherwise be destroyed if he builds the team's new arena on Atlantic Avenue.

Ratner's development company grabbed headlines in 1998 by rolling the Empire Theater 168 feet on 42nd Street in Manhattan. He may repeat the trick to accommodate his controversial 19,000-seat Brooklyn Nets arena in Prospect Heights, sources close to the developer told Newsday.

In the fall, Ratner dispatched engineers to the Seagoing Lofts condominium building at 24 Sixth Ave. to test the feasibility of relocating it to a site across the street, said an official familiar with the Nets project.

"Nothing they saw led them to believe it couldn't be done," the official said on condition of anonymity. "You might be able to literally save the building by rolling it 20 feet across the street. ... What you don't want to do is condemn buildings and displace people if you don't have to."

Under the plan, Ratner could move the 21-unit building, a spiffed-up red brick former Spalding sporting goods factory whose apartments fetch $500,000 or more, to a lot currently occupied by a warehouse.

"Seagoing" refers to the name of a fish company that was the building's last commercial occupant.

"I don't like the idea, and I personally don't care if it's feasible," loft owner Kieran O'Leary, 42, said yesterday. "I don't want to live next to an arena, anyway."

Marc Wancer, 36, peered at the rain-streaked stretch of Sixth Ave. that his loft would have to roll across and chuckled in disbelief.

"Ratner really must be a high roller," he said.

Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz, who backs the Nets' move from New Jersey, urged residents to keep an open mind.

"From day one, my sense is that it's possible; if a building could be moved, then I would applaud that," he said. "Bruce and I have both spoken about it over the course of many months. It's among a smorgasbord of possibilities."

While an ambitious idea, it pales to the relocation of the landmarked, 3,400-ton Empire, which cost Forest City Ratner about $1.2 million.

Last month, Newsday reported that Ratner and architect Frank Gehry were considering revising the arena project to spare an unspecified number of occupied buildings that would otherwise have to be razed.

The total number of buildings that would have to be moved for the arena, residential towers and new commercial buildings is unclear.

Attorney Norman Siegel, who represents a coalition fighting the project, has said 162 dwellings with 334 residents could be displaced. The project, backed by the Bloomberg administration, could also displace 33 businesses employing 235 people, according to Siegel.

Newsday

Nets arena plan aired out

BY ERROL A. COCKFIELD JR. AND CURTIS L. TAYLOR
Staff Writers

May 4, 2004, 8:18 PM EDT

Several hundred Brooklyn residents filled the City Council chamber Tuesday to voice concerns about the $2.5-billion development project that would include a new basketball arena for the Nets.

Their concerns included the fear of losing their homes, job creation and traffic issues.

Bill Howell, chairman of the Downtown Brooklyn Advisory and Oversight Committee, said the project's developer, Forest City Ratner, met or exceeded expectations on previous projects developed in the borough in the past 17 years.

"When Metro Tech was proposed, there were critics who said that Forest City would not provide jobs to the community," said Howell, president of Howell Industries, a minority-owned business in Red Hook. "They were wrong, and the evidence is clear. Just check the certified payrolls and the addresses of the workers at the job site and they will show that jobs actually went to the community," he told the council's Economic Development Committee.

Homeowner Chris Owens said the city failed to make a convincing case for the development.

"The city cannot articulate the benefits," he said. "There are a lot of assumptions at the moment."

Jim Stuckey, vice president for Forest City, testified that adjustments were being made to the existing plan to save more of the 160 dwellings earmarked for demolition under the current plan.

The arena is part of a redevelopment plan to transform Atlantic Yards, near the intersection of Flatbush and Atlantic avenues, into a mix of residential, office and retail space and parks.

Thirty-three businesses also would be demolished under the existing plan, according to opponents.

Monday, Forest City issued an economic study prepared by Andrew Zimbalist, a Smith College economist, who concluded that the Atlantic Yards development would net $812 million of additional revenue for the city and state over the next 30 years. The new revenue would come mainly from taxes on the incomes of players and team executives, as well as commercial and residential development adjacent to the proposed arena.

Forest City Ratner retained Zimbalist, who has written extensively about the negatives of sports arenas, in December.

Zimbalist said he is a proponent of the Downtown Brooklyn project because it departs from the typical stand-alone model. About 1.9 million square feet of office space and 4,500 new housing units would surround the arena.

"That makes it different from other sports projects," Zimbalist said.

Good to see that this is one of Gehry's less hideous works :)

NY Times

Deal Is Signed for Nets Arena in Brooklyn

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2005/03/04/nyregion/arena.span.jpg
A rendering of the arena in Brooklyn. The city and state would each provide $100 million to help the project.

By CHARLES V. BAGLI
Published: March 4, 2005

The city and the state have signed an agreement with the developer Bruce C. Ratner to build a new home for the Nets basketball team and at least 4,500 apartments as part of a $2.5 billion project at the Atlantic Yards in Brooklyn.

Under the terms of the nonbinding agreement that has been under negotiation for nearly a year, Mr. Ratner, chief executive of Forest City Ratner Companies, would build a $435 million, glass-enclosed arena designed by Frank Gehry on the railyards at the intersection of Flatbush and Atlantic Avenues. The developer would also build more than a dozen residential buildings for mixed-income residents on three blocks to the east.

The 21-acre project, which has come under attack from some local residents, is the largest development in the city outside of Manhattan in the last 25 years. If the project gets all the necessary approvals, the city and the state have agreed to provide about $100 million each for site preparation, new streets and utilities and environmental cleanup.

"This is an historic project that will continue to energize the borough of Brooklyn," Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said in a statement issued last night. He had hoped to announce the project on his radio program today, but word leaked out.

In his statement, Gov. George E. Pataki said the city was now "one step closer to bringing professional sports back to Brooklyn."

The agreement, known as a memorandum of understanding, is a milestone for the project. But it still must go through a lengthy environmental review, condemnation proceedings, approval by the state Public Authorities Control Board and possible lawsuits. The Empire State Development Corporation would shepherd the project through the review process and take control of any land the developer has not already acquired.

"This project is too big," said Patti Hagan, a leader of the Prospect Heights Action Coalition. "We don't want to supersize Brooklyn." She said 1,000 people would lose their jobs or homes because of the project.

Mr. Ratner must also contend with a rival developer, Shaya Boymelgreen, who owns property on the development site and, at least for now, opposes Forest City's project. Mr. Boymelgreen's company has said it is moving forward with plans to convert an old bread factory into a hotel. The state would have to condemn Mr. Boymelgreen's property for Mr. Ratner's project to go forward.

Mr. Ratner must also buy or lease the railyard from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority so that he can build the 19,000-seat arena there. In a separate agreement with the authority, he agreed to pay fair market value for the property. But the authority also reserved its right to hold an auction to determine that value and to sell it to another bidder.

Earlier this year, the authority had been ready to sign the agreement with the city, the state and the developer. But that plan went awry after Cablevision offered to buy the development rights over the West Side railyards in Manhattan at a higher price than the Jets, which already had an agreement with the authority to build a football stadium there. The authority ultimately decided to open up the bidding in Manhattan to all potential buyers and to follow a similar process in Brooklyn.

Mr. Ratner led an investment group that bought the Nets a year ago with the intention of moving the team to a new arena in Brooklyn. He used the arena, in turn, as leverage for a large housing development. The project originally called for four office towers. Executives who have talked with the developer say he plans to scale back the office space to add as many as 1,000 apartments.

good news!

nice stuff,i'm so jealous of new york

Great news.

When will construction begin?

NY TIMES

Unlike Stadium on West Side, an Arena in Brooklyn Is Still a Go

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Opponents helped stop a football stadium on the Far West Side of Manhattan. But so far, those against a new basketball arena in Brooklyn, like protesters on Tuesday fighting the plan and high-rises in Prospect Heights, have not derailed the project.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2005/06/09/nyregion/stadium.184..2.650.jpg
The proposed 20,000-seat basketball arena for the Nets' move to Brooklyn.

By JIM RUTENBERG and MICHAEL BRICK
June 9, 2005


As Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg's plan for a Far West Side stadium was going down to defeat this spring, another major plan for a sports arena was quietly coming to fruition in Brooklyn.

Like the ill-fated football stadium plan for the Jets, the Brooklyn basketball arena, planned for the Nets by its team owner, the developer Bruce Ratner, would be subsidized by hundreds of millions in taxpayer dollars and include ambitious redevelopment projects in the surrounding area. It would also be an imposing presence near neighborhoods known for their political activism. And the arena, though strongly backed by the mayor, would most likely require approval of the same obscure state group, the Public Authorities Control Board, which voted to kill the West Side stadium proposal on Monday.

Yet, in a reflection of the relatively smooth sailing the Brooklyn project has enjoyed, one of two men on that board who scuttled the West Side plan this week, Senate Majority Leader Joseph L. Bruno, indicated yesterday that he would support the new arena for the Nets, who would move to Brooklyn from New Jersey. The other, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, said yesterday that he would be far less likely to stand in its way, since it would not hurt business in his Lower Manhattan district.

While the Brooklyn plan still has hurdles, its progress so far is providing an object lesson in how to navigate big projects through the often treacherous and choppy waters of New York state and city politics. In the Brooklyn project, backers have aggressively courted the local community since the project's inception, trying to placate those who could be its most aggressive foes. Perhaps most important, they have reached out to Mr. Silver.

"They worked more cooperatively and openly with elected officials and community leaders," said City Council Speaker Gifford Miller, a mayoral candidate who supports the Brooklyn plan and had become an ardent critic of the West Side stadium plan. "Rather than just saying, look, here it is, now we're going to bring everything we can to bear on you to agree," Mr. Miller said, "I think there was more of a give and take."

In the post-mortems of the failed West Side stadium plan, critics asserted this week that the Jets and the city's point man on the project, Deputy Mayor Daniel L. Doctoroff, had erred by first trying to sidestep state legislators, then building a coalition of supporters too late - most notably failing to court Mr. Silver early enough to win his backing and allay his concerns that the West Side redevelopment plan would hurt efforts to revive Lower Manhattan.

Mr. Bloomberg's aides asserted that Mr. Silver was going to vote against the plan no matter when they began courting him. And even stadium opponents credited the Jets with ultimately building a broad coalition that included both the Rev. Al Sharpton and former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani. But that coalition did not come together until quite recently, long after a key opponent, Cablevision, had begun running advertisements against the West Side stadium.

In contrast, the company building the Brooklyn arena and a large adjoining residential complex, Forest City Ratner - which is also the development partner of The New York Times for its new headquarters in Midtown - took early pains to keep similar opposition from building. As soon as it set about devising its plan in early 2002, it brought aboard a seasoned team of lobbyists who immediately went to work building support among political leaders, especially Mr. Silver.

The developers went public with their plan in December 2003. In announcing the plan, Mr. Ratner described a $2.5 billion project designed by Frank Gehry atop the Atlantic Terminal railway hub.

Opposition to Mr. Ratner's plan emerged quickly, with preservationists and neighborhood groups forming organizations including the Prospect Heights Action Coalition and Develop Don't Destroy. They called rallies, they covered brownstone Brooklyn with fliers and they drafted alternate development plans, arguing the Ratner plan would flood the neighborhood with traffic and overwhelm a low-density area.

But the Ratner group was courting a different constituency. Bruce Bender and James P. Stuckey, executive vice presidents of the development company, studied the opposition, sending assistants to take notes at public meetings or doing it themselves. Mr. Bender has decades of experience as a City Council aide, notably as chief of staff to the former speaker, Peter F. Vallone. Mr. Stuckey is a former president of the Public Development Corporation and a longtime adviser to Mr. Giuliani. They also hired Joe DePlasco of Dan Klores Communications, a former top aide to Mark Green, to handle public relations.

Using jealousy as a wedge, the developers enlisted the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, a group that has fought for low-cost housing. They also courted groups like Brooklyn United for Innovative Local Development, an employment advocacy group formed by James E. Caldwell, the president of the 77th Precinct Community Council, with promises of community involvement in the planning and a sizable share of the jobs.

They drafted an agreement covering minority contracting, job training and community use of the arena, negotiating with the Rev. Dr. Herbert Daughtry, an influential pastor of the House of the Lord Pentecostal Church, and Mr. Caldwell.

Slowly, they carved a base of support in downtown Brooklyn, which seemed more inclined to oppose the project, and those allies began doing much of the work for them.

"Acorn knocked on doors in East New York, Bed-Stuy, Brownsville to find out what they knew about the project," said Bertha Lewis, the executive director of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. "The opposition seemed to be sucking up the press."

The opposition remained publicly united. But the Ratner group, working closely with Mr. Bloomberg's housing aides, worked out a crucial agreement to undercut concerns that the project would drive out poorer long-term residents. Last month, in a boisterous rally at Brooklyn Borough Hall, Mayor Bloomberg, Mr. Ratner and Ms. Lewis announced an agreement to build thousands of units of low-cost housing.

The agreement was a milestone, and the moment was indicative of the differences between the Brooklyn plan and the West Side effort.

"It's when Ratner agreed to the housing that opportunity turned to support in low-income and working-class parts of the area," said Dan Cantor, executive director of the Working Families Party, which derives its support largely from housing and labor groups and has its headquarters in Brooklyn.

But Mr. Cantor added: "In Manhattan, community opposition stayed that way because the benefits were too abstract and the downsides were too concrete. In a way, Ratner was a better politician than Doctoroff and the mayor."

City officials pointed out, however, that Mr. Bloomberg and Mr. Doctoroff have been deeply involved in Mr. Ratner's project from its inception and are pleased with its progress.

Others noted important differences between the West Side stadium and the Brooklyn arena. For example, the Brooklyn arena would require a $200 million public investment as opposed to the $600 million investment the West Side plan was calling for.

Manhattan also has an especially practiced antidevelopment movement on its West Side and is already home to Madison Square Garden and countless world-renown cultural institutions. Brooklyn, still smarting from the loss of the Dodgers nearly 50 years ago, is generally more welcoming to projects that could help put it on the national map.

But opponents say all of this ignores this crucial advantage that Forest City Ratner had over the Jets: It did not have to face an opponent such as Cablevision, the owner of Madison Square Garden, which has money to wage such a battle. Cablevision was less threatened by competition in the form of a competing site in Brooklyn than it was by one a few blocks away in Manhattan.

"There is a lot of community opposition," said Councilman Charles Barron, of East New York. "But I don't have enough money to put television ads on."

NY TIMES

Questions for Bruce Ratner Stadium, Anyone?

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Interview by DEBORAH SOLOMON
June 26, 2005

Q: How do you explain the sudden vogue for stadiums and arenas? So many teams want a new home -- the Mets in Queens, the Yankees in the Bronx, the Jets with their doomed project in Manhattan. And you're building a new arena for the Nets in Brooklyn.

It has to do with the economics of sports. The high salaries of athletes drive the whole thing, because it creates a need for revenue. In the case of the Nets, we need an arena that has suites and luxury seating, and where you can put up advertisements all over the place.

Since you're the principal owner of the Nets and paying Vince Carter $15 million a year, why not just slash players' salaries, lower ticket costs and preserve the old, historic stadiums?

Is that a joke? We have to be competitive.

You and your fellow investors bought the Nets last August for $300 million. Have you always loved basketball?

I was never a basketball fan, but I wanted to bring a team to Brooklyn, a team that could be like the Brooklyn Dodgers. There's something intangible that a team contributes, something as intangible as a soul.

When did you get so spiritual? I would think the arena serves your interests as a real-estate developer and will boost the value of the apartments, condominiums and stores that make up your development in progress, the Atlantic Yards.

Not necessarily. Your friends who have bought brownstones in Park Slope and Fort Greene have inflated neighborhood values more than an arena would.

Even though the arena is being designed by Frank Gehry? Look what his curving titanium museum did for Bilbao, Spain.

Brooklyn is already a world-class destination. And it's a completely different building than Bilbao. It will have more glass and transparency. And it's obviously a different shape for basketball.

What do you think of the Meadowlands, out in Jersey, where the Nets currently play?

It's hard to get to the Meadowlands if you don't have a car. There's no train from New York, and you can't take the bus because when the game is done, you've got to wait.

What's wrong with waiting for a bus?

Nothing. I love waiting for buses! I love Port Authority! I spend my afternoons there! I love panhandlers!

Shouldn't you be more bus-friendly as a former civil servant and the commissioner of consumer affairs under Mayor Koch? What led you to give that up for a career as a real-estate developer?

At first I was very embarrassed to be in real estate. As someone who attended Columbia Law School in a socially conscious era and then worked in government, I was taught to be suspicious of businesspeople. But I try to run my business in a way that has some social value.

How would you define the social value of the Nets?

The players are terrific. They are of good character. They are incredibly charitable. They are family-oriented. They have integrity.

You make them sound like Boy Scouts. But at least N.B.A. players don't appear to take steroids. Do you take steroids?

Do I look like I take steroids? Is this the body of a steroid? This is not the body produced by human-growth hormones or, for that matter, even working out.

You don't exercise?

No. I ran in six marathons, and then I just got lazy. I don't work out. I like to walk.

Do you collect sports memorabilia?

I'm not a collector. Honestly, I like to throw stuff out. I'm not acquisition-oriented.

Well, you and your fellow investors did acquire a whole team. Was that a complicated process?

We were the highest bidder for the team. Like so many things in life, it was just a matter of money.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/05/nyregion/05brooklyn.html
Instant Skyline Added to Brooklyn Arena Plan

By DIANE CARDWELL
Published: July 5, 2005

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With 17 buildings, many of them soaring roughly 40 to 50 stories, the project would forever transform Brooklyn and its often-intimate landscape, creating a dense urban skyline.

The massive building plan surrounding a new Nets arena east of Downtown Brooklyn will include a ridge of a half-dozen skyscrapers as high as 60 stories sweeping down Atlantic Avenue, along with four towers circling the basketball arena, according to new designs completed by the developer Bruce C. Ratner and the architect Frank Gehry.

The project, the largest proposed outside Manhattan in decades, would include much more housing than originally announced in 2003, growing to about 6,000 units from 4,500, according to a plan made available to The New York Times. But the real impact would be in the size and density of the buildings, which are taller and bulkier than once envisioned.

With 17 buildings, many of them soaring 40 to 50 stories, the project would forever transform the borough and its often-intimate landscape, creating a dense urban skyline reminiscent of Houston or Dallas.

The project would be built in phases, starting with the blocks around the arena, then the apartment complexes along Dean Street at the Vanderbilt Avenue end, and finally the northern stretch of housing along Atlantic Avenue. The arena is planned to open for the 2008-9 basketball season, said James P. Stuckey, an executive vice president at Forest City Ratner Companies, with the entire project completed as soon as 2011. [An Appraisal]

The project will come before the Metropolitan Transportation Authority tomorrow as Mr. Ratner makes a formal proposal to buy and develop the Atlantic Avenue railyards.

When it was first announced, the project drew attention primarily to the basketball arena for the Nets. At the time, the return of a major league team and a design by a world-renowned architect led many supporters in the borough to hail a plan intended to heal the old wounds left by the Dodgers' departure after the 1957 season and herald, in metal, glass and brick, a Brooklyn reborn.

But the design of the full plan shows that the arena itself is dwarfed by the scope and ambition of the development. Stretching over 21 acres from Fourth to Vanderbilt Avenues between Atlantic Avenue and Dean Street, the development would create 1.9 million square feet of office space and housing for roughly 15,000 people in an area where small businesses and multifamily houses now coexist with vacant land, automotive shops and empty industrial buildings. An alternate plan would cut the office space to roughly 429,000 square feet, and add 150 to 200 hotel rooms and 1,300 additional apartments.

The $3.5 billion project is conceived as a way to create a new neighborhood and a transition between a growing business district, the resurgent cultural zone around the Brooklyn Academy of Music and the gentrifying residential areas surrounding them. Reflecting that, Mr. Gehry's preliminary design aims to create the look of a contemporary city that grew up naturally over time, he said.

The project still faces significant hurdles, although there is far less organized political opposition than that which faced the defeated West Side stadium plan. Most of the necessary city and state officials support it, and critics are largely centered in the immediate vicinity.

Mr. Ratner, who is the development partner of The New York Times in building its new headquarters in Midtown, needs approval from the transportation authority to buy its land. Bids are due to the authority tomorrow, and although no other suitor has yet surfaced, some who are opposed to the project said an alternate proposal may be in the works.

In addition, the winning project would undergo an environmental review, and would need zoning changes and approval by the state Public Authorities Control Board, directed by Gov. George E. Pataki and the Senate and Assembly leaders, which recently scuttled Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg's plan for a Jets stadium on the West Side of Manhattan. The Senate majority leader, Joseph L. Bruno, and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver have indicated that they would not block the arena project.

And although Mr. Ratner has been steadily negotiating to buy privately owned properties within the Brooklyn development zone, he may face court battles in his efforts to acquire some land by eminent domain and with critics who have threatened to sue. Opposition is strong among some residents of the quiet surrounding neighborhoods, who say that they have been denied a role in the planning process. They accuse state and city officials of giving Mr. Ratner unfair concessions and charge that the development will strain public services and destroy their quality of life.

The plan calls for direct subsidies of $100 million each from the city and state for site improvements to the area.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/local/story/327890p-280264c.html
Ratner rival ripped over W. Side project

BY TANYANYIKA SAMUELS and DAVE GOLDINER
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS

Neighborhood activists rallied last night against an upper West Side skyscraper plan from Extell Development - the company that won praise for countering Bruce Ratner's Nets arena mega-project in Brooklyn.

Dozens of people held signs and chanted opposition to the 31- and 36-story towers that Extell wants to build at Broadway between W. 99th and W. 100th Sts.

"We believe in development, but there needs to be responsible development," said community activist Miki Fiegel.

Clutching a sign reading "Expel Extell," Annie Barry said she is dreading the estimated two years of noisy construction, plus the flood of wealthy new residents who will follow.

"We want to preserve our neighborhood," said Barry, who lives next-door to one of the planned towers. "It's a nice middle-class neighborhood and we want to keep it that way."

Extell, owned by real-estate mogul Gary Barnett, does not need city or community board approval for the towers, in part because it has bought air rights from a neighboring church.

An Extell spokesman said it would "continue to consult with the community" about the project.

"These buildings will bring additional families into one of Manhattan's premier neighborhoods," said the spokesman.

The demonstrations mark a dramatic turn in fortunes for Extell, which has been hailed by activists in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn, for putting forward a lower-rise alternative to the Nets stadium plan.

Ratner's massive $8 billion arena project also calls for buildings to rise 60 stories above and around an MTA railyard. Extell hopes to build a much smaller project with several apartment buildings between four and 28 stories tall.

Originally published on July 14, 2005

Love that karma, look what happened at the Manhattan site today.

Despite that incident in Manhattan Valley, the people of Prospect Hts still support him.

http://www.nyobserver.com/pageone_newsstory2.asp
Ratner Is Gaining as the Nets Owner Nuzzles Advocates

By Matthew Schuerman

On a January day last year, about 30 activists walked into a windowless boardroom, high over downtown Brooklyn, belonging to Forest City Ratner Companies.

“Is Bertha going to start something?” one of the Forest City executives asked the group. The activists—members and employees of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now—were more used to knocking on tenement doors in East New York than being put such a question about their executive director across an oaken conference table.

Bertha—Bertha Lewis, ACORN’s colorfully dressed leader—did start something that January day: a mutually beneficial relationship with one of the city’s largest real-estate developers which has become so close that she recently kissed Forest City chief Bruce Ratner on the lips. In public. And Mayor Michael Bloomberg for good measure.

Bertha and Bruce represent the new synergy powering some of New York’s grandest development schemes: the picketer and the developer, happy together. And if the scene seems less incongruous than Jane Jacobs taking out a parks contract to plant the median of Robert Moses’ proposed Westway, that’s simply because the economics—and politics—of development in New York City have changed irrevocably since then.

Bertha Lewis is politely described—when she is described politely—as “a forceful advocate for her causes.” A former Off Broadway producer, the 54-year-old Ms. Lewis retains a flair for the dramatic, and the kisses are just the latest performance.

Her last run-in with Forest City was in 2000, a few years after the developer opened up a mall just a mile away. Ms. Lewis picketed the mall for several days, until the developer agreed to pressure the retail tenants to hire through a hiring hall that ACORN had set up for its members.

Ms. Lewis brings such moral authority to Mr. Ratner’s plan to build 7.5 million square feet of apartments and offices, along with an arena for the Nets basketball team, that it will be hard for city and state officials to do anything to block it.

The M.T.A., which owns the land on which much of the project will be built, may vote on selling the land as early as next week.

In return, Ms. Lewis gets a chance to enact the type of mixed-income housing scheme she has been trying to turn the city on to for several years, and she will probably get a substantial marketing contract for her organization as well. Along the way, however, she has attacked her adversaries with such disdain—accusing them of being (gasp!) gentrifiers and white liberals—that some of her old comrades in the community-organizing world wonder whether she has gone too far.

Forest City wanted to include affordable housing in its Atlantic Yards project, but its proposal—setting aside one-fifth of the units for low-income families—struck ACORN as doing nothing for the wide swath of working people who were getting priced out of Brooklyn. When Ms. Lewis entered MetroTech that January day, she was fresh off a mildly successful campaign to convince the city to change the way it subsidizes mixed-income housing. In 2002, the city’s Housing Development Corporation began offering extra-special financing—1 percent loans—for developers who were willing to set aside 20 percent of their units for low-income tenants and another 30 percent for a rather generous version of the middle class: those with incomes of up to $109,000 for a family of four.

But ACORN believed that those guidelines resulted in “bunching”: The entire middle-income quota tended to come in just under the maximum, so that in one building one could find the very poor, the affluent and the well-off who were renting at market rates, but no one much in between.

Ms. Lewis wanted to change all that. Her plan—hatched with her housing expert, Ismene Speliotis—was to divide up the non-market portion of these complexes into five sections, each with a different income slice, from about $18,400 to $94,200. Rent would initially be set at 30 percent of the household’s income, and would then increase along with other rent-stabilized apartments in the city.

ACORN was only able to persuade the city to set aside $25 million for a tiered-income housing pilot project, so Atlantic Yards represented a chance to convince a private developer to do what the city wouldn’t. (Forest City will ask for city Housing Development Corporation bonds, however.) By the time Ms. Lewis had finished her presentation in the 11th-floor boardroom, Mr. Ratner was sitting in the back, grinning, but with his fingers crossed. “He was saying, ‘I hope you know what you’re talking about. I don’t want you pulling my chain here,’” said Debbie Tiamfook, an ACORN member who attended the meeting.

But ACORN succeeded, then and in subsequent meetings, in convincing Forest City—which is one of ACORN’s top donors, giving about $20,000 a year for its fund-raiser, according to Ms. Lewis—that it could both make a profit and set a model for public policy. The development company had done enough work in Brooklyn to know the value of an important local ally, and so it gave ACORN pretty much everything it asked for. “Usually we don’t give up our final position when we start negotiating, but this time we threw all of that out the window,” Ms. Lewis recalled. “There was never this sense of an opening gambit, and they never played around with us either.” This May, as part of the housing agreement that occasioned the kisses, ACORN formally agreed to appear at events promoting the project—although, in reality, Ms. Lewis has already been doing that for a year. The fight she encountered was unlike any other she had fought in her life: Her enemies turned out to be not crass developers or greedy bankers or stubborn city officials, but the most grassy of the grassroots: neighbors and churches and a local City Councilwoman who objected to Forest City’s proposed swath of towers, so large and shiny that it would rise up out of the plain of Brooklyn three-flats like the City of Oz.

Ms. Lewis likes to characterize these opponents, as she did last month on WNYC radio’s Brian Lehrer Show, as “brownstone folk,” as opposed to the “black and brown people” in the public-housing developments about half a mile away whose cause she champions. She dismisses the black ministers who are opposing the project, or reserving judgment on it, as a mere handful of individuals out to get a piece of the action. (She also neglects to mention the congregations they represent.) The Brooklyn Eagle quoted her as saying: “Whenever you have a small group of white liberals running and screaming about something, people think it’s important.” When asked whether it’s a conflict of interest if her organization gets paid to market the units, Ms. Lewis told The Observer, “Then again, I guess you could ask the same thing of the folks who oppose it. Isn’t it a conflict of interest for people who have been part of the wave of gentrification to oppose something, wanting to protect that asset?”

Forest City, by the way, does want to hire ACORN as its marketing agent, according to James P. Stuckey, a Forest City executive vice president and the Atlantic Yards project manager. “I think ACORN has proved to be a very, very strong advocate for affordable housing in Brooklyn,” Mr. Stuckey said.
Ms. Lewis seems to reserve her strongest feelings for the local City Council member, Letitia James, characterizing her to Brian Lehrer as an elected official who “doesn’t choose to represent all of the people in her district.” Ms. James, like Ms. Lewis, is black; she is also a member of the Working Families Party, which was founded by Ms. Lewis and a number of labor unions in 1998 to bring the Democratic Party more to the left. Usually, the Working Families Party is content to endorse the Democratic or, occasionally, the Green Party candidate, but Ms. James actually won her race by running solely on its line. The Atlantic Yards project has split the members of Working Families down the middle—but strangely enough, it didn’t poison the party’s endorsement for the 35th District Council seat, which Ms. James won this spring. What ACORN does with its endorsement is another matter.

“This is really not a debate between ACORN and myself,” Ms. James said. “This is really about development and how development should go forward in the city of New York, and whether we in the city and the state of New York should be subsidizing a basketball arena and 17 buildings.” Ms. James is all in favor of affordable housing, but she says she wants the towers to be lower, and she also wants to devote the land that would be used for the arena to build more affordable housing. She helped draft a plan with some neighborhood architects outlining such a project, and many of its aspects were adopted by a rival development company, Extell Corporation, which submitted the only other bid to the M.T.A. (besides Forest City’s) for the Atlantic Yards.

Extell wouldn’t need the government to seize property under eminent domain—another major grievance in the Forest City plan—but it is asking for at least some of the $200 million that the city and state have offered Forest City to cover the rail yard, purchase property and do other improvements. (A study by the Pratt Institute Center for Community and Environmental Development estimates that the true cost of Forest City’s plan—including tax credits that the city and state offered under an exclusive agreement signed in March—might exceed $1 billion.)

Extell is still vague about affordable housing—the company only learned that the M.T.A. had put the land up for sale a few weeks ago—but it has said that it would put aside 30 percent of its units at non-market rates. How that compares to Forest City’s plan is a matter of some debate. The housing agreement, signed by Ms. Lewis and Mr. Ratner in May, stipulates that 2,250 units will be non-market units. (The top price, at $1,440 a month for a studio, however, is about market rate for the area.) But it’s less clear about the condominiums and additional rentals that Mr. Ratner is suggesting he will build instead of office space, for which there is less of a demand. If Ms. Lewis fails to win any more units through subsequent negotiations—a possible but unlikely scenario—Forest City would end up devoting just 31 percent of its rentals to non-market rates.

Forest City seems flexible on the height of its towers, but it won’t start discussing lowering them until the governmental review begins. “We are completely prepared to address the density issue and the density question, which we know they will raise with us as part of the approval process,” said Mr. Stuckey, the Forest City executive vice president. “Although we have a lot of reasons to believe that what we have proposed makes perfect sense, obviously we know that there is a process, and we haven’t begun that process yet.”

Ms. Lewis, on the other hand, long ago sacrificed the scale of the neighborhood. If this debate, at heart, is about the “community”—the “brownstone people” versus the “brown and black people”—then Ms. Lewis’ position is all the more curious, considering that the housing plan she had fought for will set aside 225 units for families making as much as $94,200 a year—a tacit acknowledgment that the upper-middle class needs help also. “I think the density issue actually helps to address the jobs problem, the housing problem and the amenities problem,” Ms. Lewis said. “I don’t think any other plan does it. We have no problem with the density, because it is so far outweighed by other benefits.”

The opposition is trying its best to pick apart the housing agreement, as well as the so-called community-benefits agreement that Mr. Ratner signed last month with eight community groups, including ACORN. Again, do eight groups represent the entire community? The most visible opposition group, Develop-Don’t Destroy Brooklyn, lists 48 groups as either being against or having serious reservations about the Atlantic Yards project on its Web site. The community-benefits agreement—which includes goals for Forest City to meet in terms of minority hiring, job training and leasing to minority-owned stores—is too easy to get out of, according to one critic, the Reverend Clinton Miller of the Brown Memorial Baptist Church.

But the very diversity of the project’s opposition—advocates for low-income residents joining property owners concerned about a changing neighborhood—is also problematic. On the one hand, how can critics complain that only 20 to 30 percent of Forest City’s units will be truly low-income, when Extell’s lower towers wouldn’t accommodate any more? Few people with experience in grassroots work think that ACORN could have won any more concessions. “They did better than I thought they would, and they didn’t beat anybody up to do it,” said Brad Lander, the director of the Pratt Institute Center and former head of the Fifth Avenue Committee. But he remains ambivalent about the project, waiting to hear more details on traffic and the subsidies. “I just don’t feel ready to pick between Ratner and Extell,” Mr. Lander said. “I have a lot of reservations, but I also think it’s a lot of affordable housing and a meaningful number of union jobs—and I like basketball.”

Another community organizer put it this way: “One day I think, ‘Oh, it’s a pretty good arrangement,’ and the next morning I wake up and say, ‘What the fuck is going on?’”

What sort of day will it be when members of the M.T.A. board—and other public officials down the line—wake up and have to make a decision on Atlantic Yards? Whether or not they think the plan has its imperfections, they know that by rejecting it, they’ll be rejecting a massive affordable-housing package. And “affordable housing” has become as American as apple pie in New York today. Ms. Lewis knows that. It will be very hard for anyone to take away her slice.

You may reach Matthew Schuerman via email at: mschuerman@observer.com.

I really hope they allow Ratenr to build his stadium and residentials... I think its would be a real shame if it werent built. The revenues, long term and even short term would be immense and it would bring a lot more invesment in brooklyn along with it i bet. The new plan without the highrises seems to run counter to the trend that we are seeing in Brooklyn towards highrises. Highrises could really bring Downtown to life.
But the planning has to be done right. Brooklyn needs highrises and a lot of open pblic space. Atlantic avenue coulb be turned into a really amazing and people friendly avenue if things are done right... Right now its just an old industrial nightamre..

wasnt the voting for the approval yesterday? or am i wrong?

FORWARD

New York Skyline in the Balance As Real Estate Titans Square Off

By NATHANIEL POPPER
August 5, 2005

It is a battle that has involved collapsing buildings, racially-charged protests and two of New York's most powerful Jewish developers, pitted against each other for the future of New York's skyline.

At stake, say community activists, are the characters of two iconic, heavily Jewish New York neighborhoods known as bastions of middle-class liberalism.

The main battlefield is a plot of land in downtown Brooklyn that has been opened for development by New York's Metropolitan Transit Authority. The authority agreed last week to enter exclusive negotiations for the site with Bruce Ratner, a well-connected scion of Cleveland's most prominent Jewish family, who is planning to build an arena and move the professional basketball team he owns from New Jersey to Brooklyn.

Ratner is facing heat from a competing developer: Gary Barnett, a reclusive, publicity-shy Orthodox Jew. Barnett's proposal has won over some community activists who complain that Ratner's mammoth plan to remake 21 acres of Brooklyn ignores the character of the storied neighborhood, in the heart of a borough that still calls itself "America's fourth largest city."

The Brooklyn battle, however, is not the whole story. While Barnett is depicted as a concerned citizen in Brooklyn, he is the subject of protests 10 miles north on the Upper West Side, the traditional nerve center of New York's Jewish cultural elite. Opposite a synagogue on 100th Street, Barnett's company, Extell Development Corporation, is building two high-rise apartment buildings that activists say will destroy the character of the quiet, middle-class neighborhood in the shadow of Columbia University.

Adding to emotions, the project is a partnership between Extell and the Carlyle Group, an international investment firm that has close ties to President Bush, and was famously portrayed in Michael Moore's film "Fahrenheit 9/11" as a tool of Texas and Saudi Arabian oil interests.

"What's really interesting here is that there's a Jewish man in bed with the Saudis to build this project," said Miki Fiegel, the head of the main community group, who was interviewed at a protest at the building site last week. "The profits are going to go back to Saudi Arabia — a country that wants to push Israel back into the sea."

Similar criticisms of Barnett have been voiced at community meetings in Brooklyn by Ratner's supporters, even though Carlyle is not involved in that project. A spokesman for Barnett, Bob Liff, dismissed the criticism as "beneath the people who are raising that kind of comment."

The construction of the two Upper West Side towers was temporarily halted by the city July 14 after an existing building on the site collapsed during demolition work, injuring five passersby and garnering international headlines.

It is the proposals in Brooklyn, however, that have attracted the most attention, primarily because of their scale. At issue are the Vanderbilt Rail Yards, an 8.6-acre expanse of train tracks that the Brooklyn Dodgers once hoped to convert into a new stadium before they left for Los Angeles.

Ratner's plan would create a new arena for the New Jersey Nets basketball team, which he bought last year. His proposal extends far beyond the arena, however, to include a string of apartment and office buildings designed by the pop-architect Frank Gehry. Gehry's vision would reshape Brooklyn's downtown, currently an aging district dominated by pre-World War II architecture, with new structures rising as high as 60 stories.

The transit authority has been negotiating with Ratner for more than a year, even though the project was officially open for competing bids. A community group opposed to Ratner — called Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn — sent letters to 100 developers asking them to submit alternative bids. Barnett was the only one to respond. Following the activists' guidelines, he submitted a plan that would cover only 8.5 acres and have buildings rising to 28 stories.

The transit authority was not impressed. On July 27, it entered exclusive negotiations with Ratner for 45 days to hammer out a deal. Ratner has offered $50 million for the site, far less than Barnett's $150 million. The authority hoped to push Ratner higher. Barnett's spokesman said his bid remains on the table.

Ratner's opponents come mostly from Prospect Heights, a gentrifying enclave just south of the rail yards. It sits at the edge of Park Slope, a sprawling neighborhood second only to the Upper West Side as a bastion of Jewish liberals.

Facing the protesters, Ratner has lined up his own cadre of community activists from mostly minority districts further east, who say his plan would do more for minorities. He has signed an agreement promising to give 35% of construction jobs to minorities. His plan also offers 2,500 middle- and low-income apartments, as compared to Barnett's 573.

At one community hearing, Ratner's supporters called the Jewish spokesman for the don't-destroy group a "trust fund baby," according to the New York Sun.

"I don't want to make this out to be a black versus white situation," said James Caldwell, president of a pro-Ratner group called Build, "but it seems like that's what it's turning out to be."

Daniel Goldstein, the spokeman for Develop Don't Destory, said the racial language is "a deliberate attempt by this developer to divide communities." Goldstein pointed to the black clergy group working with his organization, as well as to three local black politicians who have opposed Ratner.

On the Upper West Side, Barnett has made some effort to reach out to community members. At a community board meeting at a local synagogue, Barnett presented his plans for the two towers — one 31 stories and the other 37 stories — and then listened to two hours of criticism from community members.

The Upper West Side has undergone rapid change in recent years, as an influx of lawyers and bankers has driven up prices and forced out many of the middle class Jewish intellectuals and artists who long dominated the neighborhood. Community activists said Barnett's project, a mile north of other such high-rises, was one more sign of unruly development in the area.

Unlike Ratner in Brooklyn, Barnett does not have community members arguing his case on the West Side. However, he has secured the necessary legal rights and permits, making his plan all but unstoppable.

In a further irony, he won the right to exceed neighborhood height limits in part by acquiring air rights — the trading of height limits between adjacent properties — from a parcel recently sold by the cash-strapped Jewish Theological Seminary of America. The seminary had sold the parcel to a church.

In response to criticism that the towers hurt the area's character, Barnett's spokesman said: "People have a right to say their piece. It's important to note that everything has been done by the book. It will continue to be done by the book."

The collapse of the building has fueled opponents' hopes of winning changes in the zoning laws that allowed Barnett to win his building permits. The city is investigating whether criminal charges should be brought against the demolition company hired to take down the previous structure. A city spokesperson said construction will likely resume after the investigation ends.

The community activists who are backing Barnett in Brooklyn say they don't plan to join protests against him on the Upper West Side.

"Every large or medium developer in New York has problems with the communities they are trying to build in," said Goldstein, of the anti-Ratner group. "It's a much lesser of two evils here in Brooklyn."

http://www.ny1.com/ny1/content/index.jsp?stid=9&aid=52868
Brooklyn Councilwoman Moves To Block Use Of Eminent Domain

August 17, 2005

http://www.ny1.com/ny1/content/images/live/85/169935.jpg

A Brooklyn city councilwoman is fighting to save homes in her district from the law of eminent domain.

Letitia James is backing a new bill that would curb the city's ability to use the law.

She says the city should only be able to force a person out of their home if the land will be used for a public project, such as a hospital. She says developers should not have access to city funds for such projects.

The legislation comes as developer Bruce Ratner is proposing the construction of a new Nets stadium complex over the Atlantic Rail Yards in Brooklyn in a project that would require several nearby homes to be cleared out.

The City Council press office says whether the bill is passed or not it will not impact the fate of Ratner's sprawling development, since the state would be the one condemning the nearby homes or businesses.

NY SUN

Private Memo Guarantees Ratner Space

BY DANIEL HEMEL August 18, 2005

City and state officials, in a memorandum they never released, promised the developer Forest City Ratner six months ago that they would arrange for the firm to obtain the rights to build almost 1.9 million square feet of residential and commercial space in downtown Brooklyn, even if the Metropolitan Transportation Authority rejected the firm's bid for the development rights at a nearby rail yard.

The disclosure of the February 18 memorandum comes three weeks after the MTA board told Forest City Ratner the firm's $50 million cash bid was insufficient. The firm's president, Bruce Ratner, is also the principal owner of the New Jersey Nets, and he is seeking to build an arena at the rail yard to house his professional basketball team.

A rival firm, Extell Development Company, offered the MTA $150 million for the development rights at the rail yard, but the transportation authority's board, which is dominated by members appointed by Governor Pataki and Mayor Bloomberg, voted July 27 to negotiate exclusively with Forest City Ratner.

Council Member Letitia James, who has led the opposition to the Ratner project and whose district includes the rail yard, said the memorandum speaks volumes about the cozy relationship that Mr. Ratner maintains with city and state officials.

"It says that he is a favored developer, and it says to me that he's going to continue to have a monopoly on downtown Brooklyn and in my district without giving any other developer the opportunity to bid," she said.

In early March, Messrs. Bloomberg and Pataki announced a separate memorandum, also signed on February 18, endorsing Mr. Ratner's plans to build a 7.8 million-square-foot commercial and residential complex in downtown Brooklyn. The high-rise development would encompass the 8.4-acre MTA-owned rail yard, as well as nearly 13 additional acres in the adjacent Prospect Heights neighborhood. Mr. Ratner's firm has purchased most of the Prospect Heights property, but a handful of homes and small businesses face seizure by city and state officials through eminent domain to make room for the developer's ambitions.

Although Messrs. Bloomberg and Pataki announced one of the two February 18 memorandums with considerable fanfare, they did not mention the other, which was signed by Mr. Ratner and by the deputy mayor for economic development, Daniel Doctoroff; the Pataki administration's chairman of the Empire State Development Corporation, Charles Gargano, and the Bloomberg administration's president of the Economic Development Corporation, Andrew Alper.

In it, the officials agreed to facilitate Mr. Ratner's development aspirations at a pair of nearby properties along Atlantic and Flatbush avenues: a Ratner owned mall located north of the rail yard, Atlantic Center, and a commercial block on Flatbush Avenue, which is referred to as Site 5 in the memo. That site is currently occupied by a sporting goods retailer, Modell's, and an electronics store, P.C. Richard & Son.

The development called for in that memorandum increases by 25% the square footage that Mr. Ratner - whose previously publicized project has been attacked in some quarters as too big - would construct in the area.

A Ratner spokesman, Joseph DePlasco, said yesterday, "The proposed development at Site 5 should not come as a surprise to anyone." He noted that the firm's plans for the site were revealed in many public meetings, including a presentation at a May 26 hearing of the City Council. Also, a chain of local weeklies, the Brooklyn Papers, reported that a vice president of Forest City Ratner, James Stuckey, mentioned plans for Site 5 at the May 26 hearing.

Another council member from Brooklyn who opposes the Ratner project, Charles Barron, said yesterday, however, that although he attended the May 26 hearing, he was never informed about plans to build an additional 1.9 million square feet at Atlantic Center and Site 5. After The New York Sun contacted Mr. Barron to ask about his reaction to the newly surfaced memorandum, the council member said: "This is the first time I've heard of it."

Council Member James, too, said she had no recollection that plans for Atlantic Center and Site 5 were mentioned at the May hearing. As for the memorandum, a spokeswoman for the Economic Development Corporation, Janel Patterson, said that although it was never distributed publicly, it "has been available to anyone that requested it."

The anti-Ratner group Develop Don't Destroy obtained a copy of the previously unreleased memorandum and distributed it to reporters yesterday. A spokesman for the group, Daniel Goldstein, would not say how he initially secured a copy of the memo. But he said that, given the failure by city and state officials to disclose the existence of the memo before yesterday, "Why should we trust any of the information the public has seen from the developer and the public agencies?"

Forest City Ratner has said that the 21-acre Atlantic Yards project - which does not include the Atlantic Center and Site 5 developments - will create 7,500 permanent jobs as well as 2,250 units of affordable housing.

Mr. DePlasco, the Ratner spokesman, said that the firm "already owns part of what is being called Site 5 here," but that P.C. Richard, which also owns part of the site, has not yet agreed to sell its stake. He said negotiations between Forest City Ratner and P.C. Richard are continuing.

In the newly surfaced memorandum, state and city officials said they would aid Forest City Ratner's efforts to gain control over the remainder of Site 5, specifically mentioning the possibility that they will use eminent domain.

Regardless of whether Mr. Ratner's arena plan comes to fruition, the memorandum authorizes his firm to build 308,000 square feet of residential space at Site 5 and 1.3 million square feet of commercial and residential space at Atlantic Center, "subject to obtaining necessary approvals." Under the terms of the memo, Mr. Ratner's firm will build an additional 328,000 square feet of office space at the Atlantic Center site if his bid for the MTA site falls through.

The famed architect Frank Gehry, who was hired by Mr. Ratner to design the proposed high-rise hub,has sketched plans for a 60-story tower along Flatbush Avenue that would be named "Miss Brooklyn." If the MTA approves the Ratner bid, allowing the Miss Brooklyn plans to proceed, then, according to the newly surfaced memorandum, the developer will be able to transfer the additional 328,000 square feet of zoning rights from Atlantic Center to Site 5.

^PLEASE refrain from posting back to back articles...it ruins the thread and turns off people from responding. I'm going to delete them if it keeps happening.

Nobody makes that complaint in the Israel Economy thread in the Israel fourm. Either way, somebody has to update date with new articles even if it is the same person. I can see you made consecutive articles as well. If you want then, all articles in one day will be in one post with a line dividing them. Getting back to topic, I hope that the Extell Plan wins the overall bid. I actually met councilwoman Letitia James not too long ago at Brooklyn's borough hall, and I agree with what she had to say. Even Robert Moses knew what eminent domain was for despite his actions. This idea by Bruce Ratner takes the next step the West Side Stadium uses by tearing down almost an entire neighborhood to put up an expensive complex. I will not use any of my tax dollars to kick people out of their homes without getting a say on it nor do I want the Nets to leave NJ. The group Develope Don't Destroy represents the people who do not want to be displaced just b/c of this idea. Those who support are those who will not loose their homes/offices in this developement. Also, Ratner gives nearly no alternatives to where else he can place the arena even though the Jets did think about Flushing Meadows. In the end, I hope it fails like the Jets statdium did, though I didn't oppose it personally, I just didn't want to pay for it.

Nobody makes that complaint in the Israel Economy thread in the Israel fourm. Either way, somebody has to update date with new articles even if it is the same person. I can see you made consecutive articles as well. If you want then, all articles in one day will be in one post with a line dividing them. Getting back to topic, I hope that the Extell Plan wins the overall bid. I actually met councilwoman Letitia James not too long ago at Brooklyn's borough hall, and I agree with what she had to say. Even Robert Moses knew what eminent domain was for despite his actions. This idea by Bruce Ratner takes the next step the West Side Stadium uses by tearing down almost an entire neighborhood to put up an expensive complex. I will not use any of my tax dollars to kick people out of their homes without getting a say on it nor do I want the Nets to leave NJ. The group Develope Don't Destroy represents the people who do not want to be displaced just b/c of this idea. Those who support are those who will not loose their homes/offices in this developement. Also, Ratner gives nearly no alternatives to where else he can place the arena even though the Jets did think about Flushing Meadows. In the end, I hope it fails like the Jets statdium did, though I didn't oppose it personally, I just didn't want to pay for it.

I don't mod the Israeli forums, so it's really not my place to say what goes there. I agree someone has to update with articles, important articles, not articles people don't care about or minor stuff.

Before I post an article, I actually read it, as you can see, I highlight key points in bold. I have serious doubts you post what you read and we're not here to boost post counts, if that's your intention. I'd rather have articles posted all in one, if you have such a need to post the articles. However, it still won't eliminate the fact that no one will reply to these minor articles and will just clutter the thread.

I don't get your opposition to the plan either. Don't you like development and skyscrapers? These people so called "kicked out of their homes" have been offered new space, in a newer homes. It's just the common nimby and opposition to any big plan that is proposed in the city.

i personally hope this goes through. It would be great if this development would get off the ground for the city so the economy can grow. I dont know why people would oppose it, its not like the pple who are getting kicked out arent getting compensated, but whatever i just hope they can work this thing out.

I don't get your opposition to the plan either. Don't you like development and skyscrapers? These people so called "kicked out of their homes" have been offered new space, in a newer homes. It's just the common nimby and opposition to any big plan that is proposed in the city.
I don't see why Ratner must choose Prospect Hts. This is not a neighborhood that is facing any decay. As a matter of fact, Prospect Hts comes right after Brooklyn Hts and Park Slope in being the richest areas in Brooklyn. The group that I have mentioned are those who have worked very hard to earn their homes, and feel that they shouldn't loose their homes to some developer. Even though they will get compensated, they would be forced to sell their places even they say no. After the conservative influence in the Supreme Court, it upheald a ruling that allowed for governments to use eminent domain for private businesses if there is a need for it. You should have seen the cartoon on the Daily News that showed what this will be like in which a developer gets someone's home even if it was never for sale. If you remember the Home Depot comming to the White Sands area of Brooklyn, that neighborhood was virtually destroyed by it after it bought over half of the houses and demolished them. It's not as if they are against it, it's just why them. The only reason why they like Richard Meir's 1 Prospect Pk is b/c it does not build on any of their homes and rather and a parking lot that was up for developement. This is the same reason they support the Extell plan over Forest City Ratner. On a sidenote, there is a plan to build another skyscraper that will surpass the WSB near MTC that is 41 stories, so it may not be a total loss for Brooklyn and that is actually in downtown.

New York Times
September 14, 2005

M.T.A. Votes to Sell Lot to Nets for Stadium

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

NEW YORK (AP) -- The New Jersey Nets dribbled closer to making a new home in Brooklyn on Wednesday when the Metropolitan Transportation Authority voted to sell an 8.3-acre railyard to team owner and real-estate developer Bruce Ratner.

Ratner will pay $100 million for the downtown Brooklyn site where urban planner Robert Moses once turned down the Dodgers' push for a domed baseball stadium, helping prompt the team's move to California in 1957.

The vote by the nation's largest public transit system keeps the Nets on schedule to be playing by November 2008 in a Frank Gehry-designed Flatbush Avenue arena at the heart of a 21-acre office and apartment complex, which would transform the low-rise Brooklyn skyline.

Ratner doubled his original $50 million bid after a last-minute, $150 million bid in July from Manhattan-based Extell Development Co. prompted second thoughts from MTA board members.

The agency has had the railyard appraised at $214 million.

Arena opponents have called the MTA's decision-making process biased in favor of Ratner, a politically connected former city official whose plan has the support of Gov. George Pataki and Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who together effectively control the MTA board.

Proponents point out that along with the cash, Ratner offered the MTA tens of millions of dollars in inducements such as improvements to the aging yard for Long Island Rail Road cars.

Building trades unions and residents of the poorer neighborhoods and housing projects near the proposed arena site have been supportive of the plan. Ratner has promised to use union labor and minority contractors to build more than 2,000 low- and middle-income apartments, about a third of the units in the $3.5 billion project. The planned development includes 15 towers rising around the glass-sheathed, 18,000-seat Nets arena.

Extell wanted to build a project less than half the size.

The city and state have promised as much as $200 million in public money for the project. Ratner has said he would use all of it for his project, while Extell said it would use $150 million.

Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

http://www.nydailynews.com/boroughs/story/347878p-296899c.html
74 homes in Ratner's path

Up to 74 households could be uprooted to make way for Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards project, a new document filed by the developer shows.

The document, which outlines the mixed-use development and Nets basketball arena in advance of an environmental review, says 82 housing units are still occupied within the 21 acres needed.

Of the 82 units, eight are condos or co-ops whose owners have agreed to sell them to Forest City Ratner Cos., and another 32 are rental properties that the developer controls.

"Depending on [our] plan for displacement or relocation ... the number of households directly displaced by the proposed project would be between 42 and 74," the Ratner document adds.

In a public notice issued last Friday, the Empire State Development Corp. said it anticipates that condemnation proceedings will be used to acquire some properties. The notice followed the MTA board's vote to sell Ratner the air rights to the Atlantic Ave. railyards for $100 million, clearing the way for the project. Ratner's executive vice president said the MTA's 8.3 acres increased Ratner's control or ownership to more than 80% of the area it needs.

The new document also elaborates on Ratner's plans for the block at Flatbush and Atlantic Aves. occupied by Modell's and P.C. Richard & Son, even though it's not technically part of the Atlantic Yards project.

Paul D. Colford

Originally published on September 20, 2005

Newsday:

Brooklyn arena opponents call community group a front:

September 29, 2005, 8:57 PM EDT

NEW YORK -- One of the most vocal community supporters of a $3.5 billion Nets arena project said in a tax filing that it expected to receive $5 million from the arena developer.

Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn, an anti-arena group that released the filing at a press conference Thursday, said the document proved that Brooklyn United for Innovative Local Development was a front for developer Bruce Ratner.

Ratner plans to build a Frank Gehry-designed arena within a new 21-acre office and apartment complex that would transform the low-rise Brooklyn skyline. Many residents of the neighboring Fort Greene and Prospect Heights sections object to the plan.

BUILD said in an August filing with the Internal Revenue Service that it would receive $5 million from the developer's Forest City Ratner Companies. BUILD chief operating officer Marie Louis said Thursday that the group had received no money from Ratner and did not expect to receive any. Cheryl Duncan, a spokeswoman for BUILD, said the group had projected receiving the money from Ratner but no longer expected to. She said Ratner is providing office space to the group.

Louis has spoken in support of the project at public meetings, saying it would help ease poverty and unemployment in neighboring areas. A Ratner spokesman said the developer supported BUILD and other worthy local organizations but had not purchased the group's support.

"It is the right thing to do and FCRC encourages others to do the same," spokesman Joe De Plasco said.

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

The Brooklyn Papers:

Ratner to bar public from promised park

By Jess Wisloski

Plans for a glorious, 52,000-square-foot publicly accessible recreational space on the roof of Bruce Ratner’s proposed Frank Gehry-designed basketball arena will not be open to the public, according to a document released last week by the state authority acting as lead agent for the project.

The elevated parkland, described as “1+” acres in earlier promotional material distributed by the developer’s Forest City Ratner Companies, which hopes to develop the site with the help of at least $200 million in public funds, is now going to be for private access only, according to the “Draft Scope of Analysis for an Environmental Impact” on the Atlantic Yards plan. The project would also include office skyscrapers and more than a dozen high-rise apartment buildings and relies on the use of eminent domain to seize private property for the developer.

The document was prepared by consultants hired by Forest City Ratner.

That private roof garden was the only green space locals were promised for the first 11 years of development of the 22-acre Atlantic Yards, which would stretch east across six square blocks of Prospect Heights from the intersection of Atlantic and Flatbush avenues.

Another promised “7+” acres of open space would be completed only after the rest of the project is done, estimated for 2016, according to the scoping document.

And that’s if the plan sticks to its construction schedule.

As initially envisioned in Forest City Ratner promotions, the open space would be both active (featuring such amenities as tennis courts, jungle gyms, playgrounds, blacktops) and passive (typically benches, trees, grass, landscaping).

Norman Oder, a freelance journalist who on Sept. 1 published a 168-page report criticizing the New York Times for a lack of critical reporting on the Atlantic Yards proposal, pointed out the differences between what was promoted and what the developer actually plans to build, on his Web log, www.timesratnerreport.blogspot.com.

“One of the selling points for the Atlantic Yards has been the promise of publicly accessible open space,” he wrote, citing a May 2004 promotional flier sent out by Forest City Ratner.

“But don’t hold your breath,” Oder added.

A Forest City Ratner handbook describing the plan, also released in 2004, stated: “The roof of the Arena offers an exciting opportunity to create new public space, with 52,000 square feet of new passive recreation and active public space for community residents.

“A promenade along the outside edge of the Arena will provide lushly landscaped areas for passive recreation, and outstanding views of Manhattan. For active recreation, an outdoor ice-skating rink connects the four gardens; in warmer months the rink will become a running track,” stated the publication “Bring Basketball to Brooklyn.”

As recently as May 26, a color brochure distributed to press and members of the City Council at the one official public hearing that’s been held on the plan, promised, underneath the bold heading “Open Space for All of Brooklyn,” that “7.4 acres of public open space, increased from 6 acres” would be featured, designed by noted landscape architect Laurie Olin with “both active and passive uses for children and adults.”

An adjoining map showed the rooftop garden as part of that open space. Olin is a well-regarded landscape architect who designed Bryant Park and Battery Park City.

Now, the new scoping document states, “At least 52,000 square feet (approximately 1 acre) of private recreational space would be provided on the roof of the arena. This rooftop open space would be accessible to users of the buildings constructed as part of the proposed project.”

The timeline estimates that just one of the seven promised acres of open space will be completed by the end of Phase I of the development, scheduled for 2009. Phase II is not expected to be completed until 2016, and at which point the status of the remaining open space is left unaddressed in the scoping document. Nor is the running track or ice-skating rink mentioned.

Forest City Ratner did not return repeated calls for comment.

“If the publicly accessible open space at Forest City Ratner’s Metrotech development is any cue, there will be a host of rules regarding usage of the space,” said Oder.

Last November, The Brooklyn Papers reported the plight of a local business owner trying to solicit business in another one of developer Bruce Ratner’s so-called “public spaces” — the Metrotech Center office campus in Downtown Brooklyn.

An employee of Jive Turkey, a local gourmet eatery less than a mile from the marble-edged plaza that covers what was, before Metrotech, publicly accessible Myrtle Avenue, was kicked off the property while handing out menus.

Not only was marketing to the office workers off-limits, but the employee was effectively told he was on private property.

Michael Weiss, executive director of the Metrotech Business Improvement District, said at the time, “In effect, if you’re out on the Metrotech Commons, you’re in a private building. The owners of the property have a right to say you can and cannot be there.”

Just weeks before that, Councilwoman Letitia James, in whose district the arena and housing complex would lie, was asked by security guards to move off property still called “Fort Greene Place,” between Atlantic Avenue and Hanson Place, but now owned by Forest City Ratner, when she was handing out fliers promoting a meeting to protest the project. Ratner’s Atlantic Center and Atlantic Terminal malls lie on either side of the portion of Fort Greene Place, which was ceded to Ratner by the city.

The Atlantic Yards plan would de-map three city bocks: the northernmost piece of Fifth Avenue, Pacific Street between Carlton and Vanderbilt avenues, and Pacific Street between Fifth and Sixth avenues.

Like Metrotech, the project is planned as a campus-like series of super-blocks that may shut out would-be park uses in the neighborhood while creating the same kind of private property issues that exist downtown.

Diane Buxbaum, a Carroll Gardens resident and conservation chair of the NYC Sierra Club, said it would be a shame to lose any public green space.

“New York City has the lowest amount of green space and park space per capita of any major city, and it’s a tragedy,” said Buxbaum. “In that neighborhood, where you have a borderline poor neighborhood — that these people will not have access to that green space — it is a slap in the face to people whose means are less than average.”

http://www.nypost.com/news/regionalnews/55062.htm
B'KLYNITES CALL A FOUL ON PARK

By ANGELA MONTEFINISE

October 9, 2005 -- A Downtown Brooklyn neighborhood is fuming that it's been locked out of a lush rooftop park atop a proposed new arena for the Nets.

"The roof of the arena offers an exciting opportunity to create new public space, with 52,000 square feet in four lushly landscaped areas for passive recreation," gushed developer Forest City Ratner's December 2003 fact sheet on the sky-high park at the sprawling Atlantic Yards development.

The fact sheet explained the rooftop park would have an ice skating rink in the winter and a track in the summer — and described it as "a destination for community residents."

The Ratner plan for the yards — including the new arena, residential units and commercial space — will require at least $200 million in public funds.

Last week, the description of the rooftop park was decidedly more sober — and less generous.

"This rooftop open space would be accessible to users of the buildings constructed as part of the proposed project," according to a draft environmental-impact statement released by the state.

The park, with its sweeping view of bustling Atlantic Avenue and Prospect Heights, will now serve as "private recreational space," the draft statement says.

Critics have jumped on the change as the latest alleged betrayal in the contentious development plan for the dilapidated Atlantic Yards.

They also contend Forest City Ratner broke a promise to make half the residential units in the project affordable. So far, only about 30 percent of the total units fit that category.

"[Bruce] Ratner continues to show that he is not a man of his word," City Councilwoman Letitia James (D-Brooklyn) said. "He continues to renege on his promises. The community deserves better."

Forest City Ratner said the park-space change is no big deal, pointing out the total amount of planned public space for the 22-acre Atlantic Yards site has actually jumped from 6 acres to 7.4 acres since 2003.

"Originally, all the buildings around the arena were commercial, and members of the public would be walking in that area," said Ratner spokesman Joe DePlasco. "But now, with all the buildings around the arena being residential, we've made the space accessible to those people."

Critics point to other "broken promises" — like the vow that 50 percent of the residential units would be affordable. Of 7,300 housing units, only about 2,200 will be affordable — more like a 30-70 split, James said.

DePlasco said the 50-50 promise was for the 4,500 rentals only — not the remaining condo units. James countered: "It was 50-50 for all the units. This is not being done right."

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/14/nyregion/14yards.html
To Build Arena in Brooklyn, Developer First Builds Bridges

By NICHOLAS CONFESSORE
Published: October 14, 2005

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2005/10/14/nyregion/14yards184.jpg
Stephanie Keith for The New York Times

Councilwoman Letitia James of Brooklyn opposes a mixed-use complex in downtown Brooklyn.

In the two years since he announced his ambitious Atlantic Yards development in downtown Brooklyn, Bruce Ratner has lined up an impressive roster of supporters, including Gov. George E. Pataki, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, the Rev. Al Sharpton, and even the rap artist Jay-Z.

But it is Mr. Ratner's support from community figures - including a prominent Brooklyn minister, the head of an advocacy group that has battled him in the past, and an organization run by members of the local community board - that in many ways has fueled the project's slow but steady march forward.

Mr. Ratner has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on publicity for Atlantic Yards, the sprawling Frank Gehry-designed office, retail and residential development with an arena for the Nets as its centerpiece. Top executives of Forest City Ratner, Mr. Ratner's company, held dozens of meetings with residents.

The project's supporters - as well as Mr. Ratner's associates - see these tactics as smart business. But opponents see the outreach as something more sinister: a campaign to divide opponents, co-opt those local figures who were interested but skeptical, and create the appearance of broad support where they say little exists.

The developer's effort follows the death of the city's dream of a West Side football stadium amid overwhelming neighborhood hostility.

"He's manufacturing community support, and in terms of political support, he's just relying on old relations," said Councilwoman Letitia James, one of several local politicians who oppose the project, and whose district includes its footprint. "They are Goliath, and we are David."

Bruce Bender, Mr. Ratner's executive vice president, put it another way: "What Bruce's philosophy is is reaching out and getting in and reaching out to the community before the community gets into you, so to speak." Forest City Ratner is also the development partner for the new Midtown headquarters of The New York Times Company.

But from whatever viewpoint, the project's seemingly inexorable movement suggests that Mr. Ratner is creating a new and finely detailed modern blueprint for how to nourish - and then harvest - public and community backing for a hugely ambitious development that is expected to provide more than nine million square feet of apartments, offices, stores and hotel rooms, as well as the arena, in the middle of a populous, cantankerous and often sharply divided city. Mr. Ratner scored a coup of sorts when he received the support of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or Acorn, the advocacy group that has fought previous Forest City projects, which this time struck a deal to include a significant amount of moderate- and low-cost housing in the project. He has also found an ally in the Rev. Herbert Daughtry, pastor of the House of the Lord Churches on Atlantic Avenue, who initially fought the plan.

Both were among eight groups that signed a community-benefits agreement with Forest City Ratner in June under which the builder will provide job training, housing and business opportunities to local residents.

But it is Mr. Ratner's links to a different group, Brooklyn United for Innovative Local Development, or Build, that has drawn the most attention from critics, who say it didn't incorporate until after the plans were announced. The company has denied that it provided financial support to launch the group, but a spokesman said that as part of the community-benefits agreement, the company recently gave Build a $100,000 grant and covers its overhead costs.

"There's no doubt that the development community all over the country is very closely watching what happens in Brooklyn. The movement to build coalitions around development is going national," said John Goldstein, national program director for the Oakland, Calif.-based Partnership for Working Families, which helped negotiate a landmark community-benefits agreement around the Staples Center sports complex in Los Angeles.

Mr. Ratner's street-level and high-level public relations campaign began in the fall of 2003, when his company retained Dan Klores Communications, one of the city's top public relations firms. Their team, headed by Joe DePlasco, a veteran of the city's Democratic establishment, began lining up politicians and other supporters before the December news conference unveiling the initial design.

Since then, the firm has run what amounted to an ambitious traveling road show, organizing presentations for community boards, business groups, block associations, and others, according to a schedule Mr. DePlasco offered. It also worked with the developer's allies to turn out local supporters at press conferences and at several contentious public hearings, and connected Build and other groups with media outlets that were in search of pro-arena voices.

"To the extent that there was a strategy, it wasn't 'Oh, let's go out there and pick off community groups.' It was, 'Let's go out there and talk to people and find out what the major issues are,' " Mr. DePlasco said.

Forest City Ratner also contracted with Knickerbocker SKD, a media consultant, to produce two promotional mailings, each going to more than 300,000 households in Brooklyn. They oversaw publication of a newspaper-style brochure, dubbed The Brooklyn Standard. More recently, Forest City retained the Terrie Williams Agency, a prominent black-owned public relations firm, to represent those groups that signed the community-benefits agreement.

Then there is Build.

The group had its roots in an effort by Roger Green, a longtime Brooklyn assemblyman, and local labor organizers to tackle unemployment among residents in the area's public housing developments. It has since become the project's most enthusiastic local supporter; its president, James Caldwell, has said that Mr. Ratner was "truly sent by God."

Some of the project's opponents, however, charge that Build is an enthusiastic supporter of Mr. Ratner because he pays it to be.

There is little doubt that the group, and Mr. Green, figured early in Mr. Ratner's efforts. The two met in Mr. Green's district office in October 2003 to discuss the project, and later dined at Junior's, on Flatbush Avenue, to discuss job-training programs and minority business participation. Later, Mr. Green would help shape the community-benefits agreement that Forest City Ratner would sign with pro-development groups.

Mr. Green's support gave the project local roots; the three other elected officials whose districts include parts of the project - Representative Major Owens, State Senator Velmanette Montgomery, and Councilwoman James - adamantly opposed it.

Mr. Green also helped connect Mr. Ratner with others who became allies. Soon after Mr. Ratner purchased the Nets in January 2004, the developer hired Randall Touré, one of Mr. Green's top staff members, to run the firm's community outreach efforts.

Around the same time, Build held a meeting in the firm's offices in MetroTech Center to discuss business opportunities for minority contractors and job-seekers, facilitated by two of Build's co-founders, Darnell Canada and Eric Blackwell, and attended by Mr. Touré among others.

Critics have pointed out that Build and Mr. Daughtry, in particular, decided to support the project even as they were in the middle of negotiating the community-benefits agreement. "A lot of us feel that Roger's relationship with the developer was too close, and that he excluded a lot of people," said the Rev. Mark Taylor, a member of the Downtown Brooklyn Leadership Coalition.

"That raises questions about whose interests those negotiations were in."

Mr. Daughtry founded the Downtown Brooklyn Leadership Coalition in 2004 but left soon after, in a dispute with other members over whether it would support the project. He later started a new clergy group, the Downtown Brooklyn Neighborhood Alliance, which supports Mr. Ratner. "I thought we needed to move on this thing," Mr. Daughtry said. "It became rather heated, and I decided at that point that I would resign."

According to Internal Revenue Service documents first reported by The Daily News, Build was not formally incorporated until Feb. 4, 2004, just a few days before the group held a press conference to announce that it was supporting the project. The same I.R.S. form also estimated that the group would receive $5 million over two years from Forest City Ratner as part of the community-benefits agreement then being negotiated. Build officials later said that that amount was never promised by or discussed with the developer.

Soon after the group decided to support Mr. Ratner, Mr. Canada, its original president, resigned, citing in a news release "the need to distance myself from those in the organization who see this organization as financial self gain" rather than "for the needs of the Brooklyn community."" That has led some of Mr. Ratner's critics to question whether the group was too close to the developer to fairly represent the community.

"Build and the other signatories of the so-called community-benefits agreement are Bruce Ratner's partners. They are contractually obliged to speak on behalf of his project," said Daniel Goldstein, a spokesman for the anti-arena group Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn. Mr. Caldwell, the group's current president, and Marie Louis, its treasurer, said late last month that Build was not yet receiving money from Forest City and that neither of them was yet drawing a salary.

But on Tuesday, Mr. DePlasco and a new spokeswoman for Build, Cheryl Duncan, revised that account.

In August, Mr. DePlasco said, two months after the agreement was signed, Forest City disbursed $100,000 to the group. The company also provided space for and is paying the overhead of a new Build office near the Atlantic Yards site, and along with other supporters donated furniture and computer equipment to the group. On Sept. 5, Ms. Duncan said, Build began paying several staff members, including Mr. Caldwell and Ms. Louis, who she said are currently being paid at a rate equal to half the salaries listed on the group's original I.R.S. form. Before the signing of the community-benefits agreement, the staff had been working as volunteers, she said.

Mr. DePlasco emphasized that the money given to Build was intended to fulfill the company's obligations under the community-benefits agreement.

"No money was given to Build prior to the community-benefits agreement. What they're supposed to do is begin outreach and job training so that people are ready to apply for these jobs when they become available. If you are going to commit to programs that otherwise don't exist, you have to find the funding for those programs - or at least a big chunk of that funding," he said. "Forest City Ratner Company believes firmly that supporting nonprofits and community groups, and working with them to identify and address needs, is at the foundation of what they do. It's that simple."
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“Some Guy’s Idea”: MTA Chairman Peter Kalikow Creates Existential Crisis—Resolves with Cronyism

by Brian J. Carreira

The humiliation begins at eight o’clock. It is catered. Bagels, coffee and juice, passed out along with “Jobs, Housing, and Hoops” pins. The union workers have already lined up, sporting the buttons and drinking coffee outside the MTA’s Madison Avenue headquarters, for the September 14 meeting to decide the fate of the Vanderbilt Rail Yards.

“I don’t even know what I’m supposed to do,” remarked Jared Armendariz of Queens, a member of the Carpenter’s Local 20-90, as he sipped his hot beverage. He didn’t know much about Bruce Ratner’s Atlantic Yards proposal—the one he was out to support. “Just what I’ve heard on the news,” he said, then added, with regard to the hearing he stood waiting to attend, “I take it today there’s a meeting or something.”


The union workers came out an hour and a half before the 9:30 a.m. hearing where the MTA would decide to accept the Forest City Ratner Company (FCRC) offer to purchase the Vanderbilt Yards. They were there to fill space and presumably to squeeze out actual Brooklynites. “Once a year, as part of the Union, you have to do some sort of picket duty,” Armendariz explained. “You’ve seen those big inflatable rats on the street? Usually that’s what I’m out doing.” No inflatable rat was in attendance that day.

It was a light turnout compared to previous meetings and events related to the controversial proposal that would plop seventeen skyscrapers (and counting) along with a basketball arena atop an existing neighborhood. Perhaps this is because the outcome of the meeting had already been reported by the New York Times the previous week, and was otherwise widely considered preordained.

First it marked out a race-course, in a sort of circle, (‘the exact shape doesn’t matter,’ it said,) and then all the party were placed along the course, here and there. There was no ‘One, two, three, and away,’ but they began running when they liked, and left off when they liked, so that it was not easy to know when the race was over. However, when they had been running half an hour or so, and were quite dry again, the Dodo suddenly called out ‘The race is over!’ and they all crowded round it, panting, and asking, ‘But who has won?’

This question the Dodo could not answer without a great deal of thought, and it sat for a long time with one finger pressed upon its forehead (the position in which you usually see Shakespeare, in the pictures of him), while the rest waited in silence. At last the Dodo said, ‘everybody has won, and all must have prizes.’

The meeting came to order. Many strode forth to bear witness to the powers of their own speech. Knowing that a decision had already been reached attendees were freed of the usual restraints of topicality, accuracy, or advocacy.

Reverend Herbert Daughtry urged for the MTA’s approval of the Forest City bid for his “domestic tranquility,” as his wife would stand to gain an intergenerational center at the development as part of the Community Benefits Agreement. “Hopefully you’ll participate in this historic effort,” he implored with grandiosity, “and leave your footprint on the sands of time.”

City Councilman David Yassky, relatively quiet as the nearly two-year long debate over Atlantic Yards has raged in the district adjacent to his, contrasted Daughtry’s flourish with tepidness. Summoning excruciatingly mild language, Yassky requested that the MTA “wait until a project of an appropriate scale is approved by the state,” and then seek the best value for the yards at that time.

State Senator Carl Kruger, representing unaffected Brighton Beach, Midwood, Mill Island, and Bergen Beach residents, strongly lauded the Ratner proposal as part of the process by which “neighborhoods are being re-gentrified,” and that the Senator heralded as a “new era.” Excited that the project was “for all of us in Brooklyn that are proud of our heritage and our lineage,” he looks forward to the day that he can say, “the Vanderbilt Yards will no longer be the cesspool that they currently are.”

Shabnam Merchant, in a comment on the MTA’s lack of “courtesy to pretend that this is part of the democratic process,” ceded her remaining time at the podium to silence. Daniel Goldstein addressed Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum, not in attendance, regarding her willful ignorance over the threat and potential use of eminent domain that have been essential to Forest City’s success. Norman Oder talked about his 173-page report on the New York Times’ coverage of the project.

And it would continue like this. Chairman Kalikow created the room with no walls. The marrow of relevancy sucked dry, the stage was set for an apocalypse of noise tempered only by individual time limits and a sign-in sheet.

“The voting public is particularly cynical about government and about politicians. Now I know why,” City Councilwoman Letitia James lashed out against the board. The councilwoman then proceeded to unfurl a litany of reasons she feels the project is bad for her district and bad for Brooklyn: “This is really for Manhattanites. This is for the rich.” Then to counter the mantra from Forest City and their supporters that Atlantic Yards will provide a great boost to the community—and the African-American community in particular—she added, “This is a project that will only benefit the investors. Ninety-eight percent of the investors on this project are not people of color.”

The offer from Forest City Ratner for the yards was $100 million cash. This is $50 million more than their initial cash offer, yielding the much desired headline that the developer had “doubled” their bid. Of course, as Ratner’s people are quick to assert when asked about a number which undercuts both the scuttled Extell offer of $150 million and the MTA appraised value of $214.5 million: their meat is in rail yard improvements, cash is just a portion of the deal. Forest City throws in a revamped rail facility and platform that the developer has posited are worth $345 million. Thus, by their estimate, FCRC actually far exceed the politically neutralized rival bid and the MTA value.

Forest City didn’t blanche as most of the press, including the New York Times, mischaracterized the new bid as “double,” when it was in fact only increased by 12.6%. A factor of two also has a nicer ring than the reality that FCRC’s package is mostly made up of fuzzily estimated improvements with a mere 22% in hard currency. But these are just numbers. Atlantic Yards has always been about perception.

As to the non-cash portion of their bid, Forest City VP Jim Stuckey implored, “That’s not funny money. That’s real cash.”

But why not just offer the whole thing in cash? The answer might lie in the February MOU. In section 8, paragraph (i), it is noted that the already promised state subsidy of $100 million “shall be used to fund costs of site preparation and public infrastructure improvements on and around the Arena Site.” The city’s $100 million can be used for the same.

Paragraph (ii) also notes that FCRC is responsible for all other costs, “Provided however, that the Public Parties will consider making additional contributions for extraordinary infrastructure costs relating to the mixed use development on the Project Site.” This is strikingly similar language to the “Platform and Other Extraordinary Infrastructure” that accounts for $163 million of the developer’s bid, according to a Ratner Fact Sheet released on September 14.

The money might be “real cash,” but a substantial portion will likely come from the taxpayer’s pocket to feed a taxpayer-funded agency, with Forest City simply giving it a good wash along the way.

Managing to arouse the slumbering journalists for a moment from the methodical plod, MTA Board member Michael Pally had a brief exchange with Chairman Kalikow. As cross as futility can manifest, Pally, the lone dissenting vote, suggested that the board shouldn’t consider the non-cash segment of the bid. He contended that per the MTA’s own 20-year needs assessment, “The Long Island Railroad and the MTA would not have made improvements to the Atlantic Yards. These funds are not being used to substitute for a project the Long Island Railroad wants to do, they are being used for a project the Long Island Railroad does not want to do.”

He also questioned the aspect of the deal that requires Forest City to put only 10% down of their cash offer pending approvals from the state. “Why is the approval of this project subject to entities over which the MTA has no control?” Pally asked, noting that the West Side Stadium process left the MTA without anything to show for the Hudson Yards due to a similar deal structure.

It was during these comments that Kalikow leapt into the abyss by asserting that the $214 million estimated value of the property, appraised by Daniel P. Lane and Associates and paid for by the MTA, “is some guy’s idea of what it is worth.”

It wouldn’t matter. The rich help themselves in Mike Bloomberg’s New York. The idea that logic and proportion might apply to the MTA’s decision, or any other along Ratner’s triumphal march towards his cement and glass crown, is evidently more absurd than the contortions the politicians and sycophants have made to justify their actions.

“Sometime in the summer of next year,” is when Jim Stuckey hopes to erase Prospect Heights in favor of Ratner’s Wonderland—“maybe earlier.” In their actions though, the politicians and the developer continually demonstrate that by their understanding the neighborhood is an empty slate, and always has been.

‘I never heard of ‘Uglification,’’ Alice ventured to say. ‘What is it?’

The Gryphon lifted up both its paws in surprise. ‘What! Never heard of uglifying!’ it exclaimed. ‘You know what to beautify is, I suppose?’

‘Yes,’ said Alice doubtfully: ‘it means—to—make—anything—prettier.’

‘Well, then,’ the Gryphon went on, ‘if you don’t know what to uglify is, you are a simpleton.’*

This about sums it up.

*Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. London 1865. Chapter III, A Caucus-Race and A Long Tale. Chapter IX, The Mock Turtle’s Story

Arena oppenents definately took a slam dunk over the Ratner supporters. :yes:
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/local/story/356643p-303996c.html
BUILD admits Ratner funding

A nonprofit group that spearheaded neighborhood support for the huge Atlantic Yards commercial development in Brooklyn has finally admitted it is being bankrolled by Forest City Ratner, the project's developer.

The $3.5 billion Atlantic Yards, which includes a new Nets arena and a raft of office and residential apartment towers, is scheduled to have its first formal public review tonight at an environmental impact hearing before the Empire State Development Corp.

Until last week, the leaders of Brooklyn United for Innovative Local Development - BUILD - had repeatedly denied getting any financing from Ratner.

That story began to unravel, however, after this column reported Sept. 29 that the group filed documents with the IRS early this year in which it reported $5 million in donations from Ratner for 2005 and 2006.

Confronted with those filings, the group's leaders at first said the $5 million was only what they were projecting to get for job training programs they would provide for the project. No actual money had been disbursed or even committed by the developer, said Marie Louis, BUILD's chief operating officer.

Then late last week, the group and Ratner made a clarification.

Yes, some money has changed hands.

Forest City Ratner paid BUILD $10,000 earlier this year to distribute copies of a promotional newspaper about the Atlantic Yards project called the Brooklyn Standard.

Then in August, the developer donated an additional $100,000 to the group to pay its salaries.

That was two months after BUILD and seven other Brooklyn neighborhood groups signed a so-called Community Benefits Agreement with Forest City Ratner that promised up to one-third of the housing built would be "affordable" and set aside jobs for local residents.

Ratner provided an entire building rent-free for BUILD headquarters on Pacific St. and supplied all of the group's office equipment. The developer also is paying for a public relations firm to represent BUILD and the other neighborhood groups that support Atlantic Yards.

Last weekend, Ratner issued another $28,000 contract for BUILD to hire 100 neighborhood people to distribute a second copy of its promotional newspaper, said the developer's spokesman Joe DePlasco.

The latest issue of that newspaper - 300,000 copies were printed - has a big front-page photo of Mayor Bloomberg, who is a strong supporter of the project, next to developer Bruce Ratner.

Margaret Perkins was among those who distributed the Ratner paper in Brooklyn this weekend.

Perkins lives at the Brooklyn Woman's Shelter in Brownsville. She and several other women at the shelter say they were paid $12 an hour for their work.

"The people at BUILD pay well," she told me yesterday. "I've done work for them before, during the elections."

During the September Democratic primary, Perkins said, she worked the polls for City Council candidate Eric Blackwell. She picked up her pay for her election work at BUILD headquarters, she said.

Blackwell happens to be the former head of the group.

The incumbent whom Blackwell sought to oust was Councilwoman Letitia James. She is a firm opponent of the Atlantic Yards project, while Blackwell's campaign literature prominently stressed his support for the Ratner development.

James won in a landslide.

According to several sources, the BUILD headquarters was a busy place on primary day. A little-known organization called Community Leadership for Accountable Politics Inc. appears to have organized and paid the polling place volunteers.

IRS rules do not permit tax-exempt organizations to campaign for candidates.

I called BUILD headquarters yesterday to ask Marie Louis and the group's current president, James Caldwell, what involvement the group had, if any, with Community Leadership for Accountable Politics, or with the organizing of Election Day operations for Blackwell.

Neither Louis nor Caldwell responded. Efforts to locate a representative for Community Leadership for Accountable Politics were unsuccessful.

Meanwhile, at Forest City Ratner, no one had ever heard of Community Leadership for Accountable Politics.

Originally published on October 18, 2005
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http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/19/nyregion/19yards.html
The People Speak (Shout, Actually) on Brooklyn Arena Project

By NICHOLAS CONFESSORE
Published: October 19, 2005

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2005/10/19/nyregion/19yard650.jpg
Michael Nagle for The New York Times

Some opponents of the development of the Atlantic Yards in Brooklyn made their feelings visible Tuesday night at a public hearing.

Simmering tensions over a sweeping development project in Brooklyn erupted last night at a public hearing, as opponents and supporters took turns applauding, booing and interrupting one another. The meeting exposed deep divisions between residents who want jobs and housing and those who fear the traffic that the project might bring, as well as a host of other problems.

The crowd shouted down several speakers, including Marty Markowitz, the borough's president and the project's leading booster, who endured a withering chorus of catcalls while he described the project as "a wonderful addition to Brooklyn."

Eric McClure, a member of Park Slope Neighbors, a local group that opposes the project, insisted: "If and when ground is broken for this project, there will be no turning back, no second chances. The surrounding community will feel its effects for decades." He added, "Nothing less than the future of Brooklyn depends on a thorough, comprehensive and effective" environmental review.

The debate over the Atlantic Yards project - a 9-million-square-foot office, residential and commercial project designed by Frank Gehry with a basketball arena at its center - ran well beyond the three hours scheduled for it. The hearing, intended strictly to consider environmental concerns related to the project, instead became a referendum on the proposal's myriad flaws and virtues.

Both sides were well represented at the hearing, nearly filling an 880-seat auditorium at the New York City College of Technology in Downtown Brooklyn. Most people spoke on behalf of local block associations, community boards and business groups. But opponents appeared to outnumber supporters in number, intensity and volume.

And those who spoke quickly revealed the fault lines that have divided the neighborhoods around the project, which has been proposed by the developer Forest City Ratner Companies.

Opponents, many of whom said they lived at or near the project site - near Downtown Brooklyn at the intersection of Atlantic and Flatbush Avenues - cited overburdened sewer lines, overcrowded schools and the project's sheer physical size as drawbacks. Supporters focused narrowly on the promise of employment and inexpensive housing.

"I'm here for one reason, and one reason only: jobs," said Reinaldo Torres of the Sheet Metal Workers International Association, one of several unions that sent members to express support for the project.

"This Forest City Ratner is the right way to go," Mr. Torres added, speaking over and through a deafening crescendo of catcalls and applause. "He's got a very good record. He builds union 100 percent of the time."

Mr. Torres, who is from Staten Island, said that his union had 900 members in Brooklyn and supported the project. Forest City Ratner is also a development partner for the new Midtown office tower being built for The New York Times.

The hearing was contentious from its start, despite an early admonition by Ted Kramer, a lawyer hired to moderate, that "anyone who interrupts will be asked to leave." He was applauded by some audience members, then interrupted and eventually ignored. Few of the speakers succeeded in observing the three-minute time limit, and even fewer managed to finish their statements without disturbance. At times, the hecklers heckled one another, trading barbs and the occasional threatening gesture across rows of auditorium seats.

The crowd was impatient with those who seemed to have not yet made up their minds. Councilman David Yassky of Brooklyn, who has expressed cautious support for the project, said, "If done right, the benefits will outweigh the costs." But he added that it was "out of scale" and would "change irretrievably and irreversibly the character of the surrounding neighborhoods."

That prompted one audience member to yell out, "Are you for the project or against it?"

Mr. Yassky repeated that he was for the project if it was "done right."

But street congestion, asthma and gentrification were only a few of the concerns raised. One speaker, Alan M. Rosner, said that the planned arena's soaring glass walls would endanger pedestrians on the street in the event of a terrorist attack. Another, Lumi M. Rolley, who has a blog devoted to the project, raised the issue of "reflected light," which she described as an environmental hazard rooted in Mr. Gehry's use of titanium panels in his buildings.

She said that temperatures on the sidewalk near the Gehry-designed concert hall in Los Angeles had exceeded 136 degrees. "Passing motorists were blinded by the glare, while pedestrians had to cross the street to avoid the intense heat," she said.

By 8 p.m., with nearly 150 people signed up to speak, the hearing was extended for three hours.

The environmental hearing, the first of two, was among the first steps in a state process that is likely to last through the end of the year. It was sponsored by the Empire State Development Corporation, the agency charged with guiding the Atlantic Yards project along the long path toward final approval by the state.

The project has been bitterly opposed by some local politicians and residents since Bruce Ratner, the president of Forest City Ratner, proposed it in December 2003. But they have had few formal opportunities to register disapproval because most of the project is not subject to the city's stringent land review process, which requires multiple public hearings, input from community boards and a vote by the City Council.

The agency's staff is to consider all remarks from last night's hearing, and written statements submitted through the Oct. 28 deadline for public comment on the project, before releasing a draft environmental impact statement this year or early next year. The second public hearing will follow that release.

"I think it's a wonderful discussion that we're having," said James P. Stuckey, Forest City Ratner's executive vice president for development, who spoke to reporters outside the hearing. "Given that there's been so much discussion about the public process, and so much discussion about whether or not people are going to be heard - here we are tonight, and hundreds of people have come out to be heard."

Mr. Stuckey was asked to specify which of eight groups that signed a community benefits agreement with Forest City Ratner last June were currently receiving funds from the developer. (Under the agreements, the builder will provide job training, housing and job opportunities to local residents.) Last week, the company announced that one such group, Brooklyn United for Innovative Local Development, had received more than $100,000 during the summer to promote the Atlantic Yards project and to create job training programs.

He said that Forest City Ratner had also provided $50,000 in seed money to the Downtown Brooklyn Neighborhood Alliance, a group founded by the Rev. Herbert Daughtry, a prominent supporter of the Atlantic Yards project. The money was intended to help pay for programs for children and the elderly.

Perhaps, this guy's neighborhood should be next if he doesn't worry about this one. :|
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ideas_opinions/story/358486p-305490c.html
A neighborhood grows in Brooklyn

To hear all the hullaballoo at last week's public hearing about the Atlantic Yards, you would never know that the developer, Bruce Ratner, has steadily been making progress on the much-needed $3.5 billion sports complex-office tower-residential development in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn.

Complaints from the not-in-my-backyard crowd, who packed a downtown Brooklyn auditorium, made the hearing sponsored by the Empire State Development Corp. drag on for hours longer than was necessary.

Critics complained about everything from increased traffic to the bizarre notion that the steel exterior of the Nets arena, designed by Frank Gehry, might reflect too much sunlight and make nearby streets uncomfortably hot - an alleged problem with a Gehry project in sun-drenched Los Angeles that likely would not be repeated here.

Thank goodness for responsible leaders, including Mayor Bloomberg and Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz, who aren't letting the NIMBY-ites slow the progress on Atlantic Yards. Ratner now owns or controls about 90% of the needed land, and Bloomberg is committed to the project. That means Brooklyn is only a few years from seeing 17 office and residential towers atop what is now an underused railyard.

The plan would create an estimated 15,000 construction jobs and more than 6,000 housing units. Ratner, who has lined up $100 million in private investments, has already signed an innovative community benefit agreement that guarantees thousands of low-cost housing units will be built. And at least 45% of the construction jobs would go to women and minorities.

The development corporation will take written comments through Friday and is expected to hold another hearing early next year that is sure to draw the NIMBY forces out again. But those who understand the need for jobs and development should take heart: Despite the predictable howls from anti-development complainers, the interminable delays that have hobbled other big development projects - notably Ground Zero and the West Side of Manhattan - seem blessedly absent from the Brooklyn project.

That's the best news we've heard in a while.

this is awesome!

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ideas_opinions/story/359154p-306011c.html
Not NIMBY

Brooklyn: Brooklyn residents are to be applauded, not slammed, for fulfilling their civic responsibility of looking at the many environmental issues that need to be weighed in the enormous Atlantic Yards project ("A neighborhood grows in Brooklyn," editorial, Oct. 24). This is not a case of NIMBY (and name-calling isn't nice), but a state-mandated review that rightly insists on citizen participation.

Lucy Koteen

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/story/359682p-306431c.html
Freddy fires Net salvo

He'd downsize 'mother of all real estate deals'

Mayoral hopeful Fernando Ferrer proposed a massive scaleback of the controversial Atlantic Yards project, saying yesterday it shouldn't be the "mother of all real estate deals."

"As mayor, I want to scale that project down dramatically," Ferrer, the Democratic nominee, told the Daily News Editorial Board yesterday.

The 9-million-square-foot office, residential and commercial project features a basketball arena to house the NBA's Nets as its centerpiece.

Last week, a contentious hearing on the project devolved into an ugly display of shouting, heckling and gesturing, underscoring the simmering tensions in the neighborhood.

Ferrer told the Editorial Board that he supported the project's affordable housing and other benefits it would bring to the community, but he lambasted the overall "secrecy and lack of transparency" surrounding the development.

He also rebuked what he called "apparent abuses of eminent domain," citing a secret memo that recently emerged about two businesses that could be evicted if a site were not made available by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

"We're talking about a lot of mass in that project, a lot of mass. And if we don't deal with a lot of the other issues - like traffic, like schools, like police protection, like sanitation and health care - I think we have a problem," Ferrer said.

"We've got to make this human-size now," he concluded. "This can't be the mother of all real estate deals. If it is that, then, I think it's wrong."

Ferrer declined to specify precisely what part of the project he intended to scale back. He said he would only support eminent domain for businesses that were "unperforming."

The former Bronx borough president's strong comments on the project come after more than a year of railing against Bloomberg for his support of the failed $1.9 billion West Side stadium - a prime example, he often says, of Bloomberg's misplaced priorities.

Stu Loeser, a Bloomberg campaign spokesman, said Ferrer's proposal "means less affordable housing, less jobs, and less economic development for Brooklyn and the city."

"Can Freddy Ferrer find any economic development project in New York City that he supports?" Loeser asked.

Joe DePlasco, who represents the project's developer, said the development team disagrees with Ferrer and welcomes the opportunity to explain the project to him.

"We have generated so much support and excitement because the project will also generate thousands of jobs and thousands of affordable apartments in an area with a dire need for housing and jobs."

Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz, who supports the project and Bloomberg's reelection bid, said Tuesday on New York 1 he, too, wants to scale back the project.

"There's no question that the community is right when they call for downscaling the size," he said.
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http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ideas_opinions/story/359523p-306308c.html
Crying foul ...
Brooklyn: The editorial on the Nets arena proposal ("A neighborhood grows in Brooklyn," Oct. 24) fails to acknowledge that opposition to the project dates to 2003, when it was made public. A project of this size causes problems that can cost the city and state huge sums of money. Bruce Ratner's company assumes no financial ability if it fails. The opponents are fighting for the people of the whole state.

Steve Hart

... over stadium
Brooklyn: Re "A neighborhood grows in Brooklyn": A neighborhood already exists in Brooklyn. In fact, many neighborhoods exist in Brooklyn. The people you disparage love and respect Brooklyn neighborhoods and their neighbors. They are fighting to save civil rights: the right to own property, the right to freedom of speech and the right to a democratic process.

Annette Bombarger

http://www.nydailynews.com/boroughs/story/359877p-306608c.html
Beep's downsize call

BY HUGH SON
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz - the leading cheerleader for developer Bruce Ratner's huge Atlantic Yards project - now wants its building heights to be reduced.

Plans for the 22-acre miniature city proposed for Brooklyn call for an NBA arena and 16 towers up to 620 feet high.

Nine million square feet of new office and residential space would dwarf surrounding structures, including the iconic Williamsburgh Savings Bank building, currently Brooklyn's tallest.

Markowitz told the Daily News that benefits from the $3.5 billion project such as jobs, affordable housing and park space should be preserved while building heights are reduced.

"The urban design challenge is how do we [preserve] the benefits and downscale the heights of the buildings proposed," Markowitz said.

He didn't offer a specific reduction, however.

"If he's proposed 50 stories, should it be 30 or 40? I don't know," he said.

Markowitz, who has increasingly acknowledged community concerns about the massive project and its impact on traffic and city services, made his strongest statements during a Tuesday NY1 interview.

"Now listen, we've got to downscale it," Markowitz said on the TV show. "There's no question that the community is right when they call for downscaling the size, and they're right on that."

Markowitz, who first persuaded Ratner to bring the New Jersey Nets to Brooklyn as part of a blockbuster land deal, presumably has the ear of the billionaire developer.

"I'm confident that there will be modification in the original proposal," Markowitz said yesterday. "There has to be - there will be."

Ratner spokesman Joe DePlasco said in a statement that "Forest City Ratner will always sit down and discuss [Markowitz's] concerns with him."

Atlantic Yards foe Councilwoman Letitia James (WFP-Fort Greene) cautiously approved of Markowitz's sentiments, but accused him of being fixated on bringing a professional sports team to the borough.

"He's changing his tune," James said. "It's unfortunate he was unaware of the size of the project from Day 1 and was only focused on the arena."

But Baruch Public Affairs professor Doug Muzzio said Markowitz was "recognizing the legitimate concerns of members of the community.

"As the project begins to approach the stage of having shovels in the ground, the opposition will increase as people realize the full extent of the adverse impacts," Muzzio said.

Originally published on October 28, 2005

This is stupid, this is an amazing deal for brooklyn.. As a Brooklyner Im 100 percent behind the development. If anyone has seen the Atlantic Avenue Rail yard for themselves, they would understand the need for something drastiv.. Its a completely useless waste of land and its an eyesore... Hopefully, Ratner will have his way and the people who are protesting comepensated for whatever loss they endure.
But really, the loss of the locals in the area is minor in comaprison to the huge benefits in store for the entire city of Brooklyn..

The Atlantic Avenue Rail yard is a blight that needs to be rectified. I wonder if these protesters offer viable alternative/solutions? or do they prefer to keep the rail yard as it is?

One of the alternative solutions was the plan by Garry Barnett, who offered to build on a smaller scale than Ratner, and didn't want to build over a number of homes, which many of the residents supported.

Rattner should just promise these people nicer houses and awesome retail space...
I mean, with all the money that this is bound to generate and all the the money they are spending, im sure they can accomodate the people who are losing their homes!

Even if he did promise them to live in these homes, where are they going to live for the next couples of years when their original homes are already, especially since Ratner is not likely to give them any special temporary homes on his tab?

Well, thats true, but still im sure they can come up with something for these people... The inconvenience they face for the next few years will pale in comparison to the benifit they will have of living in the new Apartments when they are built, especially if the apartments are anywhere near the hype thats been genrated about them...

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/06/nyregion/06yards.html
Routine Changes, or 'Bait and Switch'?

By NICHOLAS CONFESSORE

Published: November 6, 2005

When the Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn was unveiled in 2003, pamphlets given out at a news conference said it would feature "iconic" new buildings while balancing "the needs of the existing communities and those of the people who would live, work in or visit the new complex."

It would provide 10,000 office jobs and more than 4,000 units of rental housing, half of it set aside for low- and middle-income families. Its centerpiece would be a Frank Gehry-designed arena for the Nets basketball team, topped by a "lushly landscaped" public park with "outstanding panoramic vistas facing Manhattan."

Most of those features are still recognizable in the project's most recent iteration, described in planning documents released in September and in the latest designs from the developer, Forest City Ratner Companies.

The Nets arena remains the centerpiece. The tallest building, dubbed Miss Brooklyn, will bring Mr. Gehry's trademark titanium waves to Flatbush and Atlantic Avenues. The other towers - some smaller than before, some larger - still stand amid acres of green space carefully sculptured to welcome residents of the adjoining streets.

In other respects, however, the Atlantic Yards envisioned today looks very different from the one unveiled nearly two years ago. The project's size has jumped by a million square feet, and its dollar cost by 40 percent, to $3.5 billion. Commercial space, once a substantial portion of the overall square footage, has dropped dramatically, replaced by thousands of for-sale apartments and a hotel.

Nearly three-quarters of the office jobs originally projected are gone; the new apartments do not count as part of the so-called 50-50 agreement under which 2,250 apartments are to be rented below market rates, and the park on the arena's roof is to be accessible only to residents.

"Projects change, markets change," said Forest City Ratner's executive vice president for development, James P. Stuckey. "When you do a project over a long period of time, it's very difficult - unless you're Nostradamus - to figure out what the market changes and land changes and all those things are going to be."

But critics of the project say some of the changes, particularly the reduction in office jobs and the addition of thousands of market-rate condominiums, make Atlantic Yards into a less sweet deal for Brooklyn residents. The Democratic mayoral candidate, Fernando Ferrer, recently attacked the project as "the twin brother of Mike Bloomberg's West Side stadium boondoggle."

Some opponents go further, saying the developer lured politicians and community groups with grand promises and then backtracked after the spotlight had passed.

"They were willing to say anything to get community support, and that is why it is dangerous for the community to accept promises from the outset," said the Rev. Clinton M. Miller, a member of the Downtown Brooklyn Leadership Coalition. That group began talks with the developer over jobs and housing in 2004 but has since come out against the project.

Several factors have converged to raise the project's price tag, including increasing construction costs, the above-market prices the developer has paid to buy out residents who live on the project's footprint, the extra $50 million the developer offered for rights to build over the Metropolitan Transportation Authority rail yard, and the cost of renovating the yard itself.

Officials of Forest City Ratner said they eventually realized that they would have to reduce the amount of commercial space, to accommodate condominium units that would help pay for the project, including the below-market rental housing.

But large real estate projects are subject to "the butterfly effect": Change one thing, and another changes.

Because estimates of office jobs were based on the project's commercial square footage, less commercial space meant fewer office jobs. The earlier estimates were also based on a ratio of one job per 200 square feet of space, but the Empire State Development Corporation, which released the September planning documents, uses a less generous ratio of one job per 250 square feet of space, amplifying the reduction.

The move to include more housing also increased the total square footage of the project. Because the ceilings of residential units are several feet lower than those of commercial units, however, it did not require more floors in each building. Indeed, the project will have one building less than originally planned, lowering its overall density somewhat.

Critics said, though, that even the reduced job estimates were overstated, because they do not account for likely vacancy rates or for jobs lost when businesses currently occupying the site are forced out. Based on those factors, they said, the net gain from the project would be fewer than 1,000 new office jobs.

Officials of Forest City Ratner - the development partner in building a new Midtown headquarters for The New York Times Company - gave several reasons for the switch to a private park. One was that as the buildings rimming the arena were re-mapped to house more residential units, there were fewer public access points for the roof of the arena. Another was that the city building code would have treated the park as a public assembly area, requiring cumbersome safety features. Finally, Mr. Stuckey said, discussions with planning experts revealed that "generally, open space up in the air doesn't work - people don't use it."

While the new plan closes the park to the public, he said, it adds more park acreage to the overall project.

"We took what was on the roof and put it on the ground where people can use it," he said.

It may be the changes to the projections of new housing that have provoked the sharpest outcry.

"The problem is, Bertha Lewis and Mayor Bloomberg and Ratner are out there calling it a 50-50 plan, not a 50-50 plan just for rentals," said Daniel Goldstein, the spokesman for Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn. "It's a bait and switch. What they announced as a revolutionary housing deal is not." Ms. Lewis, executive director of the advocacy group Acorn, signed the housing agreement last spring with Bruce Ratner, president and chief executive officer of Forest City Ratner and principal owner of the New Jersey Nets.

The 50-50 deal and the more generous job numbers were frequently cited by politicians and others supporting the project, and favoring Mr. Ratner's bid to buy air rights over the rail yards for tens of millions of dollars less than their appraised worth.

In letters dated last June and July - weeks after Mr. Stuckey outlined the potential conversion to more residential units at a May hearing - more than two dozen union leaders and elected officials expressed their support for Mr. Ratner's bid. Many of them cited the developer's earlier promise of 10,000 permanent jobs in the project's commercial portion and the so-called 50-50 housing deal with Acorn.

"The more than 10,000 jobs that will be created at Atlantic Yards will be a historic achievement for the future of Brooklyn's economy," read a letter from the Brooklyn borough president, Marty Markowitz. Similar letters came from Senator Charles E. Schumer, Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum and several members of the City Council.

In an interview, Mr. Stuckey, the executive of Forest City Ratner, suggested that Forest City Ratner was paying a price for being forthcoming about its plans. He noted that the developer had met with dozens of community groups, had appeared at two Council hearings though it had no legal obligation to do so, and had publicly released pages and pages of documents before it would have been required to.

"What's interesting is that we've been out talking to people for two years. And this week, the approval process began," he said in an interview in October. "Here we are opening ourselves up - tremendous transparency, for two years. Yet the criticism is, 'Wait a second, they didn't tell us something about the evolution of their planning process before the public process began'? Just think about what that means."

"It's Orwellian, almost," Mr. Stuckey added.

The agreement signed last May between Mr. Ratner and Ms. Lewis applied only to the 4,500 rental units envisioned in the original plan. But it included a provision that if the developer added more residential units, the firm would develop 600 to 1,000 moderately priced for-sale units on or near the project site, in effect offering something close to a 50-50 ratio for all the housing associated with the project.

At the time, officials of Forest City Ratner said they were already contemplating adding 1,500 condominium units, in part because community leaders had pushed Mr. Ratner to include more housing in the project. That would have given the project 6,000 units of housing. But during a City Council presentation in May, Mr. Stuckey said the developer was contemplating adding an extra 1,300 for-sale units, bringing the total to 7,300 units.

Those additions were specified in the September planning document, cementing the transformation of Atlantic Yards into essentially a large residential development with an arena and a relatively small amount of office and retail space attached to it.

Forest City Ratner officials said that they had remained faithful to the Acorn agreement, which did not require that half of the new for-sale units be priced affordably. But if the developer chooses to build the maximum of 1,000 moderately priced for-sale units described in the Acorn agreement and builds them off-site, then the total number of for-sale and rental units associated with the project would reach 8,300, of which 3,250 would be priced below market rates - about 40 percent.

Much of the city's moderately priced housing is built through an arrangement called the 80-20 Program, under which city and state agencies subsidize construction projects by providing developers with tax-exempt bonds . In exchange, the developers set aside 20 percent of the apartment units for tenants who earn 50 percent or less of the area's median income.

Ms. Lewis said that Acorn remained a strong supporter of the project and of the agreement with Forest City Ratner. But she said she was negotiating with the company, and with the government agencies that help subsidize housing, to help make a greater proportion of the for-sale apartments available below market prices.

"We know that when we get through this thing, half of all the housing is going to be affordable - half of the rental, half of everything else," she said. "We haven't gotten down to the last part of this. But our whole principle is 50-50."
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http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/362982p-309101c.html
Math doesn't add up in Ratner world

They are the Nets of Bruce Ratner, and so it was perfect that on opening night of a new basketball season they would try to be masters of illusion in Jersey the same way they try to be over in Brooklyn.

Brett Yormark, the team's new CEO, told everybody who would listen that the Nets would have a packed house against the Milwaukee Bucks. Then maybe 15,000 people actually showed up. This is the same kind of math that tries to tell you that one basketball arena for Atlantic Yards, Brooklyn, surrounded by 16 high-rise buildings, is more about sports than luxury housing.

That is a different kind of sellout, and a real one.

When Yormark, who used to work as the president of corporate marketing for NASCAR, was called out on the number of empty seats by Mike Francesa and Chris Russo on WFAN on Thursday afternoon, he did exactly what Ratner's people do in Brooklyn every time somebody questions them on their fuzzy math — he turned it into a famous old country western line:

Who you gonna believe, me or your own lyin' eyes?

He talked and talked, like he was Brett from East Rutherford and didn't know when to hang up the phone. He talked about corporate tickets and tickets distributed and must have thought that was a way for him not to talk about how he tried to paper his house Wednesday night. Maybe what he should do is start up something like the Brooklyn Standard, a Ratner press release that tries to look like a real newspaper, as a way of getting his message out. Then he can say anything he wants to about attendance.

He can make 14,000 or 15,000 into a sellout anytime he wants to.

"There wasn't 7,000 no-shows," Yormark said on WFAN.

Wonderful. If it's 5,000 or 6,000, but not 7,000, you can spin that as some kind of triumph. The season is only a couple of games old and already you can see that Yormark is out to be Ratner's Employee of the Month. They are made for each other.

Ratner's new CEO in charge of selling the Nets tries to sell an arena that is three-quarters full as a full arena. Ratner tries to make a 22-acre project really sound like an 8.5-acre project because 8.5 acres is the size of the Brooklyn railyards Ratner wants to rebuild. Their vision statement, then, is that the rest of us are only supposed to see what they want us to see.

Almost from the start, they used the Nets to obscure our view of the rest of this project. Marty Markowitz, a borough president obsessed with bringing major league sports back to Brooklyn, a legacy-obsessed politician the way Michael Bloomberg was as he tried to build the Jets their stadium on the West Side, is the one who went to Ratner and told him to bring the Nets over from Jersey.

At this point Ratner, a smart real estate guy, saw a tremendous opening, saw a chance to do what guys like him have been doing for the past 30 years in America, which means using sports to make an absolute killing in real estate and development.

And away we went. Understand something, because a lot of people don't: This all started with sports. Doesn't happen without sports. It's not like the Nets were just a part of this plan. The Nets became the point man for this the way Jason Kidd is a point man for Vince Carter and Richard Jefferson.

Now a luxury-housing development is called an "economic" development. As Norman Oder continually points out at his TimesRatnerReport blog, Ratner originally promised 10,000 office jobs. As it stands now, the project would create space for maybe 2,500 or so office jobs. If you use NYC Economic Development Corporation's calculations, maybe a third of THOSE would be new jobs.

Al Sharpton keeps talking about "thousands" of jobs for minorities and is somebody else who has bought into Ratner's hype, and rolled over for him. We're still being told about 15,000 construction jobs. What that really means is maybe 1,500 jobs over 10 years. Roughly 35% of those go to minorities according to the deal Ratner signed with community groups. This is math that is practically, well, Yormarkian.

We were told that half of the units in what can only be called RatnerWorld would be "affordable" housing. This, too, is math from Nets' sellouts. Maybe it will be 30% in the end. This all goes on in broad daylight, as Ratner pays off enough homeowners in and around this proposed development to make himself look generous, though not as generous as the taxpayers, who will eventually pay a billion dollars towards the project.

A couple of Sundays ago I was standing in front of Engine Co. 219, Ladder Co. 105 on Dean Street, not so far from Atlantic Ave. It was a beautiful morning and people were on the street going for coffee or returning from church or walking children in strollers. This is supposed to be part of the neighborhood that Bruce Ratner needs to save.

I asked a young fireman who didn't want his name in the newspaper to describe how much of the street we were looking at goes if Ratner gets his way.

The guy swept an arm across this stretch of Dean Street like a teacher with an eraser cleaning a blackboard. "It all goes," he said.

In the name of progress. And the new math of Bruce Ratner's Nets.

How long is this gonna go on? I mean, its been going back and forth like this forever...
TalB, you think this thing is going to be resolved any time soon?

NewYork-wala, you are asking a person who does not have any support for this plan, so I hope it goes long enough so that it can be cancelled.

NewYork-wala, you are asking a person who does not have any support for this plan, so I hope it goes long enough so that it can be cancelled.
So you dont support the stadium, or the new housing or what?
I mean, something has to be built on that sight.. What do you think?

Perhaps, it doesn't need any new developement, though the Extell Plan did seem to have a better scale with the area.

Nets plan flushed out

Paul D. Colford
November 23, 2005

How does a wildflower meadow and boardwalk on the roof of the new Nets arena strike your fancy?

What do you say to an entryway with stoop-like seating and a new marsh to handle storm water runoff?

These are among the striking elements under consideration for Brooklyn's Atlantic Yards project, star architect Frank Gehry and landscape designer Laurie Olin revealed last night.

In back-to-back presentations at the Center for Architecture in Greenwich Village, they pulled back the curtain on how they're trying to reshape the 22-acre expanse in Prospect Heights and yet "have it feel like it's still Brooklyn," as Olin put it.

Gehry's 18,000-seat home for the Nets is planned at Atlantic and Flatbush Aves.

He showed how giant images might be projected on the floor, as well as the ceiling. "The idea is to make so much stuff happen that it feels full all the time," he said.

In one whimsical touch, he illustrated how the street surfaces outside the arena might be striped with the Nets' team colors - now red, white and blue.

Forest City Ratner Cos.' proposed $3.5 billion development, which critics say will overwhelm the area, also calls for up to 7,300 units of housing and 628,000 square feet of office space.

It now faces an environmental review.

Gehry said he's committed to varying the scale of the 16 buildings and alternating among glass, metal and brick. But he also cautioned that his design is still a work in progress.

All contents © 2005 Daily News, L.P.
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BROOKLYN PAPERS

Gehry: My design was ‘horrible’

Architect tinkers to reduce impact of Atlantic Yards

By Ariella Cohen
The Brooklyn Papers

http://brooklynpapers.com/html/issues/_vol28/28_46/28_46gehryhagan.jpg
Before unveiling his latest tweaks for Atlantic Yards this week, architect Frank Gehry waved at an old acquaintance in the fourth row: Patti Hagan of Develop—Don’t Destroy Brooklyn. Giving a wide grin, Gehry accepted an invite to tour Prospect Heights with the longtime Atlantic Yards opponent. “I think Bruce Ratner will fire me,” Gehry joked.

Even world-renowned architect Frank Gehry thinks his design for the Atlantic Yards project — a scheme so massive that even its supporters grumbled after it was unveiled in July — was “horrible.”

Gehry made the stunning admission on Tuesday, as he showed off new details of his design for a 19,000-seat basketball arena, 7,300 units of housing and nearly two million square feet of commercial and office space atop 24 acres in the heart of Brooklyn.

Gehry’s lighting-fast PowerPoint presentation, made at an American Institute of Architects forum, was full of small details, but avoided the Big Picture.

The new design for the $3.5-billion project remains pretty much like its predecessor — minus the architect’s trademark bling. It’s now a bit softer, more inviting, greener and even features a marsh-like pond.

“We didn’t want iconic warfare between 20 buildings,” he said. Translating from Architectese, Gehry means that the glitzy, Vegas-like towers he unveiled to widespread rancor will be toned down and re-clad with warmer brick.

The project’s centerpiece — the glass-walled arena for the Brooklyn Nets at the intersection of Flatbush and Atlantic avenues — remains as shiny as ever.

Yet the architect played defense for most of the forum and repeatedly used the word “horrible” to describe how he felt about the earlier design when he saw it splashed all over the front page of the New York Times in July.

It’s no surprise that Gehry is tinkering with the project. Last week, The Brooklyn Papers reported that developer Bruce Ratner had sent his starchitect back to the drafting table.

The new renderings showed the project’s seven acres of public space filled with autumnal trees and featuring two fountains, one similar in style to the popular waterworks at the Brooklyn Museum.

Yet key parts of the development — such as the roof of the arena — remain unresolved. Gehry again said he wants housing on the 52,000-square-foot roof. “I am still fascinated with getting people up there,” he said.

Ratner has long advertised that area as public space. But The Brooklyn Papers reported last month that the developer nevertheless planned to eliminate public access to the site.

In his own PowerPoint presentation, renowned landscape architect Lauri Olin said the roof could include a two-acre wildflower meadow. Such a scheme would restrict human use of the roof, but be a boon for migrating birds, said Olin, whose designs for Bryant Park and the Battery Park City esplanade are widely admired.

Many in the audience at the AIA forum cooed like those migrating birds when Olin unveiled his renderings.

But others asked the designers to defend their decision to close off Pacific Street for green space and residential development, creating a megablock.

“They think park space is going to sell the plan, but to create that park, they have to cut off two streets,” said Genevieve Christy of the Boerum Hill Association. “That creates significant questions about who will have access to the space and how they will get there through the traffic.”

Other issues also remain up in the air. At one point, Gehry aimed his red pointer at a blank quadrangle on one of his renderings and said he didn’t know what would go there.

His uncertainty quickly came back to haunt him.

“I live pretty much where you pointed your red pointer,” said Peter Krashes, chair of the Dean Street Block Association, before asking about plans for managing traffic in the neighborhood.

Krashes said he was bothered that Gehry could point to a place that means a lot to him — his home — and yet not know what he plans to put there.

After the exchange, Forest City Ratner Executive Vice President Jim Stuckey urged Krashes to call him to hash out the project’s impact.

Earlier, Stuckey made news when he said that the project’s commercial space might be increased during the upcoming state environmental review.

WDF? Does anyone really read these articles?

^Time for another cleanup.

WDF? Does anyone really read these articles?
I take it that you don't, but I am sure everyone else does.

doubt it

I read em. And especially since I'm not in the City right now, I like to read some news about what's going on.

I know that the area may not look like much, but sometimes looks can be decieving after looking at these pics from places I have seen from Satans Landromat, Forgotten NY, Daily Heights, and BADD.

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http://www.nypost.com/news/regionalnews/59061.htm
ARENA WILL SNARL TRAFFIC: B'KLYN BEEP

By RICH CALDER
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December 6, 2005 -- Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz — a major backer of the borough's push for a pro-basketball arena — acknowledged yesterday that the development could create more traffic than Madison Square Garden does in Manhattan.

The comment followed traffic consultant Samuel Schwartz's suggestion that Brooklyn use the area around the Garden as a transportation model.

Like the Garden, the Downtown Brooklyn arena can expect about 40 percent of the audiences for sporting events and concerts to arrive by car, 50 percent by subways and buses and 10 percent on foot, Schwartz said at a public forum at the Brooklyn Borough Board, which he heads.

Markowitz disagreed.

"I don't think you can compare Madison Square Garden to Brooklyn. There's a huge part of Brooklyn that does not have public transportation," he said — adding that parts of Staten Island and Queens, too, are out of the reach of public transportation leading to the arena's designated site at the corner of Atlantic and Flatbush avenues.

The controversial project, to be developed by New Jersey Nets owner Bruce Ratner, calls for a $3.5 billion, 7,300-unit residential high-rise complex anchored by the arena.

Meanwhile, Schwartz, a former city Transportation Department commissioner, announced that Ratner's firm wants to hire him as a consultant.

rich.calder@nypost.com

doubt it
I read the articles... Everyone from the area does.

After seeing those pics of downtown,

After seeing those pics of downtown, I want to see the development even more... That area REALLY REALLY needs a makeover.

Don't let its looks throw you. While I might agree that the part of Propect Hts that is by the Atlantic Yards doesn't have the best architecture, that doesn't mean that it should be demolished. BTW, many of the places that were shown aren't vacant at all as some would like to think of it as being. However, some continue to believe Ratner that this is an area of blight when that was taken away around the 80's. Please don't forget what Metrotech Center did to downtown Brooklyn when most of the employees avoided many of the local business forcing them to later close their doors, and the worst thing of that is that we payed for Ratner's most infamous project back in the 80's. On a sidenote, you don't need to make another post to correct it, just hit the edit button.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/16/nyregion/16demolish.html
Another Step for Downtown Brooklyn Project

By NICHOLAS CONFESSORE
Published: December 16, 2005

Six buildings near the Vanderbilt railyards in Brooklyn will be demolished next month, the first physical manifestation of the 9.1 million square foot Atlantic Yards project that may one day rise over the area.

The plans were described yesterday by officials of Forest City Ratner Companies, which owns the buildings and is the developer of Atlantic Yards. Demolition of the buildings was recommended by LZA Technology, an engineering firm the developer hired to inspect newly acquired properties on the Atlantic Yards site, after a four-month study revealed severe structural damage to the six buildings.

"The question is, God forbid that a building collapses, God forbid that a falling brick hits someone in the head, or that there's a fire," said Bruce Bender, the developer's executive vice president for community affairs. Mr. Bender said the firm was providing warning of the plans in part to defuse criticism from opponents of the project.

"We don't want people to say, construction has already begun, this is a backroom deal," he said.

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

Daniel Goldstein, a spokesman for Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn, a coalition that opposes the Atlantic Yards project, said the demolition plans were "a scare tactic that won't work, and we believe it is illegal."

"To justify eminent domain, Bruce Ratner wants to argue that this neighborhood is blighted," Mr. Goldstein said. "It is not. This is his attempt to create developers' blight."

Five of the buildings - two former auto-repair garages on Pacific Street, two unoccupied apartment buildings at Dean Street, and the Underberg Building on Atlantic Avenue - are near the western end of the project's proposed site. The sixth is farther east, on Dean Street near Carlton Avenue.

Though many of the buildings appear sound from the outside, a tour of the interiors reveals the damage done by years of wind, rain, and insufficient maintenance.

Inside the Underberg Building, which years ago housed a food-supply store, the once-busy floors sag three or four inches; some of the ceilings have collapsed, and snowdrifts pile up on the torn linoleum floors. The garages' concrete floors are pocked with car-sized holes, while in the rooms above, strands of insulation hung from the ceiling like kelp. The brick facade of one apartment building on Dean Street - where people lived as recently as last year - bulged ominously, while a pillar in the basement had already cracked and bent.

All the buildings are littered with debris: broken glass, crumbling brick, tin-ceiling panels, drywall, even a broken-down piano.

Each one, according a report by LZA engineers, has floors and ceilings on the verge of collapse, largely because of water damage. Some of the damage has occurred only in the past few months.

The firm's report found that the cumulative damage at each site posed "an immediate threat to the preservation of life, health, and property." The firm will begin remediation work - chiefly the removal of asbestos materials - on the buildings beginning next week.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/18/realestate/18living.html
A Neighborhood Comes Into Its Own

By JEFF VANDAM
Published: December 18, 2005

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Frances Roberts for The New York Times

NOT THE SLOPE

Row houses line St. Marks Avenue in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn, which is emerging from its status as an also-ran to Park Slope.

ON the heavily trafficked Web site www.dailyheights.com, a recent poll asked visitors to vote on new SoHo-style nicknames for Prospect Heights, their beloved Brooklyn neighborhood. While there was some support for ToPoSlo (Too Poor to live in the Slope) and HoSloFugee (Home for Slope Refugees), the biggest winner by far was not a name, but a criticism: "This poll is extraordinarily dumb."

Such dismissals are common in Prospect Heights, long in the shadow of Park Slope, its neighbor across Flatbush Avenue. For years, Heights residents have been told their neighborhood is a fallback for those who can't afford the Slope's brownstones and co-ops and all the attendant shopping and dining.

But in the last few years, Prospect Heights has begun to hold its own, enticing newcomers with attractive lofts, newly constructed luxury condominiums and brownstones that are often larger and more elegant than those in the rest of Brooklyn.

"People used to view Prospect Heights as an alternative to the Slope," said Peggy Aguayo, co-owner of the Aguayo & Huebener Realty Group in Brooklyn. "Ten years ago, that was the case. Today, it's become its own destination."

Perhaps more than any other area in Brooklyn, new projects are being announced and sprouting up all over this small corridor. Most notably, a 15-story tower designed by Richard Meier is planned for the corner of Eastern Parkway and Plaza Street East, at Grand Army Plaza and the entrance to Prospect Park.

Elsewhere, new construction projects already have many buyers, including the Washington at Washington Avenue and Dean Street, which will feature an interior Japanese Zen garden.

In addition to the neighborhood's residential upsurge, restaurants and shops are quickly opening on Vanderbilt Avenue and the cachet of cultural institutions along Eastern Parkway, including the Brooklyn Public Library, Brooklyn Botanic Garden and Brooklyn Museum, have all initiated or finished impressive upgrades.

"There's a great cultural corridor here," said Jon Keegan, an illustrator who moved in 2002 from Park Slope into Newswalk, a Dean Street loft building formerly home to a Daily News printing plant, with his wife, Julie, a painter. "There's this sweet spot of being between BAM and the Brooklyn Museum - Prospect Heights is so perfect for that," he said, referring to the Brooklyn Academy of Music.

Yet as Mr. Keegan and his fellow users of dailyheights.com are well aware, there is an undercurrent to all of the recent success of Prospect Heights: the plans of the developer Bruce Ratner to build a sizable complex of shopping, offices, housing and a Frank Gehry-designed arena for his New York Nets over the railyards on Atlantic Avenue. Concerns about eminent domain issues and the project's potential impact on the area's density are widespread, as is uncertainty over what form it will finally take.

Still, not everyone is up in arms. Mark McCartney, a computer programmer who rents a one-bedroom apartment on Washington Avenue with his fiancée, Beth Elliott, lives south of the proposed project's area. "We're so far away it wouldn't affect us," he said. "And I don't like basketball."

What You'll Find

Prospect Heights is a trapezoid of a neighborhood, wedged between Fort Greene, Crown Heights, Prospect Park and Park Slope. The residential options within its borders are representative of nearly every type of housing in Brooklyn, from still-rough industrial properties in the neighborhood's northeastern section to tall, wide brownstones in its center and graceful early 20th-century apartment buildings and towers in the south, near Prospect Park. Modern condos are, of course, on the way.

The central commercial strip is Vanderbilt Avenue, which features many new and old businesses and runs directly into Grand Army Plaza at Prospect Park. It offers perhaps the clearest signs of change in Prospect Heights.

"When we first started, there was maybe one restaurant on the block," said Colin Daring, co-owner of Pieces, a clothing boutique at Vanderbilt and Park Place that opened six years ago. He is also president of the Vanderbilt Avenue Merchants Association. Since he opened Pieces with his wife, Latisha, he said, roughly nine restaurants have opened on Vanderbilt alone.

John Policastro, who has operated the Garden Cafe on Vanderbilt Avenue with his wife, Camille, for the last 20 years, confirmed that Prospect Heights just feels different now.

"Sometimes we would leave here at 10:30 or 11 at night years ago and it was just a bleakness, a desertion," Mr. Policastro said. "Now we have the advent of the bars and the restaurants that stay open later than we do. It's a comfort."

Flatbush Avenue, the neighborhood's western border, is home to express subway stations and is itself a busy commercial strip, much more trafficked than Vanderbilt. Cars and loud trucks move quickly - on a recent Sunday afternoon, one man crossing the street had to dive out of the way of an oncoming Mazda. Businesses like carpet outlets and the House of Hair dominate, though newer occupants like iSold It, an eBay drop-off store, have moved in.

To the west, Washington Avenue represents the traditional eastern border of Prospect Heights, though the border has occasionally been pushed farther east into Crown Heights, a development akin to the seemingly bottomless southern expansion of "South Park Slope." On Washington, auto body shops and bodegas are common, though new condo projects are appearing there, and newer restaurants like Cafe Shane and the Ginger Root Cafe serve traditional African-Caribbean dishes in comfortable, bright environments.

What You'll Pay

For all its proximity to hot real estate markets in Fort Greene and Park Slope, the prices in Prospect Heights can at times seem suspiciously low. But that is quickly changing, especially as new developments are completed and bring up per-square-foot prices like a high tide.

For example, prices at the Washington, the new condo building on Washington Avenue with few available units left, begin at $675,000 for a two-bedroom and exceed $800,000 for a 1,900-square-foot duplex.

As for the neighborhood's already established housing stock, the most sought after are its polished brownstones, many of which currently feature "No Arena Complex" posters in their oversized windows. While houses in Park Slope are selling for as high as $3 million, Prospect Heights prices are about half that, averaging around $1.5 million and heading north toward $1.8 million.

"As you get closer to Park Slope, prices go up," said Robert Krieger, a broker at the Corcoran Group who does business in both neighborhoods. "It's all about location. I haven't seen anything below a million in a long time."

In apartment sales, Ms. Aguayo of Aguayo & Huebener recently sold a co-op with one bedroom and a small den on Eastern Parkway for $650,000. A few blocks north on Sterling Place, a 1,400-square-foot three-bedroom in an elevator building sold for $770,000. One-bedroom apartments generally range from $200,000 to $300,000 and average-sized two-bedrooms start at $600,000.

As for rentals, one-bedroom units generally start at $1,300 a month, and two-bedrooms begin at around $1,900.

What to Do

Prospect Heights is at the center of the cultural heart of Brooklyn, with next-door access to all of Eastern Parkway's institutions, as well as the theaters of the Brooklyn Academy of Music to the north and the best access to Prospect Park outside of Park Slope. At the Brooklyn Museum, families flock to Target First Saturdays, free monthly arts and entertainment programs.

And whereas Heights residents used to have to travel to Park Slope for shopping and nightlife, such trips are no longer necessary. Bars like the Tavern on Dean, Bar Sepia and Beast Bar are attracting locals and outsiders, and long-established restaurants like the highly rated Garden Cafe and the immortal Tom's Restaurant on Washington Avenue generate lines out their doors.

As for grocery shopping, there are a few supermarkets on Washington Avenue, but as of now, no Whole Foods or Fairway stores have been announced for the neighborhood. Still, a bustling farmer's market operates in Grand Army Plaza every Saturday year-round, attracting a dedicated base of shoppers.

The Schools

The old Public School 9 on Sterling Place is now a stunning apartment building converted by the Forest City Ratner Companies, and the current version of the school on Underhill Avenue is the only primary school in the neighborhood. While it outspends the city average per student by about $1,000, the number of students meeting standards on state and city tests is eight percentage points behind city averages in English language arts and 13 percentage points behind in math.

The best junior high school in the area, the Park Place Community Middle School, is a relatively new school with a small enrollment where students far outscore city averages, in English by 32 percentage points and math by 36 points. At Prospect Heights High School, next to the Brooklyn Museum on Eastern Parkway, the average score in 2003-4 in the verbal portion of the SAT was 356, compared with 497 statewide, and 351 in math, compared with 510 statewide.

The Commute

Prospect Heights has several good subway options, with a 15-minute jaunt to Union Square on the Q train at Seventh and Flatbush Avenues. There is also access to the B and the No. 2 and 3 trains, and the Long Island Rail Road Station at Atlantic Avenue is a short ride away.

The History

Prospect Heights came into being in the late 19th century as New Yorkers looked for other places to live around the recently completed Prospect Park. A multiethnic working-class population thrived for the first half of the 20th century, though as New York declined in the 1960's and 70's, so did Prospect Heights, where many buildings were burned during racial unrest. After the real estate market in Park Slope and other nearby neighborhoods improved in the 80's and 90's, Prospect Heights came into its own.

What We Like

Prospect Heights retains the feel of unreformed, unartificial Brooklyn. Spillover or not, it is its own neighborhood, with cultural amenities to beat any competitors.

What We'd Change

Despite the character and beauty of the houses in Prospect Heights, it does not have landmark protection status from the city, as parts of many of the surrounding neighborhoods do.
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http://www.nydailynews.com/boroughs/story/375868p-319400c.html
Plan to flatten 6 bldgs. ripped

Three Brooklyn elected officials are demanding an independent evaluation before Bruce Ratner tears down six buildings to make way for his Atlantic Yards development.

Ratner - who plans to build a massive $3.5 billion arena and residential and office complex - has argued the six buildings are so decayed they must be torn down to avoid a dangerous building collapse.

But City Councilwoman Letitia James (WFP-Prospect Heights) and other critics charge it is a ploy to push through the controversial project.

"I know these buildings, and some of them are as sound as the Empire State Building," said James, who together with state Sen. Velmanette Montgomery (D-Fort Greene) and Rep. Major Owens (D-Crown Heights), is slated to send Ratner a letter today, asking for a tour of the buildings with an outside engineer.

"Where is this notion coming from that they are structurally unsound?" James asked. "It is nothing more than an attempt and a ruse to create blight in the neighborhood and to scare people.

"If we are denied access there will be litigation," she added.

Ratner spokesman Joe DePlasco disputed the allegation and said the developer would provide tours of the buildings.

"It is a shame that Tish is so unfamiliar with the condition of these buildings in her own district," he said.

Ratner controls about 92% of the residential buildings at the site and about 65% of the commercial buildings.

The six buildings Ratner wants to tear down include the Underberg Building at 608-620 Atlantic Ave., a former car-repair garage at 620 and 622 Pacific St., residential buildings at 461 and 463 Dean St. and a warehouse at 585 Dean St.

Ratner signed contracts on the buildings between March and June 2004.

The developer plans to use eminent domain - state condemnation of private property - for any remaining parcels he is unable to buy. Blight is one justification for use of eminent domain.

James and other neighborhood critics have charged Ratner allowed the buildings to fall into disrepair to bolster claims the area is blighted and justify state condemnation of other private properties.

"He is trying to create blight, which is his tactic for eminent domain," said Daniel Goldstein of Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn. "He created that blight and that need for demolition."

Originally published on December 19, 2005

A couple of more people to add to the anti-arena group, and both of them are Brooklyn natives.

Kevin Walsh, webmaster of Forgotten NY,:"Looks like as presently designed it's way too out-of-proportion to the low-rise brownstone area and is better suited for someplace like the Meadowlands (which has its own glitzy project, Xanadu, on the drawing board along with the new Giants-Jets stadium) and some of the Dean Street buildings Ratner wants to raze are too good to lose; nothing like them will ever be built again."

Larry Brown, coach of the NY Knicks:"I hate to see them leave Jersey. There are a lot of people in Jersey that have been through the good and bad times. But I do think the team will be well-recieved."

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/08/nyregion/08traffic.html
A Traffic Knot, Pulling Tighter

By NICHOLAS CONFESSORE
Published: January 8, 2006

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Seth Wenig for The New York Times

Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn, above, is often clogged with vehicles heading to bridges, to nearby shopping malls and to a major public transportation hub.

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Chang W. Lee/The New York Times

Samuel I. Schwartz, a traffic expert, called the intersection of Flatbush and Atlantic Avenues a nightmare.

"This is what traffic engineers consider a nightmare," said Samuel I. Schwartz, surveying the intersection of Flatbush and Atlantic Avenues in Brooklyn on a cold night shortly before Thanksgiving.

Around Mr. Schwartz - a former deputy transportation commissioner who has been credited with helping to coin the term gridlock in the 1980's - was a sea of steel and chrome and brake lights winking angrily in the night.

Waves of pedestrians ignored the long diagonal crosswalks, swarming past the cars and trucks inching home. Buses lumbered around the corner like whales in an aquarium, blocking off two lanes at a time.

During the commuter rush, as many as 4,600 vehicles pass through the intersection every hour, according to the city's Department of Transportation. Hundreds more join the flow toward the intersection from Fourth Avenue, which cuts across Atlantic and Flatbush Avenues to the west, servicing South Brooklyn's docks and residential neighborhoods.

A few feet below lies a major transit hub - the Atlantic Avenue and Pacific Street subway stations, which handle 10 lines, and a Long Island Rail Road station - that serves about 50,000 riders a day. And on the intersection's north side sits the Atlantic Terminal, a mall that houses, among other things, one of the busiest Target stores in the Northern Hemisphere. But in the coming years, drivers, pedestrians and those who live nearby may remember these days as a time when traffic was not really so bad after all.

Over the next four years, if the developer Forest City Ratner Companies gains state approval, an 18,000-seat basketball arena for the Nets is scheduled to rise on the southeast corner of Flatbush and Atlantic Avenues, the centerpiece of the company's proposed Atlantic Yards project, the biggest in Brooklyn history.

Forest City Ratner is a development partner for the new Midtown office tower being built for The New York Times.

If the Atlantic Yards development is built as scheduled, 7,300 apartments housing about 18,000 residents would join the arena on the 22-acre site, as well as space for some 2,500 office workers and retail to draw shoppers.

"If you slow things up on Flatbush, you're backed up to Prospect Park," noted Mr. Schwartz, who has been hired by Forest City Ratner to consult on the project. "If you slow up Fourth Avenue, you're backed up to Park Slope. And if you slow down Atlantic, you're backed up to Central Brooklyn."

Though the project has spurred heated debates over eminent domain, the use of public subsidies, gentrification and other issues, those with worries about Mr. Ratner's plans most commonly worry about traffic. Last fall, the Council of Brooklyn Neighborhoods, an umbrella group of block associations and other local groups, distributed questionnaires about the project. Almost a quarter of those who responded cited traffic as a specific concern they had about the project, by far the most frequently cited issue.

"They are primarily worried that that intersection is already close to gridlock on a daily basis, that there is already no parking, and that there is already a substantial and increasing danger to pedestrians," said Candace Carponter, the co-chairwoman of the council and an opponent of Atlantic Yards. "And there is no way that adding tens of thousands of people to that intersection on event nights isn't going to radically exacerbate the problem."

But James P. Stuckey, the developer's executive vice president for development, questioned whether the group's questionnaire was statistically sound and said that the intersection "is not that bad when it's functioning."

He added: "It can be improved. What I think is realistic, is that traffic is a major issue to be dealt with."

With three major thoroughfares converging, the area is considered by many traffic engineers to be among the most congested in the city. Both Flatbush and Atlantic Avenues are major commuter routes to the Manhattan and Brooklyn Bridges, in part because Brooklyn - unlike Queens, Staten Island and the Bronx - has no cross-borough highways. Atlantic Avenue is also one of two preferred routes through Brooklyn for commercial traffic; the other is Linden Boulevard.

There are few options for avoiding the intersection. There is no alternative route to Flatbush, which cuts diagonally across the street grid. Part of Fulton Street, which is north of Atlantic and runs parallel to it, is reserved for buses. South of Atlantic Avenue, parallel streets like Dean are largely residential.

"People will seek shortcuts through that area," noted Mr. Schwartz, citing a major concern held by residents. "You have this maze. And drivers will try to find a way to get out."

The city has tried for years to improve the intersection. During the 1990's, when Forest City Ratner was building the Atlantic Center mall, a lane was added to Flatbush Avenue on the northbound side, and the pedestrian concourse beneath the intersection was improved.

To accommodate the opening of the adjoining Atlantic Terminal mall in 2004, Atlantic Avenue was widened as it approaches the intersection from the west, with the addition of a right-turn lane. The mall was also set back from Flatbush Avenue to allow for the addition of a bus-stop lane.

The Atlantic Yards project would lead to 40,000 new vehicle trips through the area each weekday, according to an independent study by Community Consulting Services, a transportation and environmental consulting firm advocating better traffic planning in Brooklyn.

Forest City Ratner officials disputed that study, saying that it overstated the vehicle trip increase by 40 percent to 50 percent, in part by failing to subtract trips generated by homes and businesses that would be replaced by the project.

In an interview, Mr. Stuckey acknowledged that managing the additional traffic around Atlantic Yards was a challenge, but one that his company was ready to handle.

"It's very easy to say, this is a problem, and not have to show it," he said. "We have the added responsibility of analyzing the problem and then showing how we're going to solve it. And we and the government agencies take that very seriously."

The company's decision to substitute additional residential units for most of the office space originally planned for the project, he said, will alleviate some potential traffic problems, because residential tenants usually drive after the evening rush.

The developer predicts that only a small fraction of the roughly 18,000 tenants would drive to work. (The project includes about 2,800 on-site parking spots reserved for residential tenants, as mandated by city regulations.) Based on the company's experience with the nearby MetroTech office development, only 5 percent or 6 percent of the 2,500 office workers traveling to the project will commute by car, Mr. Stuckey said.

Studies by Forest City Ratner found the worst congestion on eastbound lanes of Atlantic Avenue during the commuter rush: As Atlantic crosses Flatbush, four lanes merge into two, one of which is often blocked by stopped buses. Mr. Stuckey said the plan provided space to expand Atlantic Avenue by one lane, with a fourth lane in front of the bus stop to draw buses out of the traffic flow when stopped for passengers. The project calls for a similar expansion on Flatbush Avenue south of the intersection.

The project would be built in stages over a decade, Mr. Stuckey said, allowing for adjustments as problems emerge.

Since basketball games usually start at 7:30 p.m., the developer expects the arena portion to generate most of its evening traffic after the commuter rush, and no morning traffic at all. Mr. Stuckey also disagreed with critics who said the area lacked enough garage space. The firm's own survey, he said, indicates that there are about 1,500 parking garage spaces - most of which service office commuters and lie empty after the work day - reachable by foot or shuttle bus. By relying largely on remote parking for sports events, the developer hopes to keep much of the arena traffic away from the Flatbush-Atlantic intersection.

"The traffic has to work for us, too," he said. "We're going to want people to be able to get in and out of this arena easily. And we certainly are going to continue owning all the residential apartments, the success of which is going to be directly tied to the quality of life."

Much of the proposed arena's impact depends on what means of travel people choose to get there. Known as "modal split," it is one of the issues under consideration by the Empire State Development Corporation, the state agency charged with supervising the project's environmental review. At Madison Square Garden, which, like the proposed Atlantic Yards arena, sits on top of a transit hub and is surrounded by heavily trafficked streets, half of all visitors come by mass transit. Forty percent drive. The rest walk.

"Your first goal is to get as many people into mass transit as possible," said Mr. Schwartz. He said that could require a significant rehabilitation of the notoriously unwelcoming Atlantic Avenue station, a greater police presence there and more trains scheduled for late evening, when games end.

But also at issue is the broader development of greater Downtown Brooklyn, set into motion last year when the City Council approved a landmark rezoning of the area.

"The biggest issue is not Atlantic Yards, it's all the other developments that are going to come before it," cautioned Brian Ketcham, the executive director of Community Consulting Services, who has criticized the state agency's methods for measuring traffic in the area.

That includes the new Brooklyn Bridge Park, and an expanded cultural district anchored by the Brooklyn Academy of Music. A May 2005 report commissioned by the Department of Transportation estimated that office space in and around the business district would nearly double in the next two decades. The city also predicts a boom in retail, cultural institutions and new housing in the area, including 7,300 units from Atlantic Yards.

Yet the same report noted that the major thoroughfares were "already overloaded" and that additional traffic "would not be accommodated" without significant improvement. Mr. Ketcham's own study indicates that the overall traffic - vehicle, public transit or pedestrian - will more than double.

"If you can't get there, nobody's going to come," he said, "and all of this investment is going to go down the tubes."

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/19/nyregion/19suit.html
Local Groups Sue to Halt Big Project in Brooklyn

By NICHOLAS CONFESSORE
Published: January 19, 2006

In the first legal test for the largest real estate project in Brooklyn history, a coalition of community groups filed suit yesterday against a state agency, charging that it wrongfully approved the demolition of six buildings on the site of the proposed Atlantic Yards development.

While the immediate purpose of the lawsuit, filed in State Supreme Court in Manhattan against the Empire State Development Corporation, is to stop the demolition, plaintiffs said it was also intended as a broader challenge to the agency's environmental review of the project. The review is still under way, and opponents say it has been overtly friendly to the developer.

Forest City Ratner Companies, the developer, and the opponents have been locked in a two-year struggle over the 9.1 million square-foot residential and arena complex.

The lawsuit also seeks the disqualification of the agency's outside lawyer, David Paget, because he previously represented Forest City Ratner. The plaintiffs - 11 community groups and a variety of individuals - are also seeking to block the Empire State Development Corporation from issuing a final environmental impact statement until an independent lawyer has reviewed it for potential conflicts of interest.

"The rubber-stamping of this request for demolition has pointed up the fact that E.S.D.C. is not an impartial reviewing agency, but is in league with Forest City Ratner to push this project through," said Candace Carponter, a spokeswoman for Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn, one of the groups in the lawsuit. "We want to let the E.S.D.C. know that they're going to be held accountable and that we will be watching for any missteps in the future."

A spokeswoman for the state development agency, Deborah Wetzel, said it had not received legal papers, but added: "We intend to vigorously defend against the lawsuit. Beyond that, it is our policy not to comment on pending litigation."

The lawsuit comes one month after Forest City Ratner officials announced that it planned to destroy six buildings on the site, saying an engineer hired by the company declared the buildings to be so dilapidated that they were a threat to public safety.

Opponents of the project have said that engineer's report overstated the deterioration of the buildings. Razing them, they argued, was meant to give the Atlantic Yards project momentum and to bolster Forest City Ratner's claim that the site meets the state standard for "blighted," which would make it possible for the developer to force reluctant residents to sell their property.

City Councilwoman Letitia James, whose district includes the site and who is an outspoken opponent, asked the company to allow her to inspect the buildings with a different engineer. At first, Forest City Ratner officials agreed to the inspection, but said later that Ms. James could not bring an engineer.

State law forbids developers to alter the site of any proposed project until it has been approved, but the law makes an exception for "emergency actions." According to the lawsuit, the Empire State Development Corporation, in consultation with Mr. Paget, declared that the buildings qualified for emergency demolition without independently examining them. The suit also says that the agency did not consider alternative measures of ensuring public safety.

In a statement, Bruce Bender, an executive vice president of Forest City Ratner, defended its initial engineering report and said the lawsuit amounted to "delay tactics."

"While the opponents have another agenda," Mr. Bender said, the developer "will not play games with the public safety and is proceeding as any responsible property owner should and must."

The project is in the midst of an environmental review and must go through extensive review before it can be approved by state agencies. Forest City Ratner is a development partner for the new Midtown office tower being built for The New York Times.

Philip Weinberg, a professor at St. John's University and an expert on the state's environmental review law, said the lawsuit faced "an uphill battle" in trying to get Mr. Paget disqualified. "There's nothing in the law or the regulations saying they can't have the same counsel," he said.

In general, he said, courts have tended to defer to public agencies on questions of fact, which might include whether the buildings are unsafe enough to warrant demolition. Still, Mr. Weinberg added, the agency "is supposed to play it down the middle," and "courts are supposed to step in if it doesn't pass the smell test."

During the 1980's, he noted, a federal court blocked the Westway highway project in Manhattan after finding that an environmental review by the Army Corps of Engineers failed to document the project's likely effect on striped bass in the Hudson River.

http://www.nydailynews.com/boroughs/story/389637p-330611c.html
Following suit: Pols join filing against Atlantic Yards razing

Three Brooklyn elected officials yesterday joined a high-profile lawsuit to bar Bruce Ratner from demolishing six buildings in the proposed Atlantic Yards site.

"My colleagues and I stand 100% with the plaintiffs," said Councilwoman Letitia James (WFP-Prospect Heights), who filed the supporting brief with Rep. Major Owens (D-Crown Heights) and state Sen. Velmanette Montgomery (D-Fort Greene).

James, who is a lawyer and an outspoken critic of Ratner's proposal, also plans to argue the brief personally when the two sides next appear in court Feb. 14.

The move comes a day after South Brooklyn Legal Services joined the suit filed by Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn and other community groups Jan.18.

The suit also charges that the same well-connected Manhattan lawyer, David Paget, first represented Ratner, then moved to the state agency overseeing the project, where he signed off on the demolition.

A Ratner spokeswoman declined to comment on pending litigation.

Elizabeth Hays

Originally published on February 9, 2006

omg serious? You people have way too much time on your hands.

^ Whats your deal?!

General statement take it easy killer

omg serious? You people have way too much time on your hands.
It's their area first off, and it will affect their future greatly.

General statement take it easy killer
Its a stupid statement.. Especially when you also on the forum...

thats a great looking stadium

omg serious? You people have way too much time on your hands.
If you read one of the last articles from the Daily News, you will understand the reasons why most of those who oppose Ratner do not oppose the other developements including Richard Meir's 1 Prospect Pk W.

1. Most of the developers had met with the residents and wanted to make sure that whatever they build will not alienate them.

2. If you look at the sites where many of the other projects are going on, most of them are empty lots that were slated for developement a long time ago rather than places people are living in currently.

3. Nobody in that area, borrough, city, or state are paying for the other projects to be built, just those who are going to own them, which Ratner is not doing himself.

4. Wheather or not they will build their projects, it will not be based on what happens to Ratner with the Atlantic Yds.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/15/nyregion/15atlantic.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all&oref=login
Demolition Can Proceed for Brooklyn Arena Project

By NICHOLAS CONFESSORE
Published: February 15, 2006

The Forest City Ratner Companies, the developer of a proposed Brooklyn real estate project, can proceed with the demolition of six buildings it owns on the site, a state judge ruled yesterday.

In an unusual move for a highly charged case turning on fine points of law, Justice Carol R. Edmead of State Supreme Court in Manhattan ruled from the bench immediately after a long and at times raucous hearing in a suit brought by opponents of the $3.5 billion Atlantic Yards project.

The demolitions were approved in December by the Empire State Development Corporation, the agency supervising the state's environmental review process, after Forest City Ratner officials said the buildings were in danger of collapse and posed an imminent threat to public safety.

State law forbids developers to alter the site of any proposed project until it has been approved, but the law makes an exception for "emergency actions." Justice Edmead said that there was no basis for challenging the agency's determination that Forest City Ratner's buildings merited the exception, and that the agency was under no obligation to obtain an independent engineering review.

But in another decision, Justice Edmead found that a prominent environmental lawyer's earlier work on behalf of Forest City Ratner disqualified him from representing the Empire State Development Corporation in the Atlantic Yards case. The decision is likely to cause concern among the ranks of environmental lawyers.

In December 2003, Forest City Ratner retained the lawyer, David Paget, to consult on environmental compliance for the Atlantic Yards project. A year later, after the development corporation assumed oversight of the project, it arranged for Mr. Paget to serve as outside counsel during the coming environmental review.

When that review formally began in September 2005, Mr. Paget stopped advising Forest City Ratner on the project, although his firm, Sive, Paget & Riesel, continued to advise the developer on unrelated matters. As outside counsel to the development corporation, he later concurred with the agency's decision to permit the buildings' demolition.

In her decision, Justice Edmead acknowledged that it was not uncommon for environmental lawyers to work for many different clients over the years, sometimes finding themselves working against a client they once worked for. (Jeffrey S. Baker, the lawyer representing the community groups that had asked Justice Edmead to block the demolition, is himself an alumnus of Mr. Paget's firm.) She even mused out loud about whether her decision would be overruled by a higher court.

But in the end, she wrote, Mr. Paget's work history was "prima facie evidence of a conflict of interest."

Mr. Paget, who was not at the hearing, did not return phone calls yesterday. The project, which would rise over a railyard and adjacent land off Flatbush Avenue near Downtown Brooklyn, includes 9.1 million square feet of residential towers, a basketball arena, offices and retail space.

The two-and-a-half-hour hearing ranged far beyond the narrow legal issues at hand, as the developer and its opponents reiterated nearly every argument they have had over the project since it was unveiled. But Justice Edmead, declaring her affection for the "minutiae" of law, repeatedly yanked the discussion back to the matters in dispute.

She rejected a contention by Forest City Ratner lawyers that the relationship between a developer and its sponsor, in this case the Empire State Development Corporation, was essentially "collaborative." And her disqualification of Mr. Paget apparently broke new legal ground on what even proponents of the state's environmental review law have described as one of its contradictions.

"There's a built-in ambiguity or inconsistency to the law there," said Philip Weinberg, a professor at St. John's University and an expert on environmental review. "The whole principle behind review is to have the agency deciding whether to go ahead with the project review the project's impact themselves. But they are also supposed to play it down the middle."

In practical terms, Justice Edmead's refusal to block the demolitions may deprive opponents of an early chance to halt the project's momentum. A lawyer for Forest City Ratner, Jeffrey L. Braun, said later that unless the opponents appealed, demolition would probably begin within 10 days.

But Mr. Baker said the judge's disqualification of Mr. Paget bolstered a potential future challenge to the agency's environmental review findings.

"It colors everything else," he said. If the agency's environmental impact statement is released quickly, he argued, it will be "per se tainted" by Mr. Paget's recent involvement. "If the final scope is lopsided, and says, for example, that we are not going to look at any other locations for the arena, then that process is tainted," he added.

Forest City Ratner is a development partner for the new Midtown office tower being built for The New York Times. In her decision, Justice Edmead stopped short of saying that Mr. Paget's involvement had led to any actual prejudice in favor of Forest City Ratner, writing that the opponents "have failed to allege a single valid deficiency in the E.S.D.C.'s environmental analysis."

Instead, the judge emphasized the potential for conflicts of interest, and the need for the public to have confidence that the state agency was representing its best interests.

"Avoiding even the appearance of impropriety is critical in a case of this magnitude," she wrote.

Both sides said they were unsure whether they would appeal.

http://www.nydailynews.com/boroughs/story/393426p-333608c.html
First building block to Yards set for raze

The first building at the controversial Atlantic Yards site will likely be knocked down next week after a Manhattan Appellate Division judge refused yesterday to grant a temporary restraining order to save it.

Project opponents tried to stop the demolition of five contested buildings at the proposed arena site by moving yesterday to appeal a lower court's ruling allowing developer Bruce Ratner to tear them down.

The issue will be back in court March 1 - but in the meantime, there is now nothing to stop the planned demolitions.

A Ratner spokesman said they hope to begin tearing down the first building, the so-called Underberg Building at Atlantic and Flatbush Aves., as soon as Monday.

Elizabeth Hays

Originally published on February 22, 2006

Don't celebrate just yet.
http://www.nypost.com/news/regionalnews/64867.htm
RATNER RAZING ARENA BUILDING

By PATRICK GALLAHUE
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
March 8, 2006 -- Developer Bruce Ratner starts demolition today on the first of the buildings standing in the way of his $3.5 billion NBA arena and skyscraper complex in Brooklyn.

Officials with Ratner's Forest City Ratner Companies said Gateway Demolition would raze the decrepit, four-story Underberg Building on Atlantic Avenue, which earned a prominent spot in Jonathan Lethem's ac- claimed Brooklyn memoir, "Fortress of Solitude."

The building, a former food-supplies store, is one of six that Ratner has targeted for demolition, claiming they are so dilapidated that they're a public hazard.

Opponents of Ratner's Atlantic Yards project sued to block the demolition, but a judge tossed out the suit.

They are appealing the decision, but most agreed the Underberg was in the worst condition of any of the buildings slated for demolition. Still, Candace Carponter, a spokeswoman for the opponents, complained, "We never got inside so we couldn't tell."

Gateway Demolition will start dismantling the Underberg by hand and it should take several weeks to bring the entire structure down.

Ratner paid Gateway $1.3 million to tear down the Underberg and several other buildings in the area.

patrick.gallahue@nypost.com

http://www.nydailynews.com/boroughs/story/398316p-337554c.html
Atlantic Yards foes smell rat

BY HUGH SON
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Atlantic Yards developer Bruce Ratner faces a $500,000 penalty if he fails to make good on a job-training program as part of the $3.5 billion mega-project - and foes call the fine chump change.

The job-training program - an essential part of the benefits agreement Ratner signed with Brooklyn community groups - is meant to send local workers into well-paying union positions.

"It's pocket change," said Councilwoman Letitia James (WFP-Fort Greene). "The penalties are obviously insufficient; he probably has that much under his bed."

Daniel Goldstein of Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn called the fine "obscenely low" and said, "It could be the cost of doing business."

But Forest City Ratner executive Bruce Bender disagreed, noting the company also could be sued for an "unlimited amount" if it fails to provide affordable housing and parks.

"There is no cap," Bender told the Daily News. "I think it's very unfair for people to say the penalty is not enough. Five hundred thousand dollars is a lot of money. There's never going to be a dollar value enough for those people opposed to [the project]; that's the problem."

Critics of the agreement - signed by eight groups last June - charge that it has loopholes that Ratner could use to renege on the valuable benefits.

But Sharai Erima, lawyer for jobs group Build, said he believed the contract was strong enough. Build received $138,000 from Forest City Ratner to cover salaries and pay for the distribution of a pro-arena newspaper.

"It's just like any other legal agreement; if you break a contract, you are susceptible to any penalties under the law," Erima said. "The developer can't just buy his way out of the project."

Originally published on March 10, 2006

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/01/nyregion/01yards.html?pagewanted=all
Arena Complex Shrinks by 5% in Latest Plan

By NICHOLAS CONFESSORE
Published: April 1, 2006

The developer of Brooklyn's biggest real estate project in recent history announced yesterday that it would reduce its size, granting some concessions to critics who have said that it would overwhelm the surrounding neighborhood.

Also yesterday, the Empire State Development Corporation, the state agency shepherding the project through its legal review, announced which geographic areas it would include in its study of the impact of the project, the Atlantic Yards, and agreed to study the effect that alternate proposals would have on the area.

Both developments are likely to have a substantial impact on what has already been a raucous and lengthy public discussion of the project, in essence defining the terms of future debates over an arena and a residential and office development that will greatly affect traffic, public services, and the demographics of a diverse and rapidly changing area in the heart of Brooklyn.

James P. Stuckey, an executive vice president of Forest City Ratner, the project's developer, said in a statement, "We believe there have been significant improvements in the overall design and feel of the project." The new plan, he said, "allows for more open space, narrows the scale of the buildings and reduces overall bulk and density, but it also gives us the flexibility to maintain our commitment to affordable housing."

The maximum size of the project would be cut by 475,000 square feet, down to about 8.7 million square feet, with most of the reduction coming from the elimination of some 440 market-rate condominium units. The number of floors in the project's 16 buildings would be reduced by about 23, although five of the buildings would be taller than earlier plans called for. The arena would remain the same size, and the development would still include 4,500 rental apartments, half of them going for less than market rates.

In a significant victory for critics of the project, the development corporation agreed to analyze three alternative proposals — including one from a rival developer, Extell Corporation — for developing the area, each of them with significantly lower density than the Forest City Ratner plan. However, the mayor and governor have already committed to the Forest City Ratner plan, and most Brooklyn officials are supporting it.

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

The development corporation also agreed to expand the main geographic area under study out to half a mile from the proposed project site, from the current quarter-mile, and increased from 65 to 93 the number of intersections where the traffic impact will be examined.

But the changes are unlikely to mollify the project's harshest critics. By any measure, the project remains imposing, featuring tall residential towers that will soar over the surrounding neighborhoods and reshape the Brooklyn skyline. The height of the project's two largest towers, including a 620-foot building that will sit near the intersection of Flatbush and Atlantic Avenues, remain virtually unchanged. Critics also noted that the project is still nearly half a million square feet larger than it was when Forest City Ratner unveiled preliminary plans in 2003.

"The whole thing is still bigger than it was when it was announced," said Daniel Goldstein, the spokesman for Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn, which favors an alternate development plan. "When it comes to the scale and density, all the reasons we oppose it still exist. The eminent domain is wrong, the arena is wrong, the cost is wrong, and the impact on the community is wrong."

But Marty Markowitz, the Brooklyn borough president and the leading booster of the project, pronounced himself "delighted" by the revised plans.

"It's an important step forward, and it's obvious to me that the developer and the state have heard the voices of those in the state who have expressed their concerns," he said.

Mr. Markowitz, who had previously urged Forest City Ratner to reduce the scale of the buildings, would not yet say whether he believed the project had shrunk enough.

In the document released yesterday, known as a final scope of analysis, the development corporation also dismissed suggestions — submitted during a six-week public comment period last fall — that it consider a host of other subsidiary issues, including the project's long-term financial viability. Those issues, it said, were not subject to review under state environmental law.

The scoping document "appears to have some problems remaining in it," said Christopher Jones, vice president for research of the Regional Plan Association. Mr. Jones noted that the development corporation would not consider the project's environmental impact beyond 2016, when it will be completed. Some experts believe that the surrounding neighborhoods, including downtown Brooklyn, are likely to see significant other development in subsequent years, compounding any effect.

"The real test is how these issues are analyzed — what data they use, what methodologies they use, which you can't tell from the scope," Mr. Jones said.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/local/story/416914p-352232c.html
A trim for Yards work

New & smaller look for B'klyn buildings

BY JEGO R. ARMSTRONG and ELIZABETH HAYS
DAILY NEWS WRITERS

Architect Frank Gehry now has a kinder and gentler vision for Brooklyn.

Nearly a year after his futuristic designs for the controversial Nets arena complex sent shudders through parts of the borough, Gehry released revised plans yesterday.

"We've tried to break down the scale," Gehry said, and mirror "the messiness of Brooklyn - messiness in a good way."

The adjustments make the massive project fit in better with surrounding neighborhoods, he said at a briefing with officials from Forest City Ratner, which is developing the 22-acre site at Atlantic and Flatbush Aves.

"We spent an enormous amount of time studying Brooklyn ... trying to get a sense what it is," Gehry said.

The centerpiece glass building, dubbed Miss Brooklyn, was inspired by a bride he spotted in the area, he said. The Atlantic Yards project has sparked criticism that its 16 high-rise towers are too big and will create a traffic nightmare. The new designs are about 5% smaller than before. Gehry and Ratner officials said they have been tweaked to be more open and less dense.

Some buildings were streamlined to be less bulky, Gehry said, while landscape architect Laurie Olin's designs aim to make the site more inviting. Other buildings are now less slanted than in the original designs released last July.

Gehry said the project's critics "would have been picketing Henry Ford."

"There is constant change. The issue is how do you manage change," he said.

The $3.5 billion project has not yet been approved. Ratner officials hope to have it okayed by October and the arena open for the 2009-2010 basketball season.

Reactions to the new designs were mixed.

Daniel Goldstein, a spokesman for Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn, which has been battling the project, was unimpressed.

"It's still way too big and does not change the fact of 16 skyscrapers slammed on top of and next to low-rise, historic neighborhoods," said Goldstein, calling the project "a land grab by a wealthy sports baron developer."

But Jennifer Baffle, 34, liked the changes and said the new design "looks more like it suits Brooklyn."

"The old design just seems a little too much," said Baffle, who is unemployed and lives in Clinton Hill. "Who wants that kind of look for Brooklyn? That's more Manhattan."

Paris Crawford, 68, said he preferred the original look.

"The old design looks more futuristic, a sign of things to come, which sets Brooklyn apart," said the retiree from Fort Greene.

"This is Brooklyn. We deserve to be on the cutting edge."

Originally published on May 12, 2006

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/31/nyregion/31yards.html
An Appeals Court Setback for Critics of Atlantic Yards

By NICHOLAS CONFESSORE
Published: May 31, 2006

A state appeals court dealt a setback to opponents of the proposed Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn yesterday, reversing the disqualification of a lawyer who had advised both the complex's developer and the state agency that is conducting an environmental review of the project.

A five-judge panel of the State Supreme Court's Appellate Division found that Justice Carol Edmead, who disqualified the lawyer, David Paget, in February, "misapprehended material facts and misapplied the applicable law" when she ruled that Mr. Paget's work for the Empire State Development Corporation was on its face a conflict of interest because he had also been a consultant to the developer, Forest City Ratner.

In the same unanimous and strongly worded ruling, the court found that Justice Edmead, a Supreme Court judge in Manhattan, had acted correctly when she refused to block the demolition of six buildings on the 22-acre site where Atlantic Yards would be built. That decision had been appealed by opponents of the development.

In a statement, Candace Carponter, a lawyer and a member of the leading group opposing the project, Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn, said that the group was disappointed by the ruling and would explore other legal challenges to the project.

"We believe in the moral correctness of our case, and are confident that this decision will inspire the public's vigilance and scrutiny to grow even stronger," she said.

Opponents of the 8.7-million-square-foot project may yet get a chance to challenge Mr. Paget's work with the development corporation, if they can show that his ties to Forest City Ratner have actually — rather than theoretically — biased the environmental review.

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

Forest City Ratner retained Mr. Paget, a leading environmental lawyer, in December 2003 to consult on the Atlantic Yards project, a proposed residential, commercial and arena development near Downtown Brooklyn. He formally relinquished that role in September 2005, when the development corporation started the environmental review, for which he was hired as outside counsel. The appeals court said that Justice Edmead, in finding that Mr. Paget had advised both parties simultaneously, had misread a February 2004 agreement by Forest City to pay for legal costs incurred by the development corporation during the environmental review, as private developers are required to do.

In a statement, Jessica Copen, a spokeswoman for the development corporation, said Mr. Paget would continue to serve as outside counsel for the agency's review of Atlantic Yards. "E.S.D.C., like any other entity, is entitled to be represented by the lawyer of its choice," she said.

The 26-page opinion, written by Justice Milton L. Williams, also undercut opponents' argument that Mr. Paget's involvement tainted the agency's December 2005 decision to allow Forest City Ratner to demolish the six buildings. State law generally prohibits a developer from altering the site of a project that, like Atlantic Yards, has not been approved.

But last December, after touring the site and reviewing a Forest City report that said the buildings were at risk of collapse, development corporation officials invoked a provision that allows such demolitions where public safety is at risk. As outside counsel to the agency, Mr. Paget concurred with its decision.

The appellate panel ruled that because Mr. Paget's work for the development corporation was not improper, neither was his involvement in the demolition approval.

Opponents also argued that the development corporation acted wrongly by not doing an independent review of the buildings' condition. Justice Williams said it was not required by law to conduct such a review.

Bruce Bender, executive vice president at Forest City Ratner, said the company was happy with the court's ruling. "As we have said all along, we undertook the demolition of specific buildings because they posed a public safety risk," he said.

Ms. Carponter said her group might try to appeal the ruling on Mr. Paget. But the decision on the demolitions is in some respects moot. Four of the six buildings have been partly or wholly dismantled, and demolition of the other two began yesterday.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/04/arts/design/04ouro.html
Skyline for Sale

By NICOLAI OUROUSSOFF
Published: June 4, 2006

http://graphics10.nytimes.com/images/2006/06/04/arts/04ouro.xlarge1.jpg
Atlantic Yards, the 22-acre Brooklyn development designed by Frank Gehry.

If Bruce Ratner's recent embrace of high-end architecture has some New Yorkers rolling their eyes, he can't be all that surprised. Not so long ago this developer's most visible cultural contribution to the city was a few kitschy theaters on 42nd Street. In Brooklyn he is known mainly as the creator of Metrotech, a complex of overblown yet banal office towers that seem to crush the life out of the city around it.

And even Mr. Ratner admits that, as a Brooklyn-based commercial builder, he once ranked at the bottom of the city's architectural food chain.

But in recent years he has sought vigorously to polish that image. His conversion began six years ago, when he joined The New York Times Company in selecting Renzo Piano — an architect known for the refinement of his buildings — to design a new Times headquarters in Midtown Manhattan. And it gained traction when Mr. Ratner handed Frank Gehry — whose celebrity has reached the point where he now has a signature jewelry line at Tiffany — the commissions for Atlantic Yards, a 22-acre project involving a basketball arena, hotel, and housing and retail spaces in Brooklyn, and Beekman Street Tower, a 75-story apartment building in Lower Manhattan. Their partnership may soon be one of the most visible on the New York skyline.

But if the Gehry-Ratner lovefest has raised an expectation of innovative design, it has also stirred unease. Few would question Mr. Gehry's talent. The question is whether he has allowed his experimental ethos to be harnessed for the sake of maximizing a developer's profits. It's also fair to ask whether Mr. Gehry and other gifted architects have made a pact with the Devil, compromising their values for the sake of ever bigger commissions. Beyond that, their collaboration points up a major change in the way cities are being built. There was a time when government took an interest in big urban planning projects. Mr. Ratner and Mr. Gehry are operating under a model by which the government plays only a marginal role. Bigger social concerns, like housing for mixed incomes, equal access to parks and transit, and vibrant communal spaces, which were once the public's purview, now increasingly fall to developers to address or not, as they see fit.

The collaboration, along with Mr. Ratner's other high-profile projects, also shows how limited the architect's role remains in such arrangements. Not so long ago American architects complained that they were shut out of the public dialogue. Today they work in a climate in which building is booming, and architecture is revered, but as an aesthetic, not a social, force.

I'm not one of those purists who argue that Mr. Gehry or Mr. Piano should snub commercial developers altogether and limit himself to hammering out projects for, say, art museums or libraries. It is at the intersection between fantasy and practicality that architects are best able to express our civilization's values. But architects will be defined by the clients they choose.

As a young architect working in Los Angeles in the 1960's and 70's, Mr. Gehry has said, he felt imprisoned by his developer clients. "I was constantly pushed around by these guys," he said in an interview. "They had a formula that you had to follow. So you couldn't do things." He found his creative voice in smaller, offbeat projects, like the Danziger Studio (1965) or the Ron Davis House in Malibu, Calif. (1972), for artists whom he knew and liked.

But by 1979 that split — between the projects that paid the bills and those that gave satisfaction — had become a torture. Working on Santa Monica Place, a low-budget mall for the Maryland-based Rouse Company, Mr. Gehry could only tweak the conventional formulas. Not that far away, he had begun tearing apart and piecing together a plain pink bungalow, remaking it as a violent collage of chain link, corrugated metal and plywood: the house that would announce that he had finally broken free.

The experience led him to lay off most of his firm. From then on he swore he would only work for clients that shared his architectural values.

Some 25 years after Santa Monica Place, Mr. Gehry says his recent decision to embrace big developers does not signal any sort of about-face. He argues that his status puts him in an entirely different position.

"They have to meet me as an equal," Mr. Gehry said simply.

New York has changed too. After trailing their counterparts in Paris and Tokyo for 20 years, the city's cultural institutions have caught on to an international trend in experimental architecture. The result is a flurry of major expansions, from Mr. Piano's addition to the Whitney Museum of American Art to Sanaa's new New Museum of Contemporary Art on the Bowery. Lately commercial developers have been scrambling to find their own star architects. Yet the most visionary designers have tended to focus on personal psychic terrain rather than large-scale development and planning debates. (In Europe, conversely, architects take the lead, from the Barcelona waterfront to housing developments across the Netherlands.)

Few New York residents may remember that Mr. Ratner, 61, began his career as a lawyer in Mayor John V. Lindsay's administration, working in a short-lived Model Cities program and later as commissioner of consumer affairs in the Koch administration.

He started as a developer with commissions like Metrotech, a 6.4- million-square-foot complex that testifies to just how low New York's architecture and urban planning had sunk by the 1980's and 90's. Arranged around amorphous plazas, its monstrous buildings sit on clumsy bases that only draw attention to their scale.

Then there was the Hilton Times Square and the mammoth AMC theater complex on the south side of 42nd Street, which are less about architecture than testing how much visual advertising a human being can tolerate. Not to mention Mr. Ratner's Ridge Hill Village Center in Yonkers (groundbreaking is planned this summer), a crass outdoor mall that functions neither as a Main Street nor as an honest expression of suburban culture.

For the Times tower he selected Mr. Piano's design over more predictable proposals by Cesar Pelli and Norman Foster. (Mr. Gehry withdrew from the competition toward the end.) A soaring glass structure clad in a pattern of delicate ceramic rods, the Times project suggests that the old order that dominated development in New York for so long is finally passing, and with it the argument that only big corporate firms — not "dreamers" or "creative types" — could get things done.

But Mr. Piano has lost crucial battles along the way. To cut costs Mr. Ratner had him eliminate an elegant rooftop garden that would have been framed by extensions of the building's glass curtain wall. Also abandoned were some of the cantilevered staircases that would have offered a fluid connection between office floors.

More interesting, Mr. Piano had proposed an open, loftlike floor plan, placing elevators along the length of one side of the building rather than arranging them within a central elevator core. That was also jettisoned. Clearly, in a building whose upper floors are being marketed to law firms, he had violated a vital marketing formula: Don't mess with executive offices.

In 2003 Mr. Ratner took another giant step, hiring Mr. Gehry to design Beekman, his first luxury residential tower. Beekman has been an education for Mr. Ratner. Mr. Gehry begins every project by asking questions. Why, for example, do all the apartments have to follow a standard cookie-cutter formula? Do walls have to be flat? Then he churns out dozens of variations on a design before he settles on a final form. Mr. Ratner's team evaluated each one for cost before Mr. Gehry returned to the drawing board. The back-and-forth went on for more than two years and 70-plus versions.

Until recently a developer like Mr. Ratner might have hired a corporate firm like Skidmore, Owings & Merrill to design the exterior but relied on an in-house architect for the interiors. Mr. Gehry argued that he should mold the inside, too, creating a seamless relationship with the exterior and — not incidentally — branding the interiors with the Gehry name.

The result is an unusually tough design. The tower rests on a base housing a public elementary school. A series of setbacks give the tower a palpable weight, like building blocks set on top of one another; a narrow vertical slot rises on the main facade, lending the building visual depth.

The massing is a response to the bulky McKim, Mead & White municipal building to the north and the 1913 Woolworth Building, its nearest competitor. In its scale and proportions, it also calls to mind Moscow's so-called wedding cake skyscrapers, a legacy of the Stalinist 1950's. But the titanium cladding will be rippled, as though etched by rivulets of water. As the light moves across the surface, the waves will seem to change form, giving the impression that the tower is quivering. Inside the apartments, those curves will be repeated, giving many of the each apartments distinct identities.

Mr. Gehry obviously focused most of his energy on shaping the tower. Sadly, the elementary school — the only truly public-spirited component — is a simple rectangular box with a few interior flourishes.

Neither the Beekman nor the Times tower can be considered revolutionary work for Mr. Gehry or Mr. Piano. But they do send a message that serious design can emerge from collaborations with mainstream developers. The Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn, Mr. Ratner's bid to join the company of the Rockefellers as a major architectural patron, has proved a far trickier proposition than the Beekman building. It is two distinct projects: the proposed arena for the Nets and a cluster of surrounding towers extending from the intersection of Atlantic and Flatbush Avenues, and the 13.6-acre residential development just beyond it in Prospect Heights.

For both men the territory is relatively uncharted. Neither Mr. Gehry nor Mr. Ratner has built an arena before, and the advantage of breaking with conventional design may not be immediately obvious, or profitable.

When Mr. Ratner approached Mr. Gehry, he told him he wanted an arena with the intimacy of the architect's Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, whose concave and convex panels give the performance space a womblike intimacy.

In Brooklyn Mr. Gehry's breakthrough was to nestle the arena in a forest of undulating towers, preventing the surrounding area from being overtaken by urban blight. Between the towers' stocky forms, views will open straight through the ground-level concourse to the scoreboard and screaming fans. A soaring public hall with a cafe, hotel lobby and subway entrance projects out toward the intersection of Atlantic and Flatbush Avenues like the prow of a ship. The hall's cantilevered floors seem to draw energy from the bustling street level below.

The scale of the towers has sowed fear of a creeping Manhattanism that could destroy Brooklyn's human scale. Some residents have complained that the main tower, called Miss Brooklyn by Mr. Gehry, will dwarf the nearby Williamsburg Savings Bank, which at 34 stories remains the most visible marker in the borough's skyline. But the placement and scale make sense: the skyline's focus shifts to one of the borough's most important intersections.

Alas, Mr. Ratner and the city could not come to an agreement on a proposal to build a public garden on the roof of the arena. Such a space, seemingly floating in the skyline, might have evolved into one of New York's most original public spaces, but it was considered too costly to maintain or secure. Instead the developer decided that the roof would serve as a private garden and a running track for residents of the nearby hotel and apartment towers.

Such decisions could well determine whether Atlantic Yards will feel like a privileged enclave or belong to the community as a whole. One imagines what might have been possible if the city had the resources or the will to support such a vision.

Playing to the architect's strengths, Mr. Ratner has been more than happy to let Mr. Gehry toy with the residential buildings' forms. To relate them to the Brooklyn skyline, the architect creates a hierarchy of scales, with the larger, more sculptural towers anchored by smaller blocky buildings.

He likes to call the latter his "dumb boxes," a backdrop for the wilder, more exuberant forms of the taller buildings. The towers, meanwhile, take their cues from existing buildings in the neighborhood, locking the composition into its context. Heeding local protests, Mr. Ratner has lopped several stories off the biggest towers in negotiations with the city, and their scale could probably be reduced still more.

But the vital question is the experience of the architecture on the ground. The apartment buildings will frame a series of internal courtyard gardens strung out along the length of the residential development, on what is now Pacific Street. Extensions of the surrounding street grid will cut across this main axis, encouraging pedestrians to flow through the site.

The gardens, designed with the landscape architect Laurie Olin, will be open to the public, one of the project's big selling points. But they are surprisingly conservative. Crisscrossed by meandering pedestrian pathways, they feel more like private enclaves than an extension of the city that surrounds them. One problem could be that Mr. Gehry, 76, renowned for his idiosyncratic buildings, came of age professionally during the urban planning debates of the 1970's, when architects were dismantling the planning formulas of late Modernism in favor of patterns of dense urban villages.

Since then, a growing number of architects, mostly European, have challenged that approach. Rather than splitting sprawling developments into more intimate spaces, they deliberately focus on the collision between the two: between the heroic scale of urban infrastructure and the fine-grained texture of the home. Such an architect might have chosen, for example, to create a dialogue between the public zones at ground level and the railroad tracks that run beneath part of the site.

The problem is not that Mr. Gehry's layout won't work, and it is a notch above the conventional. But given the clout he has, he had the opportunity to propose a far bolder design. I still hope he will revise the master plan, which is, after all, in the earliest stages.

For Brooklyn residents who oppose Atlantic Yards, the Gehry-Ratner partnership is a natural target. But much of their anger should focus on the city and federal governments, which are apparently delighted to give developers responsibility for building and maintaining parks and pedestrian thoroughfares. That decision has changed the character of our cities as much as any single event in the past half century. Once commercial forces rule, such spaces are no longer really public.

And local activists will have to keep a close eye on the project's promised balance of low-, moderate- and market-rate housing, as the example of Battery Park City, where such promises were never fulfilled, now prove.

Whatever Mr. Ratner's ambitions, a mainstream developer is not about to promote radical changes in local housing policy. And Mr. Gehry is an architect, not a politician. But he has a public responsibility to put his formidable talents to full use.

If he succeeds, a measure of joy may well return to the New York cityscape. But success can be elusive in a world where so much of the public realm is blatantly for sale.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/15/nyregion/15yards.html
Developer of Atlantic Yards Is Cited for Failing to Stop Demolition Work

By NICHOLAS CONFESSORE
Published: June 15, 2006

The city's Buildings Department issued a violation yesterday to Forest City Ratner Companies, the developer of the proposed Atlantic Yards project near Downtown Brooklyn, on the ground it did not obey an order to stop demolition work on a building on the project site.

The stop-work order was issued on Saturday, after inspectors responding to a complaint about the demolition work found several building code violations, including a defective safety fence at the demolition site, formerly home to small auto garages at 622 and 620 Pacific Street.

Though Forest City Ratner contractors fixed the fence after getting the stop-work order and resolved other problems, they did not seek a required reinspection to lift the order, said Jennifer Givner, a Department of Buildings spokeswoman.

The violation issued yesterday — fines run from zero to $2,500, as determined by an administrative judge — was the latest step in a running battle between Forest City and the residents of 624 Pacific, a building adjacent to the demolition site and also owned by the developer.

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

Opponents of the Atlantic Yards project, an 8.7-million-square-foot residential, office, and arena development, have been stymied in their attempts to stop the demolition of the Pacific Street properties and and several others. A resident of 624 Pacific, Leigh Anderson, was among the plaintiffs in that lawsuit, and is also a member of Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn, a group opposed to the project.

Contractors began tearing down the vacant Pacific Street buildings with hand tools — as required by the Buildings Department — on May 30. A backhoe was brought to the site on June 7 to help clear debris and level the ground, company officials said.

But Ms. Anderson and other residents say the backhoe was also used to demolish the exterior walls of the two lots, violating the building code and endangering residents living in 624 Pacific. They filed complaints last week with the city and took pictures of the backhoe at work.

Their tenant lawyer, George Locker, complained to officials at Forest City Ratner and at the Empire State Development Corporation, which is reviewing the project's environmental impact and approved the demolitions late last year.

"My clients are being assaulted by a huge piece of mechanical equipment," Mr. Locker said on Tuesday, adding that Ms. Anderson and others had refused earlier settlements offered by Forest City in exchange for moving out of 624 Pacific. He said the demolition work was intended to intimidate them.

No one was injured by the demolitions. Forest City officials said that the infractions cited by the Buildings Department were minor and that 624 Pacific, which the company owns, suffered no structural damage.

Norman Oder, the author of a blog devoted to the Atlantic Yards, posted some of the pictures on Tuesday, along with a report on the demolition.

The pictures taken by Ms. Anderson and another resident, David Gochfeld, appeared to show the backhoe pulling down first-story sections of the buildings' exterior walls. But Ms. Givner said that inspectors visiting the site on several occasions did not see the backhoe being used unlawfully.

In a letter sent to the Empire State Development Corporation in response to Mr. Locker's complaints, Jeffrey L. Braun, a Forest City lawyer, said the company was looking into whether contractors had disregarded instructions not to use the backhoe to demolish walls. If that was done, he said, the company would "take appropriate action."
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http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/16/nyregion/16yards.html
Group Calls for Major Changes in Atlantic Yards Plan

By NICHOLAS CONFESSORE
Published: June 16, 2006

A leading architectural and design association called yesterday for significant changes to the proposed Atlantic Yards project near Downtown Brooklyn, saying that the current plan would overwhelm the surrounding neighborhoods and burden the area with more traffic.

Members of the Municipal Art Society, an association of architects, designers and planners founded in 1893, leveled the criticisms during a presentation last night at a church in Fort Greene, not far from where the developer Forest City Ratner Companies wants to build an 8.7 million-square-foot residential, arena, and office project.

"Does this project work for Brooklyn?" asked Kent Barwick, the society's president. "As it currently stands, we don't think it does."

Mr. Barwick laid out five principles for improving the plan, including changes to avoid eliminating city streets — which the current plan would do — and making the development's park space more accessible and inviting to residents of adjacent neighborhoods.

James P. Stuckey, the Forest City executive in charge of Atlantic Yards, was lukewarm on the presentation, saying that it was "a nice thing to say that we're going to come up with five design principles but ignore the fact that there's a billion dollars of cost in infrastructure and land acquisition" associated with the project.

Forest City Ratner is the development partner of The New York Times Company in its new headquarters building on Eighth Avenue in Manhattan, and the developer has made charitable donations to the art society in the past.

The presentation, which drew about 300 people, focused strictly on design and planning, and Mr. Barwick acknowledged that there were "other issues" in play. He also conceded that the society had not considered how changing the project's design might affect its costs.

Because Forest City has not yet released financial projections for Atlantic Yards, however, only the company itself knows precisely how the project's costs are driving its scale.

The society often convenes panels of architects and planners to review significant development proposals in the city. Last night's presentation came after weeks of negotiations between the society and about a dozen local politicians and neighborhood associations, which agreed to sponsor it.

But the sponsors were careful not to endorse the society's principles, which conspicuously eschewed any discussion of eminent domain or housing, two issues that have driven debate over the project in the past. Several of the sponsoring organizations and individuals, including the Fort Greene Association and the Park Slope Civic Council, are also aligned with Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn, an umbrella organization that has taken a much harder line against the project.

Mr. Barwick said that the sponsors had had some influence on the society's decision to steer clear of issues beyond design and planning. "The community groups felt there had been enough discussion of those issues, and they wanted to have a mature discussion on the design issues," he said.

Details of the presentation had apparently circulated among members of the umbrella group in recent weeks. On Sunday, the group sent an e-mail message to supporters charging that the arts society planned to endorse the arena, the use of eminent domain and a 20 percent reduction in the project's size, positions the e-mail message described as "unacceptable." (No such endorsements were included in last night's presentation, however.) The e-mail message urged members to turn out and provided a script of questions to ask after the presentation.

In a statement issued yesterday, the Brooklyn group said it hoped the society would "respect" a more stringent and far-reaching set of development principles, including opposition to eminent domain, negotiated among a number of neighborhood groups last year.

Daniel Goldstein, the group's spokesman, said yesterday, "We don't think that because Forest City has proposed something that that should be the framework for starting a conversation about what's best for the area as far as development."

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/03/nyregion/03yards.html
Atlantic Yards, Still but a Plan, Shapes Politics in Brooklyn

By NICHOLAS CONFESSORE
Published: July 3, 2006

It will be months, if not years, before a single brick of the Atlantic Yards project is laid near Downtown Brooklyn. But as the fall election season draws near, the unbuilt, unapproved, multibillion-dollar development is shaping up as a major political issue in this corner of the borough.

"This is a litmus test for brownstone Brooklyn," said City Councilwoman Letitia James, whose district includes most of the Atlantic Yards site and who is perhaps the elected official most outspokenly opposed to the project. "But the issue is nonetheless important for all Brooklynites, whether or not you're a brownstoner, someone who lives in public housing, or you live in a condo."

Over the last two and a half years, the project's gravity has warped the political space nearby, as if a black hole had settled at the corner of Atlantic and Flatbush Avenues. It has bolstered some candidacies and bedeviled others here, where mostly white, affluent neighborhoods like Park Slope shade into the more diverse yet rapidly gentrifying confines of Fort Greene and Prospect Heights.

It has inspired rhetorical tiptoeing and fence-sitting of exquisite precision. And within the tangled and even incestuous world of Brooklyn politics, the fight over Atlantic Yards has warped old political alliances and drawn onetime rivals into new ones.

Ms. James parts ways on Atlantic Yards, for example, with Assemblyman Roger L. Green, a close ally of the project's developer, Forest City Ratner Companies. Their districts overlap each other as well as the 22-acre site, and Ms. James was once Mr. Green's chief of staff. "Roger and I are very close," she said recently, joking, "I consider him my shorter, older brother."

One candidate for the State Assembly has walked such a fine line on the issue that opponents and supporters alike are unsure of where he stands. At least two insurgent candidates have embraced the opposition wholeheartedly, drawing volunteers and dollars to their campaigns. Some local political clubs have experienced infighting brought on by Atlantic Yards, resulting, say some members, in a few unexpected endorsements for the fall.

Mr. Green's alliance with Forest City — the development partner in building the new Midtown Manhattan headquarters for The New York Times Company — is itself a break from the assemblyman's past. During the 1980's, he helped lead a picket of Forest City when it wanted to build high-rise office buildings on the land now home to the Atlantic Terminal mall, just across Atlantic Avenue from where the company now wants to build a thicket of residential and commercial towers.

Last year, Mr. Green helped shepherd the creation of a "community benefits agreement" between Forest City and eight nonprofit groups to provide job training, housing and other programs. Randall Touré, a former top aide for Mr. Green, now works for the company, doing community outreach.

"The issue is always about the uses of relative power," Mr. Green said of his relationship with Forest City. "There was a sense that the project was going to happen. With that objective reality, I had to position myself to get information about the project, and then use my relative power to engage in some creative problem-solving."

Patti Hagan, a Prospect Heights resident and a veteran of the neighborhood's development battles, campaigned energetically for Mr. Green during his 2002 re-election bid. When the Atlantic Yards project was announced the next year, Ms. Hagan said, she was disappointed to find Mr. Green on the other side of the issue.

"We just assumed he'd be with us," she said. "I'm just totally disappointed in him as an elected official."

Mr. Green decided earlier this year to challenge Representative Edolphus Towns, the Brooklyn congressman for the 10th District, touching off an intense battle for the Assembly seat Mr. Green is vacating. Many opponents of the project had once expected to support Hakeem Jeffries, a corporate lawyer and Prospect Heights resident who ran against Mr. Green in 2002.

But they quickly discovered that Mr. Jeffries was unwilling to take a hard line against the project.

"I spent six hours at two meetings with him," said Daniel Goldstein, the spokesman for Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn, an umbrella organization for community groups opposed to Atlantic Yards. "After six hours, it was unclear to us where he stood on the project."

In late May, Mr. Jeffries took out an advertisement in The Brooklyn Downtown Star, a local newspaper, in order to "make sure there was a clear position on where we stood," he said in an interview.

"Essentially, yes to affordable housing, no to eminent domain abuse, no to commercial skyscrapers, and yes to an open process," Mr. Jeffries said.

His critics found the explanation unilluminating, since the project as currently designed would involve both eminent domain and soaring commercial skyscrapers. Pressed on whether he would support or oppose the project as it stands, Mr. Jeffries first said it was "an interesting question." After some prodding, he said he would "be more inclined to support it than not," in large part because the project includes a large component of below-market housing.

Mr. Jeffries has drawn a challenger in Bill Batson, a member of Community Board 8 who strongly opposes the project. "We don't need another landmark to tell us what Brooklyn is," he said in an interview. He is supported by many neighborhood residents who share those views, and have helped him raise money and gather ballot petitions.

"If the campaign is a referendum on Atlantic Yards, that's not my doing," Mr. Batson said. "But if it is, then let it be so."

The issue may also crop up in the race to succeed Major R. Owens, who is retiring as representative of the 11th Congressional District, although the racial dynamics of the contest have so far consumed much of its political oxygen.

One of the candidates, City Councilman David Yassky, is white; his three rivals, including Chris Owens, the incumbent's son, are black. Both Mr. Owens, who lives in Prospect Heights, and Mr. Yassky, who lives in Brooklyn Heights, are counting on strong support from white voters in the borough's brownstone neighborhoods, where the project's fate — especially its potential impact on traffic and city services — has generated considerable discussion.

The two other candidates in the race both support the project outright. Mr. Owens, like his father, has taken a hard stance against the project. Mr. Yassky has said he could not support the project at its current size, but favors development on the site. His supporters include the leaders of several nonprofit groups that have signed the community benefits agreement with Forest City Ratner, however, and some opponents of the project criticize Mr. Yassky for not taking a harder line against it.

That the Atlantic Yards issue is on so many radar screens is, for the most part, a reflection of its sheer size and scope. One of the largest real estate projects in the city's history, the residential, office and arena development has the potential to affect issues as diverse as traffic, sewage runoff, school class size and housing prices.

But the project's political salience is also part of a concerted effort by opponents to build a political base in the neighborhoods of northwest Brooklyn, an effort that began to intensify last spring, when the Empire State Development Corporation began its formal review of the project's potential environmental impact.

They have traveled to Albany to lobby members of the Legislature, packed community meetings and discussions about the project, and started blogs to publicize their position. Those efforts have borne some fruit: During recent months, two members of the State Assembly, Joan L. Millman and James F. Brennan, who represent neighborhoods close to the project, have taken stronger positions against Atlantic Yards than they have in the past.

Opponents of the project have also made their presence felt among Brooklyn's Democratic political clubs. Last spring, dozens of registration forms began arriving at the Independent Neighborhood Democrats, a Democratic club in northwestern Brooklyn, roughly doubling its membership shortly before the club was to vote on endorsements in several of this year's elections. Accusations of club-packing ensued, and the club's leadership maneuvered to exclude many of the new members from some important endorsement votes.

They were later allowed to vote on the club's endorsement for governor, however, and that is how the club's generally liberal membership came to endorse Nassau County's centrist county executive, Thomas R. Suozzi, over Eliot Spitzer, the state attorney general. Mr. Suozzi opposes the project; Mr. Spitzer appears to favor it.

Politically speaking, however, opponents of the project still face an uphill climb. Bruce C. Ratner, the chief executive of Forest City Ratner, has long been a major political and philanthropic force in Brooklyn. Mr. Ratner and his top executives enjoy strong ties to elected officials and community leaders here.

Those ties are reflected, in part, by the overwhelming support for the project among the city's political establishment, including Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz, and key members of Brooklyn's delegations in Congress and the State Legislature.

"There are two ways to work in this town," said Joe DePlasco, a spokesman for Forest City. "You can try to build a consensus by meeting with people and talking to them or you can try to stack political clubs and engage in the end-justifies-the-means single-issue tactics that opponents have been using. Given that the governor, the mayor, the borough president and numerous state and city elected officials support the project, we think the former approach is the one that works."

The Daily News recently gave editorials on both views of the Atlantic Yds.

Pro (http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ideas_opinions/story/437240p-368434c.html)
Con (http://www.nydailynews.com/news/story/437236p-368433c.html)

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/27/nyregion/27yards.html
Suit Against Atlantic Yards Challenges Eminent Domain

By THOMAS J. LUECK
Published: October 27, 2006

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/12/nyregion/12yards.html?_r=1&ref=nyregion&oref=slogin
Perspectives on the Atlantic Yards Development Through the Prism of Race

By NICHOLAS CONFESSORE
Published: November 12, 2006

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2006/11/12/nyregion/12yards.large1.jpg
Chester Higgins Jr./The New York Times

‘Conspiracy against Blacks’ James E. Caldwell heads a job-training group and supports the project.

http://graphics10.nytimes.com/images/2006/11/12/nyregion/12yads.1902.jpg
Chester Higgins Jr./The New York Times

Trying to ‘Inject Race’ Bob Law, a radio host and business owner, advises opponents of the project.

http://graphics10.nytimes.com/images/2006/11/12/nyregion/12yards.1903.jpg
Chester Higgins Jr./The New York Times

White Liberals Bertha Lewis, a leader of the national advocacy group Acorn, supports the project.

http://graphics10.nytimes.com/images/2006/11/12/nyregion/12yards.1904.jpg
Jeremy Lange for The New York Times

‘Wealthy White Masters’ Daniel Goldstein, of Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn, opposes the project.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But some in the debate previously expressed less benign views.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

http://www.nypost.com/seven/11242006/news/regionalnews/goof_could_stall_bklyn_ball_regionalnews_rich_calder.htm
GOOF COULD STALL B'KLYN BALL

By RICH CALDER

November 24, 2006 -- Bruce Ratner's bid to build an NBA arena in Brooklyn could be headed to overtime.

An Empire State Development Corp. foul-up could delay final approval of Ratner's $4.2 billion, six-block Atlantic Yards project until after Eliot Spitzer takes over as governor in January - something that gives project opponents a glimmer of hope that the huge development could still be defeated.

Charles Gargano, the ESDC chairman and Gov. Pataki's economic-development czar, announced this week that the agency inadvertently left some public comments out of the project's 4,500-page Final Environmental Impact Statement it released Nov. 15. The statement must now be revised, and the ESDC is set to meet Monday.

There is still enough time for Atlantic Yards to get its mandatory approvals from the ESDC and Public Authorities Control Board before Pataki leaves office Dec. 31.

But Daniel Goldstein, spokesman for the opposition group Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn, believes the PACB - which includes Gargano's nemesis, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver - could see the ESDC's failure to produce a complete impact statement as proof it "tried to rush the project through" before Spitzer takes over.

The ESDC could not be reached yesterday.

The governor-elect has said he favors Atlantic Yards but has questions about its financing.

Project opponents believe Spitzer will take a serious look at a federal lawsuit before reaching any conclusions.

rich.calder@nypost.com

http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/col/story/476700p-401078c.html
Hi, ho Silver!

It would be a fine thing for Brooklyn to have a major league team again. It would be a fine thing for the Nets to come over from Jersey and give the Knicks a real run for their money, because maybe real competition for the basketball dollar would make James Dolan, as weak a caretaker as Madison Square Garden has ever had, either pick up his game or just get out of the sports business. Bruce Ratner is allowed to move his team. Just not like this.

From the start, Ratner has tried to make himself out to be some kind of sports philanthropist as he tries to pull off one of the great broad-daylight real estate grabs in the history of Brooklyn and maybe the whole city. Everybody except the politicians who have rolled over for him on this - most prominent among these are George Pataki, outgoing governor and would-be Presidential candidate, Charles (Rubber Stamp) Gargano of the Empire State Development Corporation and Peter Kalikow of the MTA - have known from the start that this is a real-estate killing that needed a sports team, and the Nets were handy.

You bet Ratner wants to build a modern basketball palace for the Nets. He wants to build 16 high-rises around it much more. This was never just about bringing big-time sports back to a borough that hasn't had bigtime sports since the Dodgers left town 50 years ago. It was about turning a whole section of Brooklyn into Forest City Ratner's vision of a Brooklyn Times Square, no matter how many residents had to be shoved out of the way, no matter how many neighborhoods had to be trampled.

Now Ratner and the politicians arrive in the late innings, desperate to push the whole thing through before Pataki, who actually thinks he can be President, runs off to campaign in Iowa and Eliot Spitzer becomes governor of New York. Spitzer has made his chops as a star politician in this city because of his integrity and his fearlessness. He can use all that now and let everybody scrambling to get the Atlantic Yards Project deal done know that he wants nothing further done until he becomes the top guy in the state after the first of the year.

Which brings us to Assembly Speaker Shelly Silver.

Silver stood up to Pataki and Michael Bloomberg on the West Side Stadium and the thing never got past the three-man Public Authorities Control Board. Now he has to do it again. Tell them that he is all for the Nets coming to Brooklyn, just not in a Macy's parade of Ratner high-rises.

Gargano, who may aspire to higher hackdom if Pataki does make a run at the White House, has rolled over on this from the start. Gargano actually had people at the Empire State Development Corporation working through Thanksgiving to clean up the Final Environmental Impact Statement for Atlantic Yards. It was probably just Gargano being the diligent public servant he's always been, surely had nothing to do with Pataki being on the clock.

All along, it is as if there could only be one vision of developing Atlantic Yards: Ratner's $4.2 billion vision. Pataki went along with him, Gargano went along with him, so did Kalikow of the MTA, who constantly sells out his own as he sells off MTA property, always in the name of progress.

Shelly Silver can be the one to stop this between now and the end of the year, tell Ratner to bring the project back to him in miniature, not as something that eats up neighborhoods and homes in the name of Ratner. After that they can all let the new governor decide. All Silver has to do is use the same principles he did in standing in there against the West Side Stadium, another place where big politicians and big developers used sports as a shield.

If this was only about basketball, Ratner would have torn down his shopping mall in that neighborhood, the Atlantic Center Mall, something with the charm of Alcatraz, and built his basketball arena there. Instead, he builds more towers on top of that, three more, making it 19 for the neighborhood, not 16. The guy walks in and buys Brooklyn and nobody stops him.

Shelly Silver can stop him and should stop him.

Ask yourself a question: If these guys aren't afraid of what might happen when we have a tough governor in office instead of one who has been shuffling towards the door for years, why did Gargano have his people working during Thanksgiving to fix up that Environmental Impact Statement?

What was the rush?

To the end, these guys don't want to operate in the open, they want to work out of back rooms. There are people in Brooklyn, good tough brave people, who have fought Ratner from the start. In the late innings they need help from Shelly Silver. The city needs him. Again.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/07/nyregion/07yards.html
Last-Ditch Maneuvering on Atlantic Yards Project

By NICHOLAS CONFESSORE
Published: December 7, 2006

More than two years of costly warfare over the proposed Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn has exhausted and bruised both supporters and opponents. But as the battle enters its proverbial 13th round this month, critics of the $4.2 billion project are mounting a last-ditch political outreach effort to delay final approval until a new administration is in place in Albany.

The project’s sponsors, meanwhile, are rushing to get the project approved before Gov. George E. Pataki leaves office.

The board of the Empire State Development Corporation, the state agency overseeing the project, is to vote tomorrow on whether to approve the final project plan. They will also vote on authorizing any needed condemnations on the 22-acre site where the developer Forest City Ratner hopes to build an eight-million-square-foot residential, commercial and arena complex.

The board’s approval is practically a foregone conclusion, however, and both sides are already focusing on the final stage of the political battle: a possible vote this month by the Public Authorities Control Board. The votes on that board are controlled by Mr. Pataki, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and the Senate majority leader, Joseph L. Bruno.

Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn, an umbrella organization of groups that want to stop the project, filed suit last month in federal court to challenge the likely condemnation of several properties on the site. On Tuesday, the group delivered thousands of letters from city residents to Mr. Pataki, Mr. Bruno and Mr. Silver urging them not to approve the project until the lawsuit is resolved.

The group also recently hired a lobbyist to contend with the considerable Albany firepower of Forest City Ratner and the array of New York politicians, unions and business groups allied with the company.

A second coalition, known as Brooklyn Speaks, hopes to force changes to the project, like significantly reducing its size. The coalition includes several national and local civic groups with influence, including the Municipal Arts Society and the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

A spokesman for Forest City Ratner, which is also the development partner in a new Midtown headquarters for The New York Times Company, declined to comment on any efforts it has made to influence the upcoming votes.

The Public Authorities Control Board must unanimously approve Atlantic Yards for it to move forward. And though Mr. Pataki, Mr. Bruno and Mr. Silver have all expressed support for the project, it must still traverse the gantlet of Albany power politics.

Mr. Pataki, a likely Republican candidate for president, is said to be eager to establish a physical legacy of his 12 years in office, especially after other major projects, including the West Side stadium, have been killed or delayed.

More often than not, his antagonist on the board has been Mr. Silver, who last month described Charles A. Gargano, the Empire State Development Corporation chairman, as the “most corrupt member” of Mr. Pataki’s administration. Mr. Silver has often criticized Mr. Pataki as having withheld key information about state projects. Mr. Pataki, in turn, has typically rejected those charges as political posturing. Such debates have delayed a number of projects in the past, and a Pataki aide said a similar fate might await this one.

Officially, however, Mr. Silver supports the project, and the Assembly has already appropriated $33 million for it. In an interview, Mr. Silver said his staff was awaiting details of the project’s long-term financing.

“We are not looking to be negative,” Mr. Silver said. “We haven’t seen the financials. When we do, we will make a decision.”

Late last month, three Assembly members from neighborhoods near the project site — James F. Brennan, Joan L. Millman and Annette Robinson — sent a letter urging Mr. Silver to delay the project until it could be modified. Mr. Silver hinted that he would listen closely to their criticisms, describing them as “very effective members.”

Hakeem Jeffries, an assemblyman-elect whose district would include most of the project, said that he had expressed his concerns to Mr. Silver privately but that he would wait until after tomorrow’s vote to articulate them more formally.

If the project approval were delayed into next year, Governor-elect Eliot Spitzer’s representative would replace Mr. Pataki’s on the board. Aides to Mr. Spitzer have recently begun a more intensive review of the Yards project, among others, which they said was intended chiefly to bring Mr. Spitzer up to speed on the projects’ details. But a senior policy adviser to Mr. Spitzer said last week that an intervention was not out of the question.

“If we thought it were a seriously flawed proposal, we would encourage people to hold it until we had an opportunity to make further review of it,” said the adviser, who was granted anonymity so he could speak openly about Mr. Spitzer’s thinking on the matter.

Though Mr. Spitzer supports development over the railyards, critics of the plan believe that he would be more sympathetic than Mr. Pataki to the idea of modifications. He has spoken in the past about wanting a closer look at financial projections out of concern that the state might be forced to contribute more money than expected.

The project’s sponsors have held such financial information closely, rejecting numerous requests under freedom of information laws from journalists, politicians and Brooklyn residents.

Critics of the project hope that Mr. Silver and his staff will pry more information out of Forest City and the development corporation before the speaker will approve it. That information, they believe, could reframe public debate on terms more favorable to those who would like to change the project.

“Disclosure of the finances might reveal that they would make a profit even without the giant density of the project, and that there is no compelling rationale for the current size, and that a downsizing is fully achievable with the developer continuing to earn a generous rate of return,” Assemblyman Brennan said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/14/nyregion/14yards.html
Agency Cuts Atlantic Yards Revenue Estimate

By NICHOLAS CONFESSORE
Published: December 14, 2006

A state development corporation has drastically decreased its projections for the amount of sales and income tax revenue it expects from the proposed Atlantic Yards project near Downtown Brooklyn.

According to revised estimates prepared by the Empire State Development Corporation, which is sponsoring the $4 billion residential, commercial and arena project, it would generate $944 million in new revenue aside from what that the city and state have pledged in subsidies.

That represents a drop of one-third, or nearly half a billion dollars, from the estimate the development agency released in July, which put new tax revenues at $1.4 billion. Under current plans, taxpayers would provide $453.5 million for the project, including a direct contribution of $200 million from the city and state, sales and mortgage recording tax exemptions, and bond financing.

The drop in estimated tax revenue came after the project’s overall size was cut by about 8 percent.

The new estimate was issued on Friday, when the development agency’s board voted to approve the mixed-use project, which would be built by Forest City Ratner Companies. Forest City is also the development partner in building a new Midtown headquarters for The New York Times Company.

The project still requires approval by the state’s Public Authorities Control Board. Votes on that board are controlled equally by Gov. George E. Pataki, a Republican; Sheldon Silver, the Assembly speaker, a Democrat; and Joseph L. Bruno, the Senate majority leader, a Republican.

Mr. Silver and Governor-elect Eliot Spitzer, a fellow Democrat, have said they believe that the project’s financing requires more scrutiny before it is approved. The issue is one of many on the negotiating table in Albany during Mr. Pataki’s waning days in office, and he hopes to get the project approved before he leaves.

The new estimate was included in a statement and other documents issued by the development agency on Friday, but the difference went unremarked in both the brief board meeting that preceded the approval vote and the news conference that Charles A. Gargano, the agency’s chairman, held shortly afterward.

Norman Oder, a journalist who has a blog devoted to the Atlantic Yards project, noticed the change later and wrote about it yesterday.

A majority of the project’s eight million square feet would be taken up by apartments. But officials at the development agency said that most of the half-billion-dollar revision reflected a cut in the amount of commercial space to be included in the project. Between the project plan issued in July and the one approved last week, that figure dropped from 606,000 square feet to 336,000.

Commercial square footage usually generates far more tax revenue than residential space because it creates more indirect economic activity, like well-paying jobs in business services and administrative support. And residential space produces less estimated revenue, in part because tenants’ income taxes are counted where they work, not where they live.

Under the new estimates, the project would produce about 5,000 new jobs statewide, down from nearly 7,400 in the plan issued in July.

The estimates themselves are largely educated guesswork, relying on assumptions about how many new jobs would be created in a given square footage and how much revenue those jobs would produce.

But it was unclear how a loss of less than 300,000 square feet of office space could account for about a half a billion dollars less in tax revenue, especially considering the project's overall size.

"The cutback on the commercial side is going to have an effect, because that is where the revenue is," said Doug Turetsky, a spokesman for the city's Independent Budget Office. Mr. Turetsky said that the office had not examined the studies behind the estimates, but that "on its face, it seems like a large revenue falloff given the amount of commercial space being cut back." The development corporation said it planned to release a memo within a few days to explain its estimates.

Opponents of the project said the new projected revenue might be less than the development corporation predicts, because its analysis leaves out the costs of likely housing subsidies and additional city services.

In a statement, Daniel Goldstein, a spokesman for Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn, called the project "a financial house of cards."

Nets' Brooklyn project moves forward
Updated: Dec.8, 2006, 6:44 pm EST


NEW YORK (AP) -- New Jersey Nets owner Bruce Ratner's much-debated Atlantic Yards development project was approved Friday by the Empire State Development Corp., a major step forward in his bid to move the team to Brooklyn.

planned Brooklyn basketball arenaGehry Partners/APThis is a computer-generated architectural rendering of the proposed arena project that would reshape part of Brooklyn.
The $4 billion project -- which would reshape Brooklyn with a basketball arena, office towers and thousands of apartments -- was approved by EDC in a decision that was hailed by Gov. George Pataki and Mayor Michael Bloomberg. The next step is a final review by the state Public Authorities Control Board.

The project, designed by renowned architect Frank Gehry, would rise above a downtown Brooklyn railyard. It would include a new sports arena for the New Jersey Nets, and 16 surrounding towers with housing, a hotel and office and retail space.

The tallest building would rise 58 stories above the railyard. The project would also bring a major league sports franchise back to the borough for the first time since the Dodgers bolted for Los Angeles in 1957.

"This project is vital to the resurgence of downtown Brooklyn and is unique in its ambition, blending residential, retail, commercial and entertainment on a grand scale," said Dan Doctoroff, the city's deputy mayor for economic development.

Empire's chairman, Charles A. Gargano, announced approval of the project after a Friday afternoon vote by the corporation board. He said the board voted on three aspects of Atlantic Yards, approving the general plan, an environmental impact statement and the use of eminent domain for the property.

Jim Stuckey, an executive vice president with Forest City Ratner Companies and the president of the Atlantic Yards Development Group, hailed the vote.

"We have worked very hard over the last three-plus years to ensure that a large and diverse group of community groups and leaders were included from the start in this exciting project," Stuckey said.

The project is expected to go before the Public Authorities Board for final approval before the end of the year. It was that powerful board that undermined the proposed West Side stadium.

The development, which has spawned contentious public hearings and endless debate, also faces a federal lawsuit from Brooklyn property owners and tenants who charged that the seizure of their property under eminent domain was unconstitutional.

The project is expected to create almost 22,000 jobs during the 10-year construction period. Once finished, it is expected to create more than 5,000 more jobs, while generating $944 million in state tax revenues.

But opponents of the plan said the project's scale and striking design -- with undulating glass towers of varying size and angles -- would transform the image of predominantly low-rise and brownstone Brooklyn neighborhoods while creating a traffic nightmare.

A great deal of the opposition has emerged from neighborhoods bordering on the project -- and if it proceeds, underneath it.

Supporters suggest the opposition is distinctly local and fueled by transplanted Manhattanites. Developers have the backing of Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Pataki and the vast majority of the City Council, state Assembly and Senate.

They also have a key partner -- the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now -- a national advocate for low- and middle-income urban families that focuses on such issues as lowering crime, improving schools and creating affordable housing.

http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2006/12/chris_smith_on_atlantic_yards_1.html
Chris Smith on Atlantic Yards: The ‘Times’ Screwed Up

So there it is on today's front page: "State Approves Major Complex For Brooklyn; Vote on Atlantic Yards Caps 3-Year Conflict." And it is correct that the Public Authority Control Board — really George Pataki, Joe Bruno, and Sheldon Silver — yesterday signed off on Bruce Ratner's $4 billion stadium-and-skyscraper project. But what was truly "capped" was a farcical, corrupt political process and three years of irresponsible, lazy coverage by the Times.

Individual Times reporters have written significant stories along the way. But the Times, collectively, has never demonstrated the will or interest to examine Atlantic Yards in anything close to the proportion demanded by one of the biggest real-estate schemes in the history of the city. Maybe it's because Ratner is the Times' partner in building the paper's new Eighth Avenue headquarters. Maybe it's because Times editors think Atlantic Yards is an objectively good idea. Maybe it's because the Times, along with the rest of the city's mainstream media, does a lousy job of covering anything outside our midtown backyard. Whatever the reasons, the effect has been an abdication of the Times' civic and journalistic responsibility.

Alan Hevesi's driver shenanigans cost the citizenry $200,000 (which he's repaying) and affected the lives of no one; Atlantic Yards is floating $1.6 billion in state-backed debt, and Brooklyn's 2.5 million residents will feel the project's impact every day. Yet the Times has never seriously challenged Ratner's calculations. In today's paper, in a paragraph near the very end of the story, is a mention of how much money Ratner stands to make from Atlantic Yards — a figure the developer has hidden as zealously as the code to a nuclear warhead. "[Ratner] estimated that the overall rate of return on the $4 billion project, excluding the arena, at about 10 percent over 30 years. The accounting firm [KPMG] estimated the return at about 7 percent."

Is either figure correct? The Times doesn't know; it has had plenty of time to work up its own independent estimate, but hasn't. (New York Magazine did, and came up with a profit closer to $1 billion; see my August cover story, which includes a description of my own self-interest in Atlantic Yards.) KPMG was hired by the state's development agency, the ESDC, which has been a cheerleader for Atlantic Yards from the beginning and is the agency that hid a sudden 33 percent drop in the state's estimated tax revenue from Atlantic Yards, a fact that came to light only through the digging of blogger Norman Oder. The Times wouldn't just passively accept the numbers of, say, the Bush Administration, would it?

Also shrugging his shoulders, just as disgracefully though more predictably, was Assembly Speaker Silver, the last elected official with the power to hold Atlantic Yards up to meaningful scrutiny. "Our role is not to measure the profits that the private investors will make," Silver said. Really? Even when Silver is handing those private investors what will probably be more than a billion dollars in taxpayer money, in the form of subsidies and tax breaks? Would Silver invest his own money in any company without bothering to check its profitability?

Such quibbling is, of course, beside the point when talking about Albany. In the past few days, Silver made a great show of demanding more information about the public financing of Atlantic Yards, and on Tuesday the ESDC dumped reams of financial documents on Silver's office. It would be nice to think that Silver, or someone on his staff, then pulled all-nighters reading and dissecting the material. But Silver's support was assured years ago by Ratner's sophisticated political campaign, which included cutting the amount of Atlantic Yards office space so as not to compete for tenants that Silver would rather see in his downtown Manhattan district. And Silver's formal approval was sealed in a classic bit of last-minute, insider horse-trading: He agreed to green-light Atlantic Yards as long as Pataki dropped the effort to get Moynihan Station approved. But that nugget was in the Daily News, not the Times.

Actually, the Times did have one scoop on the Atlantic Yards endgame, though it was inadvertent, buried, and partly wrong. Last week, tacked on to the end of a sports-section story on a hockey game, was a one-sentence mention that the Rangers are likely to move a minor-league team to Brooklyn, "presumably to play at the proposed Atlantic Yards development." The team would in fact play at the new Floyd Bennett Field complex. But the subtext was more significant: Silver is a huge Rangers fan, and he's very close to the Rangers' owners, Cablevision's Dolan family. Cablevision desperately wants to build a new Madison Square Garden as part of the Moynihan Station deal, something Pataki has blocked. If Cablevision had raised strenuous objections to Atlantic Yards as a competitor instead of relocating a minor-league team to Brooklyn, or if Silver hadn't been able to delay the Moynihan Station deal, Silver wouldn't have waved Atlantic Yards through yesterday.

The Times is finally starting to pay close attention to Albany's tangled culture of self-dealing, with the investment portfolio of Joe Bruno suddenly worthy of page-one play. But that has as much to do with the impending arrival of Eliot Spitzer as any new burst of journalistic enterprise. And it's way too late to do Brooklyn any good. —Chris Smith

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/22/nyregion/22yards.html
Atlantic Yards Enters New Phase, and Faces Next Hurdle: Lawsuits

By NICHOLAS CONFESSORE
Published: December 22, 2006

If all goes according to plan, work will begin within weeks on the $4 billion Atlantic Yards project near Downtown Brooklyn, which won final approval from a state oversight board on Wednesday after three years of furious debate.

But large development projects rarely go according to plan — even when they do not face multiple lawsuits, which the project, one of the biggest in the city’s history, already does. And months or years may pass before anyone will be able to divine the precise gap between the plan for Atlantic Yards and the reality of it.

On paper, the project’s developer, Forest City Ratner Companies, expects to begin construction sometime next month, though much of the early work will take place below street level, amid the Vanderbilt railyards along Atlantic Avenue. The plan calls for the eight-acre area to be rebuilt, then covered by a platform from which portions of the project would rise.

Forest City has privately purchased much of the property it needs to build the project. But it faces a federal lawsuit by some residents and business owners on the site, who refused to move or sell their properties to Forest City and now face condemnation from state officials.

Among the plaintiffs is Daniel Goldstein, the spokesman for Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn, a coalition of community organizations and elected officials opposed to the project. Mr. Goldstein’s apartment building, of which he is the sole remaining owner, would need to be torn down to make way for the arena.

City and state officials last year rebuffed alternative proposals that would not have required eminent domain, and now Mr. Goldstein and others say they are left with no choice but to fight in court.

“We’re confident we will win this lawsuit,” he said yesterday. “Our victory will force a reshaping of the project, while protecting owners and renters nationwide from abuses of eminent domain.”

A second lawsuit was filed two weeks ago by tenants of rent-stabilized apartments owned by Forest City on the project site. The lawsuit claims that the Empire State Development Corporation, which is overseeing the Atlantic Yards project, illegally approved the buildings’ condemnation without first obtaining permission from state housing officials to erase the tenants’ leases.

City and state officials are pushing to have both lawsuits dismissed. But George S. Locker, a lawyer for tenants in the second suit, said that was unlikely. “I’ve never seen cases that have such substantial legal issues, in such a variety of state and federal forums, with such enormous consequences, speed through in less than a year and a half,” he said.

By 2010, lawsuits notwithstanding, Forest City hopes to have completed most of the structures on the western portion of the 22-acre project site, near Flatbush and Atlantic Avenues. That includes the 18,000-seat basketball arena for the New Jersey Nets, which Forest City hopes to begin building next fall and open in time for the 2009-10 season.

In the same time frame, the developer also hopes to complete the project’s signal tower, called Miss Brooklyn, and more than 2,000 apartments, about 30 percent of which would be subsidized.

In the second phase, scheduled to end in 2016, Atlantic Yards would creep eastward toward Vanderbilt Avenue, adding the bulk of the project’s roughly 6,400 rental apartments and condominiums.

Forest City officials said it was possible that vacant buildings on the site that are already controlled by the company might have to be demolished in the coming months, but that it was unlikely they would move to demolish any of the buildings figuring in the lawsuits.

A broader group of elected officials and community and civic organizations, centered on the Brooklyn Speaks coalition, remains hopeful that it can force more changes to the project next year, after Governor-elect Eliot Spitzer takes office. Although the project has formally been approved, officials at the development corporation have signaled they are willing to entertain further alterations to the second phase.

http://www.nydailynews.com/boroughs/story/495640p-417661c.html
Yards sued on plan to grab land

BY JOTHAM SEDERSTROM
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Thirteen property owners threatened by the controversial Atlantic Yards project fired their first legal salvo yesterday, challenging the use of eminent domain to make way for the 22-acre development.

Seeking to have their case heard before a federal judge, the plaintiff's attorneys argued that developer Forest City Ratner and city and state officials - including former Gov. Pataki and Mayor Bloomberg - skirted due process for the sake of private development.

"We have the right to have our federal claims heard," attorney Matthew Brinckerhoff said before Magistrate Robert Levy in Brooklyn Federal Court. "Our federal constitution has been violated."

Approved by the state in December, the $4.2 billion plan calls for a professional basketball arena for the NBA's Nets and 16 towers with residential and commercial space in Prospect Heights.

While opponents fear the project will create a traffic nightmare and ruin the neighborhood's character, supporters say it will create jobs and affordable housing.

Forest City Ratner's attorney Jeffrey Braun, who sought to have the claim dismissed, argued that the use of eminent domain in Brooklyn is similar to other land seizure cases that were ruled constitutional.

"Just because it's land purchased by a private developer doesn't mean it's a private use," said Braun, who cited plans for a new school within the project site.

Mayor Bloomberg, who is named as a defendant, shot back at the anti-arena foes yesterday, charging that the project would benefit the entire city.

"Without eminent domain, we'd be living in a city that was built 100 years ago and nothing [had] ever been done," Bloomberg said. "You never would have redid Times Square without eminent domain. You'd never do any of these big projects."

In response to a controversial 2005 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in the landmark eminent domain case Kelo vs. City of New London, 34 states have adopted measures limiting the use of eminent domain.

The court split 5 to 4, deciding that private developments - not just public projects such as roads, schools and hospitals - could be considered for the benefit of the public.

With Michael Saul

Originally published on February 8, 2007

http://www.gothamgazette.com/article/landuse/20070306/12/2117
Atlantic Yards: A “Done Deal?”

by Tom Angotti

March, 2007

The Atlantic Yards megaproject proposed by Forest City Ratner in Brooklyn had all the appearances of a “done deal” when it was first announced almost three years ago. Brooklyn’s biggest developer boasted solid support from Governor George Pataki, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz. Basketball fans applauded the plan to build an arena for the Nets, the professional team owned by developer Bruce Ratner. And many advocates for affordable housing cheered Forest City Ratner’s pledge that half of the new housing packed into 16 giant towers would be “affordable.”

The general feeling among Manhattan-centric urban policy pundits seemed to be that Atlantic Yards was just a harmless piece of Manhattan-like development opposed only by a small group of narrow-minded Brooklyn brownstoners, and that, as Errol Louis of the Daily News has written more than once, the opponents would do best “to accept the reality of the plan.”

Indeed, in the beginning of March, the New York Post, in an article entitled Ratner Readies Wrecking Ball, reported that the developer plans to demolish 12 buildings, on Pacific and Dean Streets, and Flatbush and Vanderbilt Avenues, “as he revs up efforts to being building his $4 billion Atlantic Yards project.”

But a new film, Brooklyn Matters, uncovers a deepening vein of displeasure with the project that spans a wide political spectrum, in Manhattan as well as Brooklyn, among community leaders and urban planners. In addition to the “resignation and bitter apathy” referred to by Brooklyn resident Jennifer Egan in her recent New York Times op-ed essay, there seems to be a warehouse of active resistance and also a minefield of new obstacles. Three new lawsuits against the project will tie the project up for a while. The Spitzer administration is looking closely at this and a host of other Pataki deals that left mushrooming public costs. Critics are attempting to expose the affordable housing package as something of a front for what they say is really a massive luxury project. And now community groups are working on expanding their own plan for the area that sets aside Ratner’s vision.

Brooklyn Matters

The film Brooklyn Matters was produced and directed by independent filmmaker Isabel Hill, who a decade ago produced a documentary entitled Made in Brooklyn, which took a critical look at the city government’s planning and zoning policies that undermine productive industrial areas. For the new documentary, Hill says she had hoped to include spokespeople for Forest City Ratner, but the developer did not respond to multiple requests for interviews. However, Bertha Lewis of ACORN, a housing advocacy group that supports the project, is interviewed in the film, as are other supporters, and many are shown in action at heated public forums. The urban planners and architects who voice their opinions include former city Planning Commissioner Ron Shiffman, architectural critic Paul Goldberger, and me.

Despite the impression that attitudes toward the project split along racial lines -- blacks supporting it and whites opposing it -- the film makes clear there are eloquent people of color in the opposition, from activist Bob Law to Councilmembers Letitia James and Charles Barron.

There are in fact unexpected harmonies among the diverse opposition chorus shown in the film. Julia Vitullo-Martin of the conservative Manhattan Institute (director of its Center for Rethinking Development) lashes out at the enormous density of the project and its failure to connect with the surrounding neighborhoods. Kent Barwick of the liberal Municipal Art Society blasts the use of eminent domain to transfer ownership of viable developed properties to a single large developer. Both left and right now seem to agree that this project is too large and dense (it would be the densest in the city), and that state officials are both abusing the government’s condemnation powers by using them to favor one powerful developer, and overriding the city’s normal public review process.

What this has meant is that the only opportunity for local residents and businesses to comment publicly on the project was through the environmental review process, mandated under state law. But this review was found in a report by the Council of Brooklyn Neighborhoods, a coalition of over 40 local groups, to be “insufficient in both process and substance.” There were only two public hearings – one in October of 2005 on what is called the “Scope of Analysis” for the environmental review (basically the outline of potential project impacts that would have to be analyzed), and one to receive public comments on the “Draft Environmental Impact Statement,” over 4,000 pages of detailed, highly technical analysis, which was held in August of last year, when many residents were on vacation and community boards were in recess. Those who missed that public hearing may find both entertaining and shocking the footage in Brooklyn Matters, in which hordes of hard hats from throughout the region shout down requests by neighborhood leaders for more time to evaluate the project’s impacts, and ACORN’s troops joined the chorus.

Despite many appeals for changes to the plan – including calls by many project supporters for a reduction in size -- this did not happen.

The Disappearing Affordable Housing

For those on the liberal side of the spectrum, the developer’s promise of 50 percent affordable housing was certainly a most compelling one. No private developer has ever made such a huge pledge. It is understandable why ACORN, one of the largest advocates for affordable housing in the nation, would accept the developer’s invitation to sign a contract – a Community Benefits Agreement – that promised its support in exchange for the developer’s commitment.

Michelle de la Uz, director of Fifth Avenue Committee, one of Brooklyn’s largest non-profit affordable housing developers, tells Brooklyn Matters how, within weeks of the announcement of the benefits agreement, the developer added more residential units to their project in a way that reduced the percentage of affordable units to about 30 pecent. Then the developer defined “affordable” so liberally that it included a huge swath of “moderate-income” households that would be making far more than the median income for Brooklyn. In fact, less than 14 percent of the apartments in the proposed development would be affordable to households making less than the median income.

Three Court Cases and the UNITY Workshop

Opposition groups have filed one lawsuit and two more are lined up and ready to go. This may create more problems even should Forest City Ratner eventually prevail in court, since “market timing” may force the developer to alter its plan or postpone its completion indefinitely. Landscape Architect Laurie Olin, who was hired to make the project’s interior courtyards look as if they were public open space, recently told the New York Observer he thought it could be 20 years before the project is completed, twice as long as projected.

Forest City Ratner has requested permits to demolish buildings it owns in the area, even though it cannot build the first phase of the project, including the arena, as long as the project is tied up in court. Demolition might help Forest City Ratner create “facts on the ground” that favor eventual implementation of the project. But the history of giant urban renewal projects like this one is telling. New York City, including downtown Brooklyn, has had many large urban renewal areas that remained vacant eyesores for decades after they were cleared for redevelopment. Forty years after the clearance of the Hoyt-Schermerhorn Urban Renewal Area in Boerum Hill, the vacant sites are just now being built on.

Meanwhile, neighborhood residents are also thinking long-term. The UNITY Plan (which stands for Understanding, Imagining and Transforming the Yards) was developed three years ago as an alternative plan after workshops sponsored by Councilmember Letitia James and coordinated by architect Marshall Brown. Brown, along with Ron Shiffman and I, are convening a series of workshops to update and expand the plan, so that it covers areas that are being blighted as Forest City Ratner buys and vacates properties. To the people attending the UNITY Workshops, Brooklyn matters, and nothing is a done deal until it is done.

Tom Angotti is professor of urban affairs and planning at Hunter College, City University of NY, editor of Progressive Planning Magazine, and a member of the Task Force on Community-based Planning.

:eek: "16 giant towers ", hopefully he really means tall towers with that

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/08/nyregion/08yards.html
Atlantic Yards Loses Lease to Part of Site

By ANDY ******
Published: March 8, 2007

As it moves forward on its plans for the Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn, the developer Forest City Ratner has represented itself as controlling nearly all the property in the 22-acre footprint of the site.

But in a decision released yesterday, a judge in Brooklyn terminated Forest City Ratner’s long-term lease on two properties covering nearly an acre of land within the site, after finding that a tenant had sold the lease to Forest City without the owner’s permission.

Control of the properties, a six-story office building and adjacent parking lot along Pacific Street near Downtown Brooklyn, reverts to the owner, Henry Weinstein, the judge ruled.

Mr. Weinstein is one of 13 property owners challenging the state’s right to condemn property under eminent domain law and convey it to Forest City for the $4 billion Atlantic Yards project that includes 6,400 rental apartments and condominiums, office towers, a hotel and a basketball arena for the New Jersey Nets.

Forest City has already begun work on the project on portions of the site it owns in anticipation of ultimately gaining control of the disputed properties.

Officials at Forest City Ratner declined to comment on the ruling.

Mr. Weinstein’s tenant, a company controlled by another major developer, Shaya Boymelgreen, had argued in court papers that Mr. Weinstein had no valid reason to deny him permission to sell his leases to two companies controlled by Forest City. Mr. Boymelgreen’s lawyer contended that Mr. Weinstein was only withholding his consent in order to be able to extract more money from Forest City or the state when he sold the properties.

But the judge, Justice Ira B. Harkavy of State Supreme Court, ruled that regardless of Mr. Weinstein’s motives, the contracts stated “clearly and unambiguously” that the leases could not be transferred without his permission.

A lawyer for Mr. Boymelgreen’s companies, James P. Sheridan, said he would appeal the decision.

Mr. Weinstein had leased the properties, at 762-766 Pacific Street and 535 Carlton Avenue, to Mr. Boymelgreen’s companies in 1999, for a term of 48 years.

In 2003, Forest City proposed the Atlantic Yards project. Forest City is also the development partner for The New York Times Company in building its new headquarters in Midtown Manhattan.

In February 2006, the parties agree, Mr. Boymelgreen’s companies sent a letter to Mr. Weinstein asking permission to sell the leases to Forest City, but sent it to a wrong address. Ten days later, without having heard back from Mr. Weinstein, Mr. Boymelgreen’s companies transferred the leases to Forest City.

Mr. Weinstein said that Forest City must have known that it did not have the right to take over the leases without his blessing. “If you’re buying a lease from somebody and you have thousand-dollar-an-hour, 800-pound gorilla lawyers retained to protect your interest,” he said, “I tend to think that they read the lease and realized that they knew that what they were doing was illegal.”

http://www.northjersey.com/page.php?qstr=eXJpcnk3ZjczN2Y3dnFlZUVFeXkxMjgmZmdiZWw3Zjd2cWVlRUV5eTcwODk5NjMmeXJpcnk3ZjcxN2Y3dnFlZUVFeXk2
Nets may stay in N.J. until 2010

Thursday, March 8, 2007

By JOHN BRENNAN
STAFF WRITER

The Nets won’t be moving to Brooklyn until 2010 -- a year later than the team has been vowing to leave Continental Arena -- two executives affiliated with Nets principal owner Bruce Ratner told a group of investment analysts this week.

But on Thursday, Forest City Enterprises Chief Executive Charles Ratner -- Bruce's brother -- said in a “clarification” that he didn’t mean it.

“When I was discussing the arena, I was referring to the arena block, which includes the Barclays Center [the Nets arena] as well as four surrounding buildings,” Charles Ratner said in a statement. “We expect the office and residential buildings to come on line beginning in 2010. We remain committed to our goal of opening the arena in time for the 2009-10 season.”

The arena’s construction is well behind schedule — a fact acknowledged by Forest City Vice President Bob O’Brien during the Web cast with analysts on Tuesday at the Citigroup Global Property CEO conference.

At this time a year ago, Nets officials were hoping to break ground on a temporary platform over a rail yard near downtown Brooklyn by October 2006 and break ground on the arena 10 months later, in August 2007. That might have allowed enough time for an opening in the fall of 2009-2010, but work on the Vanderbilt Yards site has been underway for only a few weeks, potentially pushing back any arena work until late this year or early in 2008.

O’Brien, while discussing the construction schedule, referred to a timeline that would have “the ball team open in ... 10-11?”

“10-11,” Charles Ratner confirmed, referring to the 2010-11 NBA season.

E-mail: brennan@northjersey.com

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/12/opinion/l12yards.html
Opposing Atlantic Yards (1 Letter)

Published: April 12, 2007
To the Editor:

In “Clearing of Atlantic Yards’ Site Proceeds as Legal Thicket Grows Denser” (news article, April 5), I was described as “a spokesman for Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn, which opposes the scale of the plan.”

Our organization does not merely oppose the scale of the plan, we oppose Forest City Ratner’s project itself on many principled grounds. The project bypassed democratic and accountable oversight procedures and eschews urban planning principles. It would receive a still unknown but huge amount of taxpayer subsidies and terribly strain infrastructure because of its over-the-top density.

Furthermore, Atlantic Yards exemplifies an abuse of eminent domain currently being reviewed in federal court. Daniel Goldstein

Brooklyn, April 6, 2007

Another Atlantic Yards Lawsuit Dismissed

http://curbed.com/uploads/Atlantic%20Yards%20Crop.jpg

Friday, January 11, 2008, by Robert
curbed.com (http://curbed.com/archives/2008/01/11/curbedwire_another_atlantic_yards_lawsuit_dismissed.php)

PROSPECT HEIGHTS—A late day decision has been handed down dismissing the lawsuit challenging the environmental review process for Atlantic Yards. The case was filed last April. The decision in the suit filed by 26 community groups was issued by New York State Supreme Court Judge Joan Madden. No details were immediately available, but Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn (DDDB) said it planned an appeal. The group tried to put a positive spin on the latest legal setback, headlining the release conveying the news: "NY State Supreme Court Rules for ESDC in Atlantic Yards Lawsuit. Project Cannot Move Forward While Federal Eminent Domain Case Is Pending." The Federal case was also dismissed, but has been appealed. DDDB's Daniel Goldstein said in the release: "We expect to prevail in that lawsuit, as well as on the appeal of today’s decision."

Gehry cuts his cloth to suit credit crunch era
Architect's revelations show that no-one can hide from the financial crisis.

http://static.worldarchitecturenews.com/project/uploaded_files/11249_atlantic%20main.jpg
Gehry's mixed-use Atlantic Yards scheme stopped

06 Mar 2009
David Taylor
worldarchitecturenews.com (http://www.worldarchitecturenews.com/index.php?fuseaction=wanappln.projectview&upload_id=11249)

Frank Gehry has admitted that even he is not immune from the global credit crunch, having lost half his staff over the last year as prestigious projects have been cut back or put on hold.

The architect, who celebrated his 80th birthday on February 28, admitted to the LA Times on March 1 that despite new work that includes another Guggenheim museum – this time for Abu Dhabi as part of a new cultural district called Saadiyat Island – funding for other major schemes has been pulled, forcing the internal cull. These include massive mixed use projects on LA’s Grand Avenue and at Brooklyn’s Atlantic Yards. “I’ve had a disappointing year with Grand Avenue and Brooklyn”, Gehry told the LA Times. “All my life I’ve wanted to do projects like that and they never came to me. And then all of a sudden I had two of them. I invested the last five years in them, and they’re both stopped. So it leaves a very hollow feeling in your bones.”

The LA Grand Avenue project is a $3 billion scheme aimed at reviving LA’s downtown with a new boulevard that is likened to the Champs-Élysées in Paris and Central Park in New York. It consists of two high-rise residential and hotel towers and several low-rise two- to four-storey retail buildings on a common podium base.

The Atlantic Yards scheme includes a sports and entertainment arena, landscaped open space, a boutique hotel, ground-floor retail space for local businesses, offices and more than 6,400 housing units. Backed by Bruce Ratner, CEO and chairman of Forest City Ratner Companies, the project passed a recent environmental review but Gehry said he was forced to lose two dozen staffers last November when he was asked to stop design work. Spokesman for the project Joe DePlasco confirmed it was on hold, telling WAN: “We anticipate additional delays because of pending litigation”.

This is not the first time Gehry has downsized, however – in 1978 he slashed his staff back from roughly 50 to three in a bid to start afresh. “I’m prepared to do that again if I have to”, Gehry said. “Today, if there’s frugality, I’m ready.”

“I’d do corrugated [metal] again. It’s fun to work in that way, and it’s easy. Why spend all the money for fancy details and stuff? You don’t need it. You can get the passion with simpler things.’

Another project facing cuts is rather closer to home. Gehry’s own plans to build a house for himself and his family on three contiguous plots in Venice, California, have also been curtailed. Gehry will instead parcel up the land and give one each to his son Sam, who works at the Gehry Partners office, and one each to a pair of young colleagues: Meaghan Lloyd and Anand Devarajan.

The news comes hard on the heels of job cuts at other leading architecture firms, including Foster and Partners, which announced 300 job losses and Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners, which was forced to lose 35 from its 160 staff.

Nets CEO defends decision to jettison design of architect Frank Gehry
10 June 2009

NEW YORK (AP) - The chief executive of the Nets defended his team's decision to jettison architect Frank Gehry's design for a new arena in Brooklyn and replace it with a more conventional and less costly option.

The team announced last week that the Barclays Center in Brooklyn will be based on a design by Ellerbe Becket.

Nicolai Ouroussoff, the architecture critic of The New York Times, wrote Tuesday that the switch was "a shameful betrayal of the public trust, one that should enrage all those who care about this city." He called the new plan "a colossal, spiritless box" and said "its low-budget, no-frills design embodies the crass, bottom-line mentality that puts personal profit above the public good."

"Unfortunately the world we live in today is very different than what it was three or four years ago when we hired Frank," Nets chief executive Brett Yormark said Wednesday at Street & Smith's SportsBusiness Journal's conference on sports facilities and franchises.

"The world is more simplistic. It's not as grand and glitzy. And I'm not sure that design would have been appropriate right now, as much as we all loved it. I think the design that we have now is very appropriate. It speaks to Brooklyn."

Also at the conference:

--Mark Lamping, chief executive of the company building a new stadium for the Giants and Jets in East Rutherford, N.J., said he'd like to have a naming-rights deal before the building opens next year but sounded unsure whether he will.

--Mets executive vice president Dave Howard defended his team's $400 million, 20-year deal with Citigroup Inc. for Citi Field.

The Nets say they must break ground for the arena before the end of the year. Barclays PLC had the right to terminate its naming rights deal when construction failed to begin by last December, according to Yormark, but decided to give a one-year grace period.

Yormark said that despite the recession, there was still sufficient resources in the area to sell luxury suites.

"There is so much money in New York, and people still have it and made lots of it over the years," he said. "In today's market, if you can create that value proposition, they will spend it. And yeah, you can't take it for granted anymore and they're not out there leading with their wallet, but if there's good justification, people have disposable income in this market. There are 20 million people, and you can be successful."

However, he has learned from the empty premium seats at new Yankee Stadium, which are priced at $500 to $2,625.

"In some cases they have been scrutinized unfairly, in most cases unfairly," he said. "But I think what it has taught me and I think just people in general in the industry is the power or PR and how to manage PR and how to try to redefine perception. I just think it's made me look at that a little differently because you want to control the message in the market before the message is controlled for you."

New Jersey Devils owner Jeff Vanderbeek, in a later segment, repeated the Nets would be welcome at the Prudential Center in Newark if the Brooklyn deal falls through.

"We've always said that they would. We'd certainly welcome them with open arms," he said.

At the Meadowlands, talks with Allianz SE ended last September after Holocaust survivors and football fans said seeing the company's name on the stadium would be a constant reminder of the company's ties to Nazi Germany.

"The Jets and the Giants will be playing in this facility for a long, long time," Lamping said. "You can't force the economics of the deal in year one or year two simply because the market may not be where it needs to be."

As for Citi Field, Reps. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, and Ted Poe, R-Texas, urged Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner to demand that Citigroup cancel the deal because of $45 billion the bank received in government aid. Six New York House members asked the Obama administration to ignore the complaints.

"I just found that to be a very unfortunate, you know, politicizing of the issue," Howard said. "In this country, a contract is a contract. Congress does not have the power or the right to dictate that a contract should be breached. That to me is very offensive from a policy standpoint."

Howard said empty seats were not a big issue at Citi Field, where the top ticket price averages $495.

"I think we've been unfairly sort of tendered in this discussion," he said. "Where we see the issue for us is at the sort of I would say the fringes of the changes in the price points. ... It's not behind home plate. For us, it's not above the dugouts that's an issue. It's sort of in the fringes of the outfield, the fringes on the club level."

------

AP Sports Writer Rachel Cohen contributed to this report.