TimesRatnerReport

In his assessment today on the expansion of the Javits Convention Center, headlined In Javits Expansion, Old Dreams Revisited, New York Times architecture critic Nicolai Ouroussoff includes this passage:
Embarrassed by the rejection of a Jets stadium for the West Side and the endless squabbling about the design for a Freedom Tower at ground zero, city and state officials overseeing the Javits project seem to be in a mad rush to push it through. With shadowy political maneuvering, they have stifled the kind of public debate that could have led to a more ambitious vision for the convention center and the decrepit neighborhoods next to it.

By contrast, his 7/5/05 essay on the Atlantic Yards plan, headlined Seeking First to Reinvent the Sports Arena, and Then Brooklyn, Ouroussoff wrote:
Frank Gehry's new design for a 21-acre corridor of high-rise towers anchored by the 19,000-seat Nets arena in Brooklyn may be the most important urban development plan proposed in New York City in decades. If it is approved, it will radically alter the Brooklyn skyline, reaffirming the borough's emergence as a legitimate cultural rival to Manhattan. More significant, however, Mr. Gehry's towering composition of clashing, undulating forms is an intriguing attempt to overturn a half-century's worth of failed urban planning ideas.

There's no mention of the political maneuvering behind the project, and the potential, for example, of ruinous traffic. Now that more public concern has been voiced about this project, let's see what Ouroussoff writes in response to the third version of the Gehry's design, expected in the next months.

The influential Municipal Art Society has finally posted its comments on the Draft Scope of Analysis for an Environmental Impact Statement for the Atlantic Yards. (The Draft Environmental Impact Statement, observes MAS, could come as early as mid-February.)

There are many finely grained observations, with several exceprted below, but the most interesting ones come in the section called Alternatives, in which the MAS suggests studying a project that included no arena and buildings with a height limitation of 120 feet (as opposed to more than five times that).

Thinking about density

Another suggestion is for a development with an arena but with a height limitation of 320 feet (about half the current proposed level) and 4.9 million square feet (as opposed to 9.1 million square feet). The suggested Floor Area Ratio is 6.5, not dissimilar from that discussed by architect Jonathan Cohn in his Brooklyn Views blog.

Forest City Ratner argues that adding density allows it to meet its affordable housing pledge. But until we know the costs and benefits of the project, as well as the developer's projected profits, it's impossible to calculate.

And shouldn't the appropriate density be driven by a planning process, rather than a developer?

MAS alternatives

The MAS suggests:

• Study an alternative to reduce land use impacts, that includes the following components:
o No arena;
o 600,000 sf of at-grade retail space;
o Minimal office space, with priority given to community and educational facilities;
o 2300 units of housing with a height limitation of approximately 120 feet;
o 1100 parking spaces;
o Green public walkway, roughly parallel to Atlantic Avenue and a landscaped public park;
o No residential displacement with development limited to MTA site only;
o Extension of existing Fort Greene street grid across the rail yards, creating smaller blocks with more street frontage.

• Study alternative to reduce land use impacts, that includes the following components:
o A non-arena development with buildings at a density of between 3 million sf of development over the yards only;
o An arena development and 4.9 million square feet of development and lower scale with a maximum combined FAR of 6.5 and a height limit of 270 feet for residential buildings and 320 feet for commercial buildings, for a site bounded by Atlantic Avenue, Flatbush Avenue, Sixth Avenue, Pacific Street and Vanderbilt Avenue (to the extent that these parcels would not have to be acquired through eminent domain);

• To increase public access and usability of proposed open space, consider alternative with buildings on sites 5-14 reconfigured. Study alternative that maximizes public access to fully usable open space that is designed to address the specific needs of the existing community as well as new users.

• Study alternative with different mix of uses, including space for high-performing light industrial uses.

• Study alternative with arena reconfigured at Vanderbilt Avenue, where there is more traffic capacity than Flatbush Avenue.

• 5th Avenue is a major connection between Park Slope, Prospect Heights and Ft. Greene. It is also major point of access to an enormous retail center. Alternatives that do not lead to closure of this street should be analyzed.

Taking a broader view of the impact

The MAS observes, as have others, that the environmental review should take a much broader view of community impact:

• The impacts of this development, particularly as it relates to traffic, should be studied in conjunction with the entire redevelopment plan for Downtown Brooklyn, including both proposed and projected development sites identified in the Downtown Brooklyn Rezoning EIS, and the upcoming Fort Greene Rezoning.

STUDY AREA: Proposed ½ mile and ¼ mile study area is not sufficient to determine true land use impacts in certain instances.
1. Study area for traffic and transit should include Grand Army Plaza, the Brooklyn Bridge, the Manhattan Bridge, the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, and the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel. Study use of congestion pricing model to control vehicular traffic to arena.
2. Study area for parks and open space should include all of Fort Greene Park and all of Prospect Park. However, these areas should not be included in the required open space ratio for the proposed development.
3. Number of intersections identified in traffic study area should be increased to include all intersections within ½-mile study area. Drivers will seek alternative routes through residential neighborhoods at peak traffic hours.
4. Study area for land use, zoning, and public policy impacts should be increased to include all of the Downtown Brooklyn Rezoning Study Area. • While there are no 197-a plans for the study area, the site is shared by three community districts—Brooklyn 2, 6, and 8. All public policy documents created by the affected community boards, including but not limited to Community District Needs Statements, annual budget priorities, and adopted resolutions pertaining to the Atlantic Yards and development and rezoning proposals such as the Downtown Brooklyn Rezoning, should be analyzed.

• Study the impact of the proposed development on the Clinton Hill, Boerum Hill, Fort Greene, and BAM Historic Districts.

Socioeconomic Conditions

The MAS wants more clarity about jobs:

• In the analysis of the operating period benefits to the state and city after the project is fully developed, provide working definition of “permanent employment.” While jobs associated with operation of sports facilities may be permanent, they are often part-time, or only occasional, as the need arises.

Also, the MAS asks when affordable housing would be built:

• Specify whether any low and moderate income housing will be built in Phase I and provisions to be made for community preference in allotting units.

Open Space

The MAS says the arena roof shouldn't count as open space and warns that the open space promises are out of sync with the project timetable:

• Rooftop space for commercial tenants should not count against required ratio.
• The proposed development will not result in any public open space until 2016. Determine impact of new residents and workers added to area in Phase I of construction in terms of current open space ratio.

Cultural Resources

The MAS warns that a narrow focus has its costs:

• The scope document states that the analysis of known resources will focus on resources closest to the development site. All resources in the study area should be equally analyzed. In recent large-scale rezonings, the area impacted by accelerated land values has been more generalized than the limited study area. Subsequently, attempts at the preservation of noteworthy historic buildings in the general area but not within the study area is weakened because the resources have not been identified.
• The field survey of the project site and study area for potential architectural resources is defined as being limited to those buildings that will be affected by the project. The survey should be of the entire study area, not just those with known impacts. The range of possible effects needs to be analyzed on all of the potential resources. Limiting the scope of review to a small subset of buildings is to determine in advance what those impacts might be.
• The visual impact of new buildings on resources, including the impact on the Williamsburg Clock Tower Building, must be analyzed, and binding mitigation measures must be developed.

Shadows

The MAS brings up the issue of solar rights:

• Impact of shadows on ability of surrounding residences and businesses to utilize solar heating potential should be studied.

Traffic and Parking/Transit and Pedestrians

The MAS has concerns about the narrowness of the scope so far:

• Times for analysis should be expanded to peak traffic hours of 7-10 AM, 4:30 –7:00 PM weekday for commercial and residential.
• Weekend Hours analyzed should be from 10-6 when most retail businesses are open, and traffic eastbound on Atlantic now backs up to 3rd Avenue or farther.
• Study potential for parking sharing agreements with surrounding businesses and residents for off-peak hours
• Study should include analysis of a regional transportation plan to reduce vehicular traffic to the area. The plan needs to address impact of new traffic patterns associated with events at the arena and vehicular trips associated with other commercial and office uses on the site and with the addition of (an estimated) 3600 cars for the 7300 new residential units.

Neighborhood Character

How would the Gehry plan impact the neighborhood around it? The MAS observes:

• In defining neighborhood character to determine impact of proposed development, examine:
o Low-rise character;
o Low-medium density character;
o Typical block/lot configuration;
o Typical street grid pattern;
o Mix of land uses;
o Brownstone character;
o Historic districts;
o Predominant building form and type;
o Pedestrian scale of buildings;
o Synergy between local businesses and local needs;
o Absence of social, commercial, and visual connections between neighborhoods of Fort Greene and Prospect Heights;
o Unique landmark status of the Williamsburg Clock Tower Building.

How many units of affordable housing might be built as part of the Atlantic Yards project but located offsite? We don't know, though the issue came up at the 1/25/06 meeting of the Brooklyn Borough Board Atlantic Yards Committee, which focused on socioeconomic conditions. (I've already written about the unresolved questions concerning the costs of the Atlantic Yards project.)

Assemblywoman Joan Millman cited rumors that the affordable housing component would be moved offsite. If so, how would this affect gentrification in the area?

Panelist Barry Dinnerstein, of the City Planning Department, responded that it wasn't his bailiwick, as the state--not the city--is conducting the environmental review.

"Where do I direct the question?" Millman asked.

"To us," Borough President Marty Markowitz responded. His chief of staff, Greg Atkins, picked up the issue, pointing out that the offsite housing has been discussed as a way for the developer to reach the stated 50 percent affordable housing goal.

Markowitz added, "We'll have to clarify to get exactly where they are in the process." No one from developer Forest City Ratner was present, but the developer and Borough Hall staff are presumably in contact, so the issue could be clarified.

What the record states

The issue first came up last October. Assemblyman Roger Green, at the Empire State Development Corporation hearing, suggested that moving affordable housing offsite might reduce some of the project's density (and, presumably, contribute to the revitalization of the Crown Heights area he represents).

His suggestion was interpreted to involve the rental units, since that's the affordable housing located onsite. However, Forest City Ratner has pledged that half (2,250) rental units would be affordable, and company officials have reiterated that those would be located onsite.

So the offsite affordable housing would involve condos.

Once the developer added 2,800 market-rate condos on top of the 4,500 rentals, the spirit, if not the letter, of the 50 percent affordable housing pledge was breached.

However, another part of the Housing Memorandum of Understanding concerns a program to build 600 to 1000 affordable for-sale units, either on or off site, over ten years. This would move toward matching, though not fully so, the 2,800 added condos.

As has been reported by the Brooklyn Papers and the Daily News, the developer may acquire the former St. Mary’s Hospital in Crown Heights, which could be used to build the affordable condos. FCR VP Jim Stuckey told the Daily News that the St. Mary's site could accommodate 600 to 800 condos.

50/50 affordable?

Currently, the project would include 2,250 affordable rentals, 2,250 market-rate rentals, and 2,800 market-rate condos. That would make 31 percent of the 7,300 residential units affordable.

Add 600 affordable condos, and 36 percent of the 7,900 projects units would be affordable. Add 1,000 affordable condos, and 39 percent of the 8,300 units would be affordable.

Note, however, that the concept of "affordable" includes low-income, moderate-income, and decidedly middle-class (up to six-figures) components. Only 900 of the rental units would go to people earning under Brooklyn's median income. And they likely wouldn't get many of the affordable condos. The housing memorandum states: "It is currently contemplated that a majority of for-sale units will be sold to families in the upper affordable-income tiers."

An 11/6/05 New York Times article did the math and observed that if Forest City Ratner builds 1,000 units offsite, the number of below-market units would be about 40 percent. In the Times, Bertha Lewis of ACORN, who negotiated the affordable housing agreement with the developer, 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."

That's worth checking on, as well, especially since Lewis, writing a few weeks earlier in Forest City Ratner's Brooklyn Standard, unequivocally declared that the 50-50 program was in place.

Charles Gargano, chair of the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC), the agency supervising Forest City Ratner's Atlantic Yards project, has already endorsed the project without changes, even before an environmental impact statement is issued.

And when several community groups filed a lawsuit against the ESDC and the developer to block the demolition of six buildings, they also charged that the agency was using a lawyer who had until recently worked for the developer. "I don't know whether we are using the same lawyer," Gargano said, according to the Daily News. "I don't know of any conflict."

The Brooklyn Downtown Star, in a 1/26/06 article headlined Lawsuits DDDB Just Fine, added some more details on that, and also pointed out that Gargano was unaware that the agency rents space from Ratner:
When asked about this on the morning when the lawsuit was filed, ESDC Chairman Charles Gargano attempted to laugh the whole issue off. "A conflict between lawyers?" he chuckled rhetorically, but none of the media members present laughed.
"I'm not sure if we have the same lawyer," he then went on to hedge, "but I'm sure the lawyers themselves would know if there's a conflict."
When pressed by the Star about another perceived conflict of interest - namely that the ESDC currently rents office space from FCRC in the Atlantic Center Mall, which sits across the street from the new footprint - Gargano pled ignorance again.
"I know of no such property," he said at first, before other media members confirmed that it was indeed there. "Oh, you mean the community center?" he reacted. "Well, we have a bunch of those, and we've had them for several years. We just try and put them in ideal locations. I don't know if they [FCRC] even owned that property when we moved in."
In fact, FCRC has owned the entire Atlantic Center Mall since they built it in the mid-90s.

The first New York stop on the AVP Beach Volleyball Tour will be in Brooklyn, for the AVP Brooklyn Open, August 17-20, and yes, it will be televised on NBC. The tour is a product of AVP, Inc., which focuses on professional beach volleyball, and the local marketer will be Brooklyn Sports & Entertainment, the affiliate of Forest City Ratner. It seems to be part of a general strategy for the developer to get involved in sports and sports marketing beyond the Nets; Ratner has also offered support to amateur sports in Brooklyn.

In a photo caption, the Brooklyn Papers declared, "Bruce Ratner’s Atlantic Yards project remains controversial, but there’s nothing ire-provoking about his latest initiative — a deal to bring Kerri Walsh (above) and other top pro volleyball stars to Coney Island this summer."

Well, maybe question-provoking. The press release didn't answer some basic questions. Will the 4,000-seat volleyball stadium to be built for this be temporary or permanent? And where exactly will it be located? What's the financial relationship between AVP & Ratner?

Those questions weren't answered in initial coverage last week in the New York Daily News and the New York Post, and the Times didn't cover the issue. I sent emails asking those questions of Forest City Ratner, but didn't get any response. Fortunately, the Brooklyn Papers, in its 1/26/06 article headlined Pro volleyball is coming to Coney Island beach this summer, explained that yes, the stadium will be temporary.

Another twist has been ignored by all but Brian Hatch of NewYorkGames.org. For New York's 2012 Olympics bid, beach volleyball was proposed for beachless Williamsburg, apparently because it was closer to the center of the city and because Coney was an "obvious" site. Obvious, yes, because there's a great beach there, as AVP and Forest City Ratner clearly recognize.

I'm still surprised how hard it is to get a relatively straightforward correction in the New York Times. As I wrote in a 12/27/05 post, a caption in the business section that day stated that a shopper was outside the Atlantic Center mall, while he actually was outside the Atlantic Terminal mall.

The two malls from Forest City Ratner are quite different--Atlantic Center is mostly dun-colored, while Atlantic Terminal is red brick. But I initially erred by misidentifying the building in the fuzzy background of the photo as Atlantic Center, which is east of Atlantic Terminal, while it was actually Site V at Atlantic Center, which is south of Atlantic Terminal and across Flatbush Avenue. (Note that the photos at the above links from the Forest City Ratner web site show a now-departed Macy's store at Atlantic Center and a somewhat earlier design for Atlantic Terminal.)

There was other evidence, of course, that the shopper had just been to the Atlantic Terminal mall. The version of the photo in the online version of the newspaper was cropped to show only Atlantic Terminal (right). And the shopper was carrying two bags with the bullseye logo of Target, an anchor tenant of Atlantic Terminal. The other bag that's identifiable, as seen in the print copy version of the picture, has the red star of Macy's, which does not operate in either of the mall complexes, but has a store on the Fulton Mall in Downtown Brooklyn.



I went back to the malls yesterday to try to reenact the photo as seen in the print edition of the Times. It was taken from the southeast border of the Atlantic Terminal Mall (at top left of the Atlantic Yards site plan), looking southwest at Site V, which is across the street (in blue and yellow on the map, below the diagonal Flatbush Avenue). Note that the Atlantic Terminal mall and the Atlantic Center mall, the modified L-shaped building to its east, are outlined in black but are not part of the Atlantic Yards project, as both are on the north side of Atlantic Avenue.

First, I took a photo to try to capture the same light poles (which now lack the festive holiday decorations, obviously, as pictured in the Times) and the mall to the right.


Then I took a closer-in shot to gain a clearer sense of the P.C. Richard sign in the background, as well as the traffic on Flatbush Avenue.


Then I rotated slightly to capture the name of the mall: Atlantic Terminal.


I backed up a little to capture the name and logo of Target under the name Atlantic Terminal. (Yes, it's a little dark.)


Then I rotated and took a picture of the Atlantic Center mall opposite.



There are other sides of the Atlantic Center mall that look more like Site V (which is actually considered by Forest City Ratner to be "Shops at Atlantic Center"). But the bottom line is: the shopper had been to Target in the Atlantic Terminal Mall, he was just outside the Atlantic Terminal mall, and he was headed in the direction of both the Atlantic Center mall and a parking garage.

The caption stated: "Keino Bennet leaving the Atlantic Center Mall in Brooklyn yesterday." It still should be corrected.

Is Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz backing away from the Atlantic Yards arena-cum-skyscrapers project? No, but maybe. If you see him at public meetings regarding the project, he maintains his enthusiastic support. But at last night's State of the Borough Address, held at Brooklyn Technical High School in Fort Greene, Markowitz gave Atlantic Yards far less attention than in his 2005 and 2004 addresses. (Photo of Mayor Mike Bloomberg, Marty's wife Jamie, and Borough President by Kathryn Kirk, from Brooklyn-usa.org.)

That's reading the tea leaves, of course, but that's all we have. A State of the Borough Address is many things--a chance for fellow politicians to pay homage, a shout-out to various neighborhoods and ethnic groups, a recounting of achievements, and a chance to honor those who've "done Brooklyn proud." (A particular favorite last night was Keith Beauchamp, the filmmaker whose documentary helped reopen the investigation of the murder of Emmett Till.)

But it's also a chance to lay out goals, and in his previous addresses, excerpted below, Markowitz devoted several paragraphs to the Atlantic Yards project. Last night he gave it part of a sentence--plus the prominent closing segment in a post-speech video. Maybe that's because some of the previously stated goals--such as 10,000 permanent jobs--have fallen by the wayside, or maybe it's because he didn't want to remind people of potentially ruinous traffic. Maybe it's that there are more changes to come, like a new design from architect Frank Gehry. Or maybe it's simply that we're still waiting for a Draft Envirornmental Impact Statement from the Empire State Development Corporation.

Marty got to Atlantic Yards in the middle of his address. "Maybe it's an obsession with realizing Brooklyn's promise, or maybe it goes back to my childhood, but everything I do has the same objective. Fulfilling government’s core duties of providing affordable housing, quality health care, public safety, and a sound education for all — and making Brooklynites proud of our home town," he said. "I pushed for two of the largest affordable housing initiatives in New York City history with the Greenpoint-Williamsburg re-zoning and the Atlantic Yards project — and it is worth the agita and mishegas, because I’m confident it’s good for these neighborhoods, and good for Brooklyn."

That was it--no mention of jobs, or the controversial Community Benefits Agreement, or the concerns of local residents, references he made last year. (Interestingly, the press release touted the Greenpoint-Williamsburg and Atlantic Yards as "economic development.)

By contrast, in his inaugural address yesterday, Mayor Mike Bloomberg was effusive: In Brooklyn, construction workers will put shovels in the ground at Atlantic Yards, the most exciting housing, commercial, and sports development in Brooklyn’s history.

Bloomberg, swearing in Markowitz last night, said in Brooklyn, "Standing together, we'll cheer for the Nets."

The video and the heckler

Near the end of Marty's address, a video featured six disparate people congratulating the Borough President. Among them: Yvette Jarvis, the Brooklynite who is now a City Councilor in Athens, Greece; Gavin McLoed (of The Love Boat), on behalf of Princess Cruises; the captain of the Queen Mary II, scheduled to dock in Brooklyn; a couple of seniors from Red Hook hailing the new Ikea; and beach volleyball star Holly McPeak, whose pro tour will stop in Coney Island in August.

Finally, after a montage of basketball action, Vince Carter of the New Jersey Nets declared, "I want to congratulate Marty on his reelection, and we look forward to having you sit at center court when we get to Brooklyn." Then came a quick shot of Marty holding a Nets jersey.

The audience was quite enthusiastic about the Nets, but the ending of that segment, and the resumption of Markowitz's speech, was interrupted, at least for one section of the audience, by Schellie Hagan of the Prospect Heights Action Coalition, which has long opposed the Atlantic Yards project. She had periodically heckled Markowitz during his speech by shouting, "What about eminent domain? What about Prospect Heights?," and she upped the volume when the Nets were mentioned. One fellow attendee angrily urged her to shut up, and a squad of auxiliary police officers approached. Hagan and her sister Patti Hagan, who had also participated in some heckling, agreed to be quiet, and soon left the building, as Markowitz's portion had finished.

Unmentioned power brokers

Among those in the VIP section of the audience: Forest City Ratner president Bruce Ratner and VP Jim Stuckey. Neither Ratner nor any of the other powerful developers in Brooklyn--Joseph Sitt of Thor Equities, David Walentas of Two Trees Management, and Shaya Boymelgreen of Leviev Boymelgreen--were mentioned in the speech, though they, more so than the many Brooklynites hailed by Markowitz, are Brooklyn's power brokers. (I don't know if those other three developers were present.)

Brooklyn touches

It was the first State of the Borough I've attended in person and, while the speech has some formulaic inclusiveness, it's hard not to be impressed by the diversity of Brooklyn. (That can lead to unintended consequences: the table with kosher food was near the entrance, and the crowds were so thick that many non-Jews lined up for the kosher food, despite the protests of the servers.)

And Marty's people know how to put on a show. The program opened with songs from the multiethnic Brooklyn Youth Chorus Academy and an invocation from a Borscht Belt-y rabbi. Then Marty entered, in the midst of the Brooklyn "Steppers" Marching Band. (Photo by Kathryn Kirk, from Brooklyn-usa.org.)


As he spoke, a giant postcard saying "Greetings From Brooklyn, NY" was projected on screen. After a reference to the "Leaving Brooklyn, Fuhgeddaboudit" sign Marty managed to get placed on Brooklyn roads, he announced a new sign for the Jackie Robinson Parkway: "Welcome, Brooklyn's in the House." No wonder Bloomberg hailed Marty as Brooklyn's "the best salesman" Brooklyn's ever had and Senator Hillary Clinton called him "the most enthusiastic cheerleader for any community in the U.S."

Most impressive was a witty visual rebuke to the 3/7/2005 New Yorker cover that depicted, as the Daily News described it, "a horrified Adam and Eve exiled from Manhattan by God - into a dark and forbidding Brooklyn." Markowitz defended Brooklyn back then and last night introduced the cover of "The Brooklyner" (Price: Affordable), which showed Adam and Eve strolling peacefully over the Brooklyn Bridge into the borough, beckoned by God.

Also, all attendees were given a booklet containing the more than 1,000 entries submitted in a call for a new Brooklyn slogan. Among them: "Brooklyn is like an everything bagel;" "Brooklyn: Where Life Gets Interesting;" and "Brooklyn: "It's More than a Freakin' Tree."

Past speeches

From Marty's 2005 address:
Meanwhile, new residents, businesses, and cultural institutions — not to mention the upcoming arrival of the NBA’s Brooklyn Nets — are increasingly making Brooklyn a true land of opportunity.
Now, I fought hard to get a national sports team to call Brooklyn home.
I know of three things that bring people together like nothing else — music, religion, and sports.
As a boy, I’m happy to say that I was able to watch the Brooklyn Dodgers play every summer, just a few blocks from where I lived.
This year, by the way, we mark the 50th anniversary of the Dodgers’ legendary 1955 World Series championship.
I want to tell you what I remember about that time.
After that World Series victory — life as we knew it stopped in the borough of Brooklyn, because for two weeks, there was a non-stop party in the streets.
That was then, and this is now.
The Atlantic Yards Project will include the Nets arena, as well as residential and commercial buildings. Every city in America competes for a national sports team. If you’re lucky, you get a chance like this once in a lifetime.
Brooklyn — now is our time.
I expect Atlantic Yards to result in two things that are vital to Brooklynites — more jobs and more affordable housing. I want to say right now, that I fully understand — and I share the concerns — of local area residents who have spoken out in opposition to this development.
People of good will can differ. And constructive opposition is something I value and cherish — because I honestly believe that, in the end, it makes for a better plan.
The Nets arena — and the Atlantic Yards project — will go forward, but it must work for both Brooklyn and for the community surrounding the arena.
Because people do not move out of Brooklyn today seeking a better life. They move out because they can’t afford the good life we have here.
It is estimated that Atlantic Yards will create about 10,000 permanent new jobs. That is above and beyond the 15,000 construction-related jobs that it will create over the next decade. And we can all be proud that 100 percent of those workers will be union employees.
Under a proposed groundbreaking Community Benefits Agreement, as many as possible of those new jobs will be filled by Brooklyn residents, and I promise you, those jobs will go to those who need them most — particularly low income residents living in public housing nearby.
I believe this project will help give individuals and Brooklyn families the chance they need — and deserve — to break the cycle of poverty, with opportunities to work at jobs that will grow into careers.
I want every Brooklynite to be given the same chance I had.
As someone who grew up in poverty — and who grew up in public housing — I know what an opportunity can mean. And with this project designed by a world class architect, Brooklyn-born Frank Gehry, Atlantic Yards will be an unmistakable statement that the new center of this universe we call New York City has shifted to the intersection of Flatbush and Atlantic!

From Marty's 2004 address:
Oh yeah, I almost forgot.
There's one other little project that's coming to Brooklyn.
The borough of Kings is about to get its crown back.
Brooklyn needs this arena because Brooklyn's best -- like the Lincoln High School team -- deserve a place in Brooklyn where they can compete at the highest levels, and watch the stars of the game.
Just as the Dodgers thrilled Brooklynites in the first half of the 20th century, the Nets will be the team that unites us in the 21st.
It's a moment in our history that future generations are going to look back on as a turning point, and they're going to thank us for making it happen!
If everything goes according to plan, in a few years we will bring a new center of life to the heart of this borough.
I want to thank Mayor Bloomberg for his enthusiastic support of this project – it couldn't have happened without you, Mayor. And thank you to Governor Pataki.
I will of course make sure that this is the best possible project for all Brooklynites, including those in the immediate neighborhood. I will do everything in my power to make sure that as few people as possible will be displaced -- that any negative impacts are minimized -- and most importantly that they are treated with dignity and respect.
For 26 years, I have kept my promises to Brooklynites.
And I will keep this one too.
This project must be a great resource for the entire neighborhood -- and for the entire borough.
The world-class arena and surrounding area will be designed by renowned architect Frank Gehry – and will include:
4400 units of new housing – up to half of which will be at below-market rates for middle and moderate income households – which we desperately need.
Many new businesses and stores, which will create thousands of new, much needed jobs.
Six acres of public park land.
And even a skating rink on top of the arena.
And we're going to make sure that those who have missed out on construction and contracting opportunities in the past – especially women and minority owned businesses -- have their rightful place at the starting gate for this project -- and aren't just watching the race.
Above all, the Brooklyn-wide pride for a top basketball team – which is the urban sport – will bring all of our neighborhoods and cultures even closer together.

It's one of the biggest questions--perhaps the biggest--surrounding the proposed $3.5 billion Atlantic Yards development: would this project be a winner or a loser economically?

The answer: we don't really know, beyond generalities, even though developer Forest City Ratner estimates billions of dollars of new revenue to the city and state, and some of FCR's assumptions have been forcefully challenged by not only critics but also by two city agencies, which estimate costs and revenues differently.

And our government isn't helping us find out more.

Yesterday, the issue came up briefly, and inconclusively, at the meeting of the Brooklyn Borough Board Atlantic Yards Committee. The topic: socioeconomic conditions, which, according to the state environmental impact process, covers a lot of ground, including direct or indirect displacement of residential and commercial tenants,and adverse effects on specific industries.

There's no requirement to figure out the fiscal impact of the project. The Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) from the state Empire State Development Corporation won't address it--a draft should be issued in a few months--and the Borough Board meetings are supposed to track issues in the EIS process.

Yesterday, Borough President Marty Markowitz, an enthusiastic supporter of the project, brought up the issue, querying George Sweeting, a deputy director of the city's Independent Budget Office (IBO), with a leading question. According to a September 2005 report from the IBO, Markowitz said, "this project would result in a small net fiscal gain to the city over 30 years. If you evaluated it on the basis of the commercial, and retail, and residential sections, would it result in... a bigger net gain?"

Sweeting responded cautiously but positively. "The paper focused solely on the arena. We had a pretty good sense of the subsidies and benefits that were available," he said, adding that calculating the impact on the entire city was complicated, since it would require determining whether new residents at Atlantic Yards were new to the city (and thus new taxpayers), and who would occupy apartments vacated by New Yorkers moving to the project.

However, given that most of the subsidies available on the non-arena portion are of-right, and available to any developer, Sweeting said, "it's a virtual certainty we would find a larger net fiscal benefit."

But how much larger--a few million, or a few billion? A benefit sufficient, for example, to absorb a potential huge increase in traffic and transit costs? (The arena would represent less than ten percent of the project square footage.) That tantalizing question was put aside.

Certain tax breaks indeed would be available to any developer, as Sweeting said, as would some affordable housing subsidies--though these would be cumulatively much larger than typical. However, other benefits that don't fall under the rubric of subsidies would not be of-right; those include the conveyance of city streets, city infrastructure costs, the opportunity to override city zoning, and the opportunity for the state to invoke eminent domain. Note that Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn calculates a very large set of subsidies.

A look at the arena numbers

The IBO report estimates that, over 30 years, the arena would produce $28.5 million (present value, 2005 dollars) more in revenue than the project would cost the city, and that "the combined state and local 30-year net fiscal surplus would be $107.0 million (2005 dollars)."

The IBO's conclusions have been challenged. Sports facility analyst Neil deMause, on his Field of Schemes site, noted that the IBO underestimated the amount of subsidies due to the developer, and also made optimistic calculations--based on assumptions provided by the developer--about the number of fans coming from New Jersey. Change those numbers and the "small net fiscal gain" could turn into a loss.

Why would the arena benefit the state more than the city? The report states: Much of the difference between the results for the city and the state is attributable to the fact that all those who earn income at the arena—Nets players, executives, coaches and other staff, and other workers—must pay New York State personal income taxes, while only New York City residents pay New York City personal income taxes.

Public costs for the project

Even though the IBO didn't try to estimate revenues from the new taxpayers who would move into Atlantic Yards, it did try to estimate some public costs posed by the project as a whole, not just the arena. The IBO report estimates that the cost of delivering new education, sanitation, and police services over 30 years would be $530 million in current dollars (present value), or $208.6 million more than the $321.4 million estimated by Andrew Zimbalist, the sports economist FCR hired to estimate the fiscal impact of the project.

However, the cost almost certainly would be even higher. The IBO's higher cost prediction was based on an estimated 6,000 housing units, not the 5,850 number used by Zimbalist. However, the developer now plans at least 7,300 units onsite, plus up to 1,000 additional units offsite. More people require more city services.

And the IBO report doesn't address the cost of traffic. Transportation engineer Brian Ketcham, looking at the entire range of development for northwestern Brooklyn, including Atlantic Yards, estimated that traffic could generate $250 million a year in externalities, including the cost of air pollution, traffic noise, and lost productivity.

As noted above, Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn calculates a very large set of subsidies.

$6 billion in revenue?

Forest City Ratner cites $6 billion in new revenue to the city and state to be created by the project over 30 years, but less frequently acknowledges the $1.1 billion in public costs. Note that the apples-and-oranges issue here. The IBO uses present value--the cumulative number in current dollars, rather than the cumulative number after 30 years. So the developer should use present value as well; under one scenario, that means $2.1 billion in revenues and $572.6 million in costs. Under present value, note that the ratio of costs to revenues is higher. (See Chapter 3 of my report for all these figures.)

But those revenues depend on some dubious assumptions, ones criticized by the New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC), which is a general supporter of the project.

For example, as noted in Chapter 3 of my report, NYCEDC disagrees with Zimbalist’s estimates of how many staffers associated with the basketball team would live in New York City and pay city income tax. Zimbalist, in his 2004 report and 2005 report, assumes that 30 percent of the Nets players will live in the five boroughs and pay city and state taxes, while 75 percent of the arena workers will live in the city. However, NYCEDC estimates that 20 percent of the players, 35 percent of the executives and team staff, and 50 percent of the facility staff would reside in New York City.

More crucially, NYCEDC and Zimbalist differ significantly on those assumptions mentioned by the IBO's Sweeting: how much revenue would be generated by the new residents in the project. Zimbalist, in his first report, in 2004, projects that the average annual income of households in the development would be between $80,000 and $90,000. In his second report, in 2005, he projects that the average annual income would be $94,875. (If he were to do another report, acknowledging the addition of another 1,300 market-rate condos, his estimate would undoubtedly rise.)

But Zimbalist and the city agency apparently disagree significantly in methodology. NYCEDC assumes that the new units "will represent an equivalent increase in households Citywide, either directly in the project itself or as infill in units vacated by households relocating to the project. Income tax revenue is based on an average income of $45,000, the Citywide average for all industries." (Emphasis added.)

Given that income tax revenue is key to Zimbalist's estimates, this represents a discrepancy deserving of further study. Also note considerable challenges to Zimbalist's assumptions in this report by urban planner Jung Kim and economic anthropologist Gustav Peebles.

The overburdened IBO

I caught up with Sweeting after the session yesterday and asked him again about the challenge of doing a full fiscal impact study. "You would have to make assumptions about the kind of firms that come in, assuming there's still a commercial component," he said. "That would tell you what the salaries are. You make assumptions about the income taxes that would result, and the corporate taxes."

He continued, "To estimate tax revenue [on the residential component], you'd need to know the average household income of the people coming in. Then you want to make at least some calculations about how many of them are new to the city and how many are from elsewhere in the city."

Were Zimbalist's assumptions appropriate? "I'm not going to criticize the assumptions he made," Sweeting said. "The way we set it up, once we got to a positive fiscal impact for the arena, that was the part that we felt comfortable tackling."

But that's a fraction of the entire project, I said, pointing out that the NYCEDC and Zimbalist differ. "That's why that assumption about how many are new is a key part of the analysis," Sweeting acknowledged. "And you also want to think about who takes the apartments, does that create space for other new people to come in, or maybe that solves some of the shortage of affordable housing."

"We just chose not to do that," he said. "But that's not a reflection on the quality of the work of other people who have tried to do it. It's just not something we had the time or the resources to get into."

Sweeting pointed out that, as stated during the meeting, the project as a whole would likely generate greater fiscal benefits than the arena would. Still, a solid estimate of the project's fiscal impact remains elusive. Can any other agency pin it down?

"Not that I'm aware of," Sweeting said. "We could, if we had nothing else to do."

Will we ever know?

At the 5/26/05 City Council hearing on the project, urban planner Mafruza Khan of the Pratt Center for Community Development testified:
Given the wide divergence in [subsidy] estimates, from $200 million to over $1 billion, we do want to emphasize that it is impossible for the public to know whether this project is a good deal without knowing how much it will cost to taxpayers. It is being asked to buy something without knowing how much it will cost.

Given the wide divergence in estimates of revenues, as well, it remains impossible to know whether the project is a good deal. However, the press has not pursued this question. In an 11/27/05 editorial, the New York Times declared:
The city's nonpartisan Independent Budget Office calculates the arena would produce a modest benefit for the city and state, $107 million over 30 years. Even that may be optimistic...
The Nets arena is not destined to be a cash cow, but the borough deserves a sports team, so long as the price is not too high.

But the Times didn't acknowledge that the IBO report mostly concerns the arena. We still don't know the price of the Atlantic Yards project.

Now that the demolition controversy is back in the news, some back story: the smallest of the six buildings Forest City Ratner plans to raze--a one-story garage at 622 Pacific Street (small building at left, below)--had been purchased by an investor who planned a five-story building there. That's before the investor, Menachem Friedfertig, publicly asked the developer for $4 million, according to a 9/2/04 New York Sun report. Did he get it? Unclear--but he likely got far more what he paid: $382,000 on 5/20/03, which was two months before the Atlantic Yards plan was mentioned by the Newark Star-Ledger 7/23/03 and nearly seven months before it was announced officially on 12/10/03.

The building is among those Forest City Ratner either owns or has under contract, according to a company press release, though available documents, at PropertyShark.com, do not indicate that the ownership has changed.But the transaction adds another layer to the issue of blight and its role in a future eminent domain case. Is the area blighted because it has deteriorating buildings? Is a deteriorated building less an indication of blight if the market was already responding? Or will it make little difference, since as a law professor has noted, current state law on blight is extremely loose?

At 622 Pacific Street, the 25 ft x 68 ft building sits on a lot 25 ft x 73.75 ft. Under current city zoning rules, it could support a Floor Area Ratio of 4, or a maximum of 5,382 square feet. That would suggest a five-story building, much smaller than the arena+high-rises slated to be built at that part of the site. Note that, because Atlantic Yards is a state project, city zoning rules don't apply.

According to the New York Sun, whose 9/2/04 article was headlined Message to Ratner: ‘I Want My $4M’: Brooklyn Developer Looks To Cash In, an effort to develop the site likely added leverage:
Friedfertig pushed ahead with a plan to develop the building, with medical offices on the first floor and five stories of residential condominiums above. He even went so far as to hire architects and get permission from the city’s Department of Buildings....
Despite the risk of eminent domain, Mr. Friedfertig’s threat to wring millions out of Mr. Ratner is formidable because he has the city’s approval to build his development....
“I am waiting for Ratner to make a realistic offer, or I could just go ahead with the development,” Mr. Friedfertig said.
Architects Joe and Moshe Friedman have drawn up plans for Mr. Friedfertig’s building, and the developer expects that each condominium could be sold for about $1 million — the same price Mr. Ratner has paid for other apartments that have stood in the way of the Atlantic Yards development. An additional $1 million to $2 million could be generated by the medical offices, bringing the total for the developed building to $6 million to $7 million, Mr. Friedfertig said.

Friedfertig had the plans drawn up in early 2004, which suggests he could also have been using the condominium project as a bargaining chip. He clearly felt he had lucked out, telling the Sun, "I have the winning lottery ticket and I want my $4 million." Forest City Ratner has not been a chintzy spender. An 11/6/05 New York Times article reported that, one factor that has contributed to the higher projected cost of Atlantic Yards, from $2.5 billion to $3.5 billion, has been the above-market prices the developer has paid to buy out residents who live on the project's footprint. And the company has likely paid above-market prices to buy out other property owners. Such costs factor into Forest City Ratner's profit estimates, which remain unreleased by the MTA.

Developer's blight?

Also, a look at city records suggests that charges of "developer's blight"--that the building deteriorated while under the control of Ratner--may be murky here, as there were several violations and complaints, including a partially collapsed roof cited in January 1998. Then again, it's not clear why the building now poses an immediate danger and must be demolished. By contrast, there are fewer complaints at the recently-inhabited row houses at 461 and 463 Dean Street, at right. There's one violation, from 1922, at 461 Dean Street, and three boiler violations, two dismissed and one active, at 463 Dean Street. That's not to say that complaints are a proxy for deterioration.

Jay Butler, a professional engineer who conducted an external review of the buildings on behalf of community groups suing to stop the demolitions, acknowledged that he couldn't make definitive judgments without going inside, but stated: I cannot conclude that the buildings pose an imminent threat to public safety. Any defects to the buildings or threats to public safety appear to be consistent with conditions found at countless other buildings in New York City.

He did not comment on 622 Pacific Street because, despite statements in Forest City Ratner's initial press release, the report to the developer by LZA Technology did not mention the building. According to the lawsuit filed Wednesday, the lawyer for ESDC said that the agency's Emergency Declaration did not apply to 622 Pacific Street, but noted that the developer planned to submit another engineer’s report in support of demolition there.

The New York Observer, in a post today on the blog The Real Estate headlined Life in a Small Town, noted that Charles Gargano, chairman of the Empire State Development Corporation, had brushed off questions of a conflict of interest because the agency is using a lawyer who formerly worked for Forest City Ratner's Atlantic Yards project. "I don't know whether we are using the same lawyer,” he told the Daily News.

However, reported the Observer:
It turns out, according to a document The Real Estate obtained through a Freedom of Information request, that Forest City actually recommended the law firm to the E.S.D.C. A letter, dated Feb. 18, 2004, states that “[Forest City] has requested that [E.S.D.C] authorize and/or oversee the following services to be performed with the project” including “legal services to be provided by Sive, Paget & Riesel in connection with the environmental analysis of the project.”

While it is standard for developers to pay for the legal and consulting costs that the state incurs from the project, and the state works with the consultants, the Observer set out the issue:
The question is, do developers regularly get to select—or even recommend--the consultants? And should they?

ESDC did not explain whether the developer usually gets to play that role, and lawyer David Paget did not return the Observer's messages. The issue is murky: Paget had worked for the ESDC several times before, which means that Forest City Ratner's recommendation was likely not the sole reason to consider him.

While the community groups suing to block Forest City Ratner's demolition plans did not get a temporary injunction today, the case will come return to court on Februar 14, which, the Observer said, "would be almost a week before Forest City said it would be able to begin work anyway."

A set of community groups, led by Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn (DDDB), filed suit yesterday to reverse the Empire State Development Corporation's approval of Forest City Ratner's plans to demolish six buildings controlled by the developer within the footprint of the proposed Atlantic Yards development. The suit also argues that the ESDC lawyer, David Paget, should be disqualified because he until recently represented Forest City Ratner on the project. The suit also names Forest City Ratner as a defendant.

While this dispute may seem relatively minor in comparison to a decade-long, $3.5 billion project, the lawsuit asserts that the demolitions indicate that the project is a done deal: ESDC’s actions do significant harm to the SEQRA process by giving the public the perception that the Atlantic Yards Project is a foregone conclusion headed toward approval and that physical actions are underway to permanently change the fabric of the community.

The plaintiff group includes: Fort Greene Association, Boerum Hill Association, Society for Clinton Hill, Pratt Area Community Council, Fifth Avenue Committee, Prospect Heights Action Coalition, Atlantic Avenue Betterment Association, Prospect Heights Neighborhood Development Council, East Pacific Block Association, Dean Street Block Association (4th to 5th) and DDDB.

What the engineer said

None of the news coverage quoted from the affidavit of a professional engineer, Jay Butler, who conducted an external review of the buildings. Acknowledging that he couldn't make definitive judgments, Butler stated:
Based upon that review I cannot conclude that the buildings pose an imminent threat to public safety. Any defects to the buildings or threats to public safety appear to be consistent with conditions found at countless other buildings in New York City. Such defects can be safely stabilized with commonly-used repair measures.

The Village Voice's blog, Power Plays, in an entry headlined Nets Foes Shoot Suit, took a look at city records and found a mixed record: some, but not all, "like most buildings, had multiple violations of building and environmental codes."

Will part of the suit prevail?

The New York Times had the most extensive coverage, in an article headlined Local Groups Sue to Halt Big Project in Brooklyn. It suggested that part of the lawsuit has a stronger chance of prevailing:
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."

Gargano unaware

The Daily News focused on the conflict-of-interest claim, in an article headlined Same lawyer repped state, Ratner: suit. The newspaper reported the developer's explanation, and ESDC chair Charles Gargano's indifference:
A Ratner spokesman said Paget has not worked for Forest City since at least the fall, when he began working for Empire State Development Corp., and never worked for both simultaneously...
Asked about Paget's alleged conflict, Empire State Development Corp. Chairman Charles Gargano said he was unaware of any problem.
"I don't know whether we are using the same lawyer," said Gargano. "I don't know of any conflict."

Gargano, it should be noted, has already endorsed the project without changes.

The New York Post ran a two-paragraph summary, headlined HOOPS-ARENA FOES SUE STATE. The New York Sun didn't cover the story.

The back story on timing

Though the Times did the most to explain the request by City Council Member Letitia James to gain access to the buildings with an independent engineer, even its report lacked some key details:
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.

The Times didn't point out that Forest City Ratner's explanation--that letting that engineer inspect the property would cause undue delay--was undermined by the five-week gap between the receipt of the initial engineering report and the public announcement of the demolition plans.

A reference to that delay would have added some context to statements yesterday from the developer, which appeared in most coverage. The Times reported:
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."

Another look at that delay

Previously, I had speculated that Forest City Ratner had waited five weeks to announce its action on 12/15/05, in part because it needed to get its plans for asbestos abatement in order.

However, it seems likely that the delay could be attributed, perhaps in major part, to the ESDC's Declaration of Emergency, which was dated 12/15/05, the day the company alerted the New York Times. Then again, a look at the ESDC document shows that it was drafted on 12/5/05 (see the footer on the last page). Is it possible that the ESDC had its document ready 10 days earlier but only issued it after discussions with Forest City Ratner? That's speculative, but also consider that the lawyer for the ESDC formerly worked for the developer.

Whatever the scenario, the 11/7/05 report from Forest City Ratner's engineering consultant stated that the buildings posed "an immediate threat to the preservation of life, health, and property." If the threat really was immediate, shouldn't the company have made a public statement upon receipt of the report and/or urged the ESDC to expedite its review?

It's not easy for newspapers to write about themselves, but it can get dicey when newspapers hire outsiders to cover themselves as well, as the recent experience in Seattle suggests. This issue has resonance regarding the New York Times's coverage of its parent company's Times Tower project with Forest City Ratner, its coverage of eminent domain, and also the coverage of FCR's Atlantic Yards project.

Let's backtrack. In his 12/4/05 column, headlined When a Newspaper is the News, New York Times Public Editor Byron Calame suggested that newspapers set up links to coverage of themselves by other publications. I suggested links regarding coverage of the parent New York Times Company's project with developer Forest City Ratner to build the new Times Tower: after all, other newspapers, notably the Village Voice and New York Observer, have provided more aggressive coverage.

One letter-writer to the Times offered another idea, arguing that "truly independent and critical coverage of yourself" requires hiring reporters who don't work for the Times--in essence, a freelance contractor like the Public Editor. I found an example in Seattle, where the Seattle Times had hired a well-respected freelancer to report on its efforts to end the Joint Operating Agreement--shared business arrangements but separate editorial functions--between the the Times and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

However, that three-year arrangement has come to an end, apparently because the reporter turned out to be a little too aggressive. It came down to a judgment call about the scope of his duties--an issue that should intrigue New York Times readers.

In a 12/17/05 article headlined 'Seattle Times' Won't Extend Contract of JOA Freelancer, the trade magazine Editor & Publisher reported that the memo from Managing Editor David Boardman regarding the nonrenewal of Bill Richards' contract was vague: "We have decided to take that coverage in-house moving forward."

Reason: tough coverage?

Richards had an innovative arrangment. He was paid without any required quota of stories, and could cover any angle of his choosing--and the Times would have to publish it. Were there a disagreement, they could go to a mediator, but neither side did so. In fact, paper had nominated Richards for a Pulitzer Prize.

Still Richards wrote that one deal appeared to have violated anti-trust laws and also questioned the newspaper's accounting practices. The story is very much alive, with upcoming hearings in a lawsuit. "It is easier for an outsider to cover," Richards told E&P. "The business has gotten tougher and tougher to cover yourself. It's like getting your left fielder to cover your baseball team."

Richards told the Seattle Weekly, in a 1/11/06 article headlined Conflicted Disinterest that he was not told why his contract wasn't renewed, but offered some speculation: "Reading between the lines, I could sort of guess they were not happy with the aggressiveness of the coverage." Richards added that he was "stonewalled" by the Times's publisher, a key source.

Times Managing Editor David Boardman described it as a dispute over scope, which he distinguished from aggressiveness: "We valued that [aggressive coverage]. Where we sometimes differed with Bill was on what information was truly relevant to this ongoing struggle [over the future of the JOA] and what wasn't," he told the Seattle Weekly. "It was just a whole combination of issues, and we made the decision that, moving forward, we would try a different approach."

What would the NY Times do?

Imagine for a moment that the New York Times hired a respected freelancer to cover the Times Tower, to catch up with articles in the Voice and the Observer, and even recent coverage by the New York Sun. Would the freelancer stop at the legal battle brewing over the exercise of eminent domain to assemble land for the Times Tower? Would the reporter follow his/her journalistic curiosity and look into other development projects involving Forest City Ratner and/or the exercise of eminent domain? Would the heightened consciousness ensure that the Times acknowledged, in a national survey of the eminent domain dispute like the 1/18/06 article Developers Can't Imagine a World Without Eminent Domain, that its parent company has also benefited from eminent domain? (It didn't.)

I'm not suggesting that the Times Tower project and the Atlantic Yards project are equivalent; in the former, the newspaper is challenged to ensure that its coverage does not appear self-serving. The challenge regarding Atlantic Yards--a project regarding the parent company's business partner but not Times itself--is more indirect. Public Editor Calame wrote his 6/29/05 Web Journal: The Times's most important obligation, of course, is to make sure there's no bias in any articles it does publish about Mr. Ratner. But avoiding the perception of any tilt toward Mr. Ratner in its pages is also essential.

Because of that, he offered a recommendation: The New York Times, I believe, has an obligation to alert readers when they are reading substantive articles about a company or individual with whom the newspaper has some business or professional relationship.

That same recommendation would seem to apply to the Times's coverage of eminent domain in general. To adapt Calame's language: The New York Times, I believe, has an obligation to alert readers when they are reading substantive articles about a controversial issue that has been crucial to the newspaper's business strategy.

More subtle than bias

Calame was dealing with disclosure, a threshold issue, but the issue is more subtle than bias. I doubt it was bias, for example, that led the Times to ignore the 5/26/05 City Council hearing on Atlantic Yards, where Forest City Ratner officials announced significant changes in the plan, subtracting office space (jobs) and adding condos. (See Chapter 6 of my report.) It was neglect; editors and reporters were not taking the project seriously enough.

In that case, the Times had made a decision, either actively or passively, that the hearing wasn't important. It was a judgment call. Had there been a heightened consciousness about the Times Tower (thanks to someone on staff or, following the Seattle experiment, an independent freelancer), that might have led to heightened consciousness about the Atlantic Yards project.

I'm not saying the Times should hire a freelancer to cover all Forest City Ratner projects or even Atlantic Yards; the case is stronger when it comes to the Times Tower, and coverage of the other issues would like be too broad for one person. It's just that, as in Seattle, where the newspaper official said they "sometimes differed... on what information was truly relevant," outsiders may approach coverage more aggressively (or define 'scope' differently) than in-house staff.

Then again, as the Seattle experience shows, outsiders may not last. In New York, the Times's Public Editor, by constrast, has a fixed term and editorial independence. He doesn't cover a beat but writes every two weeks, usually analyzing the coverage of a complicated or charged issue. Many readers are still wondering when and if he'll address the Times's coverage of Atlantic Yards and Forest City Ratner.

A key element of Forest City Ratner's "Jobs, Housing, and Hoops" slogan was the 10,000 office jobs the developer promised to provide at the Atlantic Yards development. But that figure has always been questionable--and for more reasons than previously discussed.

First, the company calculated more jobs than would be standard for the available space. But there's another piece of evidence, one I haven't seen cited elsewhere: two weeks before the developer announced the project on 12/10/03, a city report on the rezoning of Downtown Brooklyn cautioned that only about two-thirds of the projected new office space might be filled--which meant that the additional space planned for the nearby Atlantic Yards project likely would add to a glut.

Had the press and public officials raised this issue, they might have questioned the "jobs" projections for Atlantic Yards. Today, as the New York Observer has recently reported, it's questionable that even the smaller amount of projected office space will be built in Downtown Brooklyn.

Trading office space for housing

Most of those projected jobs at Atlantic Yards have since vanished, as office space was traded for market-rate condos, a better economic bet for the developer. Forest City Ratner VP Jim Stuckey has fudged the latter explanation. At an 11/22/05 American Institute of Architects panel discussion, he said that, "As part of our meetings with the community, it’s become very clear, for a number of reasons, that we needed to do more housing, and less office." But the additional housing was 2,800 luxury condos, certainly not part of a request by ACORN, the low-income group that signed the affordable housing agreement. (Photo of Stuckey from FCR bio.)

Stuckey later in that session gave a more accurate explanation: "We took... what was planned to be office development, and we converted it to condominiums. And it’s a very simple reason why: because condominium development is… a higher land value, which then allows us to do the cross-subsidization" of the affordable housing." (I recently listened to a tape of the session.)

Routine changes?

Stuckey also explained changes in the plan, in an 11/6/05 New York Times article headlined Routine changes or 'Bait and Switch'?:
"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."

That explanation deserves challenge, because of the developer's initial calculations as well as the Downtown Brooklyn plan.

First, Forest City Ratner promised 10,000 jobs repeatedly, such as in this flier issued in May 2004, touting "10,000 new, permanent jobs." But the developer could promise that many jobs only by neglecting to factor in a vacancy rate and calculating 200 square feet per worker, while the industry standard is 250 square feet. (Stuckey told a 5/26/05 City Council hearing that "we use [200] based upon what we know to be the case of MetroTech.")

By contrast, the New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC), hardly a project critic, projected 7,100 jobs for the same space. NYCEDC, in its report, used the industry standard and also calculated a vacancy rate. Moreover, NYCEDC estimated that only 30% of the jobs would be new to New York, rather than moved from Manhattan, a pattern with the developer's other projects, such as the office space at MetroTech or at Atlantic Terminal.

The NYCEDC document, released 6/27/05, reflects calculations made more than a year earlier and stated in part at a May 2004 City Council meeting. But anyone could have done the math. Despite the example of MetroTech, the industry standard was even used by Andrew Zimbalist, the Smith College economics professor who produced a report for Forest City Ratner projecting economic benefits from Atlantic Yards.

Looking at Downtown Brooklyn

Also worth noting is a city report on rezoning for Downtown Brooklyn Redevelopment, completed in November 2003. The Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) is not online, but the hard copy I saw contains the same relevant text that appears in the Final Environmental Impact Statement, issued in April 2004. Notably, the Executive Summary states (page S-4):
The proposed actions are projected to stimulate approximately 6.7 million square feet of new development, including 4.6 million square feet of office space.
(This also appears on page S-4 of the DEIS. The Final EIS (p. 14) gives the timeline: A DEIS was prepared for the proposed actions, and a notice of completion for the DEIS was issued on November 28, 2003. The hard copy of the DEIS I have is dated simply November 2003.))

On page S-17, the FEIS explains that the figure of 4.6 million square feet derives from careful estimates:
Together, the projected and potential development sites could total approximately 6.7 million square feet of office development. However, the appeal of these sites is primarily for back-office operations, particularly for those that require larger floorplates. This segment of the market is more limited. Therefore, although it is theoretically possible to develop 6.7 million square feet within the project area by 2013, this is not considered likely....Based on the screening criteria, it is reasonable to assume that approximately 4.6 million square feet of office development would occur in the next 10 years on sites identified by the City...
(This also appears on page S-14 of the DEIS.)

In other words, the city was saying that, even though an extra 2.1 million square feet of office space could be built in the next decade, the market for it was unlikely. And this was before the Atlantic Yards announcement added an additional 2.1 million square feet to the mix. No press coverage I found compared the two projects. Part of that may be attributed to balkanization; at the New York Times, for example, the rezoning issue was covered by Brooklyn bureau reporter, while the Atlantic Yards announcement was covered by the metro real estate reporter.

Economic estimates ignore office glut

Six months later, the amount of projected office space had declined only slightly. Zimbalist, in his May 2004 report, Estimated Fiscal Impact of the Atlantic Yards Project on the New York City and New York State Treasuries, writes that the project would eventually create 1.9 million square feet of first-class office space to be added in equal increments in 2007, 2009, and 2011. He cites a "housing and commercial office space shortage in Brooklyn and New York City" and offers some questionable statistics:
Since 1988, downtown Brooklyn has absorbed an average of 600,000 square feet of new office space per year. As of early April 2004, the vacancy rate of class A office space built in Brooklyn since 1985 was less than one percent.

Zimbalist makes no mention of the Downtown Brooklyn Final EIS issued a month earlier. His report reads as if the office space at Atlantic Yards would be brought to a borough that desperately needed such office space, and as if no potential for similar space might be in the offing.

In a June 2004 critique of Zimbalist's report, ESTIMATED FISCAL IMPACT OF FOREST CITY RATNER’S BROOKLYN ARENA AND 17 HIGH RISE DEVELOPMENT ON NYC AND NYS TREASURIES, Gustav Peebles and Jung Kim pinpoint problems in Zimbalist's assumptions. For one thing, as they write in section 5.3, Zimbalist did not calculate a vacancy rate. Also, they note that Zimbalist's observation regarding the vacancy rate requires a huge caveat. Most of the Class A office space in Brooklyn is at Forest City Ratner's MetroTech development, which has relied heavily on subsidies and government tenants to fill the space.

The authors calculate that at least 55% of the Class A office space in Brooklyn was filled by the public sector or with the help of incentives to private companies. "The vacancy rate used by Dr. Zimbalist to generate 7,600 jobs is an artificial rate, inflated by government expenditures and nothing to do with what economists would call a 'market,'" they write. Because of that, they recommend lowering Zimbalist’s projections for new commercial income and sales tax revenue by up to ten percent.

Peebles and Kim could have further questioned Zimbalist's vacancy rate projections had they factored in the recently-released Downtown Brooklyn Final EIS. It cast doubt not just on the prospects for filling such a large amount of office space at the "less than one percent" vacancy rate, but also on the wisdom of building that much office space in the first place.

Responding to the market

Apparently Forest City Ratner questioned its own projections as well. By 2005, the company revised its plans, and at a City Council hearing on 5/26/05 announced a reduction in office space as part of two potential reconfigurations. Zimbalist, in a June 2005 update to his report, acknowledges those potential changes:
The FCRC Atlantic Yards General Project Plan will eventually create 1.2 million square feet of first-class office space. The Alternative Plan will create 259,078 square feet of new commercial space. Since 1988, downtown Brooklyn has absorbed an average of 600,000 square feet of new office space per year. As of early April 2004, the vacancy rate of class A office space built in Brooklyn since 1985 was less than one percent.

Even though Forest City Ratner had reacted to a potential downturn in the market--reducing an original estimate of 2.1 million square feet to a potential 259,078 square feet--Zimbalist remains nonplused. He repeats the same decontextualized citation regarding Brooklyn's "less than one percent" vacancy rate even though the developer by then was planning to cut 43% to 88% from the originally announced space. Again, he doesn't acknowledge any competing supply of office space, not from Lower Manhattan, nor from the Downtown Brooklyn rezoning.

Downtown Brooklyn today: housing

Today, even the estimates of 4.6 million square feet of office space in Downtown Brooklyn seem overoptimistic, since housing is a better bet. In a 1/16/2006 article headlined Office Builders Balking At Downtown Brooklyn, the New York Observer noted:
When city planners rezoned much of downtown Brooklyn 17 months ago, it was meant to make the city’s third-largest business district even larger. Now it is looking more and more like a bedroom community.
It is not just the half-dozen condo projects sprouting up around the edge of downtown, transforming weed-strewn parking lots into glassy towers.
Even the 10-block area envisioned as the “commercial core” of the new downtown is leaning residential. The developers of the two sites furthest along in the planning process are suggesting that as few as 200,000 square feet of office space might go up where two million square feet were once envisioned, with the balance going for hotel rooms and apartments. A third property owner wants to erect a hotel right in the middle of a site where a 20-story office tower was supposed to be built. An existing office tower in that central core—7 MetroTech Center, the 1930 Verizon building—was purchased last April to be converted into condos.
In other words, Brooklyn’s booming residential market has overtaken the supply of office space—making it harder for roughly 19,000 jobs that were originally seen as the fruit of the rezoning to find their way into the new downtown.

There's a silver lining, Brooklyn’s boosters told the Observer: Downtown Brooklyn (especially Forest City Ratner's MetroTech) has been called dead at night, but the area will gain much new life. Still, the rezoning was supposed to spur jobs more than housing:
In order to promote commercial construction in a borough that many still consider to be an unacceptable business address, commercial buildings in the core could rise 20 percent higher than apartment buildings. Yet the residential market is so strong—or the commercial market so weak—that that incentive has not tempted anyone to gamble on offices.

The difference is a Floor Area Ratio (FAR) of 12 for office space and 10 for residential space at certain parcels that have been rezoned to C-6.45. See p. 7 of the Executive Summary of the Downtown Brooklyn Redevelopment Final EIS.

Did Ratner just learn this?

The switch to housing led the Observer to cite a similar example, at Atlantic Yards:
Bruce Ratner, Forest City Ratner’s president and C.E.O., recently came to a similar conclusion. He originally proposed 2.1 million square feet of office space to be included in his Atlantic Yards complex, which lays adjacent to the boundaries of the downtown rezoning to the southeast. Then, last summer, he reduced that amount to 628,000 square feet and made up the difference with market-rate condos.

It wasn't a zero-sum trade, though, given that the project increased from an initial 7.7 million square feet to 9.1 million square feet this year, thanks in part to the addition of Site 5 across Flatbush Avenue. On that site, P.C. Richard and Modell's currently occupy a low-slung cinderblock complex; a 430-foot tower is planned.

But the bigger question is: did Bruce Ratner recently "come to a similar conclusion"? The company may have announced the changes recently, but, as noted, the addition of condos on top of the rental apartments came only a week after the affordable housing agreement was signed, which suggests the switch from office space had been in the cards for a while.

Could the switch had been considered from the start? That November 2003 Draft Environmental Impact Statement suggests that Forest City Ratner should have known that the market for additional office space was questionable, even office space well-located at a transit hub, as at the proposed Atlantic Yards. But the slogan "(Temporary Construction) Jobs, Housing, and Hoops" wouldn't work as well.

[Graphic from NoLandGrab.org]

There was a lot of high school basketball in New York City yesterday, but likely most hoops fans chose Madison Square Garden for the Nike Super Six or even Baruch College for the Big Apple Basketball H.S. Invitational.

In Brooklyn, attendance was light as Long Island University hosted the Seventh Annual Brooklyn Basketball Challenge, a three-game event sponsored by Forest City Ratner. The program, using smaller type than that used to highlight the sponsorship, reminded us that the event was "In Celebration of the Birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr."

Despite some local teams and at least one excellent game, I'd estimate that about 60 people were in the bleachers for the second game (Brooklyn's Canarsie blew out Long Island's Valley Stream) and maybe double that for the hard-fought third game, featuring two schools from adjacent Fort Greene, Benjamin Banneker and Bishop Loughlin. (I missed the first game.)

Ratner promotions

It was also an opportunity for Forest City Ratner to promote its connection to basketball. Programs and a banner featured the company's name, and all attendees were given keychains that said "Brooklyn" on one side and "Nets" on the other. Former NBA player Albert King, who grew up in Fort Greene, was on hand to present trophies to winning teams and MVPs.

Albert King, though a Net for six years, was not as successful a hoopster as his older brother Bernard, a three-year Net and four-time All-Star, who initially was a key part of the Atlantic Yards promotion. Then again, Albert doesn't have Bernard's baggage, as the latter was dropped by Forest City Ratner as a spokesman after he was accused of beating his wife. (He avoided jail time and battery charges by agreeing to counseling.)

From what I can tell, Forest City Ratner also sponsored the 2005 version of the Basketball Challenge, but did not do so previously. The real estate developer had no real interest in basketball, understandably, before announcing the Atlantic Yards project in December 2003. For more on the company's efforts regarding amateur basketball in Brooklyn, see the 11/26/05 Daily News story headlined Jump ball: Brooklyn groups still up in air over Ratner proposal.

So expect some photos and articles about this event in Forest City Ratner promotional materials--maybe even the next edition of the Brooklyn Standard. Proceeds from the event benefit the youth development programs of Youth America, which operates educational, cultural, recreational, and health programs, and the Right Bounce, which helps student athletes seeking college scholarships. Note that Youth America has its office in Forest City Ratner's MetroTech complex; such nonprofits likely get a break on rent.

MLK's legacy

There were few references to the man ostensibly honored by the event beyond the text in the program program, which reminded us that "Dr. King gave his life for the principles he believed in: peace, dignity, and equal opportunity." (Then again, I did miss the first game.)

At one point, though, a public address announcer encouraged all attendees to go home and read something about the martyred civil rights hero. I took a look at his 1967 "Beyond Vietnam" speech:
"I knew that America would never invest the necessary funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures like Vietnam continued to draw men and skills and money like some demonic, destructive suction tube. So I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor and to attack it as such."

Now I'm not going to debate the costs and morality of the war in Iraq. But I will say this: Absent the issues of terrorism and war, this country would much more likely have begun serious discussions about poverty, and the best ways to create jobs and affordable housing for those not sharing in the country's prosperity.

In a 1/16/06 New York Observer article headlined Life Getting Hot For Architect Rafael Viñoly, an offhand reference to architect Frank Gehry and the Atlantic Yards project contained two mistakes.

The article stated: The case sheds light on an issue that has dogged architecture firms that attempt massive and politically difficult urban projects, while at the same time attempting to deliver state-of-the-art design.
Witness Mr. Libeskind’s increasing marginalization at Ground Zero, or the recent shouting match from which architect Frank Gehry absented himself over the weekend over his plans for the Atlantic Yards terminal.

Shouting match?

There was no "shouting match" at the 1/7/06 Times Talk session; Gehry was faced with some respectful but persistent questioners about the Atlantic Yards project, and at one point cut off the questions.

Another Observer reporter, who actually attended the session and wrote it up for The Real Estate blog, described "a handful of jeers" in response to a Gehry statement. Ok, but I think it was more like a spontaneous correction. The reporter also stated that Brooklynites "hurled questions" at Gehry; again, that's somewhat overstated, but even at that, no shouting match.

Atlantic Yards terminal?

More significantly, there's no such thing as "the Atlantic Yards terminal." There's the Atlantic Terminal, which refers to a mall, a transit hub for subways and the Long Island Railroad, and a longstanding urban renewal area. The 8.3-acre railyard just east of that is called the Vanderbilt Yard by the MTA. Atlantic Yards does not exist; it is the name of Forest City Ratner's proposed (and evolving) 22-acre project that would include the railyard and adjacent streets, industrial buildings, vacant lots, homes, and businesses.

Errors like this may spread when reporters work outside their range of expertise. The reporter on the Viñoly story works on the Observer's politics desk, not the real estate desk, whose reporters have provided more solid coverage of the project.

Will there be enough open space at the proposed Atlantic Yards development? Will tall buildings cast debilitating shadows? Will valuable historic buildings be razed? Those questions must be addressed in the pending Draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) from the state Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC). Based on some preliminary discussion yesterday at a meeting of the Brooklyn Borough Board Atlantic Yards Committee, much remains unanswered--but there's reason for concern, especially about open space.

It's clear that the proposed seven acres of public open space (plus one acre of private space) doesn't represent the simple bounty promised by developer Forest City Ratner. Yes, the developer has hired Laurie Olin, a noted landscape architect, to try to make the space welcoming--a gesture, like the hiring of architect Frank Gehry to design the project, that represents a step up from past Forest City Ratner project like the Atlantic Center mall or the MetroTech office complex.

But the project wouldn't meet either the ambitious state standards for open space or even the more modest city average. State standards call for 2.5 acres of open space for every 1,000 residents--"an ideal set by the state," according to Joshual Laird, Director of Planning for the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation, who said the city average is 1.5 acre per 1,000 residents. (Two of the three Community Boards around the project site don't even reach the city average.) To meet the city average, 7,300 apartments housing 15,000 people (a conservative estimate) would require 22.5 acres of open space, and if they housed 18,000 people, that would require 27 acres of open space.

"Many communities are below the [2.5-acre] ratio," observed Micaela Birmingham, Planning Director of New Yorkers for Parks. "We could maybe revisit this ratio and consider that it should be higher."

What if the commentators on the EIS can't influence the developer and the state to change the current proposal? "The burden is not to bring them up to 1.5 or 2.5 acres [per 1,000 people]," Laird said. Still, he said, "If this ultimately reveals that the number of people will lower that ratio, something has to happen."

Jerry Armer, Chair of Community Board 6, did some preliminary math, observing, "My concern is that the addition of residents will take that ratio and make it more negative."

The arena roof

The roof of the arena, once billed as a home for a running track and ice rink, now would be available only to the residents of the surrounding towers, a change that Borough President Marty Markowitz has criticized. Panelists spoke cautiously about it. Laird said, "Rooftop [space] can work, but it has to be programmed." Birmingham backed that up, stressing, "If rooftop open spaces are not very carefully programmed, they can be very desolate spots." She added that she hoped "it would be analyzed with the hope at some point it could be made public."

Armer asked if there were other good examples of rooftop use. Laird cited the heavily-used Riverbank State Park at 145th Street in Manhattan, but Armer noted that "that has a direct connection to the community. It's not like you have to take an elevator or an escalator."

Asked how more open space might be created in the area, Birmingham suggested that the Atlantic Center mall "has a lot of roofs, and could be made more green." She said the entrance to the mall, where Pathmark is located, could be redesigned. Laird said his agency had been looking at schoolyards, which could be expanded to serve as open space.

Losing streets?

Laird was asked whether the city calculated the loss of city streets in its assessment of open space. "We haven't assessed it," he said. "We wouldn't typically look at demapped streets as lost."

What about sidewalks? "We do not typically calculate the area of sidewalks," he said, noting that doing so would increase the amount of open space for all communities. True, streets do not equal open space, but the taking of streets is an integral part of the project. Later, Laird was observed in discussion with architect and blogger Jonathan Cohn, who has argued that Forest City Ratner can afford to provide the open space it plans only by using city streets, writing: So almost half of what the project is 'providing' in open space is space that was already supposed to be open in perpetuity, according to the city plan.

Exemplary private space?

Is there a good example of privately-owned public space, panelists were asked, that board members could consider? Birmingham pointed to a study published by the city and the Municipal Art Society and noted that the use of elements like spikes or bollards can deter people. "Many times the public doesn't know they're allowed to enter," she said. "When you have large towers [as at Atlantic Yards]... the orientation might lead people to believe that [the open space] are the backyards of residents."

"You're right to be concerned," said Winston Von Engel, of the Department of City Planning Brooklyn Office, who noted that the city now requires plaques at such open space that spell out open hours and other amenities. "Joshua [Laird] reminds me that [Forest City Ratner's] MetroTech is also privately-owned public space."

Birmingham commented, "Maybe that's not a good example." She was part of the group that accompanied Danish urban planner Jan Gehl during his critical walk through MetroTech and nearby areas in November.

The effect of shadows

Von Engel, while acknowledging he's not an expert on shadows, observed that building shadows can "have a very negative effect" and that "a shadow analysis is absolutely critical." When the analysis is done, said Laird of the Parks Department, "We'll look at the impacts to our facilities."

What about the effect on the Brooklyn Bears community garden, next to a low-rise building slated to be replaced by a 430-foot tower. "I don't know yet," Von Engel told Markowitz. "We need to see what the analysis says. Once the EIS comes out, we all need to take a look and see if we agree. It's up to you and others to give opinions on whether it's OK or not OK to put shadows on the Brooklyn Bears garden." (Those at the garden, as the photo suggests, have already come to a conclusion.)

Would the state analysis include the impact of shadows in denying access by those at nearby buildings to solar energy? "That's not one of the categories I'm aware of," Von Engel said. Birmingham picked that up: "These are innovative ideas that should be acknowledged by SEQRA." SEQRA is the State Environmental Quality Act, which governs the process.

Historic buildings?

At a second panel, on Historic Resources, Lisa Kersavage of the Municipal Arts Society handed out a map detailing the nearby historic districts, landmarks, National Register Buildings (like the Atlantic Avenue Control House on the triangle between the Atlantic Terminal mall and Site 5), and "potential historic resources." Four of the latter are within the proposed site footprint: the Underberg Building, slated for demolition; the closed Ward Bakery at 800 Pacific Street; and two buildings restored into condos: the Spalding building (right) at 24 Sixth Avenue, and the Atlantic Arts Building at 636 Pacific Street. (Forest City Ratner has bought out all but three apartments at the two.)

Kersavage noted that the buildings had been identified by community groups, but the Municipal Art Society has not yet taken a stand on them. "The real way to save the buildings is to have them identified by [the city] Landmarks [Commission], outside the EIS," she said. Still, she said, her organization would look at whether the buildings could be incorporated into the project. Kathleen Howe, a Historic Preservation Specialist for the state, called the Ward Bakery "a very interesting building with wonderful terra cotta." She noted that a landmark designation could provide a 20% federal tax credit to help a property owner preserve and renovate it.

The building, later owned by the Pechter-Field (also known as Pechter) Baking company, closed in 1995 after losing a $12 million contract with the city's Board of Education. An 8/20/95 New York Times article (400 Jobless as Bakery Closes) cited "diminishing prices for baked goods, high labor costs and greater competition." The article appeared under the rubric "Neighborhood Report: Bedford-Stuyvesant." A 12/27/80 New York Times article ($750,000 TAKEN IN TRUCK ROBBERY) about a robbery of an armored truck outside the bakery described the location as Crown Heights.

Forest City Ratner last year agreed to pay owner Leviev Boymelgreen $44 million for the bakery and another property at 546 Vanderbilt Avenue, the Brooklyn Papers reported in a 4/9/05 article headlined $24M arena jackpot. Developer Shaya Boymelgreen, who had paid $20 million for buildings, had announced plans to build a hotel. The contract indicates that the transaction must be consummated by March 31, 2006--which suggests that there may be a renewable option to buy.


What about the Atlantic Art building? "It's got terra cotta," Howe said, but the question is the building's integrity. "That building has been converted to residential, which is great, but changes to the interior and windows" have altered it. "So our call was it did not meet our criteria."

"Isn't it possible for historic buildings to be documented" rather than preserved, asked Greg Atkins, Markowitz's chief of staff. Responded Ruth Pierpoint of the New York State Historic Preservation Office, "I think that's probably the last alternative."

Borough President Marty Markowitz, appearing last night before a monthly meeting of the Council of Brooklyn Neighborhoods (CBN), maintained his public posture on the proposed Atlantic Yards project: an enthusiastic supporter who recognizes community concerns but remains confident it will all work out well. Markowitz was alternately conciliatory, jovial, thoughtful, and feisty, but became tense, if not testy, at times when pressed. Though several member organizations of the group may criticize or oppose the project, the CBN takes no position beyond its role as a community conduit to the environmental review conducted by the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC). "You will not hear opposition or support for the project," cochair Candace Carponter told Markowitz. "This group is here to talk about process." (Photo at right from Borough President's web site.)

Funding a planner

Will Markowitz provide financial support for an planning expert to help the CBN respond to the state review process regarding Atlantic Yards? "I'm sorry to say we don't have the funding," Markowitz said. "I happen to agree [that an expert should be hired]." He said he had raised the issue twice to Charles Gargano, chair of the ESDC, but Gargano said no.

What about asking Forest City Ratner for the money? "I don't know if it's appropriate for me to ask," Markowitz said, noting that if the report comes out in a certain way, it could be considered tainted. "It has to be independent money." Carponter said that that "we believe" it's ESDC's job to ask the developer to fund the expert. Markowitz added that a lot of people had asked him to ask Ratner for money, "and I've asked for nothing." (Then again, Markowitz did ask Bruce Ratner to buy the New Jersey Nets and move the team to Brooklyn, and Ratner conceived of a much larger project than an arena, according to a New Yorker report.)

City Council Member Letitia James, an Atlantic Yards opponent and the only elected official among the 30 or so people in the audience, asked Markowitz if he'd join the Brooklyn delegation of City Council in asking the Council Speaker for funding. Markowitz said yes.

Demolition questions

Markowitz was asked if he'd help to stop the developer's plans to demolish six buildings an engineer has determined are "an immediate threat to the preservation of life, health, and property"--a conclusion in some dispute. He said, "I don't know that he's prohibited from demolishing buildings that he totally owns and they say are a threat to the safety of the community."

Carponter observed that, under the state review, demolition could proceed only if the buildings were hazardous to life or safety. When pressed why his office wouldn't step in, Markowitz responded, "Because I choose not to. He has a certified engineering company say these buildings are a danger to the public."

Deb Howard of the Pratt Area Community Council observed that the Atlantic Terminal area had been fallow for 20 years while development was pending: "You want to make sure that, when building are demolished, you have the approval and the financing [for the larger project]."

Daniel Goldstein of Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn asked, "If they are a public safety hazard, the developer has owned three of them for a year and a half. If they're truly a public safety hazard, why is he not protecting us with sidewalk sheds or why didn't he demolish them a year ago?"

Goldstein, who has not been willing to sell his condo to the developer and is threatened by eminent domain, added, "And it's very good for me to hear you so adamant about private property rights."

Markowitz shot back, "I'll take it as a compliment."

Goldstein continued, "If it's a public safety issue, and I doubt that it is, why is he not moving faster, or why did he not do something sooner?"

Markowitz responded, "Why he didn't do it a year ago, I really don't know." (One answer might be that the engineering review hadn't been completed. Another question might be why the developer waited five weeks after the engineering report was completed.)

Questions of scale

Markowitz maintained his stance that the project should be scaled down, but didn't offer specifics: "I see this as very beneficial to the future of Brooklyn but there are adjustments that can be made to fit more in the tapestry of the community."

Markowitz expressed confidence the project would work out. "I'd be thrilled to live a block or two away from there, even with this project...Maybe one or two of you can buy me a handyman special." After endorsing the idea of a charrette involving architect Frank Gehry and community representatives, Markowitz, acknowledging that he's not an architect, allowed that he'd tossed in his two cents on project design: "I like the idea of stoops--a stoop feeling" and other elements, like brick, that evoke the surrounding area.

He told the CBN that their input was helping find the right balance. "If you don't think the state and the developer are hearing you, they are hearing you. This plan has changed a couple of times--"

"It's gotten bigger," interjected Patti Hagan of the Prospect Heights Action Coalition.

"--and I wouldn't be surprised if it changes some more as we move ahead," Markowitz continued.

Hagan asked whether Forest City Ratner representatives had responded to Markowitz's public--and, presumably, private--call that the project should be scaled down, given that the project has grown in acreage and density. The Borough President replied, "My private conversations are my private conversations... I'm sure they are reviewing all parts of this."

How should we think about the scale of the project, given that it bypasses zoning and there's been no public discussion of the appropriate scale and a variety of surroundings? "You get one part [bordering the project] that's relatively low-rise, one part that's relatively high-rise," Markowitz said. "It's kind of hard for me to give you an answer." He added that he was more concerned now with issues like traffic mitigation, infrastructure, and parking.

Because of growth in Brooklyn's population and the decline of available land, "the way it appears to be going is vertically, not horizontally," he said. Indeed, density takes advantage of public transit and saves energy, but the appropriate level remains a question. "The city planners and city mothers and fathers in the days ahead will have to look at what policies will have to be implemented to somehow solve this challenge," Markowitz said. "I don't have any answers for that right now. I'm taking it project by project." As for Atlantic Yards, he seemed to be saying, it's too late--at least for anything more than an ad hoc responses involving community members like the ones he was meeting with--since the process has bypassed city review.

PACB and beyond

James asked him if he'd express concerns to the state Public Authorities Control Board (PACB), which has yet to vote on $100 million in state subsidies and is controlled by Governor George Pataki, State Senate leader Joe Bruno, and State Assembly leader Sheldon Silver. Markowitz resisted: "I can assure you I'll read every word you write. I want it to happen. I share many of the concerns, so that's where that gray area comes in." Silver's opposition to the West Side Stadium project, in part because it contained office space that would compete with his Lower Manhattan district, helped kill that project.

Asked why the public couldn't ask questions of the experts who have been appearing at the Borough Board meetings on Atlantic Yards, Markowitz said that the process was not uncommon, that all members of the board had approved the process, and that City Council Member James, an Atlantic Yards opponent on the board, is free to bring up the issue. He did note that the process is only "information gathering;" indeed, because the project is under state auspices, the Borough Board meetings are outside the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) process. Another meeting is today.

There wasn't much news during the session "Real Estate Development in the 21st Century: Revisiting Opportunities for Minority Developers," held yesterday part of the Rev. Jesse Jackson's 9th Annual Rainbow PUSH Wall Street Project Conference, though it did give the 60 or so attendees, many of them new to New York, some information (and misinformation) about the Atlantic Yards project and the Community Benefits Agreement (CBA). The Rev. Herbert Daughtry described the CBA signatories as "a group of community organizations widely representative of the community," even though, as the New York Observer reported, Just two of the eight signatories to the agreement... existed as incorporated entities before the negotiations.

But afterward, panelist Jim Stuckey, executive VP, Forest City Ratner, was cordial enough to answer some questions lingering in the minds of Atlantic Yards-watchers after last weekend. (Photo from Forest City Ratner bio of Stuckey.)

Parking aboveground?

Is Forest City Ratner still planning an under-arena parking garage, which could pose a security risk? No, said Stuckey, clarifying an issue that's caused concern, though his answer raises further questions about how parking would fit into a revised design for the site. (I initially thought it indicated aboveground parking, but others have commented that it suggests use of underground parking across the street, as well as parking at other sites.) The question wasn't answered in the New York Times article Sunday on traffic, and a Forest City Ratner PR rep previously didn't respond to questions. Stuckey said yesterday that there would be 1,100 parking spaces for the arena but "there will not be any parking under the arena itself." He said that, under the arena, there would be a loading area and small amount of secured parking for team officials, referees, and other insiders.

Stuckey said there would be parking "part on the arena block, part across the street, part down on Block 1129, and dispersed throughout a number of different areas." (Does "part on the arena block" mean anything more than the small amount of secured parking? Unclear. Any unsecured parking facility near the arena raises security questions.) The left section of the graphic (at right, from the New York Times) shows parking in the black-bordered sections of the arena block, across 6th Avenue and in Block 1129, between Carlton and Vanderbilt avenues and Pacific and Dean streets, though it's unclear where the "dispersed" parking would be. Forest City Ratner hasn't officially announced that there wouldn't be an under-arena garage, as the 9/15/05 draft scope issued by the Empire State Development Corporation, was vague about the precise location of the parking.

There would be 4,000 indoor spaces for both residential and spectator parking for the project; as it has increased in size, from 4,500 to 7,300 residential units, as the Times noted, the developer was required to add parking spaces. FCR announced 3,000 underground parking spaces in the December 2003 architectural sketches. The 2/18/05 Memorandum of Understanding between the developer and city/state agencies is unclear about whether parking would be underground (though it might be inferred from p. 18 of the PDF). It describes how tax-exempt bonds would finance both the arena and "the on-site Arena garage" (see p. 6 of the PDF).

Gehry unleashed?

Will Forest City Ratner let architect Frank Gehry meet with community groups? After a public interview session last Saturday, Gehry told Peter Krashes of the Dean Street Block Association that any request would have to go through his client's office, saying he'd be willing to meet "as soon as the guys let me," adding "talk to Stuckey." (Photo of Gehry from interview at Columbia University.)

Questioned yesterday, Stuckey demurred, saying, "I don't schedule for Frank" and "I'm not Frank's scheduling secretary." That suggests that Gehry assumed too tight a leash, or perhaps--to get a little Jesuitical--it means someone else at Forest City Ratner has that responsibility. The conversation, also involving Patti Hagan of the Prospect Heights Action Coalition, quickly turned into a discussion of whether community critics of the Atlantic Yards plan had returned Stuckey's calls to set up a meeting. Stuckey said they hadn't; Hagan said she had.

So the Gehry issue remains unclear, but others may pursue a meeting, as well. Last night, at a meeting of the Council of Brooklyn Neighborhoods, Borough President Marty Markowitz endorsed the idea of a community charrette, or collaborative session, with Gehry, saying "I think it would be a fabulous idea--why not?" Commented CBN co-chair Candace Carponter, "I think it would be something we should consider doing, and doing soon."

The New York Sun has followed up on coverage in the Village Voice and the New York Observer regarding the battle by those ousted for the Times Tower across from the Port Authority to gain what they consider proper compensation. This is another article that could be linked to by the New York Times, if it followed the Public Editor's cue and provided links to others' coverage "about a news-making development at The Times."

In a 1/9/06 article headlined Owners Ousted From Times Site Awaiting Payout, the Sun stated:
More than three years after the New York Times and the state of New York used the power of eminent domain to clear the way for a 52-story new headquarters for the newspaper, nearly all the property owners and more than half the tenants who were displaced have not settled with the state over the amount of compensation they are due.
Lawyers representing displaced tenants and owners and state officials say that the recent designation of two additional judges in the New York Supreme Court to review condemnation cases will likely speed up the processing of the remaining claims. The state pays 9% interest per year on the difference between its offer and the court's final judgment.
Nevertheless, in a series of interviews with The New York Sun, the displaced tenants and owners said their experience over the last three and a half years serves as a warning to those who may be ousted by condemnation in the Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn, the planned expansion of Columbia University in Harlem, or other projects that might now surface as a reaction to last year's U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Kelo v. New London, which allows a city to invoke eminent domain for the sake of private economic development.
...Citing increased tax revenues and more jobs, the city gave the Times about $26 million in tax breaks. The Times and Forest City Ratner are responsible for about $85 million to acquire the site. Should the owners and tenants prevail in court and the acquisition costs prove to be higher, the city and state would be responsible for the overrun.

Here's one example:
Building owner Maurice Laboz said he earned more than $1.1 million in rent a year from his former building. Before he received word of the condemnation, Mr. Laboz said he turned down an $8 million offer for the building. Later, the state offered him $1.8 million. He says he had the building independently appraised twice at $11 million.
As he awaits a court date, Mr. Laboz has received the $1.8 million from the state, which paid off the remaining $1.3 million of his mortgage and left him with $300,000

And here's a sketch of the dispute:
The lawyer representing most of the property owners and the tenants with outstanding claims, Michael Rikon, said the state commonly low balls condemned owners and tenants because judges will often decide on a settlement figure that falls between the state's assessment and the owners' or tenants' assessment.
"This is as low ball as it gets, and there are a horde of lawyers feeding off these proceedings," Mr. Rikon said.
The attorney says the total independent appraisals of the remaining cases he represents amount to $129 million, and the state's appraisals add up to $45 million.
A spokeswoman for the Empire State Development Corporation, Deborah Wetzel, said the state "promptly completed independent appraisals of the properties as required by law."
Ms. Wetzel said the state "has paid to each claimant the value of its property" as determined by the state's independent appraisals.

When it comes to adding a basketball arena and 16 towers (nearly all residential) at the proposed Atlantic Yards project, the problem of traffic seems obvious. Though the problem is relatively noncontroversial compared to other issues, there is significant dispute about its scope, the costs of fixing it, and the responsibility for doing so. A 1/8/06 article fronting the Metro section of the New York Times, headlined A Traffic Knot, Pulling Tighter, sketched the issue, ventilated some conflicting views, but still--partly a function of space--missed some important aspects of the issue, including the costs, the responsibilities of public agencies, and some innovative strategies.

The article began (graphic at right from the Times):
"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.
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."

True, but it's worse: as relevant community boards and transportation engineer Brian Ketcham (quoted lower in the story) have commented as part of the environmental review of the project, traffic on those arteries also affects the Brooklyn Queens Expressway and the Brooklyn Bridge. A signal fault of the draft scope for the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) being conducted by the state Empire State Development Corporation, they say, is that it sets boundaries of a quarter-mile for the primary review area and a half-mile for secondary impacts, while the likely impact would extend much farther.

The Times article continued:
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."

Well, maybe it is "not that bad when it's functioning," but that's irrelevant, since it would be functioning differently if the Atlantic Yards project is built--and even if it isn't, given the other development in the northwest section of Brooklyn.

As for whether the questionnaire was statistically sound, well, it wasn't a poll of residents, so it doesn't have that level of validity. But it certainly establishes a threshold of concern. Is Stuckey trying to say that a lot of people aren't worried about traffic? Their elected representatives are.

Keep in mind that the statistical soundness of many of the developer's statements could be questioned. As noted, the latest issue of Forest City Ratner's Brooklyn Standard contains some dubious numbers regarding the expenditure of public money, the number of construction jobs, and the value of the railyard bid.

In the Standard's "Frequently Asked Questions About Atlantic Yards," the fourth question asks if the project will "bring in more traffic than the area can handle?" The short answer: "No." That's rather conclusory, since local and state officials are studying the issue. The answer continues: "While FCRC recognizes the potential for traffic congestion at various intersections during certain peak hours of the day, they are committed to working with city and state agencies to implement any mitigation measures that may be necessary."

The Times continued:
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.

What? Is Forest City Ratner saying that the residents and businesses within the Atlantic Yards footprint recently generated tens of thousands of trips daily? I doubt it. There are relatively few businesses--a dozen?--and only a few hundred residents--an estimate generated by the anti-Ratner Prospect Heights Action Coalition was 863, but that number included 400 homeless people, who aren't doing much driving. I'd like to see the other reasons to dispute Ketcham's study explained, and that's an unfortunate constraint in a story that needs to cover a lot of ground.

Also missing--a significant omission from this article--was any reference to the cost of fixing the problem. Regarding the development in downtown Brooklyn and environs, including Atlantic Yards, Ketcham has predicted an annual cost of $100 million to the city and state. Again, that number may be worthy of debate, but it should be on the table, since it should be factored into cost-benefit estimates from new developments, and a study by Forest City Ratner consultant Andrew Zimbalist, relied on for optimistic assumptions about future revenues, says nothing about traffic.

The article continued:
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."

Why is Stuckey speaking for the government agencies? The issue is much bigger than Forest City Ratner--and the city Department of Transportation has been criticized for not being proactive enough.

The article continued:
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.

That's confusing--if only "5 percent or 6 percent" of office workers would commute by car, how much does the switch to residential help? Note that one of the original arguments for building office space was that the site was close to a major transit hub.

The article continued:
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.

If basketball games start at 7:30 p.m., wouldn't about half of the evening traffic occur during the commuter rush? (Note that the TLC considers the weekday rush hour from 4-8 p.m., though in Manhattan the peak travel period is considered 4-7 p.m.) Also, why wasn't Stuckey asked whether the company still plans to build an under-arena garage, which could present security risks? The graphic accompanying the article cites 4,000 parking spots, which suggests that 1,200 spots would be located at a garage facility connected to the arena--but Stuckey didn't affirm that in the article.

Note that critics do question the availability of parking. But, taking Stuckey's numbers, let me try some math: 1,500 parking spaces, at a (generous) average of three people per vehicle, suggests 4,500 visitors. Add in 1,200 spots at the arena (?), and still well over half the attendees at an arena even drawing 18,000 attendees would have to walk or travel by public transportation and--as noted below in the article--some 40 percent of Madison Square Garden attendees drive. (And if there is no arena garage, well, that makes the challenge even greater, so Forest City Ratner should be challenged to describe its onsite parking plan.) So why didn't the article talk about some innovative ways to reduce traffic like congestion pricing, residential parking permits, and event tickets tied to use of public transportation?

Late in the article, the EIS process was finally cited, as was the impact of traffic beyond Atlantic Yards:
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."

Note that the city itself said the major thoroughfares were "already overloaded" and that major changes are needed. Here's where an estimate of cost would have been appropriate. Also note that the project would close off streets, which also affects traffic flow.

Still, in contrast to previous long stories in the Times about the developer's community relations strategy and changes in the project, a supporter of the development, or the developer's spokesperson, did not get the last word. (Who should get the last word? With a finite amount of space in print, it's a judgment call.) In this case, Ketcham, a Cassandra on the issue, finally gets a hearing. Note that, though Ketcham has been commenting forcefully about Brooklyn traffic issues for years, he hadn't been quoted in the Times since 1998. He's an important part of the debate, but this issue also requires questions of city officials and the MTA.

Architect Frank Gehry should’ve expected it, given that Brooklynites were out in force at the last public appearance he made in New York, in November, at a session of the American Institute of Architects. But Gehry seemed perturbed yesterday when three Brooklynites peppered him with questions about the proposed Atlantic Yards project he is designing for Forest City Ratner—including a challenge regarding eminent domain--and at one point he even cut off the questioning. And, whether misinformed or evasive, Gehry suggested that building a mixed-use project to accompany the arena was driven by a desire to create a harmonious urban fabric rather than--as evidence suggests--to generate revenue.

"I didn’t expect this to be a thing about Brooklyn--I guess I should’ve known better," Gehry said during the Q&A segment of his appearance at a Times Talk segment of the New York Times Arts & Leisure Weekend. Peter Krashes, president of the Dean Street Block Association, pressed on, but Gehry continued, "It’s not fair to nail me on this here. Let’s do it some other time." Most in the audience--Gehry aficionados and/or area residents unworried about Atlantic Yards--offered sustained applause, and Krashes withdrew. (Photo is from a previous interview at Columbia.)

Maybe it was the time for such questions, given that attendees had spent $35 ($30 + service charge) for tickets to the 80-minute event at the CUNY Graduate Center in Manhattan, and that Gehry has not yet responded to invitations to meet with concerned citizens who live in or around the proposed project footprint. After the event, Krashes--who in his respectful public question noted that he had no position on the arena--got on the long line behind those seeking Gehry autographs and waited his turn. When he approached Gehry, Krashes mentioned that his group had previously sent a letter inviting the architect to a meeting.

Gehry said he would, "as soon as the guys let me," adding "talk to Stuckey"--a reference to Forest City Ratner VP Jim Stuckey.

At this point, handlers for the event ushered Gehry’s interlocutors along.

Eminent domain

During the session, Gehry had said of his projects, "If I think it got out of whack with my own principles, I’d walk away." Patti Hagan of the Prospect Heights Action Coalition, wearing a "Welcome to Ratnerville" t-shirt and a sticker saying "Eminent Domain Abuse," picked up on that. She asked, "Have any of your previous projects involved the use of eminent domain or eminent domain abuse? Does that square with your principles? And would that be enough to make you walk away from the Ratner project?"

"No comment," Gehry responded, to applause, though not as much as he received previously. (Gehry fans had to perform a quick calculation: it’s one thing to admire the architect, but another to endorse eminent domain.) OK, Hagan’s set of questions was loaded, but wouldn't it be worth learning Gehry’s record with eminent domain? (Photo of Gehry and Hagan meeting at the AIA session in November by Genevieve Christy, as appearing in the Brooklyn Papers article. Note another take on that article.)

Gehry, interviewed by Times architecture critic Nicolai Ouroussoff, began the wide-ranging session (billed under the rubric "Free Form") by narrating a slide show of his buildings from around the world. The last slide was from New York: the headquarters for InterActive on 11th Avenue in Chelsea that is "nearly topped out" and is expected to open at the end of the year. There were no renderings of the Atlantic Yards project, where construction may start later this year, though a new design is expected. (Ouroussoff photo from Charlie Rose interview.)

Questions of scale

Later, when Ouroussoff brought up the Brooklyn project, he observed, "It’s the first time you’ve worked on that scale... unless you go back to really early on, when you’re talking about Rouse"—the ill-fated Santa Monica Place mall (1980) that Gehry designed, just before he broke with developer The Rouse Company, laid off nearly all his staff, and reconceptualized his career.

Gehry responded, "I did a lot of housing for FHA [Federal Housing Administration], and that kind of stuff."

Ouroussoff said, "But not quite on this scale, not at this point in your career. You're also working--"

Gehry continued, "But I’m a do-gooder, lefty type, still, so it was manna from heaven, to get that project." [Some people I spoke to thought this was a reference to Atlantic Yards and its affordable housing component; I think Gehry was still referring to the FHA work.]

Ouroussoff went on to note that Gehry is working more with developers these days and suggested, "One of the things that I think keeps your creative clock ticking is trying to put yourself in places where you don’t feel safe. Working on that scale is not a place where I assume you feel as comfortable as with some of the other projects you've been doing now for a long time."

"I’m very uncomfortable," said Gehry.

"What are the challenges there?" Ouroussoff asked.

"Well, the challenges are kind of obvious," Gehry replied. "First of all it’s an empty site, it's got rail lines and all that stuff." [The New York Observer report said he "blurted" his response, but I thought it was routine.]

"No, it’s not," a few in the crowd shot back--and the audience seemed a bit startled. Note that the proposed site is 22 acres, including an 8.3-acre railyard. (Photo above of Dean Street row at 6th Avenue from Forgotten NY. Graphic below from Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn.)

"It’s an existing neighborhood," Gehry amended, compliant if not full of conviction. "There’s an arena, a big arena, it's like the ostrich swallowing the basketball. A lot of people want this arena, on that spot, and the company hired me to put it there. The idea of just putting an arena on that spot, in a neighborhood like that, without trying to make it part of the fabric somewhat, didn't appeal to me. And so there was a program for housing and offices and other things that had to be built for the arena to happen."

Actually, Gehry had it backwards: the mixed-use complex was not driven by his esthetic response. As noted in Chapter 1 of my report, Bruce Ratner told the New York Times (A Grand Plan in Brooklyn For the Nets’ Arena Complex, 12/11/03) that the issue was economic: "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."


Gehry, as he has said previously, indicated that the project would shrink: "We've been playing with the scale. The pictures you saw in the New York Times [7/5/05], the way it looked--it's not that big. It’s big, but not that big. It’s coming way back, in a lot of areas, and I guess something will go public in the next few months." He didn’t offer specifics. The project was initially seen as out of scale at 7.7 million square feet and has since grown to 9.1 million square feet, so the amount of reduction must be seen in context. (Image of previously-released sketches, which should change, from New York Times via NoLandGrab.)

"We've tried to break down the scale as much as possible. There is a piece of
Flatbush at the corner of Atlantic where it's pretty big in relation to what's across the street. But it's the arena, and what's on the corner of Atlantic and Flatbush is in scale with the Williamsburg [Bank]."
(To be specific, the 1929 bank is 512 feet tall, while the "Miss Brooklyn" tower, as proposed, would be 620 feet.) "If you go toward that way, contextually, it’s going to work. If you go this way, contextually, it’s a problem." It wasn't clear exactly where he was pointing, but note that the Pacific Street branch of the Brooklyn Public Library, the first Carnegie Library in Brooklyn, is just across Pacific Street from Site 5, currently the home of P.C. Richard/Modell's, where a 430-foot tower is planned. (Image from Brooklyn Public Library.)

Twenty buildings?

Gehry, who had previously said that he had asked Ratner to let other architects design parts of the project, didn’t complain yesterday but simply related that "there are some 20 buildings to be built, and the client insisted that I do them all. When he came to me, he said, 'I know you're going to try and bring all your friends in to do all the buildings, cause that's a cop-out.'... And he didn't want me to do that, he wanted me to really solve the problem, and put me on the hot seat." Twenty buildings? As of now, the project would involve an arena and 16 towers. Was Gehry simply being vague, or was he possibly referring to plans to build a new development complex, which could include new towers, on the site of Ratner’s Atlantic Center mall?

Given the challenge of building such a large project, Gehry mused, "Then you start looking at how much of this should be background, which elements should have an iconic presence, which should be in between background and iconic, and how do you orchestrate a skyline that somehow makes sense?... We’re trying, I am trying, and you’ll still hate what I do, anyway." (At this point, no questions had been asked, and the only pushback Gehry had gotten was from the few people in the crowd who knew that the proposed site isn’t empty.)

Gehry said that the site "would use a variety of materials so they don’t look like they've all been done by one person, they don't look like a project, they look like they grew over time. Then the public spaces, how to orchestrate those. And then the issue of--an arena needs bells and whistles and whoop-de-do, and then you are in a residential district and how do you orchestrate that so that the people in those apartments that we're going to build aren't plagued? If a guy comes home from work and wants to cool out, he's not barraged with imagery and bright lights. And so there's a whole bunch of sensitivities. How do you do that, how do you make it come alive for the game and solve the problem of identity for this basketball team and I hope someday a hockey team." (The Toronto-reared Gehry’s a hockey fan.)

Ouroussoff asked, "What are the limits, when you're working with a developer on that scale? What are you not allowed to do? You talked a lot about scale, about massing, about surfaces, about materials and things like that. All of those things you can do really well."

Gehry responded, "All of those things the client so far is complicit in. Up to this point, Bruce Ratner and his people have been very understanding and complicit and on board, they want that." He noted that there were then decisions on cost that are part of the development process and value engineering. "The fear or the unease for me in this, which I've talked to you about before, is: 'What is it we’re doing?' To me, when I look at my models now, it looks like a 19th century model, and that bothers me, but I don't know where to go, to be a 21st century model in this context. I got some ideas. My friends and I agonize: what would Rem [Koolhaas] do? What Zaha [Hadid] would do would look like a freeway interchange. And I haven't gone there. So if I've been holding back--'Is it right; is it wrong?"--these are the self-doubts that I have."

Ouroussoff suggested that part of that had to do with the expectations of an architect post-Bilbao. Gehry responded, "There's an expectation of what I do: 'This doesn't look like Bilbao; why are you doing this stuff that looks ordinary?' I've gotten some of that already."

Ouroussoff asked, "Is there a model beyond Jane Jacobs in terms of urban planning?" Would Ratner let Gehry work on the 'internal social organism' of the project? "Will the developer let you play with those things, the way you were able to with your own house?"

"No," Gehry said, citing in-house marketing people and architects at Forest City Ratner. "They do apartment layouts. We tweak them, but we can't really make a big architectural statement... We can influence them, make sure they are in the right places with the right views... but it’s fairly conventional...Like I read in the paper today, [Santiago] Calatrava is doing with his townhouse. You can’t go there. Not with this--at this level. But, you can make the experience from arrival, the front door, all the way through it, the way the elevator's designed, the lighting in the halls, it doesn’t have to be like going into the, um, the morgue. So it can be humanized. And I try to do that."

Urban design in question

When the Q&A began, Michael Decker praised Bilbao and said he cheered for Gehry when he got an honorary degree at Brandeis--"and now I live in Brooklyn."

"Here we go," Gehry said ruefully.

Decker observed, "I don't think changing the massing is going to disguise the massing of the project. I'm interested in what you were talking about, about being a do-gooder leftist, and how you square that with the superblock, with the towers, the shrouded park...?"

Gehry responded, "Bruce Ratner is also politically like me. We’ve discussed that a lot. We’re trying to live within our own principles on those issues. I think the scale issue is the only problem, we're out of whack with that."

Decker followed up, citing broken street walls, "the buildings plunked down and separated from the neighborhood in a very non-Jane Jacobs way, that it's towers in a park all over again."

"It isn't," Gehry said.

Ouroussoff clarified, "It's not a superblock, first of all. There are two parts of the project... there's a part at Flatbush and Atlantic, which is the arena, which is surrounded by a grouping of either three or four towers. Then if you go back from there, there's a series of apartment buildings along Atlantic. Those are broken up into a series of different masses, different pieces--as opposed to a superblock that would be either 'here are the towers at the center of the project,' or it would be a long continuous building."

Decker responded by citing "the street demapping." Indeed, while the project--as Ouroussoff pointed out--would not be one monolithic set of towers, a superblock has more to do with closing streets. A superblock, according to the Getty Art & Architecture Thesaurus, "[d]esignates very large, usually residential, city blocks often formed by consolidating several smaller blocks and often barred to through traffic and crossed by pedestrian walks." Note that Pacific Street would be closed between Vanderbilt and Carlton avenues, and between Sixth and Flatbush avenues. Fifth Avenue would be closed between Flatbush and Atlantic avenue. Architect Jonathan Cohn comments on his blog, "No amount of open views in the interior of a superblock will make the ground plane function like a watched public street. A real street functions not only for access to adjacent built form but connects and integrates the immediate area into the circulation systems of adjacent areas."

Gehry asked Decker, "How would you do it, ideally?"

Decker responded, "In my ideal world, you would build only on the railyards. There would be no eminent domain. It would be three 25-, 35-story tall buildings, a central courtyard, New York typology... and I think you'd have a vibrant, active place." (Left unsaid was that an arena cannot be built solely on the railyard, and the scale of the project has been driven in part by the need to include affordable housing, which itself was needed to gain political support.)

Gehry continued, "That's what we're doing, one building after another along the avenue, with a ground floor that's culturally..." .

"They're certainly not continuous," Decker responded. "They're separate buildings."

Ouroussoff interjected, perhaps sensing dismay in the audience that the session had tilted toward Brooklyn, "It raises an interesting question. What is your role as an architect, because developments of that same scale are going to happen, and the architect has no control over that. That's not the architect's job."

"He can turn it down," Gehry observed.

Ouroussoff continued, "You either walk away from it, or you see if there's something actually you can bring to the project."

"I try to do that, but I think if it got out of whack with my own principles, I would walk away," Gehry said. "It's not there yet, but maybe you think I should be there." Several in the crowd chuckled.

Then Krashes, announcing himself as representative of the block association on Dean Street, which forms the southern boundary of the project, observed that a lot of the discussion had been about housing as sculpture, form and mass. "We don't want you to turn your back on us, as an architect. What we want you to do is explain your role as a planner," Krashes said. He noted that five city blocks would be turned into one project and streets would be demapped for the arena, "which is logical, from one point of view, if you want the arena," and also "to create open space for very large buildings that do ring the open space. And the justification for removing that street is to provide open space for the public, it's not a park. It's open space that's privately owned. It's going to be at the service, really, of the buildings ringing the project."

"It’s designed as publicly accessible on all sides," Gehry replied.

Krashes continued, noting that the demapping of streets has implications for traffic. Gehry responded, "There are--I've got engineers and traffic experts and city planning, and we've been working with all of those people in the development of this. None of this has been done willfully, without being vetted by the experts."

Krashes tried to follow up, but Gehry, and the applauding crowd, cut off the discussion. (Several people asked non-Brooklyn questions during the Q&A, and Hagan's question did come after Krashes' question.)

Early in the program, when showing a slide of the acclaimed Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, Gehry observed wryly, "The only problem with this building is: I use it. Usually my buildings are far enough away that I don’t have to live with them. Every time I go to a concert I see everything I would do and change." From the questions voiced at this forum, some Brooklynites are hoping he’ll at least give them face time.

Forest City Ratner seems willing to meet and negotiate with representatives of Brownstone Brooklyn neighborhoods around the proposed Atlantic Yards footprint over issues like traffic and urban space. Still, it's unclear whether the company would hire an urban designer to facilitate a community planning process and doubtful that it would agree to not use eminent domain. Those are some conclusions from a meeting last night of the Park Slope Civic Council (PSCC), which sent a delegation to meet with the developer five weeks ago.

First came the Community Benefits Agreement (CBA), an innovative (for New York) but controversial effort to ensure that local residents and minorities get access to jobs, job training, and housing, among other things. But the CBA was signed with only eight groups, and it's hardly clear that they represent "the community." So when the PSCC representatives met with Forest City Ratner, they asked that the CBA "be reopened and expanded to include Neighborhood agreements," to include input from the neighborhoods immediately surrounding the project.

The answer: not quite. The developer won't reopen the CBA, reported Council President Lydia Denworth at the group's monthly meeting, but it would consider a neighborhood agreement with groups representing Brownstone Brooklyn neighborhoods. And what did the group ask for? "[A]greements between FCR and local government community groups on issues including: traffic, transportation, and parking; building size and urban design; city services; and public space"--in other words, the issues already raised to the Empire State Development Corporation. (More testimony.)

Does that mean that Forest City Ratner will downsize the project and do more to "repect and connect with" adjoining neighborhoods? "They didn't make any real commitment [at the meeting], but I think were ready to negotiate," reported Trustee Louise Finney, who chairs PSCC's Atlantic Yards Committee (and co-chairs the CB6 Transportation Committee). But FCR wants to meet first with groups from neighborhoods like Boerum Hill and Fort Greene, Denworth said, noting that "a Neighborhood Benefits Agreement with just one neighborhood isn't the point." Note that the Park Slope Civic Council--whose board represents a diversity of opinions--has not taken a public position for or against Atlantic Yards, but has expressed community concerns about the project's potential impact. The meeting with Forest City Ratner was initiated by Borough President Marty Markowitz.

Denworth at one point responded to a board member who thought the PSCC's posture was too confrontational. One tactic is opposition, she said, but another is, "whether you like it, or are in the middle [and may object to certain aspects], or you think it's going to happen, is to try to negotiate change and mitigation. It's the view of the Executive Committee and the Atlantic Yards Committee that that's what we should do. The big question is: 'are they operating in good faith?' and we have no idea. We are operating in good faith."

Trustee Lumi Rolley, who also runs the NoLandGrab portal for Atlantic Yards-related news (and apparently had been respecting a news blackout), pointed out, "If he [Forest City Ratner VP Jim Stuckey] reopens the CBA, it's an admission that the CBA is incomplete." She said a Neighborhood Benefits Agreement could cut both ways: on the one hand, neighborhoods could complain that they weren't considered "good enough to be part of the community"; on the other hand, groups like the PSCC don't want to revisit the jobs and housing issues that have already been negotiated in the CBA. (Unmentioned was the implication in the CBA, as local African-American activist Bob Law has pointed out, that black Brooklynites care only about benefits, but not about issues like scale and neighborhood character. Note that some 175 entities have been said to have "affirmed" the agreement since its signing, but they include elected officials, restaurants and real-estate agencies, according to the New York Observer's The Real Estate, as well as groups from Queens and Manhattan. The definition of "community" is a contentious issue.)

Denworth described the effort to negotiate a neighborhood agreement as separate from the role of the Council of Brooklyn Neighborhoods (CBN), which is providing community input for the state process of environmental review. The PSCC board authorized its Atlantic Yards Committee to continue discussions and to reach out to other neighborhood organizations to further the idea of a Neighborhood Benefits Agreement.

More challenging requests

In the meeting with Forest City Ratner, along with asking for neighborhood negotiations, the PSCC delegation also asked the developer "to withdraw the threat of eminent domain and limit the project to the property that you already control." There was no indication of assent, and Forest City Ratner, while saying that it aims to minimize the use of eminent domain, likely will have to seek it, as some property owners have said they won't sell their land.

Also, the PSCC group asked the developer--with the help of city, state and borough funds--to hire an urban designer "to engage in a full-fledged community planning process." What kind of designer? "A widely recognized expert, such as Peter Calthorpe, who is designing the Stapleton, Colorado project for Forest City Enterprises, or Jan Gehl, the renowned Danish city planner." Those are interesting choices, since Calthorpe--who focuses on "diverse, mixed-use, and pedestrian friendly" communities--is already working for the corporate parent of Forest City Ratner, and Gehl recently visited Brooklyn and criticized Forest City Ratner's Metro Tech and expressed misgivings over the plan for Atlantic Yards.

Supporters say the Community Benefits Agreement Forest City Ratner signed with eight local groups gives black Brooklynites, including black businesses and professionals, a seat at the table regarding Atlantic Yards. They call it an important step, even if it's "not the best CBA we could have". Critics, however, say the CBA isn't legitimate, noting that only two of the signatories were incorporated at the time, and the low-income group ACORN has recently been severely criticized by some progressives. But behind the support is calculation, and historical anguish, often not vented publicly.

Or you can go to August Wilson, the great American playwright (1945-2005), who finished his one-a-decade cycle of plays set in Pittsburgh's African-American Hill District with his 1990s play, Radio Golf, which debuted earlier this year.

The Hill District is just minutes from downtown; in this play, some black entrepreneurs are planning a federally-funded redevelopment project that will proceed as long as the city determines the neighborhood "blighted" and agrees to knock down houses blocking a new apartment building and national chain stores.Now that's not a direct parallel to Atlantic Yards--residents in the proposed Brooklyn project footprint range from rent-stabilized to much better off, of various ethnicities; Prospect Heights has been gentrifying on its own; developer Forest City Ratner says that, unlike in its malls, chain stores won't be the priority for the project's relatively small retail component. Still, emotional and conceptual resonances remain, especially since several signatories of the Community Benefits Agreement stand to benefit themselves from the project, and some have already done so.

Setting the scene

In one scene early in the play (which appears in the November 2005 issue of American Theatre), real estate developer Harmond Wilks, a candidate for mayor, and his friend and business partner, bank VP Roosevelt Hicks, discuss local powerbroker Bernie Smith's invitation to Roosevelt to join in buying in a local radio station. (The image above is from the production at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles; the one below is from the Seattle Rep production.) Consider Smith a local version of Forest City Ratner president Bruce Ratner.

Harmond: Why's Bernie want to partner with you? What's he get out of this?

Roosevelt: We'll be able to buy the radio station for two-thirds of what it's worth. We buy it at that undervalued price and right out of the gate we're ahead making money.

Harmond: That doesn't make any sense. Why would the owner of the station sellit to you for less than he knows that it's worth. Is the station in debt?

Roosevelt: The seller of the station gets to defer a large portion of his capital-gains taxes by taking advantage of the FCC's Minority Tax Certificate. It's an advantage for him and an advantage for us.

Harmond: So you're the black face? You're just the front?

Roosevelt: Naw, Harmond. Naw. I get to get in the door. Remember in school we used to say we wanted to be in the room when they count the money? You're there already. This is my shot.

Harmond: You'll get in the room. All it takes is some time. You can't let Bernie Smith use you like this.

Roosevelt: This is how you do it! This is how everybody does it. You don't think Mellon has ever been used? We're talking about an eight million dollar radio station! This is the game! I'm at the table! There was a time they didn't let any blacks at the table. You opened the door. You shined the shoes. You served the drinks. And they went in the room and made the deal. I'm in the room! Them motherfuckers who bought and traded them railroads... how do you think they did it? This is business. This is the way it's done in America. I get to walk away with a piece of an asset worth eight million dollars. I don't care if somebody else makes some money 'cause of a tax break. I get mine and they get theirs. I pull this off and next time I'm on the other side of the deal, sitting at the head of the table. Right now I'm sitting here. I'd rather that than to be sitting on the other side of the door. Harmond, I have to take this. This is not going to come along again. The window of opportunity is already starting to close. If I don't do this Bernie will get somebody else.

Hard truths

The key line here is: I don't care if somebody else makes some money 'cause of a tax break. I get mine and they get theirs. That's the question facing local leaders, especially black leaders, and it's not an easy one. Some, like state Assemblyman Roger Green, have chosen to endorse the Forest City Ratner project, calculating that the jobs and affordable housing, however few in comparison to the total project cost and original promises, are still worth delivering to his constituency. (Likely this would be an accomplishment cited in his putative Congressional candicacy.) Columnist Errol Louis, without attempting to assess the public costs of the project, attacks opponents of Atlantic Yards [for having] demonstrated that they couldn’t care less about black businesses or black economic empowerment in Brooklyn or anywhere else.

Others may look at the broader public interest and, like City Council Member Letitia James, declare themselves "unbought and unbossed", quoting the late Shirley Chisholm, the first black woman elected to Congress. Similar calculations likely have been made by the Revs. Herbert Daughtry and Al Sharpton, who support the project, while a larger group led by local clergy, the Downtown Brooklyn Leadership Coalition, opposes the project. Note that Daughtry asserted to the Brooklyn Papers that the DBLC rejected a "good faith" effort by Ratner.

Playwright Suzan-Lori Parks interviewed Wilson in the November 2005 edition of American Theatre magazine. Parks asked Wilson about a metaphor in the play, concerning an old house that would have to be demolished for the project, that also speaks to his playwriting.

Parks: I wonder about the architecture, the renovation in the Hill District in Radio Golf, and the structure of the play. Were they ever at odds? Like, you've got the architecture of the play which has certain demands—and then there's that moment about bread pudding. It's this beautiful digression. That's not part of the traditional structure of a play, kind of like the house on Wylie Avenue, the remnant of something old and powerful. But somehow you have found a place for it. Was the subject matter of Radio Golf ever at odds with what the play has to do?

Wilson: I hope not. I certainly don't think so. For me it had to have a certain smoothness, a different kind of language, like that of my characters Harmond and Roosevelt—but at the same time, we're talking about a 100-year history. So the bread pudding is simply representative of some of those houses that are still standing—the old way, the parts of the community that we're giving up. Miss Harriet, the fried chicken—these are all the things that were part of this Pittsburgh community that are being changed because of this slickness with the new building and Barnes & Noble and Whole Foods and Starbucks, simply to entice middle-class people to move back to the Hill, which is only a four-minute walk from downtown. That's prime real estate, and now what you've got is this slum sitting here. Now if we can get black and white people to move back into this area, we will have reclaimed this prime real estate for a better use. But the bread pudding is saying, "Wait a minute, there's a history here and it doesn't fit in with you guys' stuff." The bread pudding is not part of the traditional structure of the play, but it's part of the structure of this particular community backed up against change.

The New York Times didn't love the play (as produced in New Haven), but in a review published 4/30/05 suggested that it might evolve in future productions. The Los Angeles production got more praise, though Wilson, ill with cancer, probably couldn't tweak the play much. (He died on 10/2/05.)

For those visiting Seattle, it's playing there from January 19 to February 18 of 2006. It likely will come to New York. Even if it does play on Broadway, perhaps the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM)--just around the corner from the proposed Atlantic Yards--could also host a production. (By the way, Bruce Ratner has been a BAM Trustee since 1989 and was the Chairman from 1992 until 2001.) It certainly would have both local and national resonance.

In his latest column in the black-oriented Our Time Press, headlined Atlantic Yards and Black Business Development, Errol Louis attacks me for a "smear" in a recent posting. However, as noted below, he ignores the contradictions in his own writing.

Louis writes:
Oder complains that "the minority-owned engineering firm that will oversee air monitoring and safety requirements during asbestos abatement at several buildings is based in Staten Island, and the minority-owned plumbing company that will disconnect water and sewer lines to the buildings is based in Queens."...Oder is pretending to be concerned that the minority businesses getting in on Atlantic Yards happen not to be based in Brooklyn. In reality, opponents of Atlantic Yards have demonstrated that they couldn’t care less about black businesses or black economic empowerment in Brooklyn or anywhere else.
Last year, for instance, on the busiest shopping day of the year, a group of misguided ministers joined Councilwoman Tish James in an attempted one-day boycott of stores in Atlantic Terminal Mall, which is run by the same developer behind the Atlantic Yards Project. The boycott flopped, but if it had succeeded it might have harmed local residents: of the 1,688 employees who worked in the mall at the time, 81% lived within 5 miles of Atlantic Terminal and 48% within 2 miles.
The pro-boycott people didn’t mind putting other people’s jobs at risk. Today, in much the same way, opponents of Atlantic Yards like Oder seem perfectly willing to attack the idea of development dollars going to black and Latino firms in Queens, Manhattan and Philadelphia. We should all recognize this divide-and-conquer tactic for what it is.
Like most true advocates of black business empowerment, I would be overjoyed to see any minority- or women-owned businesses — from any borough or city — secure contracts and subcontracts as Atlantic Yards develops. Those who truly want to see more development dollars go to local companies should quit complaining, quit trying to hinder the project and put their favorite firms in touch with Forest City Ratner, the project developer.
But don’t expect the antidevelopment complainers to lift a finger to help.

Louis, however, contradicts himself. Here he says he'd "be overjoyed to see any minority- or women-owned businesses — from any borough or city — secure contracts and subcontracts." But in the previous column, he wrote, "At this stage of the game the question should be how and when the dollars will begin flowing into central Brooklyn."

And he seems unwilling to confront an important issue raised in my previous posting. I pointed out that the Community Benefits Agreement was signed by Brooklyn-based groups but seems to benefit many outside Brooklyn. The CBA process raises the question of how to define the “community”: the geographical area? minority groups? African-Americans? And who speaks for that community?

Maybe he needs to go see August Wilson's Radio Golf.

Also note that Louis's figure of 1,688 jobs--which comes from an 11/23/04 Daily News editorial that he likely wrote--seems contradicted by a news story in the 11/9/04 Daily News, in which company spokesman Joe DePlasco, said that the mall "has created a thousand jobs."

As to Louis's calling me "anti-development," let me say that taking a critical stance on the Atlantic Yards project doesn't mean I'm against development; rather, it means that I'm pro-transparency and pro-democracy. Long before I got involved in studying this project (July 2005), I wrote a letter that the Brooklyn Papers published in its 6/19/04 issue (p. 4), which noted: Many of us may welcome a project such as Atlantic Yards, but not on the terms Forest City Ratner has at this point presented.

"Here we are opening ourselves up - tremendous transparency, for two years," Forest City Ratner VP Jim Stuckey told the New York Times in an article published 11/6/05. Then again, the company hasn't been willing to appear at forums where it would face significant criticism.

But there are more basic questions of transparency: when will the company update its Atlantic Yards web site and also post the latest edition of its Brooklyn Standard p.r. sheet? The former has been down for two months. The June/July issue of the Brooklyn Standard is available, but not the Fall issue. (Short answer: I don't know, since a Forest City Ratner PR representative did not respond to my query.)

The web site, at Bball.net, launched in December 2003, is headlined Bring Basketball to Brooklyn, though the Atlantic Yards project is about much more than an arena.It was due for an update. Until an "under construction" notice appeared about two months ago, in early November, the site continued to maintain the December 2003 press releases that promised 10,000 jobs and 4,500 housing units, numbers that have changed dramatically. (For the original web site, go to the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine. Start with the Dec. 17, 2003 iteration, but note that many but not all attached documents are available.)

It also contained architectural sketches from Frank Gehry's office, including this:


They remained on the web site but were made obsolete last July after designs were released to the New York Times (addenda courtesy of Naparstek.com):


New designs are in the works--maybe we'll see them when the web site is revived--as Gehry recently said, "[W]e’ve taken chunks of it away, actually, to bring it down into scale, to integrate it with whatever the existing fabric is there and then finding a way, in brick and metal and glass, maybe precast, a language that can work in that area that’ll feel like a very special place."

As for the Brooklyn Standard, it was launched in mid-June, according to a Forest City Ratner press release, "to keep borough informed about Atlantic Yards project." But again, the project has changed dramatically since June, and the second issue, released in October, contained updated (though, as I noted, incomplete and misleading) information about the project.

But where's the web version of that second issue? Here's a glimpse:
It's not technically difficult to put the issue up on the web. Is it that Forest City Ratner and publisher Manhattan Media are unwilling to post a version with the corrections requested by a contributor whose name was attached to stories he didn't write? It's a lingering question.

It was just part of one sentence in a long news analysis about Mayor Bloomberg's second term, but a New York Times article today contained two errors regarding the Atlantic Yards plan. The 1/2/06 article, headlined A Mayor With Lofty Goals, and Better Than Average Odds of Reaching Them, stated: the fruits of his huge rezoning initiatives along the Brooklyn waterfront and at the Atlantic Yards will not all be realized within four years.

First, there's been no rezoning regarding the Atlantic Yards project and, if the state Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) approves the project, the state would be overriding existing city zoning and allowing the developer to build much higher than previously permitted. As noted in Slam Dunk or Airball? A Preliminary Planning Analysis of the Brooklyn Atlantic Yards Project, a March 2005 by the Pratt Institute Center for Community and Environmental Development (PICCED), the project would avoid city land use rules. The PICCED study (p. 17) describes three sites, from west to east, that would make up the Atlantic Yards project:
The area above the railyards (Site 2), and much of the adjacent land in Prospect Heights is zoned M1-1 (manufacturing). The exceptions lie on lots fronting on Flatbush Avenue and Vanderbilt Avenue. At the intersection of Flatbush and Atlantic Avenue, on Site 1, the corner lots are zoned for commercial development (C6-1). Site 1 also contains a few lots along Flatbush Avenue that are zoned R7-A, for residential use. Residential uses are also permitted along Vanderbilt Avenue, in Site 3, where lots are currently zoned R7-A (see Map 3). Arenas are a special permit use for manufacturing districts, and would require a City Planning Commission review, if built subject to the current zoning (rather than through the authority of the Empire State Development Corporation).

Urban affairs expert Tom Angotti has described the planning process as "all backwards." The three affected community boards have asked, unsuccessfully, that the project be considered under the city’s Uniform Land Use Review Procedure, or ULURP. As the Brooklyn Papers reported in an 3/27/04 article headlined Ratner tower won’t play by city rules:
If the Ratner plan does, as expected, get sponsored by the Empire State Development Corp., it would be held up to much less stringent public review than under the city’s Uniform Land Use Review Procedure. Rather than have its merits debated in at least four public hearings, a state review would only require Ratner’s plan to be publicly scrutinized at an environmental impact hearing under the State Environmental Quality Review Act.

Second, the phrase "at the Atlantic Yards" suggests that it is the name of the railyard that is the single largest piece of Forest City Ratner's planned development--or perhaps the name of some already-existing development parcel. Not so. The proposed development is called "Atlantic Yards," which implies that the 22-acre project would be built solely on the 8.3-acre MTA railyard, without the messy need to turn city streets into controversial superblocks, buy out property owners (as in the Dean Street buildings at right, courtesy of Forgotten NY), and exercise eminent domain. The MTA calls the railyard the Vanderbilt Yard.

Version of this error--"at Atlantic Yards," "in Atlantic Yards," etc.--have appeared in reports from several different newspapers. But it's sloppy shorthand. The press would better describe it as "at the proposed Atlantic Yards" or "the Atlantic Yards project" or "the Brooklyn railyard that would be part of Atlantic Yards" or "the MTA's Brooklyn railyard," etc.

Also, note that the paragraph containing that long sentence is a bit confusing. While it states that "many of [Bloomberg's] goals may not be realized for a decade or more," it also states that "the fruits... at the Atlantic Yards will not all be realized within four years." The latter phrasing could be read to suggest that most in fact would be realized. Given that the project has not yet been approved, and may be subject to litigation that would delay the process, the 2009 opening date for the arena and adjacent towers remains in question. Also, given that the project would be constructed in stages, with a large portion of it finished only by 2016 (according to the current schedule), a majority of the "fruits" may not have appeared by the end of Bloomberg's term.

The far west edge of the proposed Atlantic Yards site was rezoned as part of the Downtown Brooklyn development plan, and then taken out of the Downtown Brooklyn plan since that plan went through the city's Uniform Land Use Review Process (ULURP). As the Brooklyn Papers reported, in a 5/1/04 story headlined Downtown Plan overhaul: Other changes announced by the planning commission Monday included cutting out a portion of the plan area that overlaps with developer Bruce Ratner’s Atlantic Yards development, a triangular lot at the intersection of Flatbush and Atlantic avenues where Ratner would build the tallest of his Frank Gehry-designed towers, a 620-foot-tall skyscraper that would be the tallest building in the borough.