July 7, 2005
Unexpected Bid for Atlantic Railyards
Clearly, the new kind of excitement and titillation in New York City is not downtown or in some underground sex trade - it's at MTA railyard auctions! The Extell Development Company made a surprise bid for the Atlantic Rail Yards where Bruce Ratner wants to build a Frank Gehry-designed Nets arena and skyscraper complex. Extell's bid promises to be a much smaller development: Skyscrapers would be 28 floors, versus the possible 60 floors in Ratner's plan; housing would be for 4,800 people, versus Ratner's housing for a projected 18,000; and there is room for a school, but no sports complex. And this bid doesn't require $200 million in state and city subsidies and would be completed in 2009, two years before the Ratner plan. Extell got involved when community groups opposed to Ratner's plans approached them and the Post notes that the firm is "positioning itself as a community-friendly alternative to Ratner, claiming its bid would not require the seizure of any private real estate, as Ratner's would." That is as community friendly as you can get: "We're not forcing you out of your homes." Neither Extell nor Ratner's Forest City Ratner group will reveal how much their bids were for. Let's say the Extell bid proves successful; what about all the buildings Ratner has purchased in the area? Would Extell need to buy them from him? MTA Chairman Peter Kalikow - you're in the catbird seat once again.
Extell's president Gary Barnett has clashed with Ratner before: He sued the NY Times over land Extell owned at 8th Avenue between 40th and 41st Streets - where Ratner is building the new NY Times building. Extell, with The Carlyle Group, purchased a $1.7 billion piece of West Side land from Donald Trump's group last month.
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Thank God a developer stepped up to provide an alternate plan for the Atlantic Yards. Ratner is a modern Robert Moses--he has no sense of proportion, no sense of community.
I have lived in Brooklyn my entire life, and I can't imagine living elsewhere. But should Ratner prevail, my home borough will forever be destroyed. I think that Manhattan-sized projects should be left in Manhattan.
Joe
great, just another trite and unoriginal project - why didn't they get an architect of the caliber to come up with a design that would, even if smaller in scope, at least rival those of ghery? this plan looks just seems to be a continuation of the dull architecture that defines the high rise buildings in the borough--from the countless identical housing projects to the jehova witness buildings in DUMBO. if it's going to be smaller, fine, but jesus, come up with something interesting.
I'm sorry, but it still looks the the Great Wall of Brooklyn.
Frank Gehry, Frank Gehry, Frank Gehry...I am so sick of hearing about this guy.
Then maybe you should start living under a rock, Eddie.
i'm with jesus. brooklyn developers have an awful track record. that atlantic center mall is a cobbled mess of the cheapest materials. look at those arches... the spans aren't even consistent. and that pile of prefab junk they just built over the train station... brooklyn deserves thoughtful design and pride in craftsmanship, not these vertical strip malls and cul de sacs.
and miss out on all the fun news?!..get real, Frank Gehry is here to stay.
aren't those all projects, section 8 & low-income housing on the left side of Atlantic Ave there where all those new buildings are going up?
Looks like a string of boxcars. People don't want to be loaded like cattle into a 1970's style urban plan like this. Gehry should win. If people don't want to sell their buildings then the whole thing should be called off.
The problem, bob, is that people can be forced to give up their property for what is actually not good for the community. I like that this plan only uses the rail yard areas, leaving the residential blocks alone. It doesn't matter if the buildings look boring. It matters if they work well. All buildings go out of style sooner or later -- Gehry's context-insensitive monsters go sooner than most.
Is there someplace we can vote on this? I live in Brooklyn. I want a vote.
Vote? Democracy - hah, that's a good one.
So Brooklyn should be happy with a carbon-copy of what Frank Gehry has been slapping up for 15-odd years now? Given the fact that Extell was given all of 7 weeks to throw their bid together, it's a wonder that they even had time to produce a model at all. Of course, the MTA wouldn't want a real bidding process when they could just force working people to pay higher fares.
OassisNY said it best. Gehry came up with an "undulating" obnoxious mess over a two year period.
What Extell has shown is an early stage model done in a few weeks. the architectural design isn't there yet as far as I can tell.
give it some time to flesh it self out.
leaving the neighborhood intact should be primary. and the Extell plan wouuld go through ULURP where architectural issues would be worked out.
42 days for bid submission, is ludicrous and irresponsible of that thug Kalikow. ESPECIALLY when he's been sitting on Bruce Ratner's lap for at least 2 years.
i live in prospect hieghts too, but i don't want a vote. 'democratizing' projects like this would only paralyze them. we'd end up with the lowest common denominator. i'd rather have community leaders who can make wise decisions free of corruption and who will listen to the honest concerns of the people they represent. that's how democracy works in the real world.
logan, your world already exists in eastern europe. plenty of boring, functional apartment blocks there that have no style whatsoever. see why it does matter what they look like? and you're wrong, true architecture never goes out of style... name one celebrated architect of gehry's stature who's work is 'out'.
After years of traffic congestion and driving delays on the Alantic Ave. Mall we are now told that an even larger area of our neighborhood will be a nightmare of traffic jams for more than four years.And would someone please tell me where the owners of the 18,000 cars coming into the area to these games will park? And what about the tenants of these 60 story buildings will park.The plans call for a parking garage with a capacity of only 5,000 cars...
My wife and I are new home owners and to think that our investment could be harmed by a project of this size makes us ill...