Whither the Yards?

It’s another defining week for the Atlantic Yards. On Wednesday, the 8 million square-foot project faces one of its last hurdles: approval by the Public Authorities Control Board, the state oversight body that monitors Albany’s fiscal commitments to projects like the Yards. PACB votes have derailed large-scale projects before, most notably last year when Assembly speaker Sheldon Silver and Joseph Bruno, the Senate majority leader, killed the West Side Stadium plan. Of course, it’s no secret how Pataki, who also has a vote, will go.

The NY Times zeroes in on Silver. While the Assembly speaker generally has supported the project, he has questioned the project’s financing. As the Times points out, Albany can be tricky for pols like Silver, with their obscure motivations. First, he has sparred publicly with Empire State Development Corporation head Charles Gargano, who has boosted the project from the get-go (Gargano hinted that Silver was crooked and Silver called Gargano’s tenure “a dismal failure.”). Second, Silver may want to deny Pataki a legacy project. Third, Silver has to deal with special interests.

We think most of the above theories are a stretch. Silver would lose face if he killed a project for petty reasons – he needs numbers to back up a no vote. So we wonder whether last week’s Atlantic Yards Report revelation that the project’s projected sales and income tax revenues have dropped by almost one-third (from $1.4 billion to $944 million) will influence his vote. There's more on the revenue debacle – attributable, some say, to the project’s recent drop in commercial square footage - here and here.

Meanwhile, New York magazine lists Develop Don’t Destroy’s Daniel Goldstein - David to Ratner’s Goliath – as one of its “Reasons to Love New York Now.” Goldstein bought a condo at 636 Pacific Street in 2003, around the time when Brooklynites began hearing drizzles of the stadium plan. Goldstein’s spent the past few years trying to stop the project, most recently in the form of a lawsuit which seeks to foil Ratner on the theory that his taking of private property for public use (via eminent domain) is unconstitutional.

And, finally, following yesterday’s City section story on light pollution activist Susan Harder, the NY Sun has an opinion piece on the extensive illuminated signage planned for Atlantic and Flatbush avenues. The signs, up to 15 stories (or 150 feet), will be bright and may feature moving images. Per Michael Gruen, a lawyer who serves on the Municipal Art Society's Streetscape Committee, "One may infer from the murky design guidelines – which prohibit advertising but define advertising as promotion only of goods and services located outside of Atlantic Yards – that the signs may advertise anything from beer to undies, so long as the goods are sold anywhere within the project area.” Atlantic Yards Report's Oder says the proposed signage is reminiscent of Times Square. Proponents of the project say the signs will be opaque and transparent - and will have little appreciable environmental impact. We shall, um, see.

So what’s your take? Will the the PACB vote yay or nay? How will Silver stand and why? Will Goldstein lose his condo or prevail over Ratner? And will Brooklyn be all lit up?

Contact the author of this article or email tips@gothamist.com with further questions, comments or tips.

By Jill Priluck in News on December 18, 2006 1:08 PM

Comments [rss]

EricGewiz

I never said I wanted to put up brownstones....I just dont think skyscrapers and an arena are the answer...

kevin bracken

the ads are going to be hideous. i can definitely get behind every other point in this plan, although fewer parking spots would be okay, but the giant illuminated billboards just aren't right for the 'hood, even supersized.

Toby

My money is on Shelly Silver putting the kibosh on it, as he has done with the Jets Stadium and several other projects.

There is a perfectly good arena being built in Newark that the Nets can play in, but who really wants to watch a bunch of thugs in their underwear?

anonymous

Dear nimbys: the whole premise of your arguments don't work. If this were such a dream site, then why would only 2 bona fide developers actually take a run at it? Your collective-fantasy-land notion of putting up more brownstones on a deck that will cost a gazillion dollars to build, doesn't make sense.

#9: "many viable streets and neighborhoods"? Give me a break. Its primarily a train yard. This is going to create thousands of other apartments where there were mere dozens before.

EricGewiz

Keep in mind here, the Dodgers weren't allowed to play here, so suddenly, this is the right place/time for a sports team to set up shop. The surrounding area wasn't derelict then, and it isn't now.

Building towers is one thing (which, to me, seems antiethetical to the character of the surrounding neighborhoods); but the arena absolutely doens't fit.

the transit hug at Atlantic is already pretty crowded, not fill that in with game nights; or nights when other events, like concerts, take place in the arena. They keep saying the arena and the surrounding area will only be effected on game nights, but a buidling of this sort will be used for more often thatn 41 nights a year for Nets home games.

Perry

#6 - The "multiplier effect" that is so often used to back up estimates of how much stadia will benefit local economies are speculative at best. The disposable dollars spent on the Nets would likely have been spent on the Knicks or at bars, restaurants or clubs or any number of other uses in the city.

Instead, many viable neighborhoods and streets will be demolished in orer to hand the Nets ownership hundreds of millions of dollars in a public handout. If thats not a backwards redistribution of wealth, I don't know what is.

Lastly, i'd like you to walk around that corner of Prospect Heights and Park Slope and tell me that its in fact, derelict. About the only "derelict" piece would be the yards themselves, which are only being used as a tool in order to land grab the surrounding neighborhood for 50's style urban renewal.

Three cheers for progress...

etmthree

What the "nimbys" object to is a developer lining his pockets with our tax dollars, while simultaneously gaming the system to shut out meaningful debate over the future of a neighborhood where people already live.

BTW, the jobs and income for the area will be much more than offset by servicing the (public) debt for the project and the massive infrastructural additions it requires.

dsf

Its a done deal. Money talks, and the government listens.

anonymous

What the nimbys fail to address is simple: a largely derelict area is being developed which will create jobs (temporary and permanent), income for the area that is not there now, 2500 units of affordable housing as well as market-rate housing.

The nimbys create nothing here. They simply want their 15 minutes and raise the cost to live here.

etmthree

So the signs will be "opaque and transparent"? This makes sense how?

Perry

The Government is not a real estate developer, nor should it try to be one.

If the Nets want a Brooklyn home, more power to them to buy some land and build one on their own dime, much like people in almost every other business are forced to do when they want to relocate.

clyde

when he first announced the project ratner claimed 6 billion dollars in projected revenue. then it was reduced to 1.5 billion and most recently less than a billion.

R

You can email Assemblyman Silver via his web page:

http://assembly.state.ny.us/mem/?ad=064

And it's the responsibility of all concerned New Yorkers to write him and weigh in. He -- and the rest of our officials -- were elected by all of us, and he works for our interests, not those of Bruce Ratner et al.

EricGewiz

Everything in this project has changed every few months. The project is basically the antithesis of the character of the neighborhoods it would border. It's a shame that this massive, obtrusive project appears close to being approved.

Keep in mind, for all those people, it took them almost 2 years to agree to build just one school.