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http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/16/ny...1&ref=nyregion
Appeals Court Dismisses Suit Against Atlantic Yards

By CHARLES V. BAGLI
Published: May 15, 2009

An hour after learning that a state appeals court had dismissed a major challenge to his long-delayed Atlantic Yards development project, the developer Bruce C. Ratner said he planned to break ground by October on an $800 million basketball arena for the New Jersey Nets in Brooklyn.

The 20,000-seat arena is only one piece of a proposed 22-acre development at the intersection of Flatbush and Atlantic Avenues that would include an office tower and more than 6,000 apartments, including as many as 2,250 for low- and middle-income families.

Given the anemic economy, the housing and the commercial building may have to wait for some time. But Mr. Ratner said he planned to complete the design for the arena, obtain final government approvals and issue the bonds for the project by fall.

“I’m honestly overjoyed,” Mr. Ratner, chief executive of Forest City Ratner Companies, said of the court decision, made on Tuesday and released on Friday. “This is a weight off my back.”

Opponents of Atlantic Yards vowed to continue their fight and expressed skepticism that Mr. Ratner would get the financing at a time when lenders are refusing to invest in real estate projects. The opposition has yet to win a lawsuit, but it has delayed the project for more than two years.

In its unanimous decision, the Appellate Division of State Supreme Court, Second Judicial Department, upheld a lower court ruling rejecting a challenge to the state’s use of eminent domain to obtain properties for the developer from owners unwilling to sell. “It cannot be said that the public benefits which the Atlantic Yards project is expected to yield are incidental or pretextual in comparison to the benefit that will be bestowed upon the project’s private developer,” the ruling said.

Candace Carponter, the legal director for one of the opponents, Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn, expressed disappointment but not defeat. “The benefits the original project allegedly offered were negligible, at best, and with the changed economy they are now nonexistent,” she said in a statement. “Despite this setback, our fight against the improper use of eminent domain and against the Atlantic Yards project is far from over. Forest City Ratner may claim again, like the boy who cried wolf, that they will break ground soon. But they won’t.”

Although the developer has demolished 35 buildings on the site, all work ceased in December. Developers throughout the city have found it nearly impossible to finance new projects, or have watched helplessly as lenders pulled out of developments in progress.

“The reality is that it’s a tough financing market,” said Marc Ganis, a sports business consultant who worked on the new Yankee Stadium deal. “It’ll cost more and there’ll be more restrictions. That said, I expect they’ll get it done. They already have contracts for substantial income.”

Barclays Bank has signed a $20 million-a-year deal with the Nets for naming and advertising rights at the arena, which would be called the Barclays Center. Although many companies have backed away from sponsorships as retail sales have plummeted, Forest City Ratner said it had lined up eight other sponsors: MetroPCS, ADT, Anheuser-Busch, Cushman & Wakefield, EmblemHealth, Foxwoods Resort Casino, the Jones Soda Company and Phillips-Van Heusen.

The Nets, on the other hand, reported a pretax loss of $77.8 million for the year that ended Jan. 31. The developer hopes to move the team to Brooklyn from its current home at the Izod Center in New Jersey.

Forest City Ratner, which was the development partner for the new Midtown headquarters for The New York Times Company, may also benefit from the economic slowdown, which has substantially reduced the cost of construction materials.

In the last six months, Mr. Ratner has sought additional subsidies beyond the $300 million in cash and tens of millions in tax breaks already approved for the project. He has also said he wants to pare the projected $1 billion cost of the arena by about $200 million. He said he would decide within 60 days whether to keep the original design, by the architect Frank Gehry, or use another.

He said he hoped to erect the first residential building six to nine months after starting the arena.

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Bradley Wants Nets to Play in Newark, Not Brooklyn - City Room Blog - NYTimes.com
May 18, 2009, 5:32 pm

Bradley Wants Nets to Play in Newark, Not Brooklyn

By Joe Brescia


Chip Somodevilla/Reuters

Bill Bradley represented New Jersey in the Senate from 1979 to 1997.

Add Bill Bradley, the former Knicks star and United States senator from New Jersey, to the list of skeptics regarding the planned 18,000-seat basketball arena that is to be a centerpiece of the Atlantic Yards development near Downtown Brooklyn.

Mr. Bradley, who sought the Democratic nomination for president in 2000, said in a recent interview that he supports efforts by Mayor Cory A. Booker of Newark to lure a professional sports team there. Mr. Bradley believes that the Nets, who currently play in the Izod Center in East Rutherford, N.J., can play in the Prudential Arena, the home of the Devils.

Mr. Bradley noted that the controversial Atlantic Yards project, which would include apartments, offices, stores along with the arena, has been delayed as a result of the economic downturn.

“Maybe it takes something like that to bring people to their senses,” he said of the stalled Brooklyn project. “They don’t belong in Brooklyn. They belong in New Jersey. They belong here.”

The developer Bruce C. Ratner, who is behind the Atlantic Yards project, faces a deadline to make headway on the project. By the end of the year, he must begin construction of the arena to qualify for tax-exempt bond financing, according to an Internal Revenue Service ruling. To take effect, a 20-year naming-rights deal with Barclay’s, the British bank, also requires him to begin construction of the arena by year’s end.

Mr. Bradley, 65, is now a managing director at Allen & Company, an investment bank in New York. In the interview, he said that he was not interested in returning to basketball in any capacity and that he had no plans to re-enter politics.

Asked if he would accept a government position if President Obama offered him one, Bradley said no. “I’m a fan of President Obama, but I’m happy with what I’m doing now,” he said.

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Job hungry hardhats jeer opponents at debate over Atlantic Yards
Job hungry hardhats jeer opponents at debate over Atlantic Yards

BY Jotham Sederstrom
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Saturday, May 30th 2009, 4:00 AM


Egan-Chin/News

Image of a model of architect Frank Gehry's Atlantic Yards. The project is still in development.


Appleton/News

The still empty 'Yards' site prompted construction workers to voice their impatience.

A public hearing on the controversial Atlantic Yards project spun out of control Friday as hundreds of job-hungry union laborers repeatedly shouted down opponents of the building plan.

Most of the 200 seats at a Pratt University auditorium in Brooklyn were filled early by boisterous workers who support the project because of the 17,000 jobs developer Forest City Ratner has said it would create.

"I think if we could eliminate some of the whistling and shouting ..." the event organizer, said state Sen. Bill Perkins, only to be interrupted by a new round of jeers.

"Go home, Bill!" several workers shouted at Perkins, whose district is in Harlem. "I live here! Bill, go home!"

The five-hour hearing was called by Perkins and other state senators to determine the status of the delayed $4.2 billion project, which is being reevaluated by designers in a bid to cut costs.

As it stands, the plan is expected to include a professional basketball arena for the New Jersey Nets and 16 residential and office towers.

Officials from several city agencies testified during the four-hour informational hearing, as did supporters and opponents of the plan.

But it was the laborers who stole the show.

At one point, the hearing veered completely off track when state Sen. Velmanette Montgomery (D-Brooklyn), a critic of the plan, berated fellow Sen. Marty Golden (R-Brooklyn) for showing up late.

That prompted workers to erupt in jeers in a show of support for Golden, who backs the 22-acre project.

"It's called frustration," Golden said later of the laborers' reaction. "These guys want the jobs that were promised, and they let that be heard today."

He took a swipe at Montgomery's "misplaced anger," saying, "she's the one who's been holding this project hostage for so long."

jsederstrom@nydailynews.com

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http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/05/ny...ehry.html?_r=1
Developer Drops Gehry’s Design for Brooklyn Arena

By CHARLES V. BAGLI
Published: June 4, 2009


Gehry Partners

A 2006 version of Frank Gehry’s design for the Nets arena and Atlantic Yards in Brooklyn.


Ellerbe Becket

The new design for the Nets arena by Ellerbe Becket, an architectural firm based in Kansas City, Mo.

Citing financial concerns, the developer of the long-delayed Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn has scrapped plans for a Frank Gehry-designed $1 billion glass-walled basketball arena for the Nets in favor of a less expensive arena.

The new design, which will cost about $200 million less, comes from Ellerbe Becket, an architectural firm based in Kansas City, Mo., that specializes in convention centers, stadiums and arenas and designed Conseco Fieldhouse in Indianapolis, where the Indiana Pacers play. Officials who have seen the design say that while it resembles Conseco Fieldhouse it also bears a likeness to an “airplane hangar.”

The developer of Atlantic Yards, Bruce C. Ratner, the chief executive of Forest City Ratner, scrapped Mr. Gehry’s plans primarily for economic reasons. The arena is the centerpiece of a $4 billion development that has been hobbled by lawsuits, a recession and its own ambitious goal to build 6,400 apartments, 40 percent of which would be reserved for low- to middle-income families.

Mr. Ratner, whose project won a major court victory over opponents to Atlantic Yards last month, is racing to pare costs and start construction of the 20,000-seat arena by the end of the year, when his right to use tax-exempt financing expires. Officially, the developer says the Nets will move to Brooklyn from the New Jersey Meadowlands for the 2011 season.

“The current economic climate is not right for this design,” Mr. Ratner said of the Gehry design in a statement released Thursday afternoon, “and with Frank’s understanding, the arena is undergoing a redesign that will make it more limited in scope.”

Mr. Ratner has said he is eager to get started with what he says will be a world-class project.

Mr. Gehry, the award-winning architect behind the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles and the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, added that while he regretted the demise of his arena design, he remained “extremely proud of our work on the Atlantic Yards master plan and on the original arena.”

The switch met with the approval of David Stern, the commissioner of the National Basketball Association, who said that Ellerbe Becket had designed “some of the finest sports and entertainment venues in the world.”

If the arena is built, however, it will most likely take more than two years to complete. Unlike the Gehry design, the new arena would not accommodate a professional hockey team.

Mr. Gehry remains the master planner for the 22-acre development, at the intersection of Atlantic and Flatbush Avenues. But in a concession to the collapsing real estate markets, the developer has delayed most of the housing and a proposed office tower. In an interview last month, Mr. Ratner said that he planned to start the first residential tower, which would contain a large percentage of units for low-, moderate- and middle-income families, about six months after work begins on the arena.

With projects across the city slowed or scuttled by the recession, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and Gov. David A. Paterson are eager to push Atlantic Yards forward. But Mr. Ratner has also opened himself up to criticism by scuttling Mr. Gehry’s design in favor of a less glamorous arena and delaying the office tower and much of the housing, while modifying other elements of the development.

“The current Atlantic Yards plan bears increasingly less resemblance to the project that was approved in 2006,” said Vin Cipolla, the president of the Municipal Art Society. “The replacement of Gehry further reduces the public benefits of the project, which urgently needs re-evaluation and oversight.”

Atlantic Yards emerged late in 2003 when Mr. Ratner bought the Nets for $300 million and announced plans to move the team to Brooklyn. Although he was not a basketball fan, Mr. Ratner saw the arena as a lever for a much larger development of housing, parks and office space directly across from a major transit center.

Forest City Ratner, which was the development partner for the Midtown headquarters for The New York Times Company, has had to contend with vigorous opposition led by a group called Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn, which has challenged what it said was the oversized nature of the development and the state’s plan to condemn private property on behalf of Mr. Ratner.

The city’s building boom has fallen silent during two years of litigation, and financing for real estate projects is hard to come by. Last year, Mr. Ratner said that the development of the area would be slower than once promised, because of the recession.

The developer is under pressure to get government approval for changes to the development’s master plan and to start the arena by December, before he loses the ability to use tax-exempt bonds. Mr. Ratner must also hold together a group of corporate advertisers at a time when companies are trying to shed those kind of financial obligations.

His 20-year, $400 million deal for the arena’s naming rights with Barclays Bank also expires at the end of the year. He has secured an additional $100 million in sponsorship and advertising deals with eight companies, including Anheuser-Busch and Foxwoods, and is expected to announce another major deal next week.

On June 24, Mr. Ratner plans to go before the boards of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and the Empire State Development Corporation for changes to the approved plan for the development. Instead of making an upfront payment of $100 million to the transit authority for a nine-acre railyard that is part of Atlantic Yards, Mr. Ratner is asking the authority to accept a $20 million down payment, while he delays construction of a permanent replacement railyard for at least several years.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/24/ny...l?ref=nyregion
M.T.A. Sells Naming Rights to Subway Station

By MICHAEL M. GRYNBAUM
Published: June 23, 2009

Selling the name of a subway station has been a goal of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority for nearly five years. But interest has been low, even for a piece of real estate so recognizable to the public.

So it was with surprisingly little fanfare that the authority announced on Monday that it had finally found a buyer.

If a $4 million deal is approved on Wednesday, the nexus of subway stops at Atlantic Avenue, Pacific Street and Flatbush Avenue in Downtown Brooklyn will add an additional name to its already lengthy title: Barclays.

This may seem odd, since Barclays is a bank based in London with offices in Manhattan, and the only Barclay Street on the city map is not even in Brooklyn. (It’s in Manhattan, in the financial district.)

There will, however, soon be a Barclays Center, the sports arena planned as the focal point of the Atlantic Yards project, and the developer, Forest City Ratner, has agreed to pay the transportation authority $200,000 a year for the next 20 years to rename one of the oldest and busiest stations in the borough.

This raises a few questions. An academic might talk of the intersection between public and private space. A straphanger may ask how all those names can fit into one announcement.

And if a company can pay to get its name on any station, a New Yorker might wonder what’s next: Coca-Cola Presents 59th Street-Columbus Circle?

The answer is maybe. Once upon a time, geographic relevance determined a station’s name, but now, the authority says it is open to any naming agreements that can raise revenue for its transit system, including ones not directly tied to location.

“It’s always a question of balancing our need for revenue and our stewardship of public space,” said Jeremy Soffin, a spokesman for the agency. Advertising may make the most sense for a company associated with a station, he said, “but we’re not closing anything out.”

And the Barclays deal has defenders on the authority’s governing board.

“It’s not like Taco Bell saying it wants Grand Army Plaza or something like that,” said John H. Banks III, a board member since 2004.

Would Mr. Banks oppose that idea?

“A year and a half ago? Yeah,” he said. “Tomorrow? No.”

Still, while selling station names could bring the authority revenue it needs, advertising experts say companies may not be as well-served.

“To be effective, the viewer needs to understand the relevance of the ad,” said Allen Adamson of Landor, a branding firm. “To rename the 59th and Lex stop the McDonald’s stop — it ain’t going to work. I don’t think it will stick.”

Indeed, other cities have tried this with little success. Boston, for example, tried auctioning off four historic stations a few years ago and received no bids. Though Citigroup paid $400 million to sponsor the new Mets stadium in Queens, the company refused to pay the authority to rename the stop nearby, which is now known as Mets/Willets Point.

To determine its asking price for the Brooklyn station, the authority studied a few successful efforts, like a monorail in Las Vegas named for Nextel, the communications company, and streetcars in Tampa, Fla., named for a local electric utility. And the popularity of the station — the second-busiest in Brooklyn last year — was taken into account.

“It’s grounded in reasonable business practices,” Mr. Banks said. “Obviously Van Siclen on a No. 2 is not going to be as valuable to a corporate entity as Atlantic Avenue.”

The station name change is scheduled for the opening of the arena, timed for 2012. The exact punctuation of the new station name has yet to be determined, the authority said, although hyphens or slashes are likely to be used. New signage would be paid for by Forest City Ratner, and the authority plans to introduce the revised name gradually in maps and timetables after the arena opens.

A few New York businesses contacted on Tuesday said they were not interested in a piece of the underground. Zabar’s, the Upper West Side food emporium, said it was not interested in the 79th Street station. Macy’s said a sponsorship deal at 34th Street was not in the cards.

And straphangers at the Atlantic Avenue station like Nick Desio, 53, a Citigroup employee who commutes from Long Island, said names were beside the point.

“They can call it anything they want, as long as my train’s on time,” he said.

Ethan Wilensky-Lanford contributed reporting.

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