Development Agency Is Losing Its President
By Charles V. Bagli

Avi Schick, president of the state’s economic development agency, which is in the midst of a political overhaul, will step down in September.
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Mr. Schick, who has also served as acting chief executive since March, plans to rejoin the private sector in September
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After Mr. Spitzer was elected governor, Mr. Schick moved to the Empire State Development Corporation, becoming its president. He was responsible for the state’s role in rebuilding Lower Manhattan, as well as Governors Island, and the Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn, Columbia University’s expansion plan for Manhattanville and the Brooklyn Bridge project.

Not Mr. Gehry's neighbourhood?
A Frank Gehry-designed arena complex in Brooklyn is a target in New Yorkers's favourite blood sport - real estate

By now, surely, Frank Gehry is inured to the revulsion of others. After wrestling with the Spanish over his whimsical Guggenheim Bilbao museum, with Angelenos over his blindingly reflective Walt Disney Concert Hall, with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology over leaks in a $300-million complex he designed there, and with his own neighbours over his chain-link-fence-adorned house in Santa Monica, the 79-year-old Canadian-born architect is now one of the primary targets of community activists over the gargantuan Atlantic Yards development in downtown Brooklyn, of which he is the chief architect.

Conceived more than four years ago when developer Bruce Ratner purchased the New Jersey Nets and announced his intention to move them to Brooklyn, Atlantic Yards was envisioned as an instant neighbourhood: a 16-building, nine-hectare complex that would throw down an 18,000-seat basketball arena, thousands of luxury condos, low-income housing, and eight office towers.

The only problem was, there was already a neighbourhood there.
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When Atlantic Yards was first announced, it had an estimated price tag of $2.5-billion; that has since ballooned to $4-billion, almost one-quarter of which, an eye-popping $950-million, is allocated to the arena alone. This spring, when Forest City Ratner, the developer's company, admitted it was considering radical changes to help get the project back on track, the Times' influential architecture critic Nicolai Ouroussoff, who had initially been a champion, suggested Gehry was being reduced to the role of a name-brand fig leaf and should walk away rather than compromise on his vision...

State Development Agency Buffeted by Slowing Economy and Internal Rifts
New York Times. CHARLES V. BAGLI

For more than a year, the state’s main economic development agency, the Empire State Development Corporation, has been in disarray, plagued by turf battles, poor management and the political collapse of Gov. Eliot Spitzer, business leaders and state officials say.
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A co-chairman of the development corporation, Patrick J. Foye, was one of the first officials to lose his job when Gov. David A. Paterson took over in March. Mr. Paterson has yet to nominate someone to run the agency.

Moreover, the governor has sent conflicting messages, preaching fiscal austerity while suggesting that the state can move forward on a host of costly projects, including the Second Avenue subway, the extension of the No. 7 line, the $14 billion redevelopment of the West Side railyards, the $14 billion Penn Station project and the $4 billion Atlantic Yards basketball arena and residential complex in Brooklyn.

A senior adviser to Mr. Paterson rejected the idea that the administration had sent mixed messages, saying the governor would not commit to projects that the state cannot afford. The official, who was not authorized to be quoted by name, also said the administration planned to release plans for revamping the agency. As part of that overhaul, Mr. Paterson will eliminate one of Mr. Spitzer’s more contentious innovations: dividing the corporation’s leadership into downstate and upstate leaders.

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Billionaire Land Grab Crashes
The Indypendent

Bruce Ratner’s $4 billion, 22-acre, 16-skyscraper Atlantic Yards proposal is in jeopardy due to a perfect storm: turmoil in the credit markets, the demise of the real estate boom, the astronomical increases in construction material costs, a lack of available tax-free housing subsidies, relentless community opposition and vigorous state and federal litigation.

Ratner’s dream of carrying out the largest development plan by a single developer in New York City’s history is on the precipice of failure. Despite this, the Empire State Development Corporation lets Ratner continue his scorched-earth demolition tactics. They continue the charade that the project that had been approved can still be built. It can’t.

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...Yesterday's tour offered a glimpse of the planned Brooklyn arena's plush seats, kitchen facilities and pool table in a mock luxury box, with digital displays of the sightlines from each suite.

It also included a four-minute video about Frank Gehry's design for the venue, whose renderings were shown with pictures of such icons as the Eiffel Tower in Paris and the Coliseum in Rome...

..."We've been saying that Brooklyn has been real for years, and it is real, but this truly is another validation for us," Chief Executive Officer Brett Yormark said during a media tour of the sales office, which includes a 500-square-foot replica of one of the 130 luxury suites at the proposed $950 million Barclays Center...

Bergen Record

The Nets kicked off sales Thursday of a portion of their luxury suites for the proposed Barclays Center, which they hope to open in Brooklyn by the end of 2010. Some seating facts:

64 "Level A" luxury suites, priced at $190,000 to $450,000

54 "Level B" luxury suites, priced at $155,000 to $400,000

12 Court-level "bunker" suites, priced at $540,000

3,200 Premium "club" seats, price not set but probably more than $150 per game

2,000 Upper-level seats for $15

link

NoLandGrab: Interesting that the Nets also remembered to promote the promised 2,000 $15 seats. Those, of course, won't be on sale for a very long time. Most likely, though, they'll be available much, much sooner than any of the units listed below.

Click to enlarge.

Suites go on sale, timing unquestioned, ticket prices rise, parking prized

...Another element of the FAQ addressed parking:
Q. Where will I park as a Suiteholder at the Barclays Center?
A. You will have a reserved spot within a one to two block radius from the premium entrance. Important to note that our parent company controls parking both on the Arena site and surrounding areas that will enable us to deliver the most convenient parking access possible to our suite customers.

Remember, one of the rationales for this arena is that it would be at a major transit hub. But the rich aren't expected to take public transit, apparently.

...Nets President Brett Yormark says the amenities [of the arena's luxury skyboxes) are [to] be a big draw.

YORMARK: Cork floors, induction burners. No more chafing dishes with fire underneath. So a little bit of technology there. Frank Gehry designed lighting fixtures...

An open letter to NYT Public Editor Clark Hoyt about the paper's curious AY silence

Dear Mr. Hoyt,

If you read other newspapers in New York, you would’ve noticed that there was a lot of Atlantic Yards-related news last week. If you followed the story online, you would’ve learned even more.

That’s why any consumer of media in New York should be disappointed by the New York Times’s failure to publish a word about Atlantic Yards in the past week. Not only is it a major story for the city and region, the Times, given the parent New York Times Company’s business relationship with developer Forest City Ratner, developing the new Times Tower, has a special obligation to be exacting in its coverage...

City Revisits Old Bidders After Railyards Deal Fails

...“These deals are breaking down because the governance system for authorities doesn’t work and because the public subsidies are out of control,” said Mr. Brodsky, a Democrat from Westchester. “We need a time out before this disaster repeats itself everywhere else.”...

Full article

So, who's #77 on the Observer's 100 most powerful people in NY real estate list?

According to the New York Observer's quite arbitrary list of the 100 Most Powerful People in New York Real Estate, Bruce Ratner is #8, Frank Gehry is #51, and I am number #77.

While the listing is flattering, I can't say they have me convinced. For example, Charles Bagli, the veteran real estate/development reporter for the New York Times--and formerly at the Observer--does not appear on the list and he's way more powerful than I am. (Despite my criticisms of his AY coverage, he's a very able reporter.) And I am not more powerful than Nicolai Ouroussoff, the Times's architecture critic, at #85, nor Assemblyman Richard Brodsky, chair of the Assembly's Committee on Corporations, Authorities and Commissions, at #89; he has the power to grill public officials. And where's Julia Vitullo-Martin of the Manhattan Institute, a savvy and provocative commentator?
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The Observer on Ratner

8 Bruce Ratner

Chairman of Forest City Ratner Companies

The leader of what is perhaps New York’s most high-profile development, the controversy magnet Atlantic Yards, Bruce Ratner is one of the most active developers in the city, often pursuing large, publicly administered projects. He’s recently taken a liking to famous architects, ensuring that his developments leave a notable impression on the skyline.

The Observer on Gehry

51 Frank Gehry

Owner of Gehry Partners LLP

If Bruce Ratner is right, and his 16-skyscraper-and-arena Atlantic Yards project comes to fruition, Mr. Gehry, its designer, will alter Brooklyn’s aesthetic as we know it. If, however, it continues to stumble … Well, just ask the Municipal Arts Society, which recently put out some ugly renderings to that effect.

The Observer on AYR

77 Norman Oder

Journalist/Blogger, Atlantic Yards Report

The Park Slope-based Norman Oder runs a one-man, one-topic journalistic operation that brings a constant stream of mostly critical articles on Atlantic Yards. His presence appears to have propelled attention and criticism of the project now 17 months since approval.

In Yonkers, the feds investigate aspects of Ratner's Ridge Hill deal
Atlantic Yards Report

What critics consider a sweetheart deal regarding Atlantic Yards hasn't provoked investigation into any wrongdoing. It was presented as a fait accompli fast tracked by the Empire State Development Corporation, rather than debated in public by local officials. In Yonkers, however, the curious twists and turns of Forest City Ratner's $630 million, 1000-apartment, 81-acre Ridge Hill project (above) have generated a federal investigation...

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...“We’ll be marketing the heck out of the building even before it is being built,” Yormark said.

(Emphasis added.)

Nets hold court on luxury suites
Crain's New York Business [subscription required]

Next week [May 15], the Nets will debut a prototype of their Frank Gehry-designed, $300,000-a-year Barclays Center corporate suites at a splashy party in their New York Times Building showroom.

To entice 185 of New York’s top CEOs to attend—and buy—the organization delivered a series of gifts over the past month, including a Tiffany key chain with a key, one of which will open a door to a free suite for the team’s inaugural season.

The arena is set to open in Brooklyn’s Atlantic Yards in 2010, if developer Bruce Ratner can clear all the legal hurdles in its path.

Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz and rap star Jay-Z, a part-owner of the team, will be on hand for the May 15 event...

Why luxury suite sales this week are needed to market arena bonds

A counter-protest in response to the "Time Out" rally. An Bruce Ratner op-ed in the New York Daily News. The release of new renderings of the Atlantic Yards arena, office tower, and first residential building.

Let me try to put Forest City Ratner's recent efforts in some perspective. The office tower rendering is aimed to help attract an anchor tenant and get the building started. The rendering of a residential rental tower, with half the units subsidized, is aimed to maintain public support for the project.

But, more than anything else, the developer's efforts are about getting the arena built. That means the public must be convinced it's viable and, crucially, buyers of luxury suites must be recruited. The guarantee of certain suite revenues, I believe, will back bonds for the now-$950 million arena.
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It's a good bet that a quota of suite sales, along with the value of the Barclays Center naming rights agreement and of other, as yet unnamed, partnerships, are part of the package that Forest City Ratner must put together to sell arena bonds. So far, Forest City Ratner has acknowledged that the naming rights agreement "lends itself pretty nicely" to securitization, but hasn't spoken about securitizing suite revenue.
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The road is a bit rockier in Brooklyn, given the presence of some pesky lawsuits and skeptical public officials, not to mention some plausible portraits of an arena that surely won't get its full--or perhaps any--shiny titanium skin until the towers around it are complete.

Will the Tiffany key chain recipients be daunted?

Full article.

With Madison Square Garden embarking on a top-to-bottom renovation, new stadiums for the Mets and Yankees opening next year, and a new home for the Giants and Jets underway, it'll be interesting to see what demand there might be for suites in an arena that's still in rendering stage.

“When it comes to sharing information with the public and governmental bodies, there’s no such thing as too much, as far as we are concerned."

Tale of Two Renderings

... A Forest City Ratner spokesman did not respond to a request for comment from The Brooklyn Paper...

...As soon as Caring Bruce Ratner said the Nets weren't for sale and were still on their way to Brooklyn, I immediately imagined the team bus making a U-turn and heading for Newark...