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tel/fax:
718.362.4784
Please note our new postal address when sending
contributions to the legal fund:
121 5th Avenue, PMB #150
Brooklyn, New York 11217
About DDDB
Our coalition consists of 21 community organizations and
there are 51 community organizations formally
aligned in opposition to the Ratner plan.
DDDB is a volunteer-run organization. We have over 5,000
subscribers to our email newsletter, and 7,000 petition
signers. Over 800 volunteers have registered with DDDB
to form our various teams, task-forces and committees
and we have over 150 block captains. We have a 20 person
volunteer legal team of local lawyers supplementing our
retained attorneys.
We are funded entirely by individual donations from the community at large
and through various fundraising events we and supporters have organized.
We have the financial support of well over 3,500 individual
donors.
More about
DDDB...
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Forest City Says No New Development This Year, Dilutes Shares
Just last week NBA Commissioner David Stern said Forest City Ratner would break
ground this summer on the besieged Barclays Center arena in Brooklyn. Or, at least,
that is what he
has been told by the developer, who last year said they’d break ground in
December 2008, and in 2003 said they’d open their arena in 2006.
Today, announcing the sale of 45.5 million new shares to raise cash to pay off
a heavy debt burden, parent company Forest City Enterprises (FCE-A)
stated
in a press release that:
"...Forest City does not anticipate commencing any new
vertical development in the near term..."
Presumably if they were going to start construction on the arena this
summer, or even this year, they would have said so as an exception to their overall
construction freeze.
Forest City Ratner (FCR) continues to maintain that the Barclays Center Arena
would open in 2011. But if construction does not start in 2009, that
would be impossible, as would a 2012 opening date given stated build out schedules.
Currently Forest City Ratner doesn’t own the land it needs to build the arena
or the rest of Atlantic Yards, and does not have the financing to build the arena.
It appears that the numbers no longer compute to build the arena or affordable
housing they once envisioned. The project is also being litigated in two major
lawsuits. Yet, Forest City Ratner's project is not dead as the developer
continues its effort to control 22 valuable acres in Brooklyn to eventually build
an arena and 16 skyscrapers
The new stock issued by Forest City Enterprises shows a desperate company in a
precarious position with no creditor friends.
Apparently banks are reluctant to extend more credit to Cleveland-based Forest
City Enterprises, so the developer issued 45.5 million new shares priced at $6.60.
As of noon the market has responded that $6.60 is overpriced, the stock is trading
at $6.36 a share and was as low as $6.06. The stock is down about 80% since September.
Answers from the developer and the Empire State Development Corporation (the State
agency overseeing the project) about these and many other questions will hopefully
be forthcoming in the first State
Senate public hearing on the Atlantic Yards project scheduled for May 29th
in Brooklyn.
Posted: 5.14.09
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