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Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park infographics: what's built/what's coming/what's missing, who's responsible, + project FAQ/timeline (pinned post)

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At Atlantic Yards meeting, state officials acknowledge project is stalled, with neither new plans nor developer proposed. Will foreclosure auction happen next month?

This is the first of three articles about the Atlantic Yards Community Development Corporation (AY CDC) meeting March 26.  Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park seems stalled, as state officials acknowledged that they have been presented with no specific plans regarding the project's future, nor any possible developer. That's the main news that emerged from the AY CDC meeting, which was called, in part, to get the directors to approve the annual budget for the year beginning April 1. That didn't happen, because the unexpected absence of one director meant there was no quorum. However, the informational aspect of the meeting--held at the Manhattan offices of the parent Empire State Development (ESD)--proceeded anyway for the five directors present. Master developer Greenland USA, which did not send a representative to the meeting, has not paid back some $286 million in loans (out of $349 million total) from immigrant investors under the EB-5 program. So the rights to develop six tower

Columnist Hollinger: "Have Knicks, Nets swapped destinies?"

From columnist John Hollinger in The Athletic, March 25, Have Knicks, Nets swapped destinies? Once upon a time, this was supposed to be the Brooklyn Nets : Building patiently, developing late draft picks and smart free-agent signings and riding in the slipstream of good culture vibes while keeping their powder dry for just the right moment to pounce on a big star. But this past Saturday, as on most days this season, it was their crosstown rivals in Madison Square Garden who had all the right ingredients for that formula. The most notable thing about the New York Knicks’ perfunctory 105-93 win over the Nets on Saturday was that it wasn’t even remotely surprising. It was yet another data point in the divergence between the stumbling rebuild in Brooklyn and the near-flawless execution of New York’s surprising rise from the Dolan doldrums. Hollinger deftly synthesizes what the tabs have been saying, which I summarized six weeks ago as  With the surging Knicks (ranked #7) and floundering N

With the future of Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park in question, it all may depend on "abiding by the Project documents" (which might change)

As a potentially meaningful--or, maybe not--meeting of the Atlantic Yards Community Development Corporation (AY CDC) approaches today, I'm reminded of some notes from the parent Empire State Development (ESD) delivered in December 2022, as a reported in a post citing "belated candor and weasel words." Does the developer have a plan to  meet the May 2025 deadline  to start and complete 876 (or 877) more units of affordable housing, or face $2,000/month fines for each missing unit? In July 2022, Scott Solish, then of master developer Greenland USA,  said  it was the "same answer that we always have. We're moving ahead with our plans with the platform.... We are working on hitting all of our targets, as we always have."  Except they hadn't hit their targets--for example, they announced in 2019 that the platform would start in 2020, and it hadn't.  I asked if ESD would enforce the fines, but didn't get an answer at the time.  The document, as excerp

Foregone property taxes on Barclays Center site now estimated at $110.2M. Payments in lieu of (some) taxes go not to NYC but pay off cheap construction debt

In May 2022, I reported that foregone property taxes for the Barclays Center continued to rise, reaching $85 million, from $61.3 million in 2017 and, oddly enough, $53.7 million in 2018. Today they're more than double the low point, according to the New York City Department of Finance's Annual Report on Tax Expenditures , reaching $98.6 million last year and $110.2 million this year. That's all a nice gift to arena operators and team owners. FY 2023 In Fiscal Year 2023 , the foregone taxes for the arena reached $98.6 million. Note the larger tax expenditures for the two addresses directly above it, Citifield and Yankee Stadium, which also benefit from tax-exempt land. Also note the oddly depressed tax break, as calculated by the city for MSG Arena, only $42.4 million. Surely the Madison Square Garden Site is move valuable than the Brooklyn site.  That's because, as the Independent Budget Office has suggested , the valuation is artificially depressed, given that the cit

Agenda for Atlantic Yards CDC vague: updates & follow-ups. Is the meeting Tuesday mainly to approve the annual budget? (It's questionable.)

With three business days' notice, Empire State Development (ESD) yesterday issued an Agenda and Board Materials (bottom) for next Tuesday's meeting of the (purportedly) advisory Atlantic Yards Community Development Corporation (AY CDC). The Agenda doesn't offer much of a clue, however, as to what's at issue, since the item "3. Updates and Follow-Ups (Oral Reports)" could cover a lot of ground. That means those wishing to comment on Agenda items--writing to AYCDCBdMtg@esd.ny.gov by 3 pm on Monday, March 25--don't have much to go on. (Those attending in person, who must RSVP , can comment in real time. The meeting also will be webcast .) Mainly budget issues? The simplest explanation for the meeting may be that no new revelations are expected, but the Directors are simply being asked to review and approve the proposed AY CDC operating budget for the fiscal year beginning April 1. I have some questions about that budget, as noted below, given that the spend