Mamdani Seems Wary of Subsidizing Platform for Second Phase of Hudson Yards
The Atlantic Yards platform, by contrast, depends on state funds. Still, shouldn't former Deputy Mayor Glen's framework apply regarding public benefits and public upside?
Last Sept. 29, I wrote, If Hudson Yards Got Taxpayers to Pay for the Platform, What Happens With Atlantic Yards? “The Manhattan megaproject rose from the dead thanks to little-scrutinized political and financial maneuvers,” I noted. “Keep watch in Brooklyn.”
That deserves two updates.
First, as I wrote on March 5, the Atlantic Yards developers, Cirrus Workforce Housing and LCOR, are apparently relying on Gov. Kathy Hochul—rather than a deal with the city, as with Hudson Yards—to supply $350 million in public funds for the platform needed for vertical development.
It’s unclear whether that would apply to the first platform block or to both. The timing and terms—what guarantees?—also remain unclear. The state budget, in its final stages, typically emerges as a murky package.
The second update: the Hudson Yards deal with developer Related Companies—in which $2 billion property taxes would pay for the platform rather than go to public coffers—has hit a speed bump, according to an April 23 New York Times article, Mamdani Faces Pressure to Cancel $2 Billion Deal to Expand Hudson Yards.
As described below, it’s political, and Mayor Zohran Mamdani, for now, is hedging his bets.
The key warning
Real estate developer and former Deputy Mayor (under Bill de Blasio) Alicia Glen has become a somewhat surprising supporter of the public interest when it comes to development deals.
“More low-cost capital should either generate significantly more affordable housing than was originally contemplated or actual revenue to the city if the project is profitable,” Glen told the Times regarding Hudson Yards. “Unless it’s also prepared to share in the upside, the private sector should not expect the public to step in whenever market conditions change.”
The AY angle
Well, that applies to Atlantic Yards, as suggested in the links below. We need more transparency. We need an honest appraisal of the developer’s request for free bulk and other public resources.
Also, as Glen suggests, fairness requires that the public share in the project’s upside. That applies to the currently brewing development deal.
That could also apply to the biggest winner in the current Atlantic Yards drama: Brooklyn Sports & Entertainment, which owns the Brooklyn Nets and New York Liberty and operates the Barclays Center.
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In exchange for letting the plaza become permanent, a huge bonus for the arena operator (as a safety valve for crowds and a canvas for promotion and advertising), why not require new payments?
Why aren’t they asked to pay for making the plaza permanent? New York State has leverage.
Affordable housing
Remember that Glen, in December 2023, also told The Real Deal that New York State should uphold the $1.75 million/month in damages for the missing 876 units of Atlantic Yards affordable housing. (Those damages would go to a city trust fund to support local affordable housing.)
“You have to reestablish a basic contract between the government and the communities in which you are building,” she said. “And if you can’t do that, you are endangering the whole endeavor.”
Since then, of course, Empire State Development (ESD), the state authority that oversees/shepherds the project, has negotiated payments totaling $12 million, which housing advocate Michelle de la Uz, unsurprisingly, called “insufficient” and which has provoked protests from local elected officials and the coalition BrooklynSpeaks.
Mamdani wary
The Hudson Yards deal, which eliminated a despised potential casino but made the numbers work for Related, was cut by the City Council and Mayor Eric Adams, and later faced criticism from Comptroller Brad Lander.
Mamdani’s administration, a spokesman told the Times, is “not actively engaged in negotiations to move this project forward at this time.”
That doesn’t mean he’s written it off. After all, Mamdani surely would like to cut a ribbon. It may mean he’s open to a revision.
The political dynamic is that a longtime Mamdani supporter, New York Communities for Change—the successor to the advocacy group New York ACORN—was about to endorse 3rd District City Council candidate Lindsey Boylan, who Mamdani has endorsed. Boylan opposes the Hudson Yards plan.
Political maneuvering
The deal last year, engineered with 3rd District Council Member Erik Bottcher, involved a modest increase in affordable housing, from 420 to at least 625 of 4,000 apartments, while delivering big benefits to Related.
Bottcher’s now in the state Senate, having endorsed his former Chief of Staff, Carl Wilson, as his successor. Wilson seems the establishment candidate, with endorsements from Council Speaker Julie Menin and Council seat predecessors Corey Johnson and Christine Quinn.
Wilson, who’s gay, on the same day Mamdani endorsed Boylan (who’s not), contended that the race was “really about the future of the West Side, and it’s about the future of having an LGBTQ representative of this district, the birthplace of Stonewall and the modern gay rights movement.”
Election Day is April 28. Early voting has already started.
Boylan has been endorsed by the Working Families Party and various progressive legislators. Neither Wilson nor Boylan—nor for that matter, rival candidates Leslie Boghosian Murphy and Layla Law-Gisiko—say anything about Hudson Yards on their websites.1
In other words, it wasn’t a salient issue until recently. Note that the YIMBY movement Abundance New York supports Wilson, calling Boylan a third choice, after Boghosian Murphy, and placing Law-Gisiko last. (Their analysis omitted Hudson Yards, as well.)
Law-Gisiko, in a Substack posting yesterday titled Related’s Profligate Adventure in Municipal Generosity, wrote;
What happened at the Western Rail Yards, also known as Hudson Yards Phase 2, in late 2025, is not a policy disagreement. It is not a difference of opinion about development strategy or affordable housing priorities. It is a scandal. It is a transfer of public wealth to a private developer, Related Companies, to name them, of such breathtaking audacity that it should be front page news every day until someone is held accountable.
….The fleecing was of such magnitude that even Erik Engquist, senior editor with the pro-real-estate blog Real Deal, who has never seen a real-estate deal he didn’t love, felt that Related was going too far!
She has endorsements from various reform political clubs, local activists, and elected officials.
Back to Atlantic Yards
Well, we haven’t seen all the math, but I have a conceptual argument for helping pay for the platform (or supporting affordable housing), as I wrote.2
The big winner in Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park, Brooklyn Sports & Entertainment (formerly BSE Global), which operates the arena and owns the Brooklyn Nets and New York Liberty, should help cross-subsidize the remaining project, even though it’s not responsible for it.
Empire State Development (ESD), the gubernatorially controlled state authority that oversees/shepherds the project, has leverage.
It’s already agreed, conceptually, to make the plaza permanent, thus preserving revenue for the arena company and providing a safety valve for crowds, rather than allowing a large tower to be built over the arena at Atlantic and Flatbush avenues, as currently approved.
The bulk of that unbuilt tower, B1, would instead be moved across Flatbush Avenue to Site 5, longtime home to the big-box stores P.C. Richard and the now-closed Modell’s, recently converted into the short-term Brooklyn Basketball Training Center, owned by the arena company.
That would allow a giant two-tower complex at the parcel known as Site 5.
But the conceptual agreement isn’t final. Shouldn’t the public share in the arena operator’s upside? Doesn’t all this deserve analysis?
Presumably, Boylan’s website will be updated. She does state, “End Billionaire James Dolan’s tax break for Madison Square Garden to fund NYCHA.” There’s an argument for ending tax breaks for all major league sports venues in the city.
That also would diminish the argument for increased development rights.