New (Unofficial) Images Suggest Supersized Atlantic Yards Must Be Far Larger Than Hinted
How could 2.1M square feet of bulk be added to five sites over the railyard?
How can the new project developers fit their proposed 9,000 apartments into 22 acres, or, more pointedly, fit the 5,788 remaining apartments into well less than half that acreage?
Maybe we’ll learn more at an online workshop tomorrow at 6 pm, sponsored by Empire State Development (ESD), the state authority that oversees/shepherds the project.
ESD and the developers, led by the funder Cirrus Workforce Housing and the development firm LCOR, should recap key themes and insights from two previous workshops, Nov. 18 and Dec. 8, followed by a Q&A period. (Register here. It will be recorded.)
A question I submitted: What other large real estate projects in New York City have a density comparable to what’s proposed, an estimated 409 apartments and 875 people per acre?1
Let’s see if they answer. I’ll offer my own math in a separate article.
Let’s also see how they could make the project fit. The image below, as I’ll explain, suggests they can’t, since even the dramatic increase in bulk depicted wouldn’t be enough.
Vague images so far
Sure, the scale of Brooklyn has changed in the last decades, and Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park would not, as initially proposed in 2003, be the borough’s sole concentration of high-rise density.
Still, the new development team hasn’t yet clearly depicted their proposal.
It would add 1.6 million square feet to towers built over the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s two-block Vanderbilt Yard, while redistributing another 523,000 square feet from a sixth tower (B8), which would be eliminated for open space.2
That means five towers at least 20% bulkier than the 511-foot 18 Sixth Ave. (B4, aka Brooklyn Crossing), pictured in the distance in the photo below, which has 858 units and some 814,000 gross square feet.
The new towers would average 550 feet, as stated by the developers, so taller than B4. That translates to about 55 stories each.
So that’s piling 2.1 million square feet on five parcels already designated for substantial towers.
With 5,788 projected apartments to build, I estimate that Site 5, the proposed two-tower complex across from the arena, might contain 800 to 1,100 apartments.3 So the five railyard towers would fit the remainder: 4,688 to 4,988 apartments.
What they’ve shown us
The below slide, from the developers’ Dec. 8 presentation on open space, is the only image so far to depict a proposed tower—in this case, B7, likely the tallest over the railyard, perhaps 630 feet, but only visible in part.
Meanwhile, the slide below left, a vague approximation of the currently approved and future skyline released at the Nov. 18 workshop, both downplays what’s proposed and exaggerates what’s been approved, as the annotations below right suggest.
Is their project even buildable?
I asked my frequent collaborator, data analyst and visualization specialist Ben Keel, to try to portray the potential scale.
Drawing on past illustrations and a model he maintains, he projected the buildable square footage, based on that 550-foot average height, as stated by the developers, and estimating floor plates, and setbacks, from a developer-provided image.
The two infographics below are provisional and unofficial, suggesting “feasible,” if unlikely, alternatives. But they raise serious questions.
First, if the towers have setbacks, as the developers’ image (and project Design Guidelines) suggest, as well as floors averaging a typical ten feet in height, it seems unlikely the developers could add 1.6 million square feet, plus redistribute the bulk from B8.
The Option A graphic above projects 3.9 million total square feet, not 5 million, in those five towers. It assumes floor plates averaging 14,200 square feet.
(Larger floor plates, of course, would deliver more square footage, but the developers’ images should then suggest larger floor plates.)
Even if they built the towers with 9-foot floors, they couldn’t fit 5 million square feet.
It might be possible to stuff 9,000 apartments in a lesser amount of square footage, but units would be smaller.4 The leaves the possibility of building affordable units distinctly smaller than the market-rate ones.
A different design
Could another design work? Maybe, as Keel’s infographic below suggests, but it’s unlikely.
If the towers average 550 feet, with standard 10-foot floors, the buildings could accommodate the additional bulk only by eschewing setbacks, with floor plates averaging 18,300 square feet.
That Option B configuration seems very unlikely.
Building with 9-foot floors might allow the same square footage, about 5 million square feet, and restore setbacks, with smaller floor plates. Or there could be a combination of lowered floor heights and setbacks.
Alternatively, smaller apartments might meet the unit count, but take up less square footage, thus allowing setbacks and smaller floor plates.
The bottom line
Again, these projections are flawed, but the public is owed more candor—both images and data—from the developers and ESD regarding the buildings’ projected bulk and dimensions.
So it’s possible that:
the buildings (and project) would have to be larger than the developers’ initial hints suggest
they’re angling for public subsidies to enable a less ambitious project
they seek more than they need, allowing for “compromise” in response to pushback from elected officials and advocates, and that compromise is closer to what they’ve hinted
It’s not a good sign, though, that developers presented the additional 1.6 million square feet as a mere 20% increase in the project’s overall bulk.
More pointedly, it’s a nearly 46% increase in the bulk allocated to the railyard towers, which was approved at about 3.5 million square feet. Moreover, the increase for five towers would be even greater, given the re-allocation of B8’s bulk.
An alternate view
In the image below, Keel’s model shows Option A, the configuration with the setbacks.
From this angle, the new Atlantic Yards buildings, in the main, loom over existing buildings in the project, such as the row of towers (B11-B14) along Dean Street between Carlton and Vanderbilt avenues, at left in the image above.
An exception is 511-foot B4, 18 Sixth Ave., flanking the arena.
The perspective emphasizes how the new buildings, such as the towers at Site 5 catercorner to the arena, dwarf some reasonably large nearby towers, such as the Williamsburgh Savings Bank (aka One Hanson), with its clock tower, at right.
The graphic below, from a more level perspective, suggests the discrepancy would not be quite as dramatic.
What are the variables?
What, I asked in November, are the project’s real variables?
After all, the developers had produced the simplistic graphic below, suggesting that only greater density could deliver more affordability and that only additional height could narrow tower footprints to deliver more open space.
Beyond those basic trade-offs, I suggested, there are additional variables, notably the amount of public resources—subsidies, tax breaks—sought, as well as the developers’ cost basis and expected returns.
After all, “more” has its limits. As architect Jonathan Cohn wrote in 2006, assessing the proposed scale, “Locating density near mass transit is a good idea, but like all good ideas, it has its limits in real world applications.”
Right now, we need “more” candor about their plans.
That’s being generous, because the acreage count includes the arena, which unlike, for example, open space, doesn’t serve the residential project.
B8 would be difficult to build on, the developers say, because of the railyard configuration. I assume that none of the additional 1.6 million square feet would go to Site 5, catercorner to the arena, already planned as a very large two-tower project, with potentially 1.242 million square feet in two towers.
This depends, in part, on the size of a projected hotel. There would be retail at the base and below grade.
The 2006 Final Environmental Impact Statement for Atlantic Yards estimated 990 gross square feet per unit, noting that some portion of the residential (and retail) space would go to community facilities. Gross square feet encompasses what’s inside the building’s shell, not usable space.
 | A guest post by
|