The Mantras of Atlantic Yards
"It's a never-say-never project." So we have no idea about today's (announced) foreclosure auction.
(This draws on articles from 2017 and 2018.)
When I meet people coming fresh to Atlantic Yards.Pacific Park—neighborhood newbies, journalists seeking a crash course, visitors on a walking tour—I often invoke multiple mantras, some of them my own, some borrowed:
“Atlantic Yards is a never-say-never project.”
“The devil’s in the details.”
“It’s a very tight fit.”
"The culture of cheating."
“Form follows finance.”
“Power defines reality.”
“Projects change, markets change.”
However basic or banal, those are meaningful watchwords, helping explain the tangled path and uncertain future of the megaproject.
What about the foreclosure?
The first mantra helps explain why no one has said anything publicly (yet) about the thrice-postponed foreclosure auction of six development sites, scheduled for today. As I wrote on June 1, it seems unlikely, but who knows.
After all, if the project is not viable financially, any new bidder would have to reach some kind of agreement with Empire State Development (ESD), the state authority that oversees/shepherds the project, to revise project terms, including pending $2,000/month fines for each of the 876 affordable housing units not built by May 2025. (That’s less than a year away!)
“A never-say-never project”
So, “Atlantic Yards is a never-say-never project.” That’s my term, reminding us not to be shocked by major changes, such as the timing of the project, the levels of affordability in housing, a shift in developers, new architects, new arena tenants, new team owners, and even a purported technological advance that wasn’t, like modular construction.
Or, even a name change. In August 2014, Atlantic Yards was renamed Pacific Park Brooklyn, after the Shanghai-based Greenland Holdings, a (partly) state-owned firm, bought a 70% share going forward, forming the joint venture Greenland Forest City Partners.
This unusual midstream name change, I've suggested, aimed to reboot the project, detaching it from a history of “Atlantic Yards” controversy. The joint venture built three towers, then original developer Forest City exited, and two other developers have developed—or in one case helped develop—four sites..
The name Pacific Park that hasn’t quite caught on, perhaps because the “park” is, for now, only 3 acres, not the 8 acres promised. There surely will be major changes in the future.
“Projects change, markets change”
This quote, from long-departed executive Jim Stuckey of original developer Forest City Ratner, came in a Nov. 6, 2005 article in the New York Times headlined Routine Changes, or 'Bait and Switch'?
That quote waved away changes in the project: an increase of 1 million square feet, a big cut in office jobs, and a commensurate increase in market-rate apartments, plus a green roof plan that, rather than be accessible to the public, would be accessible just to residents.
The green-roof project kept changing so much it was eliminated, only to be resurrected, sort of: to provide a visual amenity and to muffle bass escaping from the Barclays Center, but not public access.
In July 2007, I noted that Stuckey’s statement had been dubious at the time, given an escape clause in the developer’s housing agreement with advocacy group ACORN that anticipated an increase in housing. By 2007, though, documents showed that Forest City had planned a significant number of condos, more profitable than the rentals, from the start.
But “projects change, markets change,” and they never got to build condos after the first building, since tax breaks change too, and the 421-a tax break no longer accommodated condos.
Could condos return? Well, it’s a “never-say-never project.”
“The devil’s in the details”
It’s always important to drill down. Terms like “affordable housing” and “community benefits," if used without clarification, can camouflage empty or diminished promises.
Ben Keel’s valuable graphic, first produced for my Urban Omnibus article last month, shows how affordable units, over time, have gotten far more expensive—partly because of the rise in baseline income, partly because of the subsidy or tax-break chosen.
“It’s a very tight fit”
The “tight fit” reminds us why Atlantic Yards generated much pushback, given its encroachment on residential Prospect Heights.
While neither Barclays Center operations, relying significantly on public transit, nor the construction project have caused the wide-rippling Brooklyn problems once feared, there’s so little margin for error that the nearest neighbors have endured regular disruptions.
That means that a resumption of construction also deserves a close watch.
“The Culture of Cheating”
As to “Culture of Cheating,” well, that covers a range of actions that, while not criminal, sure seem sketchy, from a dubious finding of blight to the marketing of investor visas to the failure to hire a promised compliance monitor for the overhyped Community Benefits Agreement.
Or, perhaps, claiming that EB-5 investor visa funds helped build the Barclays Center. Or maybe the “Zoning Lot Hustle.” Or perhaps a Pacific Park Conservancy that seems a phantom.
No, it’s not unique to Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park. But it’s part of doing business.
“Power defines reality”
As I’ve written, something clicked when I read urban planning academic Susan Fainstein's book The Just City, which quotes megaproject maven Bent Flyvbjerg: “Power defines reality.”
Power—including money spent on lobbying, public relations firms, advertising, and campaign contributions—frames discussion of this project. It seeds press coverage and steers elected officials to support or silence. It has stymied reasonable proposals for reform and oversight. It enables cheating. And it can rewrite history.
Can you believe that the developer once proclaimed Pacific Park as "Brooklyn's Newest Neighborhood.” If this new designation adds cachet, it also requires magical thinking.
The project site is neither self-contained nor evenly shaped. Rather, it contains both a curious gap and an odd appendage. Consider: a one-acre development plot known as Site 5, long home to two big-box retail stores, is separated from the Barclays Center and the rest of "Pacific Park" by six-lane Flatbush Avenue.
The name change suggests another dodge. State documents call it "publicly accessible open spaces," but the developers call it a "public park."
“Form follows finance”
I’ve suggested that architect Louis Sullivan’s phrase "form follows function"--that style should reflect purpose--might be more wisely replaced by "form follows finance," the title of a book by Carol Willis, also the founder of the Skyscraper Museum.
After all, the lack of finance may mean the absence of form, as in delayed buildings. Or the amount of finance may shape the future form.
Or, as we await news about the foreclosure auction, finance will shape the future of the “never-say-never project.”