Weekly Digest: An Interim Plan for the Closed Modell's Opposite the Arena
Weekly Digest: An Interim Plan for the Closed Modell's Opposite the Arena
A youth basketball center? Also, no big news yet regarding the project's future. But stay tuned.
This digest offers a way for people to keep up with my Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park Report blog, as well as my other coverage in this newsletter and elsewhere.
As I wrote Sept. 26, the scheduled meeting of the advisory Atlantic Yards Community Development Corporation (AY CDC), likely would address Related Companies' role in railyard sites, the plans for Site 5, catercorner from the arena, and perhaps leasing the arena plaza.
And it did, though the information was merely incremental, and I haven’t yet written about it. (Stay tuned.) More should surface soon.
The big(ger) news was a plan from BSE Global, which owns the Brooklyn Nets and the arena company, to convert the empty Modell’s store across from the arena plaza into a youth basketball complex, at least until a proposed giant two-tower complex is built.
So that likely will go forward, and perhaps serve as a beachhead for a future BSE Global presence at that site.
It’s notable that no one from BSE Global was present at the meeting, held in Brooklyn near the arena, to answer any questions.
Nor could representatives of Empire State Development (ESD), the state authority that oversees/shepherds the project, answer a key question: were the programs free? While the BSE Global handout mentioned free clinics, I found evidence that summer basketball camps last summer cost $645/week.
Watching Related
It’s also notable that evidence surfaced that Related Companies, likely to enter the project as a new master developer because of a foreclosure process involving EB-5 loans to Greenland USA, hasn’t paid back its investors either—but has avoided foreclosure because of the way it structured its investment.
Oh yeah, the mayor
NYC Mayor Eric Adams got indicted for bribery, campaign finance, and conspiracy offenses. I’ll write more about it another time, but will point out that some guy who saw Adams interact with Atlantic Yards and some other neighborhood issues wrote an essay in 2018 headlined Eric Adams has faced less scrutiny than he deserves.
From this newsletter
Sept. 24: Could NY State Leverage Naming Rights to Get ArenaCo Owners Tsai (& Koch) to Pay? Empire State Development could end the Barclays Center sponsorship. (Shh--the bank's a felon.) It might even be a win-win.
As I’ve written, there are numerous points of leverage for New York State to get some money from those who’ve seen a huge rise in the value of the arena and its anchor tenant. That doesn’t mean it’s likely.
From Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park Report
Sept. 23: Agenda for Thursday's Atlantic Yards Community Development Corp. meeting is typically opaque. What about the railyard sites? Site 5? The arena plaza?
Sept. 25: Some EB-5 investors furious about failure to get their $500K repaid now sued for harassing Related CEO. That’s not defensible, but how ethical is Related's business practice?
Sept. 26: Today's Atlantic Yards meeting likely to address Related's role in railyard sites, expansion of Site 5, and perhaps leasing the arena plaza.
Sept. 27: Nets owner BSE Global proposes using empty ex-Modell's store across from arena for youth basketball programs (free? $645/week?), until new towers built.
Sept. 28: Brooklyn Nets announce new jersey patch partner, travel platform GetYourGuide. (No $ stated.) New local tourism synergy and even ticket sales.
Sept. 28: With two more (at least) New York Liberty games and more Ticketmaster Plaza "activations," Barclays Center even busier. Plus: some player news;
Sept. 29: Now open at base of 461 Dean tower, next to arena's secondary entrance: Pure Green juice bar. That’s seven years after the modular tower opened to residential tenants.