Weekly Digest: Secret Discussion of Platform Sites' Future, Ventilating Site 5
Not much transparency at, or before, the Atlantic Yards CDC meeting.
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.
This week I published a follow-up to my big scoop outlining Greenland USA’s 2023 plans to expand Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park by adding 1 million square feet to six towers over the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s Vanderbilt Yard, and enlarging the two-tower project long proposed at Site 5, catercorner to the arena.
As I wrote, new documents help flesh out a confusing public record, which suggested partial progress on Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park as the decade began, then stasis, with little explanation from either the developer or government officials before rights to six railyard development sites went into foreclosure last November.
However “inside baseball” that might seem, knowing some of the messages from Empire State Development (ESD), the state authority that oversees/shepherds the project, helps understand the present.
Consider my coverage Aug. 11, linked below, which benefited from knowing the real history.
Preparing for the AY CDC
My coverage in this newsletter and my Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park blog served as a prelude to an unusually timed Aug. 8 meeting of the (purportedly) advisory Atlantic Yards Community Development Corporation (AY CDC).
Only something big brewing would’ve justified a meeting some six weeks after the previous one for a body that’s supposed to meet quarterly.
Presumably, the AY CDC would learn of a pending plan for the six railyard development sites (B5-B10), subject to a foreclosure auction given Greenland’s failure to pay back EB-5 debt, with the large developer Related Companies reportedly interested.
Would Related adopt Greenland’s plan, as depicted in the unofficial image above?
Would ESD and AY CDC look skeptically at the “lender”—actually the manager of the lending entity—who might be disqualified from dealing the state authority?
Dubious transparency
Well, for the first time, ESD decided to report to the AY CDC in an Executive Session. That was disclosed when the Agenda was revealed, less than 48 hours before the meeting, and less than 24 hours before public comment was due.
I couldn’t get anyone at ESD to explain the rationale for the Executive Session. When the meeting began, we were told the justification was discussion of a property transaction—a dubious rationale, in my book, given that the AY CDC is purely advisory and cannot engage in such transactions.
The other rationale, involving potential litigation, requires some elaboration regarding the potential litigation, according to case law. That didn’t happen.
So the AY CDC Directors, with four in favor and two abstaining, went into Executive Session to hear… something. They had a more robust discussion afterward regarding the future of Site 5, the parcel catercorner to the arena, as I reported.
We may learn more in September.
From this newsletter
Aug. 5: Why Did Atlantic Yards Rescue Plan Run Aground? State Authorities Sought More Assurances.
From Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park Report
Aug. 6: Would community engagement process lead to new vision or just tinkering ? Why not hire, as proposed, third-party experts with the public interest in mind?
Aug. 6: Agenda for Thursday's Atlantic Yards CDC meeting vaguely suggests "Platform Site Update" (in Executive Session?!), likely pointing to major project changes.
Aug. 7: With meeting set for first-ever Executive Session, big questions about whether Atlantic Yards CDC can impose that restriction. It doesn't transact, just advises.
Aug. 7: Is the EB-5 loan middleman a Prohibited Person? A criminal conviction should count. If so, should Empire State Development have been dealing with him?
Aug. 8: Bad shorthand: "the lender" in EB-5 funding isn't the (middleman) regional center, but the immigrant investors. Better to call Nicholas Mastroianni II "the guy in control of the lender."
Also, Related's questionable EB-5 record. Would you believe they haven’t paid back their investors into Hudson Yards?
Aug. 9: At first-ever Executive Session, Atlantic Yards advisory group privately learns of a proposal (supersize?) for the six railyard towers. Small pushback on secrecy. My comment gets diminished, and brushed aside, by AY CDC Chair Daniel Kummer.
Aug. 10: How's Ticketmaster Plaza outside Barclays Center leased? State officials unsure of terms. But "temporary" plaza could be renegotiated, given arena value boost.
Updating some of my coverage, I should acknowledge that the arena company was supposed to benefit from signage at the Urban Room—the glass atrium attached to the unbuilt flagship tower—and use of part of it as a box office, plus gain naming rights.
Still, it's clear that the open-air plaza, without sharing space with the tower, offers more benefits. There's a huge advantage to having the arena, rather than the tower, as a focal point.
Aug. 11: So, are changes at Site 5, with supersized density, a "done deal"? What community engagement is coming? Well, it also would involve railyard sites.
An ESD official told the AY CDC they hadn’t moved ahead with Site 5 “because, in part, what was presented to us by the developer was something more," indicating plans to supersize the platform sites.
That wasn't fully candid. As I reported, ESD asked Greenland make a larger presentation.
In an email, Arden Sokolow, Executive VP, Real Estate, noted that, because the Site 5 changes “will involve public hearings and may face opposition,” ESD sought “better visibility into timing of the Platform and your ability to meet” affordable housing obligations. In other words, ESD saw it as “something more.”