Please note our new postal address when sending
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121 5th Avenue, PMB #150
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About DDDB
Our coalition consists of 21 community organizations and
there are 51 community organizations formally
aligned in opposition to the Ratner plan.
DDDB is a volunteer-run organization. We have over 5,000
subscribers to our email newsletter, and 7,000 petition
signers. Over 800 volunteers have registered with DDDB
to form our various teams, task-forces and committees
and we have over 150 block captains. We have a 20 person
volunteer legal team of local lawyers supplementing our
retained attorneys.
We are funded entirely by individual donations from the community at large
and through various fundraising events we and supporters have organized.
We have the financial support of well over 3,500 individual
donors.
Here's what's making us verklempt. Barbra, polymath that she is, has previously posted an article on her website which expresses opposition to eminent domain for the controversial Keystone XL pipeline that would cut across the US. The column her site featured doesn't look kindly on "...the fact that this foreign-owned corporation would use the autocratic power of eminent domain to take land from unwilling sellers along the 2,000 mile route..."
Good on her.
But we wonder, then, how she justifies lending her name and bright shining star power of a rare live show to the early opening days of the House that Eminent Domain Built aka Barclays Center. Is it that she is a liberal do-gooder in the mold of Frank Gehry and Bruce Ratner?
Talk amongst yourselves.
She might want to spend 93 minutes watching Battle for Brooklyn so at least she knows what preceded the advent of the stage she plans to perform on come October 11th. Because rubbing shoulders with Bruce Ratner and Brett Yormark and selling tickets to the House that Eminent Domain Built, ranging from $90 to $640 per, isn't exactly the best way to come home again.
Barclays Center Arena is neither affordable, nor housing. Discuss.
In Chicago, Wrigley Field is allowed to host only 30 evening events a year. Liquor sales must end no later than 9:30PM. And any changes to that policy have to be approved by the Chicago City Council.
You'd think that the people of Brooklyn deserve no less respect.
Not according to Barclays Center, which has applied for a license that would allow it to keep serving alcohol up to the 4AM State limit in an 18,000-seat arena. Sure, the NBA has a policy that requires liquor sales to end after the third quarter. But basketball only accounts for 40 of the expected 220 events to be held at the arena each year. And Barclays' application isn't even limited to serving drinks at arena events. (Arena plans include four club/lounge areas.)
We all know that the history of Atlantic Yards has been one blanket approval by government after another, with little oversight afterward. But isn't this getting ridiculous?
Click here to tell the New York State Liquor Authority and Governor Cuomo that Barlcays' liquor license must be appropriate for the residential neighborhoods in which it is situated, and through which patrons will travel on their way home. Require drink sales to end after half time at a NBA game, 45 minutes before the end of an event, or 10PM, whichever comes first. And only permit alcohol to be sold during ticketed arena events.
Barclays Center to Only Offer Approximately 105 Full-Time Jobs Forest City Ratner, AEG and Levy Restaurants representatives gave a presentation on the Barclays Center's hiring process and available jobs to Community Board 6. Park Slope Patch. By Will Yakowicz
The Barclays Center will create approximately 105 full-time jobs and about 1901 part-time jobs to New York City residents, according to a Forest City Ratner representative who gave a presentation to Community Board 6 on Monday night.
...
The part-time jobs will be event driven, so the number of employees working at any given week will fluctuate.
David Anderson, AEG's vice president of Event and Guest Services, said that the biggest number of part-timers that will work at any event, like a playoff game, will be 800. And during other regular season games or concerts that number will be less than 800.
Cotton said that employing Brooklynites will be the arena's hiring priority.
Jay-Z, apparently is the "author" and "creator" of the new Nets' logos, Brett Yormark, CEO of the Brooklyn Nets and the Barclays Center, told CNBC's Darren Rovell in a live interview.
I wouldn't bet that the hip-hop star/entrepreneur/producer/"cultural icon" really drew it up, rather than helped choose from competing suggestions. Yormark called the black-and-white motif a major change from the red, white, and blue of the previous logo, and noted it was the only black-and-white one in the league.
We won't disgust you with all the promotion the team is doing, as covered by Norman Oder and others, but we did want to draw attention to this promo and its doggerl about neighborhood and family:
A second promo video, lasting 1:48, addresses Brooklyn as "you," as in "You're a vision," linking past and present. "Your streets pulse to your own beat," it states, with a shot of a row-house block quite different from the Atlantic Yards plan.
The narrator states: "And now, Brooklyn, we root for the same cause, because we believe in the same things that you do, that neighborhood is family and loyalty never goes away." Tell that to residents of Prospect Heights and nearby either displaced by the Atlantic Yards project or bearing the brunt of its impact.
(DDDB's emphasis added.)
The video ends with the word "Hello" in several different languages.
The Nets (which means Prokhorov, Ratner, Yormark, the staff and a yet to be determined roster) apparently believe "that neighborhood is family and loyalty never goes away."
Pardon us, but WTF are they talking about and who do they think they are kidding? They are a "sports entertainment corporation" not a mom 'n pop shop or the friendly guy down the block.
Sorry Brooklyn, New York Nets, corporations aren't people too.
(Update: Norman Oder reports that Nets ballcaps will go for $26.00. Hello, Brooklyn! Now give us your money, neighbor.)
Of course 2,000 jobs aren't coming to the arena, and needless to say the photo op was absent of details and substance. But when Norman Oder asked the Mayor a question about the validity of that number, the Mayor responded with mocking, petulant ignorance, and his buddy Bruce Ratner made a snide joke.
What neither did was answer the pertinent question about job figures—how could they when they come out of thin air.
...And in the coup de grace of public manipulation — economic, emotional or otherwise — a real estate developer named Bruce Ratner bought the team in 2004 for the sole purpose of using it to justify the seizure of land via public domain, and making the Nets' new arena the centerpiece of a $5 billion complex in Brooklyn that he will build mostly with taxpayer money.
This process took more than eight years from conception to groundbreaking, and every step of the way, you got the impression that the Nets — and anyone who actually cared about them — were watching the clock, as Ratner stripped the team of assets and sold managing interest to an oligarch, Mikhail Prokhorov.
It takes a man of Bruce Ratner's stature to be considered the worst thing that ever happened to the New Jersey Nets.
Disgraced former Yonkers Councilwoman Sandy Annabi who flipped her strident no vote to a pivotal yes vote in approval Ratner's Ridge Hill project and was convicted by a federal jury for extortion and conspiracy to give and receive corrupt payments
James Caldwell, his group B.U.I.L.D. which partnered with Ratner and is fully funded by Ratner, and Forest City Ratner are currently being sued in federal court by seven plaintiffs who allege that B.U.I.L.D. and Ratner broke contractual promises to provide union cards and on-site jobs after completing an extensive training program. The suit also alleges unpaid wages and a "sham" training program.
"...we hope this project helps stem the tide of gentrification, which has gotten so bad that condos in East New York are selling for $400,000!"
She and others, expressed this sentiment as their support of and partnership with Ratner became more entrenched and strident.
This nugget of history and context is lost on the New York Times and reporter Joseph Berger today in perhaps the paper's worst (certainly one of its worst) round-up article on developer (and NY Times partner) Forest City Ratner's
land of Broken Promises otherwise known as Atlantic Yards. Instead the article ("Impact of Atlantic Yards, for Good or Ill, Is Already Felt") is predominantly the celebration of new, rent raising retail clustering around the not-yet-completed arena. And in pointing out what is new, the reporter even gets that wrong, naming several area restaurants that were in place and thriving years ago.
To make matters even worse the reporter swallows the developer's decades long contention that the Atlantic Yards site was blighted and only Bruce Ratner's arena has been able to save it from itself:
"...the changes are evidence that the arena has already met its goal of transforming a dreary section of Brooklyn—the Long Island Rail Road's rail yards and surrounding industrial buildings, which the company's spokesman described as "a scar that divided the neighborhood."
"That's a sign of economic vitality, something that's good for the borough," said Joe DePlasco, the Ratner spokesman.
The company called it a "scar," so naturally the reporter has to parrot that with his "dreary." Never mind that the arena is actually under construction over what was an active rail yard, an active and critical block of Pacific Street, and a full city block of condo conversions, a coop, rent-stabilized and market rate rentals, and retail businesses—not a single "industrial" building among them. Never mind that the purported "blight" of the rail yard remains and will remain for decades (Ratner hasn't even purchased the bulk of the rail yard site). And, never mind that where once stood homes and businesses, now stands a demolition zone which will, at best, be a surface parking lot for decades. Eminent domain? This reporter apparently never heard of it.
Never mind all of this because The Times has now reported that the "changes are evidence that the arena has already met its goal of transforming a dreary stretch of Brooklyn." So...it must be so.
And while the reporter gives a sweet alley-oop to uber-flack DePlasco, the economic vitality that is clustering around the arena was clustering around the site long prior to the advent of the arena, and that kind of vitality only required the continuing development of the neighborhood and a rezoning. But that wouldn't have given developer Ratner a land monopoly.
Surely farm-to-table restaurants and pricey drinking establishments, pricing out a long time hardware shop and other daily neighborhood needs, won't help stem the tide of gentrification; neither will demolished land sitting dormant until the developer finds the financial wherewithal to construct predominantly luxury housing.
And talk about burying the lede. The big Atlantic Yards news in the past week was the precedent setting unanimous appellate court ruling requireing a new enivronmental review of the Phase 2 portion of the project. The second stinging judicial rebuke to the legitimacy of the project
and its state sponsor the Empire State Development Corporation. The Times didn't see fit to dedicate a full story to that legal ruling which has state-wide impact when it comes to environmental law. Instead it shoves it into 2 (two) unenlightening sentences near the end of the article.
Unanimous Appellate Court Decision Slams ESDC,
Forces NY State to Do Supplemental Review and
New Approval of Ratner's Atlantic Yards Project
Golden Opportunity for Governor Cuomo
To
Fix the Atlantic Yards Debacle
BROOKLYN, New York—Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn (DDDB), BrooklynSpeaks and all of their co-plaintiff community groups have won another victory in court over the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) and Forest City Ratner—their second in a row.
In a unanimous decision, the Appellate Division of the New York State Supreme Court today found that Justice Marcy Friedman correctly ruled in July 2011 that the ESDC's 2009 approval of Atlantic Yards' Modified General Project Plan violated State environmental law.
The decision upholds the lower court's order that the ESDC initiate a Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS) and new approval process on Phase 2 of the Atlantic Yards project, which includes the bulk of the 22 acre project and the bulk of the non-arena portion of the demolished site.
A public hearing on the SEIS will be mandatory.
The SEIS process requires the ESDC, on behalf of developer Forest City Ratner to detail and analyze all of the environmental impacts of a 25 year construction project on the community. ESDC had failed to do this by misrepresenting the nature of the project and its construction timeline before the project received final approval and eminent domain sign off. The state clung to the laughable idea that the construction would take ten years.
According to the appellate decision the ESDC failed to analyze the possible situation "in which area residents must tolerate vacant lots, above-ground arena parking, and Phase II construction staging for decades."
"We are thrilled that the Appellate Division affirmed Justice Friedman's decision. This has proven our long standing contention that the project is too big for the area and could not be completed in the unrealistic timeframe claimed by Forest City Ratner and ESDC. Instead the community will be faced with literally decades of construction impacts and developer induced blight," said DDDB attorney Jeffrey S. Baker of Young/Sommer. "The next step is an SEIS that will consider not only the impacts of the delayed project but alternatives that will provide a reasonable development in an achievable timeframe. While past practices by ESDC do not give us much reason to hope, maybe this strong decision will teach ESDC that it must undertake an honest and transparent SEIS."
"The fact is that the project should never have been approved at all—it is entirely illegitimate," said DDDB's legal director Candace Carponter. "The tragedy here is, but for the blatant misrepresentations to the Court by Forest City Ratner and ESDC, it would been determined in 2010 that an SEIS was required and that would have stopped construction of Barclays Arena. ESDC's dishonesty has allowed that to go forward and the community is already feeling the adverse impacts that have long been forecast. We hope that ESDC will abandon its servile devotion to Forest City Ratner and start representing the citizens of this area."
"The ruling gives Governor Cuomo the opportunity and impetus to reconsider and change the course of the project, instead of continuing to allow roughly 14 acres of demolished properties to be held hostage by a developer who has no feasible plan or financial wherewithal to build the desperately needed affordable housing he promised," said DDDB's cofounder Daniel Goldstein. "Only the Governor has the power to fix the mess the ESDC and Ratner have created at Brooklyn's crossroads. This will be a real test of their leadership and independence."
Candace Carponter concluded, "It has now been proven, in and out of Court, that Bruce Ratner simply cannot and will not do the job he promised the public, his supporters and elected officials. It is time to end Ratner's control of the site and move towards a Unity Plan style solution: divide the non-arena portion of the site into multiple parcels so that multiple developers can build a project that responds to the community's needs and concerns and brings true benefits, rather than pie-in-the-sky promises made to be broken. "
The key section of today's ruling follows:
Pursuant to the MGPP [Modified General Project Plan], FCRC is required to acquire at the inception of the Project only the portion of the site needed for the construction of the arena. It has until 2030 to obtain all the property interests necessary for Phase II construction. Moreover, in a Development Agreement executed after the MGPP was approved by ESDC, FCRC was given until 2035 to substantially complete Phase II construction. The Development Agreement sets forth no specific commencement dates for the construction, other than for the construction of the platform on which 6 of the 11 Phase II buildings will be built, which is not required to be commenced until 2025, and the construction of one Phase II building on Block 1129, which is not required to be "initiated" until 2020.
However, in assessing the potential environmental impacts of the changes to the Project wrought by the MGPP, ESDC used a build date based on the same 10-year completion schedule for the Project as was used in the 2006 Plan, and determined that it was not required to prepare a SEIS before approving the MGPP.
…
Moreover, the Technical Analysis assumed that Phase II construction would not be stalled or deferred for years and that it would proceed continuously on a parcel-by-parcel basis. Thus, it failed to consider an alternative scenario in which years go by before any Phase II construction is commenced — a scenario in which area residents must tolerate vacant lots, above-ground arena parking, and Phase II construction staging for decades.
ESDC relies on mitigation measures adopted to address the impacts found in the FEIS in 2006. However, the Technical Analysis did not consider whether those measures were adequate in the case of a protracted period of construction.
We have considered respondents' remaining contentions and find them unavailing.
Community Boards Take Sober Look At Bruce Ratner's Barclays Arena Liquor License Application
Last night Community Boards 2 and 6, after a 2.5 hour meeting with public comment nearly unanimously concerned about the premature nature of the Barclays Arena application for a liquor license, voted along with the community's concerns about the inevitable approval of the license. Here's the coverage:
Committees of Brooklyn Community Boards 2 and 6, urging attention to the Barclays Center's unique placement in and near residential districts, both last night urged caution to the operators of the Barclays Center arena, saying they were unwilling to support the venue's inevitable liquor license without reservations.
After a 2.5-hour hearing in a standing-room only meeting room at the 78th Precinct stationhouse just a block from the arena site, a CB 6 committee tabled any vote on the liquor license, then voted to urge the applicant, Levy Restaurants, to set up a community liaison group to address residents' concerns.
A CB 2 committee voted to approve the license, but with heavy reservations, including issues that are related but not exactly in Levy's hands: developer Forest City Ratner's issuance of a transportation demand management plan, which was promised in December but has been delayed until May, and a clarified arena security plan, which involves coordination of arena operations with the New York Police Department, which has yet to assign a precinct to be in charge of policing the arena.
The full boards also will make their recommendations, and then have a chance to again weigh in when the State Liquor Authority holds a hearing on the 500-foot rule, required when there are other nearby establishments. The SLA is expected to approve the application; the question is whether the process will impose any conditions on the operator.
Two Brownstone Brooklyn community boards sent different messages of temperance to Barclays Center officials who were seeking approval for the arena's liquor license last night — but both boards agreed that arena operators need to do more to ensure that quality of life in the surrounding neighborhoods will not be destroyed by thousands of boozed-up basketball fans.
...
"This is a win," said Councilwoman Letitia James, the Fort Greene Democrat who had demanded that the liquor license bid be suspended until "all of those outstanding issues can be resolved."
...
"There will be drinking and driving," said Hildegaard Link, a member of Community Board 6. "How many more dead bicyclists and pedestrians to we need? This is not a joke."
"We have so many new bars coming and now they want to set up 57 stations in the arena to sell liquor. It's
just too much," said Community Board 6 member Pauline Blake.
The Nets Absentee Owner Prokhorov Comes to Brooklyn Town. Makes Comments
Yesterday the Russian oligarch, Nets owner, 45% owner of the Barclays Center Arena with partner Bruce Ratner, and the holder of an option to own 20% of the rest of the Atlantic Yards project (what's the word on exercising that thing anyway, Ratner said more than 6 months ago that "we'd" know in he'd take the option...6 months) Mikhail Prokhorov came to Brooklyn to join Bruce Ratner for an arena construction photo op and perhaps to seek out "the Brooklynites."
Here, courtesy of The Daily News, he is unplugged and unburnished by flacks, sycophants and cheerleaders who comically claim him to be "the most interesting man in the world:"
Nets owner Mikhail Prokhorov spoke to the media today at the construction site of the Barclays Center.
This is what he said:
Opening statement: When I bought a share of the Barclays Center together with my partner, we had a joke, that I became a partnership in a hole. But now I’m quite happy that we are all here. And with my partner Bruce Ratner and I, we held on to that vision. We saw the future. And we saw that it will be really a wonderful venue for all the Brooklynites. And we saw that it will be a joy and excitement for all the community. The Nets, like the arena, is still under construction. It’s on the building stage and I will keep my prediction of a championship. I will do my best, together with my friends, together with my partners, we will make the Brooklyn Nets the champions of the NBA. And I am very committed to this.
Thoughts on arena? It’s not my first visit to the arena. Now it looks really good. So I think just welcome the 21st century. I’m sure it will be the best arena in the world. And I am proud to have a partner like Bruce Ratner and we can do together a great miracle. So now we have practically the state of the art arena, and we need to have a genius team. All this combination will give another emotion, another joy, another excitement to the great borough, Brooklyn.
What will it take to build Nets to title contender? So first of all I want to tell that we need to be very patient because it’s easy to have a good team, and playoff team. And it’s very difficult to make a championship team.
Really? Easy? Then why have the Nets sucked and missed the playoffs under his years of ownership?
We need to be really patient. We need to go really slow step to find the best pieces for the team. Not only just really good players. But we need to have the players which can be one very strong single team. Just team spirit. What we need. And we are really on the right way. If you look for example, if you analyze this season, so we have really good young pieces. MarShon Brooks, for example, like Gerald Green. So we’re quite happy that Gerald Wallace is with us. And of course, I think now we are slow coming to the more or less adequate situation. And, of course, if it hadn’t been for the crazy injuries this year I’m sure we would have been in the playoffs, that’s for sure. But we are patient are patience and I hope all our fans will share our approach to the championship. For us, it’s very important they trust in us. And I’ll do my best. I’m very committed.
Thoughts on keeping Deron Williams? Excuse me, I didn’t catch the question. ….Is it no NBA rules that prohibit to comment on the potential interest. So please wait until the summer. I’ll tell you all the details. For the time being, it’s top secret for us.
Courting the Islanders to Barclays? Our arena, we reached agreement with National Hockey League. Now we can play ice hockey here. But in the time being we have no practical plan with any other team. But we will see in the future.
Political aspirations affect ownership of Nets? I think there is no link with my ownership and my potential political career. For me, the last presidential election in Russia was just the starting point for my potential career. But unlike the presidential run, now I have time, have no pressure, but to make an immediate step. So I am in the stage of thinking and working out my political strategy. The world is changing. Russia is changing. We’re facing a very interesting time. So a new generation of Russian. And this election was a great testimony. Like 20 percent of the population is looking for changes. Severe changes in the economy and they want to be a part of the global world. So it’s a nice start, but a little later I can comment in a more practical way.
Reaction to Dwight Howard electing not to be traded to the Nets and to stay in Orlando? I think every owner wants to have a great player. And, of course during our strategy, we tried to use any opportunity. But as far as all these rumors are concerned, I think that people from the office they planned to visit Miami and speak with the agent of Nene at the time. That’s why it was maybe it was a lot of rumors coming from Dwight Howard’s people. And they havesame agent. That’s why as soon as we have a legal opportunity, for trading we will do our best to find the best pieces for our team.
Formal goodbye to New Jersey? I hope the majority of the Nets fans from New Jersey will join us here and all our team will do our best in order to invite all the people who supported our team for many, many years to be also the fans here. Our new name will be the Brooklyn Nets, that’s why I hope we can unite New Jersey fans, Manhattan, and, of course, Brooklynites. It’s our new home. And we’ll do our best in order to have this great community together in this great arena. Jobs of Avery Johnson and Billy King? I think Billy and Avery, they are doing great job. We have a common view, not only on the day-to-day routine but on our strategic goal. Just to have a championship team we need to be global view, strategic view and you need to have the common knowledge of how to reach this. So from my point of view, we have a great team spirit and we need a little bit of luck, because the team is very professional, and I hope next season we’ll be much, much better than the previous two. How did you choose Brooklyn Nets? I think it was a very easy task, and like it’s not a big deal. I think this name appeared from the fans from Brooklyn and to all my team and we’re all just very open and it was very short discussion. Like we spoke with some people, also professionals, and it was practically unanimous decision it was the best name for our team. Was there any other variants? Of course, there are some other ways how to give the name to the team but I think it’s a waste of time to discuss bad opportunities. Now we have the best name. You said that 20 percent of Russian people wanted change, but they stayed with current system, did you learn, where do you go? For me it was really great school [?]. I met a lot of people, now I know much better for different aspects of the Russian life. But these 20 percent Russians, so-called thinking people, and this is future Russian elite. And if these 20 percent of Russian population, they really deserve the for the changes, that means in the nearest future, the majority of Russians will fight for the changes. That’s why, in this case, I am very optimistic. How do you view Nets two years in Newark, and can you see Newark being a team that could host an NBA team in the future? I want to thank, first of all, Newark, like all the Newark citizen, and the owners of the arena, they really are doing their best in order to just our team feel like home. But when we made our partnership, with my partner, Bruce, so it was guidlines to construct this beautiful arena and to move to Brooklyn. It was our strategic ideology. That’s why, of course, I know some people they are really very skeptical because they want us to stay. But life is life. So I think that we’ll do our best in order to invite all those people and to persuade them to join us here in Brooklyn. I think it will help, not only the Brooklyn community, but all of New York and all of New Jersey. It’s not against rules to discuss D-Will, because he’s under contract w/ your team. So I was wondering if you could elaborate on any convos you may have had with him, and whether or not you believe he’ll be perceptive to your powers of persuasion? I missed the name of the player.
Deron Williams? OK. [laughs] We met yesterday, we have I think a very good discussion. He really wants to win, and I want to win maybe even more. And we have just -- and really, I won’t go into details, but I think this stage we are on the same page. How confident are you that you can keep Deron and sign him to a max extension? I think he wants to win and he wants to be part of a great franchise, so we have the same view of this, and I can’t comment more. Just, it’s better to ask him what was the rest of our conversation. I mean what I’ve already mentioned. Now that the election is over, are you going to show up and be more involved? I love to pay attention to my team and it doesn’t matter if I’m in Moscow or here in New York, because I watch usually 80 percent of the games, I read stats for all the games and I have, like, a lot of conversation with my people with the team, so I think what is more important? It’s not what you see, it’s more important what is behind the scenes. It’s day-to-day routine and our strategic plans, and I’m very just committed and I am involved in the strategy process. So my job. So my job is to know that team has all the best that we can do, that is the most important. But of course, now I can be more often to visit and to see games live.
About Deron Williams, are you worried about Mark Cuban? Let the best man win. If he wins, I’ll crush him in the kickboxing throwdown.
Mr. Proky, in your visits what do you think of Brooklyn? So I think I read the article in the Daily News that said that every 9-out-of-10 Brooklynites quite happy for the arena for the team moving. And I feel that Brooklyn deserves a professional team since the time the Dodgers left in 1957. And of course I know there is some kind of skeptical criticism, and of course it’s impossible to make happy just everyone, but I hope as soon as we start our season, because it’s not only basketball, it’s a great cultural events to tennis and another opportunity to make this like center, the heart of Brooklyn. I think even those who are skeptical now will join us. So we’ll do our best, because for us the spirit of community is very important.
You planning to buy a place in Brooklyn? You know it’s just a great question for me, because the time being a rich Russian driving up the prices, so it’s not the best time to buy.
Norman Oder reports on an eye-opening Real Deal article on the whopping 26.8% Class A office vacancy rate in Brooklyn and we eagerly await Dr. Zimbalist's mea culpa (which is more likely to come than the office tower Ratner has long promised):
Remember how the four Atlantic Yards office towers were a slam dunk, according to Forest City Ratner's paid consultant, sports economist Andrew Zimbalist, because office space as of 2004 was supposed to be doing fine?
that the demand for office space drove the Downtown Brooklyn rezoning, which instead enabled residential towers and hotels
that the promised Atlantic Yards office space was crucial to the count of permanent jobs and the total tax revenue
The number of planned office towers at the AY site was cut from four to one, but that one building hasn't been developed, without an anchor tenant.
So, the article suggests that Bruce Ratner's snappy comment to Crain's New York Business in November 2009--"Can you tell me when we are going to need a new office tower?"--remains very much valid.
No Bruce, we can't. But we certainly said for years there never woudl be the need for one.
As I wrote in March 2006, Zimbalist, while predicting Atlantic Yards would eventually create 1.9 million square feet of first-class office space, made no mention of a study of Downtown Brooklyn redevelopment issued a month earlier, which estimated a glut of office space.
In their June 2004 critique, Gustav Peebles and Jung Kim pointed out that Zimbalist didn't point out how so much of the then-well-occupied Class A office space in Brooklyn is at Forest City Ratner's MetroTech development, which has relied heavily on subsidies and government tenants to fill the space.
Anyway, if you're interested in why they think 18,000 (minus everyone under the age of 21 without fake IDs) should be able to belly up to the bar at once and chug down some of the best swill around and how they'll handle it, AND ask questions....you're in luck.
Community Board 6 announces a joint meeting with Community Boards 2 & 6 at 6:30 pm on April 10:
Public Safety/Environmental Protection/Permits/Licenses
Presentation and review of an on-premises liquor license application submitted to the State Liquor Authority on behalf of Levy Premium Foodservice, LP and Brooklyn Events Center, LLC at the Barclays Center, 620 Atlantic Avenue (between Flatbush/5th Avenues).
CB 6 District Manager Craig Hammerman notes that the joint review session is being held because the arena and site spans multiple Community Districts. Community Boards don't see the liquor license applications, but get a standardized form that provides a 30-day notice of an applicant's intent to file an application, which is what triggers the review process.
CB 6 asks applicants to complete a liquor license questionnaire, which includes the names of officers/managers/owners, the previous premises they've operated, and details about the operation, including cuisine, target age of customer base, music/entertainment plans, hours/days of operation, and
square footage/seating capacity/floor plan.
Community Boards cannot veto or approve a license application, but have an advisory--and sometimes mediating--role. CB 2 stated in a notice:
Representatives of the applicant, the arena operator and the New York Police Department will be present at the meeting. Although not a public hearing, the public will have the opportunity to ask questions and comment.
Posted: 4.03.12
Daily News Gets Off on Ratner (and Prokhorov's) Arena It must be fun to be a real estate/life-style reporter when you can deny history, reality and current events. That's just what Jason Sheftell does in today's Daily News as he fluffs Bruce Ratner, his arena and his oculus and facade architect Gregg Pasquarelli and crew at SHoP (no mention of the oligarch who saved the whole foundering project, that would be a little too messy).
NoLanGrab suggests, correctly, that the column "may be the single greatest piece of drivel ever written about Atlantic Yards." And that the article would be better headlined, "Here's something to distract you from all the news about the guilty verdicts in Yonkers."
If you can stomach it and don't mind gagging, the article is here. And there is no arguing with the headline,"Barclays Center arena will change Brooklyn forever," except the editor left out the word irrevocably.
Former Yonkers Councilwoman Sandy Annabi and her political mentor and cousin Zehy Jereis were convicted today on federal corruption charges, with the jury finding that money he gave her was to control her vote — not win her love.
Jurors found the two guilty of conspiracy, bribery and extortion charges involving nearly $200,000 in payments that prosecutors linked to Annabi's vote switches on two developments, the $842 million [Forest City Ratner] Ridge Hill project and the smaller Longfellow housing plan. She also was convicted of filing false statements on mortgage applications and submitting false tax returns.
While Forest City was never accused of any wrongdoing by the federal prosecutors, they still remain the sole corporate beneficiary of Councilmember Annabi's sudden switch from nay to yea on the Ridge Hill approval. This switch came after Forest City's (recently made) former politcal fixer Bruce Bender, after years of trying, was able to get a meeting with Annabi—that meeting was arranged by her distant cousin (and lover?) Zehy Jereis. Soon after the vote was flipped Jereis received a no-show job with Forest City Ratner for which he was unqualified. Payments for that $60,000/year job stopped when the federal investigation was revealed. (Jereis, by the way, had twice been a convicted criminal—once for drugs and once for election fraud—yet Forest City still thought it sensible to use his services and claimed it did not know his tainted history.)
"This trial was not about the actions of Forest City Ratner," the company said Thursday, adding it had "no knowledge of the financial relationship between Ms. [Sandy] Annabi and Mr. [Zehy] Jereis."
But they sure had knowledge that Jereis had some special avenue to Annabi that nobody else seemed to have, that Jereis was a convicted criminal, that Jereis was not qualified for the job they gave him, and they now have knowledge that the two Ratner political fixers who were central to the trial left the company days before the trial started.
So, despite their excusing of themselves, the tainted company (tainted by years of ongoing controversy over many of their projects including their biggest, Atlantic Yards) has become...more tainted. Even their friends acknowledge this, as Norman Oder points out:
Yes, Bender and Cantone testified, they had no knowledge about the financial relationship between Annabi and Jereis. But they also made no effort to check for his criminal record, or to request the reports Jereis was supposed to send in to validate his no-show consulting job. And they made sure he got paid.
That, as Greg David of Crain's New York Business--generally a friend to Forest City--might put it, sounds like "See no evil, hear no evil."
And the trial surely illuminated actions that, while not claimed as illegal, seem to violate the company's code of conduct, which bars "improper payment or promise of same."
Forest City Ratner was not charged and has said it's not a target for investigation. Still, if Annabi and Jereis don't succeed in their appeals, or efforts to get the verdict dismissed, it would be interesting to see if either have anything more to share about the developer's behavior.
Yesterday's Atlantic Yards District Cabinet meeting featured an appearance from the state's top economic development official, Empire State Development CEO Kenneth Adams, a Brooklynite.
Adams apologized to not coming to an earlier meeting, but said he has many constraints on his time. He said he was mostly present "as an observer and listener"--indeed, he only spoke privately to visitors.
He reflected that he had come to what he deemed a helpful meeting on Atlantic Yards last September. (Some community members might be a little more critical.)
"You all know Arana [Hankin], and she is the way to get to me," he said. "Arana is so very helpful to us at the agency, in being the point person for the project."
Hankin said another community roundtable with Adams will be held sometime in April. The next Atlantic Yards District Service Cabinet meeting is tentatively scheduled for May 3.
Crain's: Forest City Ratner Lucky Press is Giving Little Attention to Federal Corruption Trial
Greg David was an Atlantic Yards partisan in support of the project. Now he thinks Ratner is lucky that the press is ignoring his and his company's very questionable behavior as elucidarted in the Yonkers federal corruption trial, just as he and others did lo these past 8 years. But it's never too late to change one's ways:
Forest City in the woods in Yonkers Developer's reputation takes a hit in Westchester scandal. Crain's New York. By Greg David. (Subscription)
One of the most eye-opening exposés of political corruption in New York is getting very little attention—and at least one local player, Forest City Ratner, can only be relieved about that because the developer's reputation is taking a big hit.
The revelations are coming in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, where Sandy Annabi, a Yonkers city councilwoman, and Zehy Jereis, a political operative and Forest City consultant, are on trial for bribery, extortion and conspiracy. The charges say that Mr. Jereis bribed Ms. Annabi, his cousin, to change her vote and swing the council in favor of Forest City's $842 million Ridge Hill development in that city. Only the Journal News of Westchester has covered the case in detail.
Both defendants have pleaded not guilty. Mr. Jereis claims he gave the money to Ms. Annabi because he wanted to sleep with her; Ms. Annabi's defense isn't clear yet. Those are the caveats; now to the story. ...
As for Forest City, its efforts to win approval have been detailed at great length in the trial. Here's the bottom line. To push the project, it hired the most powerful people in Westchester—namely Al Pirro (ex-husband of former Westchester District Attorney Jeanine Pirro) and Mr. Spano. When the firm had already invested some $78 million in Ridge Hill and the council seemed unwilling to approve its plan, Forest City became desperate. It hired Mr. Mangone and eventually gave Mr. Jereis a no-show job in hopes they could change Ms. Annabi's vote. That's just what she did.
Forest City has done many good things in New York, and no one has suggested that it did anything illegal. But it pursued a project in a city where the politically astute developer knew there was a history of corruption, hired people with questionable bona fides and didn't ask what they did.
More like New York has done many good things for Forest City. "Questionable bona fides?" That's an understatement, just read about the man they gave a no-show job to.
Just a note: activity doesn't need to be illegal to be corrupt.
Forest City executives admitted in court they were uncomfortable with their deal with Mr. Jereis. Yet its approach? See no evil, hear no evil.
Ahhh, "See no evil, hear no evil." That would be a much more suitable slogan for the Atlantic Yards project than Jobs, Housing & Hoops.
Park Slope Patch is running a poll on whether readers think Poor Bruce Ratner's and Mikhail Prokhorov's Barclays Center Arena is "ugly." While there is no accounting for taste there is also nobody being held accountable for the fact that the Atlantic Yards project as a whole is one of the ugliest cases of corrupt urban development and kleptocracy in a long, long time.
Norman Oder points to one commenter who made this point clear in the poll's comment section.
Judging the aesthetic merits of the city's newest sports arena. Park Slope Patch. By Paul Leonard
Designed by Ellerbe Beckett and SHoP Architects, Barclays Center's mirrored glass and aged steel exterior continues to rise just a stone's throw away from some of the oldest and most historically significant housing stock the city has to offer.
So as Barclays begins to take its final shape in the middle of Brownstone Brooklyn, a question:
Is the Barclays Center ugly?
Or is it a welcome, intrinsically modern, addition to the landscape of the borough?
From the New York Post: "Barclays Center developer Bruce Ratner visits tonight's "Charlie Rose Show" (11 p.m./Ch. 13)."
How many tough questions will the host ask? Prediction: few if any. The segment should ultimately posted on Rose's website and Hulu.
One wild card is Charlie Rose's long time relationship (we don't know if it is current or ended) with City Planning Commissioner Amanda Burden. We know that Burden, behind the scenes, wasn't too pleased with Atlantic Yards and it is hard to imagine that she is pleased with how it has played out so far, so maybe she'll feed some good info to Rose. On the other hand Rose, Burden and Ratner surely all rub friendly shoulders and are loath to say an unkind word in public about the other. And on the third hand, perhaps Burden plays as much of a meaningful role on the Charlie Rose show as she did in the State-run Atlantic Yards project, which is to say--no meaningful role.
Bob Sanna, Forest City Ratner (executive vice president)
At Forest City Ratner, decisions about where to locate a building — on Spruce Street in the case of New York by Gehry, or at Atlantic Yards in Brooklyn for the under-construction Barclays Center — are made by Bruce Ratner, chairman, and MaryAnne Gilmartin, vice president.
But figuring out what the building will cost, how much time it will take to build and what it will look like are the responsibilities of Bob Sanna. While Ratner and Gilmartin are the faces of the company, Sanna, an architect by training, is the construction manager and point person for all the company's high-profile projects.
Since 1988, he's completed 40 projects for the firm, including the New York Times headquarters on Eighth Avenue; Metrotech, the 11-building Downtown Brooklyn office complex; and Regal's United Artists cinema at 100 Court Street. Few other development firms give the in-house construction manager as much sway in decision-making as Sanna, who oversees an 18-member team. ...
Sanna said his regrets, so far, are few, like wishing that the Atlantic Center mall in Brooklyn, for instance, had more windows. But when it was constructed in the late 1990s, Forest City capitulated to the demands of their big-box retail tenants, who were convinced that only replicas of their suburban stores would work.
"Poor Bruce was being forced to conform to lease requirements of these suburban stores," said Sanna, who prefers what Home Depot did on West 23rd Street in fitting their store to an existing, more traditional space. "It's a whole different level of sophistication."
(Emphasis added)
Yes Poor, poor beset Bruce Ratner, he who said of the Atlantic Center Mall's odd, cold design:
"It's a problem of malls in dense urban areas that kids hang out there, and it's not too positive for shopping," Mr. Ratner said. "Look, here you're in an urban area, you're next to projects, you've got tough kids."
Adding that it was not an issue of class or ethnicity, he said: "You know it's kids that cut school. In the burbs, a 15-year-old can't get to the mall without his parents. Here, it's a little different."
Posted: 3.08.12
Ratner VPs Claim They Didn't Know Fixer They Hired to Pass Yonkers Project Was Convicted Criminal
The federal bribery and corruption trial which centers on Forest City Ratner's Yonkers Ridge Hill development project has been playing out for over week in a Manhattan federal court room. This is the case where the alleged bribee, former Yonkers councilwoman and Ridge Hill vote-flipper Sandy Annabi, was indicted, and the briber, Yonkers GOP operative and Annabi cousin (or lover, or wannabe lover, or all three, it is not clear) Zehy Jereis, was indicted, while nobody associated with the beneficiary of the bribe—Bruce Ratner's Forest City Ratner company—was indicted.
The two (now) ex-Ratner fixers and lobbyists ta the heart of the Yonkers shenanigans, Bruce Bender and Scott Cantone, have now both testified under oath. More on that later, because we must first highlight this quote from Ratner uber flack Joe DePlasco who must have thought he was doing stand up when explaining why Forest City Ratner didn't do a background check on Jereis before they "hired" him for a no-show job paid him $5k/month after Annabi flipped her vote. Turns out that without that background check the squeaky clean development firm failed to uncover the fact that Jereis had been convicted of both drug dealing and election fraud.
...FCR spokesman Joe DePlasco said the firm had "no way of knowing" Jereis had a criminal record because "he was the leader of the Yonkers Republican Party."
Who do we contact to nominate that for quote of the year?
Update: Norman Oder's quick search on The Google turned up numerous accounts of Jereis' previous convictions, which somehow Forest City Ratner had "no way of knowing."
The House has passed legislation to undercut a 2005 Supreme Court ruling that gives state and local governments eminent domain authority to seize private property for economic development projects.
Supporters of the bill say the 5-4 high court decision was an instance of overreach, and that the government should not be able to take away a private person's home or business for commercial purposes.
The Fifth Amendment of the Constitution says private property cannot be taken for public use without just compensation, and eminent domain has traditionally been used to obtain land for public projects such as highways or airports.
The bill would withhold for two years all federal development aid to states or locales that take private property for economic development. It now goes to the Senate.
In post-Kelo 2005 the House overwhelmingly passed the same punitive bill but the Senate didn't act. Rumor had it that it was New York's own Senator Schumer who led the Senate stonewalling on the bill to protect the real estate industry. There was also a full scale effort to block the bill by Mayor Bloomberg (blocking it was one of the items on Bloomberg's 2006 "Five Priorities" card.)
Forest City Ratner has “little or no regard for public opinion,” said John Murtagh, a former Yonkers councilman and opponent of the Ridge Hill project who recently testified in the trial. “Their entire business model is to exploit every tax loophole and taxpayer-funded subsidy that they can. Promise the world and deliver far less, and do it all by manipulation.”
This excerpt from the Journal News' coverage of the Yonkers Ridge Hill federal corruption and bribery trial is right on target and opponents** of Ratner's Atlantic Yards project would be in total agreement. And we see the parellels—oh, so does Mr. Murtagh:
But Murtagh sees many parallels between Atlantic Yards and Ridge Hill, including the silencing of community groups and backroom deals. Years after his first encounter with Forest City, and with the most recent allegations, Murtagh said he feels vindicated in his opposition to the project.
“Unfortunately, what’s coming out in this case now vindicates what we ... were saying about this company and this project five years ago,” Murtagh said. “In the court of public opinion it should be obvious to anyone that Forest City Ratner games the system and does not play by the rules.”
“I think there’s been tremendous support for Atlantic Yards,” said Joseph DePlasco, a Forest City spokesman. “There was a vocal opposition that was opposed to part of the project. There are many who support it.”
Actually, Joey from Cobble Hill, there was, and is, massive opposition to the entire project, and most of those supporters who weren't political cronies*** in the tank, or Marty Markowitz, were paid partners contractually obliged to support the project.
***In the same article Assemblyman Joseph Lentol, D-Brooklyn, who helped arrange a meeting between the Zehy Jereis, charged with bribing Council Member Sandy Annabi to flip her vote and get Ratner's Ridge Hill passed said:
“The company is a good one as far as I’m concerned. They definitely have a good track record as developers as far as efficiency and getting things done.”
Clearly Lentol's concern doesn't go very far as those who game the system and don't play by the rules usually do get things done efficiently.
Posted: 2.25.12
Ridge Hill Corruption Trial: Forest City Ratner Got What it Wanted By Paying Yonkers Operative
The federal bribery and corruption trial which centers of Forest City Ratner's Yonkers Ridge Hill development project has been playing out for over week in a Manhattan federal court room. This is the case where the alleged bribee, former Yonkers councilwoman Sandy Annabi, was indicted, and the briber, Yonkers GOP operative and Annabi cousin Zehy Jereis, was indicted, while nobody associated with the beneficiary of the bribe—Bruce Ratner's Forest City Ratner company—was indicted.
Yesterday Ratner operative Scott Cantone testified (his testimony will continue on Monday, February 27th, and will be folllowed, most likley, by Forest City Ratner's former fixer/lobbyist Bruce Bender's testimony). And boy did his testimony lead to some serious head scratching. As Norman Oder retells it in his extensive reporting on yesterday's hearing, Forest City Ratner knew what it was getting by agreeing to give the no show job $5,000/month to Jereis:
...At the end of the day's questioning, Assistant U.S. Attorney Perry Carbone asked a pointed question: "If Zehy Jereis had not produced Sandy Annabi's vote, would he have been hired by Forest City Ratner?"
"It's hard to say, but probably not," responded Cantone, Senior VP for Government and Political Affairs, in the matter-of-fact tones that marked his testimony.
The result, a seeming reward for Jereis, skates close to a violation of parent Forest City Enterprises' Code of Legal and Ethical Conduct:
2. No bribe, kickback or other improper payment or promise of same shall be authorized, approved or made, directly or indirectly, by or on behalf of FCE in connection with any of its business.
The term "improper payment" is ambiguous, but it can't be too proper to hire someone to do nothing. "Between June 2006 and the present, what of any value did [Jereis] bring to Forest City Ratner," Carbone asked.
"Besides providing access to Council Member Annabi, nothing at all," Cantone replied, raising the question, yet unanswered, of why Forest City kept paying him...
So, if the Feds have a problem with the briber and the bribee, how about the company that agree to reward the briber? Forest City claims it "isn't suspected of any wrongdoing." We note, though, that they aren't suspected of any rightdoing either.
The meeting Jereis arranged got Annabi to switch her vote and eventually led the company to give Jereis a $60,000 consulting contract, a Forest City Ratner official testified Thursday in the federal corruption trial of Annabi and Jereis.
Scott Cantone, senior vice president for government and public relations, said officials were worried about how hiring Jereis would look so soon after the deciding vote and were concerned about what he could actually do for them.
But still they gave him the job, which, as it turned out, he was not very proficient. Jereis didn't provide any good leads for new retail development and only filed the reports they required of him months later after it was publicly revealed he was under investigation, Cantone said.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Jason Halperin asked the executive what the company had gotten from Jereis.
"Aside from providing access to Sandy Annabi, nothing at all," Cantone replied.
An executive for one of New York City's top developers testified yesterday that the firm handed a Yonkers political crony what amounted to a $5,000-a-month no-show job.
Forest City Ratner – whose Big Apple projects include Brooklyn's controversial Atlantic Yards development – hasn't been charged with any wrongdoing but is featured in the fed's ongoing Yonkers corruption case.
Scott Cantone, FCR's senior VP for government affairs, testified in Manhattan federal court that the firm hired then-Yonkers Republican Party chairman Zehy Jereis as a "consultant" in 2006 because Jereis was the only one who could swing a key vote their way to push through a stalled $650 million mixed-use development called "Ridge Hill."
Though Forest City Ratner is not charged with any wrongdoing, this marks the second recent corruption case, after the Sen. Carl Kruger trial in December, in which the developer has been named.
What
would Atlantic Yards Look like?... Photo
Simulations
Before and After views from around the project footprint
revealing the massive scale of the proposed luxury apartment
and sports complex.
In Chicago, Wrigley Field is allowed to host only 30 evening events a year. Liquor sales must end no later than 9:30PM. And any changes to that policy have to be approved by the Chicago City Council. 
