September 5, 2006
Ratner to Put Miss Brooklyn on a Diet?
The NY Times is reporting that Atlantic Yards developer Bruce Ratner will cut the size of the project by 6-8%. How? By reducing the amount of market-rate housing. And also from the Times:
"[Ratner's company] Forest City is also considering reducing the height of the project’s tallest tower, which is known as Miss Brooklyn, to get it under the height of the borough’s tallest building, the nearby Williamsburgh Savings Bank tower, according to real estate executives."Interesting, given that a lot of focus has been on what impact the project will have on the Brooklyn skyline. After the Atlantic Yards public hearing, Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz had suggested the project could be scaled down. A revised plan is supposed to be announced later this month. The article notes that architect Frank Gehry has "objected to any changes in his design for Miss Brooklyn." Heh! Frank Gehry, welcome to building in the city (building for Barry Diller doesn't quite count) - you hand over your designs, they will get the city treatment.
However, some people remain skeptical of this latest move. Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn's Daniel Goldstein tells the Times that he suspects Forest City "[has had this proposal] in their closet for a long time," and that even if Forest City chopped "Miss Brooklyn in half in terms of the height and that won’t change our position."
There's a public forum about the Atlantic Yards project next Tuesday, September 12 - we wonder how the supposed reduction will be explained, if at all. And the Atlantic Yards Report looks at contributions that Ratner's brother made to various people who have political influence.
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What do you call an 8% cut in this behemoth?
A good start.
You call it a "scaleback" to the same (or larger) oversized monster it was when announced in December 2003.
" target=new>From Atlantic Yards Report:
This is the lead story for the entire newspaper. They should have done better. Unmentioned is the sequence of proposals, which show that the project could still be bigger than originally announced:
December 2003: 8 million square feet
September 2005: 9.132 million square feet
March 2006: 8.659 million square feet
A reduction of 500,000 square feet would make the project 8.159 million square feet, while a cut of 700,000 square feet would mean 7.959 million square feet.
And even a reduction in bulk would leave Miss Brooklyn and the building at Site 5 quite large. Right now, the former would be about three times the bulk of the Williamsburgh bank, in square footage, and the latter would be nearly twice the size of the bank. In fact, a cut of 700,000 square feet from Miss Brooklyn alone would still leave it bulkier than the bank.
whoops, sorry. screwed up that link to Atlantic Yards Report.
HERE IT IS
One man's 'monster' makes for 2250 units of affordable housing to those who are getting priced out of the city.
Gothamist, your political leanings are blatant and appalling.
"Gothamist, your political leanings are blatant and appalling."
Yes, Shame on you for having Independent Thought! Fie on thee!!
(ahem)
"SouthSide", Just What ARE you talking about? Jen's post doesn't seem to "lean" one way or the Other. What's appalling to me is "Correct Thinkers" (A stretch, I know!) like yourself.
the only political lean chung has seems to have towards the "bad grammar and spelling" party...
and i obviously support the "irony of a grammatical error when pointing out other's errors" party.
At least you spelled "lean" correctly, But you need to capitalize "I" when you refer to yourself, don't you think?
"There's a public forum about the Atlantic Yards project next Tuesday, September 12 - we wonder how the supposed reduction will be explained, if at all"
Why bother explaining shit when you can just pay people to show up and shout down the opposition?
re: s.d.
im not publishing what im writing. and i sure as hell am not getting paid for it. so suuuckk itttt.