NEW YORK | Pacific Park Brooklyn (Atlantic Yards) | 15+ Towers

[NYguy]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304520704579127822887005590.html

Chinese Builder Charges Into Brooklyn
Developer Greenland Takes a Majority Stake in a High-Profile Atlantic Yards Apartment Project

By ELIOT BROWN
October 11, 2013

State-owned property developer Greenland Holdings Group of China agreed to buy a majority stake in a 15-tower apartment project in Brooklyn, N.Y., that would rank as the largest commercial-real-estate development in the U.S. ever to get major backing directly from a Chinese company.

Located in the Atlantic Yards site that includes the Barclays Center arena, the project is expected to cost nearly $4 billion, including debt. The deal could be announced as soon as Friday.

Terms of the tentative deal call for Greenland to buy a 70% stake from Forest City Ratner Cos., which began the project and would continue to manage the development. The purchase price isn't being disclosed, but Forest City has invested $500 million in the 22-acre project so far—and it has committed to additional spending on land and infrastructure set to total hundreds of millions of dollars.

.....In addition to the apartment towers, the project includes one office building and retail space. If the deal is approved, Shanghai-based Greenland would provide 70% of the money needed to finish the project, excluding any debt that is taken on for the construction.

The purchase won't affect the Barclays Center, which is jointly owned by Forest City and Russian billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov. Mr. Prokhorov also is majority owner of the Brooklyn Nets, a National Basketball Association team that plays its home games at the arena.

"I'm thrilled," MaryAnne Gilmartin, Forest City's chief executive, said in an interview Thursday. "We think we can learn from them and they can learn from us."

Zhang Yuliang, Greenland's chairman, said in an emailed statement that the company is "very excited" about the potential partnership. "Atlantic Yards is about more than Brooklyn and New York, as important as this development is for the city," he said. "It is about how we build sustainable, well-designed housing to meet the needs of diverse groups of people."

.....The increasing Chinese investment stands to help a number of U.S. projects move forward. In California, Signature Development Corp. said in April that it had partnered with the Chinese investment firm Zarsion Holdings Group to provide financing to a stalled $1.5 billion project along an estuary of San Francisco Bay that will include more than 3,000 residential units and a community park.

A Chinese infusion into the Brooklyn project also could help speed the development there. Forest City Ratner has struggled with delays and higher-than-expected costs since the project was conceived a decade ago.

.....The deal with the Chinese firm, if completed, would give the project an additional source of capital, likely allowing for faster development. "It's just for us a great way to roll out the project and build it quickly," Ms. Gilmartin said.

Greenland, a state-owned company, is building a 2,087-foot skyscraper in the city of Wuhan that would be 400 feet higher than China's current tallest tower, the Shanghai World Financial Center.

[NYguy]

http://atlanticyardsreport.blogspot.com/2013/10/esd-board-approves-change-to-b4-plan.html

ESD board approves change to B4 plan, nudging bulk of huge tower closer to Sixth Avenue;
board unbowed by request for more time for public to assess modification





October 18, 2013

On one hand, the change proposed and approved yesterday for the planned B4 tower at the northeast corner of the Atlantic Yards arena block (Atlantic and Sixth avenues) seems relatively minor.

As approved by Empire State Development (ESD), the state agency overseeing/shepherding the project, the back half of the tower would shift east and south, closer to the Sixth Avenue, making a nearly continuous wall rising 511 feet. The goal: to be able to build the same amount of housing.

Despite the change to the building envelope, there would be no change to the height, bulk, or sidewalk, nor in the building's planned contents. The change would still conform to general goals of the long-established project Design Guidelines, even if they would modify architectural drawings attached to the Guidelines' appendix.

On the other hand, the 50-minute episode served as a metaphor of sorts: with little notice and no public airing of the design plans--both an ESD policy and a lapse for which officials apologized--the few neighborhood residents who took time out to visit the ESD board meeting had no chance to assess the changes and comment intelligently.

At 511 feet and some 824,629 square feet, this tower would be the largest in the entire Atlantic Yards project, outside of the long-delayed B1, the office tower once planned for the corner of Atlantic and Flatbush avenues. (B4 would be more than twice as large, in square footage, as the first tower, 322-foot B2, now under construction. The latter will have 363 apartments, so B4 could contain up more than 800.)

__

[Rail>Auto]

I'm glad this thread has made its way back to the top. I have been searching for it on here but to no avail and I don't follow Nets Daily as much as I used to so I've been out of the loop for the past few months.

In the diagram above I see there's still a plan for Miss Brooklyn. Is it possible to build a tower like that and keep the Oculus intact, albeit inside instead of outside currently?

[NYguy]

Originally Posted by Rail>Auto

In the diagram above I see there's still a plan for Miss Brooklyn. Is it possible to build a tower like that and keep the Oculus intact, albeit inside instead of outside currently?

No, but the plan for "Miss Brooklyn" always included a large space on the ground level. I think it could be built in a way that keeps a large open plaza intact. But it remains to be seen in what direction they will go.

The original plan for "Miss Brooklyn" had what was called an "urban room"...



http://www.netsdaily.com/2013/9/28/4779924/netsdaily-off-season-report-20

What might have been

It's the first anniversary of Barclays Center and Bruce Ratner and Brett Yormark are making the rounds to discuss its great success, rounds richly deserved.

We decided, particularly for the newer fans to recall the original design of the arena, before it was named the Barclays Center, the Frank Gehry design from 2003-04.

First, this is what the bowl of the arena was supposed to look like. Much larger than the final product, it had some interesting design elements, including if you look closely the large entranceways into the bowl.

Next, the so-called Urban Room that would have linked the planned "Ms Brooklyn" office tower at the tip of Atlantic and Flatbush with the arena. It covers roughly the area of the oculus. The plan was for an all-weather public space.

Finally, there's the planned entrance on Flatbush Avenue, what would have been the main entrance to the arena.

There is no entrance, of course, on Flatbush, the main entrance was moved to the grand plaza in front of the arena. You're looking at where the Nets Store entrance is now located.

Better or worse? It doesn't really matter. With the SHoP/Aecom design, the Nets got perhaps the best arena in the NBA and Brooklyn got an iconic building that will rival (and we think eventually surpass) the Williamsburg Savings Bank as the borough's symbol, sort of like the Sydney Opera House in Australia. It was controversial as well. Now, (nearly) everyone wonders what the fuss was about.

[mrnyc]

^ more of the gehry days here, for nostalgia's sake:






current version

[NYguy]

Ahh, what could have been. I wonder what architects the new developers will bring in. It would be a strange turn of events if they brought in - Gehry. Ratner will still be in charge of development though.

[dc_denizen]

Gehry is a charlatan, IMO, I'm glad he got the boot.

[JayPro]

But the majority here I'd think would say that he scored pretty big with 8 Spruce.
I think he, along with Rem Koolhass (Case in point his submission for 425 Park), are the kind of "starchitects" who are at the best when they're not quite allowed to be themselves, if you catch my drift.
Left to their own devices, the one would throw you for a loop with his unencumbered deconstructivism and the other would have you doing doubletakes with the boldness of his cantilevering...but that's another can of you know what.......

[NYguy]

Say what you want about Gehry's plan, I found it to be more exciting than anything being planned there now. If "Miss Brooklyn" does eventually get built, I hope Gehry is involved.

[supertallchaser]

Originally Posted by NYguy

Say what you want about Gehry's plan, I found it to be more exciting than anything being planned there now. If "Miss Brooklyn" does eventually get built, I hope Gehry is involved.

yeah although Gehry may me be a victim of critics i think his work is great like Beekman tower!

[Tectonic]

Correct me if I'm wrong but I don't think the new arena was designed with a Miss Brooklyn in mind. Where would they put her?



The Modell's/ PC Richards block across the street would be an excellent location. Especially for a mixed use, Office/retail or Hotel/Residential. I think it's labelled 'site 5' above.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by Tectonic

Correct me if I'm wrong but I don't think the new arena was designed with a Miss Brooklyn in mind. Where would they put her?

They have approvals to replace the plaza with a tower.

The PC Richard site across the street is already planned for development. It's considered the most valuable site in the entire project.

[Tectonic]

Interesting...

[chris08876]

Community Board Bid to Take Over Atlantic Yards

FORT GREENE — There's a battle brewing in Brooklyn for control of the Atlantic Yards project, as three Community Boards ramp up a tug-of-war over the massive development that one member reportedly even went so far as to compare to the Russian annexation of Crimea.

Community Board 2 members fired the opening salvo when it voted Wednesday night to redraw the district boundaries so that the entire 22-acre project falls under their domain — using a City Charter provision that allow boards to revise their boundaries every 10 years.

The mayor would have to sign off on the move.

CB 2 members say the district might lose out on affordable housing and job opportunities associated with the project, according to District Manager Rob Perris. But Perris said he warned his fellow board members that they would need consensus from the other boards before moving ahead

"I think we should have first established dialog with the other boards," Perris told DNAinfo.com New York.

Currently, CB2, which covers Fort Greene and Clinton Hill, is only encompasses the northern half of the project — which includes the Barclays Center and the affordable housing that comes with it. The southern half is divided between Community Board 6, which oversees Park Slope and Cobble Hill and Community Board 8, which oversees Prospect Heights and Crown Heights.

[...]

================================
April 11, 2014
By Janet Upadhye and Rachel Holliday Smith
http://www.dnainfo.com/new-york/20140411...-atlantic-yards-compared-crimea-invasion

[chris08876]

Barclays Center to Sprout a Sound-Absorbing Green Roof

The logo-emblazoned roof of the Barlcays Center is going from white to green. The Journal reports that the arena's developer, Forest City Ratner, is bringing back a plan to cover the top of the structure with a 130,000-square-foot green roof. When the first designs for the arena were unveiled more than a decade ago, a lushly planted roof was part of the project, but the feature was cut to save money. But now that the first residential tower of Atlantic Yards is underway, Forest City resurrected the plan in part because it will make the apartments overlooking the arena more marketable—gazing down upon a grassy lawn will be much more pleasing than looking at a bright white and blue bank logo. Ultimately, three of the 15 Atlantic Yards towers will be built directly beside the Barclays Center.

The green roof, currently being designed by SHoP Architects, will also help to muffle loud concerts, though Forest City says that sound reduction did not drive their decision in bringing back the roof. That said, Barclays has been hit with multiple noise complaints from loud concerts; last year, the arena was fined $3,200 after a Swedish House Mafia concert.

Watchdog website Atlantic Yards Reports points out that this refreshed plan for a green roof isn't exactly what was originally proposed back in 2003. The first iteration called for a lawn-topped roof that would be open to the public; that changed to a private roof before the plan was scrapped altogether. With this new proposal, it seems like this will just be a green roof, not a space that's open to anyone.

=====================================
April 7, 2014, by Jessica Dailey
http://ny.curbed.com/archives/2014/04/07/barclays_center_to_sprout_a_soundabsorbing_green_roof.php

[Zapatan]

Wow! That looks awesome

[dc_denizen]

the barclays center is nice but those highrises are "belches on the landscape". Good lord...

[chris08876]

The World's Tallest Modular Tower Grows in Atlantic Yards

Since the first mod of Atlantic Yards Tower B2 swung into place in mid-December, construction of the 322-foot-tall building has not gone as fast as planned. Curbed visited the site this weekend, and the SHoP Architects-designed structure, which will be the tallest modular building in the world when complete, still sits below the Barclays Center. The most recent construction report from developer Forest City Ratner, dated March 31, said that 81 of the 930 steel modules had been installed. The building is slated to be complete by December 2014, but things need to speed up if that's going to happen.

=================================
April 14, 2014, by Jessica Dailey
http://ny.curbed.com/archives/2014/04/14...odular_tower_grows_in_atlantic_yards.php

[C.]

Rumours of an 80 to 100-storey tower for Atlantic Yards according to this link, dated April 15, 2014.

http://atlanticyardsreport.blogspot.com/2014/04/from-skanska-some-curious-and.html

An 80-story tower?

B2 will be 322 feet, or about 32 stories. Other towers will be both taller and shorter.

But Skanska has made an astounding statement.

As noted in the second page of the excerpt from the Build Offsite Review, "Future phases of the development will rise 80 storeys with the innovative modular system capable of achieving 100 storeys."

Yowza.

That suggests a tower rising 800 feet--unless somehow the stories are Lilliputian.

That's not permitted, at least as of now.

According to the February 2014 Final Scope for a Supplementary Environmental Impact Statement:
Each Project building would also remain subject to the individual building height and individual building maximum floor area limits specified in Exhibit C to the 2009 Modified General Project Plan (the 2009 MGPP).

That document, at left, oddly sets 620 feet as the maximum building height for the tallest tower, B1, which would rise over the officially temporary plaza outside the arena.

However, Forest City Ratner agreed, upon project approval in December 2006, to lower that height to 511 feet, symbolically one foot shorter than the then-tallest building in Brooklyn, the Williamsburgh Savings Bank, now One Hanson Place.

That symbolic reduction would not keep the new tower from blocking the bank's iconic clock, however.

Perhaps that height limit is less meaningful now that there are even taller buildings in Downtown Brooklyn.

But the Final Scope does say:
As described in the 2009 Technical Memor

[Perklol]

I'm not sure what to believe. I do hope that Brooklyn gets its first 800 ft skyscraper

This is something to look forward to even if that company has been sloppy with its info.