Court found ESDC’s environmental analysis insufficient due to change in Atlantic Yards project, but refused to halt project. In 2006, the Empire State Development Corporation approved the general project plan for Forest City Ratner Companies’ Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn. The $4 billion project includes a sports arena and sixteen high-rise buildings. Ratner agreed to purchase air rights from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority at the beginning of the project in order to facilitate the … <Read More>
Forest City Ratner
Court affirms dismissal of Atlantic Yards challenge
ESDC’s determination upheld that three blocks outside urban renewal area were blighted. In 2003, Forest City Ratner proposed to redevelop a 22-acre site in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn. The site included portions of the Atlantic Terminal Urban Renewal Area and portions of three privately-owned blocks outside the renewal area. After Ratner’s proposal was accepted, the Empire State Development Corporation designated itself as lead agency for the project under state environmental law. ESDC prepared an environmental impact … <Read More>
Court affirms dismissal of Atlantic Yards challenge
Residents argued that the project’s public uses were illegitimate. The $4 billion Atlantic Yards project calls for an 18,000-seat arena for the Nets professional basketball team, a 180- room hotel, at least 16 high-rise apartment and office buildings, and eight acres of open space. The project site includes the Atlantic Terminal Urban Renewal Area, as well as surrounding areas developed by commercial and residential structures. The project calls for the Empire State Development Corporation to … <Read More>
Planning Commission files comments on Atlantic Yards
Commission recommends that the project be reduced by 635,000 sq.ft. and its open space increased. On September 27, 2006, the Planning Commission recommended to the Empire State Development Corporation that Forest City Ratner Companies reduce the overall size of its proposed downtown Brooklyn Atlantic Yards project by eight percent or 635,000 sq.ft. and increase the proposed open space from seven to eight acres to address the significant amount of pedestrian traffic that the project would … <Read More>
Forest City Ratner’s 75-story project to contain public school
Lower Manhattan to get 630- seat primary/intermediate school. The City Council unanimously approved the New York School Construction Authority’s proposal for a new 100,000-square-foot primary/ intermediate school to be located within Forest City Ratner’s proposed residential development on a site at Beekman, Gold, Spruce and Nassau Streets in lower Manhattan. Currently, the 44,532- square-foot site contains a privately- owned surface parking lot, which Forest City will replace with its 75-story condominium and rental apartment building.… <Read More>