By Kim Velsey 12/13/12 7:16pm

Getting there

barclays-center

Is Barclays a Fare Jumper When It Comes to Transportation Funding?

The Atlantic Yards certainly knows how to get someone else to pick up the tab. It’s like a friend who always manages to forget his wallet when going out to dinner, or the pal who neglects to pony up her share of the group gift you all went in on together.

First, the project scored $305 million in state and city subsidies via the Empire State Development Corporation, then the arena protested a tax assessment for taxes it didn’t even have to pay (an oversight, it claimed), and now it’s literally getting a free ride on the existing transportation infrastructure—an infrastructure that is ferrying a lot of visitors and cash to Barclays, but that Ratner doesn’t want to help finance. Read More

By Eliot Brown 10/07/09 7:55pm

State Consultant: Ratner’s Assumptions at Atlantic Yards ‘Moderately Aggressive’

For its Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn, developer Forest City Ratner has planned construction of its 6,430 apartments based on a set of relatively aggressive assumptions, a state-commissioned report found.

The report—which was not expected to be negative given that it was commissioned by the agency sponsoring the project—looked at Forest City’s planned numbers Read More

By Eliot Brown 9/29/09 3:45pm

State Finally Fills Top Development Job With Former El Diario Owner

After an odyssey of a search process, the state’s top development agency has finally filled a top position, with the state on Tuesday announcing that Peter Davidson, former owner of El Diario/La Prensa and chairman of the non-profit JM Kaplan Fund, will be the Empire State Development Corporation’s new executive director.

Mr. Davidson, who founded Read More

By Eliot Brown 6/30/09 4:12pm

Another Legal Challenge Means New Uncertainty on Atlantic Yards

New York’s highest court has agreed to hear an eminent domain case over the Atlantic Yards project proposed for Downton Brooklyn, a move that infuses new uncertainty into the planned $4.9 billion development.

The decision by the Court of Appeals was not expected by the project’s developer—Bruce Ratner and his Forest City Ratner—at Read More