The Municipal Art Society of New York

Atlantic Yards or Atlantic Lots?

May 5th, 2008, 12:53 pm

Today, MAS released a set of renderings depicting the potential impact of interim parking lots and empty land on the Atlantic Yards site in Brooklyn. You can view the new renderings on a new slideshow at AtlanticLots.com and in the New York Post by clicking here.

Recently, Forest City Ratner (FCR) announced that key elements of the project will be delayed because of market conditions. Currently, FCR intends to begin constructing only the arena and one residential building on the Western end of the project. They plan to demolish the entire Eastern section of the site to create seven acres of “temporary” surface parking lots that could be with us for 15 or 20 years. MAS is deeply concerned over the impact on the surrounding neighborhoods of vacant lots on the west of the project and giant parking lots on the east.

In Sunday’s (May 4) Daily News, FCR assured the public that the entire project will be completed by 2018, but other large-scale projects in New York – from Riverside South and Battery Park City to Queens West – have been delayed by a decade or longer.

Our goal in producing the renderings is to dramatize the need for New York State, which officially oversees the project, to move from the backseat role of previous administrations and take responsibility for guiding the largest development project in Brooklyn’s history. The State must create an interim plan for the site that doesn’t blight the neighborhood and halt demolition until this is in place. They must also involve the public and local elected officials, who until now have been essentially ignored, in shaping the project’s future.

Governor Paterson’s team seems to be getting things moving on the long-stalled demolition of the Deutsche Bank building in Lower Manhattan. They now need to bring their attention to Atlantic Yards. Developing this site has a lot of potential for Brooklyn, but the long absence of the public from one of the largest public/private partnerships in New York must be reversed. Atlantic Yards can not become “Atlantic Lots.”