MTA won’t show hand Refuses to release bid info

A spokeswoman for the state authority also told The Brooklyn Papers that
an independent appraisal of the 8.4-acre site likewise would not be made
public until after the MTA board review of the bids.

Forest City Ratner, the development company with whom the MTA has been
negotiating for more than a year, and Extell Development, a Manhattan-based
company that submitted a last-minute bid, both hope to secure development
rights for the site. The rail yards stretch east into Prospect Heights
from the intersection of Atlantic and Flatbush avenues.

Both Forest City Ratner and Extell officials have declined to make details
of their bids public until the MTA does so.

In June 2004, MTA Chairman Peter Kalikow said in a letter to Westchester
Assemblyman Richard Brodsky, chairman of the public authority committee,
that the MTA would “retain the services of qualified appraisers.”

As recently as February of this year, MTA spokesman Tom Kelly said that
an independent appraisal of the value of the property — known as
the Vanderbilt Yards — was in the works and would be announced.

To date, none has been announced, but Kelly also said in February and
again in March that no request for proposals would be issued seeking competing
bids.

On May 25, the MTA did issue an RFP, giving potential developers 30 business
days to respond with a bid rivaling Forest City Ratner’s 2-year-old
plan to build a basketball arena and 17 residential, office and commercial
towers over the MTA property and on adjacent private and city property.
The deadline for submissions was July 6.

Mercedes Padilla, an MTA spokeswoman, said Tuesday that the bids had not
yet made it to any MTA board members.

“It’s being reviewed by the staff. At this moment there is nothing
new with the bids,” said Padilla to repeated questions about the
status of the bid vote. She said she was not sure whether the bidders
had been sworn to secrecy by the MTA.

Both Forest City Ratner and the Extell Development Company, the two bidders,
declined to discuss details of their bids.

“The bid now is being reviewed by the MTA staff, then they will be
given to the MTA board members so they can review the bids. We hope to
do that as quickly as possible, and they will be made public at the appropriate
time,” said Padilla.

Asked when the land’s independently appraised value would be announced,
Padilla said, “As soon as [the bids] have been reviewed by the MTA
board members,” but admitted she was not sure whether an independent
appraisal had yet been undertaken or completed.

With the next MTA board meeting scheduled for this Wednesday, July 27,
members of the community and civic groups fear the board members, the
majority of whom are appointed by Gov. George Pataki, will go ahead and
approve a bid without being adequately informed of the property’s
true worth.

Beverly Dolinsky, director of the MTA’s Permanent Citizen’s
Advisory Committee (PCAC), is a non-voting member of the MTA board.

“I saw Roco Krsulic, [director of Real Estate for the MTA],”
last night, and I said, ‘You better open up this process, because
you’re going to be up for a lot of criticism if you don’t’,”
Dolinsky told The Brooklyn Papers this week.

“He said to me they haven’t finished evaluating the bids yet,
and that’s why it hasn’t opened up. We feel they should be opened
up. We feel the board has a fiduciary responsibility to their riders.
But it’s really been kept very close to the vest, and I have no idea
why,” Dolinsky said.

The PCAC was created by the state Legislature in 1981 give mass transit
riders a say in the formulation and implementation of MTA policy and to
hold the MTA Board and management accountable.

Asked about the seeming advantage to Forest City Ratner of having been
involved in negotiations with the authority for the past year, she said
the agency still owed their public a fair process.

“Even if they’ve had an ongoing conversation with them, I think
they have a fiduciary responsibility to their riders. I don’t think
they expected a second bid, and I think that came as a surprise,”
Dolinsky said.

Forty-five other community and civic groups, transportation advocates
and public interest organizations signed on to a July 15 letter to Kalikow
demanding that the MTA board postpone their vote on the bids.

Calling on the MTA to provide greater accountability than it did with
the Hudson Yards RFP in Manhattan — where the New York Jets and Mayor
Michael Bloomberg wanted to build a football stadium — the letter
demands that the details of all bids be disclosed immediately, and that
Kalikow make good on his promise to hire an independent appraiser. Copies
of the letter were sent to Pataki, Bloomberg, Brodsky and state Sen. Vincent
Leibell, of Putnam County, who has introduced legislation seeking to give
more oversight over public authorities, like the MTA, to the Legislature.

An appraisal commissioned by the MTA of the 33-acre Hudson Rail Yards
found the Manhattan site to be worth $900 million. The Vanderbilt Yards,
in Prospect Heights, by the same per-acre calculation, would be worth
$229 million.

The Brooklyn site, however, sits beside a major transportation hub, with
10 subway lines and the Long Island Rail Road stopping at the Atlantic
Terminal, across the street, and is within walking distance of many shopping
districts and cultural attractions.

Jeremy Soffin, director of public affairs for the Regional Plan Association,
said his group signed the letter to urge that a better standard be practiced
by the MTA.

“We spent a lot of time researching and fighting the West Side stadium,”
said Soffin. “It set a poor precedent for how the MTA conducts its
business. There, as well as this case in Brooklyn, we felt the MTA should
shine some light on its processes in concern to how it sells property.

“We feel the public has a right to know.”

Deb Howard, executive director of the Pratt Area Community Council, whose
organization has responded mostly to city-level RFPs for development sites,
but has also worked on state-level RFPs for funding, said the process
seemed unfair.

“Typically, you’re given more time, not necessarily that much
more time, but it’s not a stacked deck,” Howard said. “An
RFP is typically issued to everyone at the same time, the organization
is generally not negotiating with a developer for two years prior to that.
“Given the size for this project, the time limit was very short,”
she added. “Typically, it’s 60 days for a city project, and
usually you know the sites in your neighborhood.”

Daniel Goldstein, a member of the anti-Ratner plan community group Develop-Don’t
Destroy Brooklyn, said the letter drew many groups together.