He doesn’t build amusement parks, but 2005 was a roller-coaster ride
for Bruce Ratner.
The Brooklyn-based developer, who built Metrotech and the Atlantic Center
and Atlantic Terminal malls, was in our pages seemingly every week, typically
as the target of scorn by opponents to his Atlantic Yards mega-project.
But he also made news for his successes: obtaining the site from the MTA
and making deals with some community groups.
Here’s how The Brooklyn Papers covered the Year of Ratner.
January
3 BR, TRN YRD VU: Ratner claims
he will add 1,300 units of much-needed affordable and market-rate housing
— and eliminated more than 1.5 million square feet of less-needed
office space — at his arena-residential-commercial mega-project.
March
Well, rec-u-u-u-se me!: Borough
President Markowitz, a strong supporter of the project, suffers a political
black eye when his appointee to the City Planning Commission — Brooklyn’s
only voice on the panel — recuses herself from review of the project.
As The Papers reported, Williams and her husband own a stake in the Nets,
the very basketball team Ratner is hoping to move to a new arena in Brooklyn.
Dial O for Opinion: In a stunning
gaffe, a Ratner pollster called notorious Atlantic Yards critic Patti
Hagan for her opinion on the project (he might as well have called President
Bush for his opinion of Jacques Chirac!). Luckily for us, Hagan had her
tape recorder on. “I am absolutely
opposed to the whole damn thing!” Hagan told Ratner’s unsuspecting
pollster.
April
Easy money: Developer Shaya Boymelgreen
sold a building in the Atlantic Yards footprint to Ratner for $44 million.
Just eight months earlier, Boymelgreen paid $20 million for it. That’s
not a bad return on investment. Thanks, Bruce.
May
Not so fast: The Metropolitan Transportation
Authority announces that it is seeking bidders besides Ratner for the
Atlantic Yards site.
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Sealed
with a kiss: Ratner gets a big wet one from activist Bertha Lewis
(right) after agreeing to set aside half of his 4,500 apartment units
to low-, moderate- and middle-income renters. For good measure, Lewis
also kissed Mayor Bloomberg. Photographic evidence makes it clear that
the famed ladies man Bloomberg enjoyed the kiss more.
June
Seizing the day: The Supreme Court
rules that cities are allowed to seize privately owned property on behalf
of private developers — a broad expansion of the notion of eminent
domain. The cheering from Forest City Ratner headquarters in Downtown
Brooklyn could be heard all the way to Bay Ridge.
July
Not so fast, part II: The MTA tells
Ratner that his $50-million bid for the rail yards is not enough, even
as the transit agency rejects a $150-million bid from a rival developer.
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Picture this: Ratner
gives the New York Times a sneak peak at Frank Gehry’s design for
the entire project — but the reaction to the Vegas-style skyscrapers
and Nets-logo friezes (right) is so negative that he eventually orders
his “starchitect” back to his drafting table.
August
Low “Standard”: A Park
Slope movie company turns down a chance to be profiled in Ratner’s
supposed community newspaper, “The Brooklyn Standard” —
and then publicly blasts the paper as “designed for the sole purpose
of promoting [the] project.” The film company need not have worried;
the Brooklyn Standard published just two issues in ’05.
September
Upping the ante: Ratner doubles
his bid to $100 million — which is still less than half the
$214-million value of the development rights, according to the MTA’s
own appraiser — and wins control of the 8.5-acres train yard air
rights.
Now you tell us?: A week after
Ratner secures his deal with the MTA, Borough President Markowitz makes
his first public request that Ratner downsize his mega-project.
October
Keep off!: The Papers reveals that
a one-acre park on the roof of the Gehry-designed arena — which Ratner
had once touted as “an exciting … new public space [for] passive
recreation and active public space for community residents” —
will actually be off limits to the public. So much for the promised skating
rink and hot chocolate.
Buy me love: The Papers also reveals
that Ratner gave $5 million to supposed “community group” Brooklyn
United for Innovative Local Development (BUILD). That kind of money buys
a lot of friends.
November
Crackpot: Actress Rosie Perez doesn’t
do opponents of the Ratner development any favors by saying that the mega-project
would create unfriendly Manhattan-style neighborhoods. “When I lived
in Manhattan, I knew the crackhead on my corner better than my neighbors,”
she said. Ratner spokespeople immediately denied that 10 percent of their
housing units had been set aside for crackheads.
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He-a
culpa: Frank Gehry tells a group of architects that his initial design
for the Atlantic Yards was “horrible.” At the same meeting,
he even posed for a photo with rabid opponent Patti Hagan (right). Amazingly,
Gehry still has a job..
