Nets to Brooklyn moves closer

[faba]

Sale of Brooklyn railyard to Nets owner approvedAssociated Press

NEW YORK -- The New Jersey Nets dribbled closer to making a new home in Brooklyn on Wednesday when the Metropolitan Transportation Authority voted to sell an 8.3-acre railyard to team owner and real-estate developer Bruce Ratner.

Ratner will pay $100 million for the downtown Brooklyn site where urban planner Robert Moses once turned down the Dodgers' push for a domed baseball stadium, helping prompt the team's move to California in 1957.

The vote by the nation's largest public transit system keeps the Nets on schedule to be playing by November 2008 in a Frank Gehry-designed Flatbush Avenue arena at the heart of a 21-acre office and apartment complex, which would transform the low-rise Brooklyn skyline.

Ratner doubled his original $50 million bid after a last-minute, $150 million bid in July from Manhattan-based Extell Development Co. prompted second thoughts from MTA board members.

The agency has had the railyard appraised at $214 million.

Arena opponents have called the MTA's decision-making process biased in favor of Ratner, a politically connected former city official whose plan has the support of Gov. George Pataki and Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who together effectively control the MTA board.

Proponents point out that along with the cash, Ratner offered the MTA tens of millions of dollars in inducements such as improvements to the aging yard for Long Island Rail Road cars.

Building trades unions and residents of the poorer neighborhoods and housing projects near the proposed arena site have been supportive of the plan. Ratner has promised to use union labor and minority contractors to build more than 2,000 low- and middle-income apartments, about a third of the units in the $3.5 billion project. The planned development includes 15 towers rising around the glass-sheathed, 18,000-seat Nets arena.

Extell wanted to build a project less than half the size.

The city and state have promised as much as $200 million in public money for the project. Ratner has said he would use all of it for his project, while Extell said it would use $150 million.

[TomShane]

Good. They HAVE to get out of that dump in Jersey. I'm still not sold that they'll sell out Brooklyn, either, but at least they'll be back in NYC.

[Bugg]

It's right next to a transit hub, with the subway lines and the LIRR right there. But as a taxpaying citizen of NYC, this kind of scares the crap out of you.

I went to high school about 3 blocks from the site. This area was a complete crime-ridden dump-crakhouses, dirty whores walking around in daylight, a slaughterhouse across the street, bums everywhere.It was scary and blighted-murders, shootings, drugs.

And yet people invested their life savings into fixing it up, making their homes there and building up businesses, all on their own without any city help. My high school has long since been converted into luxury condos. There's coffee houses, diners, bars-I barely recognize the area. Vanderbilt and Washington Avenues look more and more like Columbus and Amsterdam Avenues.

And for their trouble and toil, the City comes in, gives the whole shebang to Ratner and throws those people out with a nice check and a kick in the tail. I'm not Frank LLoyd Wright, but Ratner's nearby buildings and his midtown NY Times tower are ugly-a$$ big box featureless junk.

But what it comes down to is this-the City of New York took over a recovering area and handed it to a developer on a silver platter for a scheme they may not even work. And they did it all at the expense of their own citizens who were making the area go on their own with no help after the City had ignored them and the area for decades. And I know progress means constant change and rebuilding. There's just something wrong when government decides on bealf of the rich and powerful to put it's finger on the scales against the little guy. And in this case, but for the little guy making that area nice again, Ratner and the City couldn't have even known it was there.

And we don't even know if this Nets thing will work.And who's neighborhood is next for wholesale sellout to a developer if it does?

[TomShane]

It's right next to a transit hub, with the subway lines and the LIRR right there. But as a taxpaying citizen of NYC, this kind of scares the crap out of you.

I went to high school about 3 blocks from the site. This area was a complete crime-ridden dump-crakhouses, dirty whores walking around in daylight, a slaughterhouse across the street, bums everywhere.It was scary and blighted-murders, shootings, drugs.

And yet people invested their life savings into fixing it up, making their homes there and building up businesses, all on their own without any city help. My high school has long since been converted into luxury condos. There's coffee houses, diners, bars-I barely recognize the area. Vanderbilt and Washington Avenues look more and more like Columbus and Amsterdam Avenues.

And for their trouble and toil, the City comes in, gives the whole shebang to Ratner and throws those people out with a nice check and a kick in the tail. I'm not Frank LLoyd Wright, but Ratner's nearby buildings and his midtown NY Times tower are ugly-a$$ big box featureless junk.

But what it comes down to is this-the City of New York took over a recovering area and handed it to a developer on a silver platter for a scheme they may not even work. And they did it all at the expense of their own citizens who were making the area go on their own with no help after the City had ignored them and the area for decades. And I know progress means constant change and rebuilding. There's just something wrong when government decides on bealf of the rich and powerful to put it's finger on the scales against the little guy. And in this case, but for the little guy making that area nice again, Ratner and the City couldn't have even known it was there.

And we don't even know if this Nets thing will work.And who's neighborhood is next for wholesale sellout to a developer if it does?

Awesome post. It is shady what's happening to the people living there. I remember Ratner saying he'll "help them" find new accomodations in one of his new buildings. I'll believe THAT when I see it.

[Bugg]

They can buy "affordable housing" from Ratner-if they can finance a condo for $750,000.00.

[mbn007]

Bugg;

Super Post!!

One of the best I have seen around this site yet. Well thought out.I think the entire project Ratner has in mind might work out, if he puts all the pieces in place. He can't just start by building the arena, and wait out for a few years to develop the surrounding areas. He needs to put his entire scheme in place from the get-go. The entire "model" he showed off 2 years ago has to come to fruition. Otherwise, the entire "dream" may be a nightmare.

As far as drawing fans, the location is very accessible from Mass Transit, and local traffic via the Brooklyn Bridge, and Manhattan Bridge outlets. The BQE will probably suffer from a large scale of traffic after games, but that will be around 10P.M., or later. Hopefully, any "Night Construction" projects will be cancelled on evenings that the Nets are home.