Pacific Park, Brooklyn
Pacific Park is a mixed-use commercial and residential development project by Forest City Ratner in Brooklyn, New York City. It will consist of 17 high-rise buildings near Brooklyn's Prospect Heights, adjacent to Downtown Brooklyn, Park Slope, and Fort Greene neighborhoods. The project overlaps part of the Atlantic Terminal Urban Renewal Area, but also extends toward the adjacent brownstone neighborhoods. Of the project, is located over a Long Island Rail Road train yard. A major component of the project is the Barclays Center sports arena, which opened on September 21, 2012. Formerly named Atlantic Yards, the project was renamed by the developer in August 2014 as part of a rebranding.
The development of Pacific Park is overseen by the Empire State Development Corporation., four of fifteen planned buildings had opened, but the deadline was delayed by about 10 years from 2025 to 2035. The residential component includes the world's tallest modular apartment building, 461 Dean, opened in November 2016.
History
Context
Since the mid-20th century, there have been many proposals to develop the area around Flatbush and Atlantic Avenues, known as Times Plaza; however, plans for the area emerged only piecemeal. In the mid-1950s, Brooklyn Dodgers owner Walter O'Malley proposed that the city condemn the site, where he could then have built a new stadium for the ball club to replace Ebbets Field. City officials refused to condemn the property for subsequent sale to O'Malley on the grounds that they did not consider a privately financed baseball park to be an appropriate public purpose as defined under Title I of the Federal housing act of 1949. O'Malley's proposal was dismissed by Robert Moses for creating a Great Wall of traffic. In 1958, O'Malley relocated the Dodgers to Los Angeles. In 1968, Long Island University eyed the site, but was opposed by Mayor John V. Lindsay.A 1968 New York Times article described a $250 million plan for the Atlantic Terminal Urban Renewal Area, also known as ATURA. According to the Times, the renewal plan "calls for 2,400 new low- and middle-income housing units to replace 800 dilapidated units, removal of the blighting Fort Greene Meat Market, a site for the City University's new Baruch College, two new parks, and community facilities such as day-care centers."
The 1970s also saw plans for ambitious projects in the area, and these mostly resulted in the construction of affordable housing on the north side of Atlantic Avenue. Baruch College also considered moving but was stymied by the city's fiscal crisis.
In the 1980s, a Fort Greene block association and other homeowners sued over an environmental impact statement that failed to consider how rerouted traffic would affect their neighborhood, one block away from the project. Then an economic downturn compounded community opposition. The Times reported that the stock market collapse had deterred office construction. "A lot of people are reassessing their expansion plans," James Stuckey, president of the city's Public Development Corporation, told the Times in 1988.
2000s
Plans for Atlantic Yards were announced on December 10, 2003. Its name, devised by developer Forest City Ratner, relates to the rail yard located between Atlantic Avenue and Pacific Street. At the time, the development was to include 2,250 residences and some commercial space on Pacific Street from Vanderbilt to Fourth avenues. There were also plans for a 20,000-seat arena for the New Jersey Nets. Officially, the Long Island Rail Road yard is called the "Vanderbilt Yard" by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, named for Vanderbilt Avenue, which crosses over on its way to the Brooklyn Navy Yard. The LIRR's nearby Atlantic Terminal station is the westernmost stop of the Atlantic Branch. Easy access by rapid transit and suburban rail, and the desirable brownstone housing stock nearby made it a target for speculative development.The Pacific Park project was originally developed and overseen by Forest City Ratner, an arm of Forest City Enterprises, of Cleveland, Ohio. The original master plan and some individual buildings were developed by architect Frank Gehry. Gehry was removed from the project in June 2009. After September 2009, the design for what became Barclays Center became a collaboration between Ellerbe Becket and the Manhattan architectural firm SHoP Architects. Pacific Park, overseen by the Empire State Development Corporation, is supposed to be a public-private project, Bruce Ratner told Crain's New York Business in November 2009.
In March 2008, principal developer Bruce Ratner acknowledged that the slowing economy may delay construction of both the office and residential components of the project for several years. At this point, its design included the arena being surrounded by Miss Brooklyn, a Frank Gehry-designed office building and three residential buildings in its first phase. Forest City sent a letter signed by Gehry to CEOs of many of New York's biggest corporations inviting them to be tenants. The city and state had provided $58 million of the $300 million promised in public funds for the project.
On June 23, 2008, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal of the federal eminent domain case. The case was refiled in state court, with slightly different arguments, and in November 2009, the project cleared what the New York Times called the "final major obstacle" when the New York Court of Appeals dismissed the final challenge to the legality of eminent domain. Further challenges to the implementation of eminent domain ensued, and were dismissed in March 2010. The most prominent member of the neighborhood opposition, Daniel Goldstein, agreed under pressure to a settlement in April 2010.
2010s
The Barclays Center, for which groundbreaking for construction occurred on March 11, 2010, was opened to the public on September 21, 2012, which was also attended by some 200 protesters. It held its first event with a Jay-Z concert on September 28, 2012.In June 2014, Governor Andrew Cuomo announced that the Atlantic Yards complex would be completed by 2025. That August, the Atlantic Yards complex was renamed Pacific Park. In addition, plans for a new building comprising affordable units, the 298-unit, 18-story building at 535 Carlton Avenue, was unveiled, and a new public park was also revealed. The China-based developer Greenland Holdings, along with Forest City, took over a 70 percent stake in Pacific Park in 2014. Greenland started selling 278 condos in mid-2015. The units at 550 Vanderbilt Avenue, which cost between $550,000 and $5.5 million, will be sold by Corcoran Sunshine Marketing Group. Most of the project's Phase 1 was complete by August 2016. By 2018, only four of the originally planned fifteen buildings had been completed. The developers stated that it may take until 2035 until the project was completed.
In January 2018, Forest City sold most of its remaining stake to Greenland Holdings' American subsidiary, Greenland USA, although Forest City was to retain a 5% ownership stake in the development. Forest City also sold 461 Dean Street to Principal Global Investors that March for $156 million. Subsequently, Forest City and Greenland signed an agreement to allow TF Cornerstone and the Brodsky Organization to develop three of the Pacific Park sites in August 2018. As part of the deal, Brodsky took over the lease for 664 Pacific Street. TF Cornerstone bought two sites at 615 and 595 Dean Street from Forest City and Greenland in February 2019 for $143 million, and the Brodsky Organization separately bought a fourth site that April. That month, Brodsky and Greenland Forest City began developing a structure with 859 apartments at 18 Sixth Avenue. TF Cornerstone, meanwhile, announced plans in late 2019 for 800 apartments as part of a 26-story, twin-tower complex at 615 and 595 Dean Street.
2020s
Greenland USA and the MTA agreed in mid-2023 to construct a deck over part of Vanderbilt Yard, thereby allowing the construction of three apartment buildings above. That year, Greenland USA defaulted on two construction loans worth $349 million. The loans were related to six sites that had been planned as part of the project's second phase. Work had stalled on these six sites, prompting local community groups to protest the lack of progress. At the time, eight of the planned buildings had been completed. By mid-2024, The Related Companies—which had developed Hudson Yards in Manhattan, another project above a rail yard—had expressed interest in taking over the remaining Phase 2 sites. In August 2024, Greenland USA's lenders Fortress Investment Group and the U.S. Immigration Fund agreed to foreclose on the project, and they agreed to jointly take over the development.In January 2025, the Related Companies withdrew from the Pacific Park project, and Cirrus Real Estate joined the project, partnering with the U.S. Immigration Fund. LCOR also became involved in the project. The Empire State Development Corporation was supposed to charge Greenland USA a fine of about $2,000 per month per unbuilt apartment starting in June 2025, but the ESDC postponed the fines, contingent on a new developer being selected by August 1. Even though no developer had been found by August, the state again waived the fines, due to concerns that Greenland USA would file a lawsuit over the fines. Cirrus and LCOR took over as the developers at a foreclosure auction in October, and they proposed revised plans the next month, which included increasing the project's density. Under the revised plan, the number of apartments would be increased to 2,600, with a total of 9,000 units.
Elements
Land use
The development is sited in Prospect Heights, a gentrifying area where the median price of a residential unit exceeded $1 million in 2019. The bulk of the project site was a mixture of public streets, private homes and small businesses. Forest City Ratner controls much of this private property and has benefited from the state's use of eminent domain to acquire and close the streets. The land is owned by New York State, and the developer has a 99-year lease.The Public Authorities Control Board, which effectively ended the West Side Stadium plan, approved the state financing of the Atlantic Yards plan in December 2006.