Why Is Spitzer's "New" ESDC Allowing an Old Boondoggle?

Elliot Spitzer ran on reform. He promised change. To that end, he appointed a new ESDC chairman and promised that the ESDC would not become a tool for political patronage as it so obviously was under the charming (if you find sleeze charming) but corrupt "Charles" Gargano.

So why is the "new" ESDC supporting biggest boondoggle from the Pataki era - Ratner's Atlantic Yards? Foye and Spitzer have had numerous opportunities to put the breaks on step back and review this project (instead they have chosen to spend ESDC resources to DEFEND Ratner's project in court). Neither have indicated any interest in doing so. Why?

Do they believe this project is all above board? If so then they are far more incompetent than I had imagined. Unless they have been utterly lied to by Ratner's people (a likely prospect) they have to know about the issues of size, density and the enormous public outlays with no public benefit.

That leads us to speculation #2 - they know its a boondoggle but support it anyway for yet unknown reasons...if that's the case than we know Spizter's 'reform' speech was empty rhetoric and the "new" ESDC is business as usual for corporate welfare queens like Bruce Ratner.

I am serious: Let's Require Ratner to Clean Up the Mess He Already Made

Metrotech is a failure that is losing tenants. The Atlantic Mall is blight and failure that is losing tenants. BOTH were tax payer subsidized. IF Spitzer were SERIOUS about reform he would require that Ratner turn both into revenue producing - in other words tenants that paid taxes (not city offices stuffed in by Bloomberg, not the ESDC, not corporate welfare companies that have received tax breaks) - properties before giving that greedy, corrupt jerk another dime.

Hells Bells, as my high school football coach used to say. With all the money Ratner gets you could pull someone off the street who could build something better.

Boondoggle Bruce's Atlantic Mall Loses "Tenant"

Tenant of course would imply a paying customer who rented space for practical reasons...as the latest post at Atlantic Yards Report informs us, the ESDC was nothing of the kind:

Was it favoritism?

Was the mall site chosen out of favoritism, as some critics of the relationship between Forest City Ratner and the ESDC—which has since approved the developer’s Atlantic Yards plan across Atlantic Avenue from the mall—have charged?

That motivation can’t be proven, but it’s clear that the third-floor space should never have been under consideration by the ESDC, since it did not meet the guidelines announced in a 6/14/02 press release about the CNOs.

In the press release, state officials pledged, “Each office will operate from a street-level, retail storefront in a high traffic area of the neighborhood commercial district.” The third-floor site in the Atlantic Center mall—chosen more than a year later--is neither a street-level storefront nor situated in a high traffic area of the mall.

Why was the site selected? ESDC spokesman A.J. Carter, who joined the agency with the administration of new Gov. Eliot Spitzer, said, “That was a decision made by the previous administration.”

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I wonder, when the luxury condo market collapses will ESDC employees be required to live in Bruce's project?

In any event, it like Pataki has left quite a mess to clean up Oder further reports:

A 3/25/07 Bergen Record article broke the news that the Port Authority had spent nearly $100 million since 2003 on projects ranging from cultural support to real estate development, straying far from its transportation mission. The money came from a fund controlled by Pataki and administered by Gargano, who had been Pataki’s chief fundraiser and was appointed vice chairman of the Port Authority as well as head of the ESDC.


Now that there's all this extra space at Atlantic Mall (which is, as clearly illustrated above, a hallmark of poor design, incompetence and stupidity)...maybe Bruce should concentrate on getting 'forward thinking' tenants to fill his previous two failed boondoggles before we fund the construction of (yet) another.

Oder soberly concludes:


Even though the mall has been redesigned, there's not much to do about the blank walls that occupy at least half its perimeter.
Urban planner Ron Shiffman (now on the Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn advisory board) has described the mall as the "only pre-existing blighting influence" in the area around the Atlantic Yards project. Architectural historian and critic Francis Morrone (also now on the DDDB board), writing in the New York Sun (ABROAD IN NEW YORK, 2/23/04), called it "the ugliest building in Brooklyn."

Now there's another space left to let.

Forest City Enron?

With every bubble, comes a burst. And with every burst, a symbol of the excesses is 'executed' in public court. In the 80s, after the collapses of Drexel Burham, it was Michael Miliken** . More recently, Enron and Martha Stewart. The Real Estate market is a long way from bursting, and its assets are a little more solid than empty promises of future earnings, but all the excesses that come with a 'hot' market are certainly here - the desire for money is so insatiable that laws are overlooked or sometimes, broken.

As NoLandGrab reports, there's what's now being called a 'Federal Conspiracy Probe' up in Yonkers, and Forest City Ratner still piously claiming, amid a hailstorm of subpoenas to various council members that they're as honest as a Quaker. It seems odd doesn't it, that all of these politicians are being subpoenaed, the sole beneficiary is Forest City, yet Forest City coos 'Gosh, who, us?!, impropriety?!'.

The odd thing about these big, out of scale, voraciously greedy projects that Forest City has advocated is that they violate the most basic common sense urban planning principles, zoning laws that we made in reaction to such schemes and their effect - both physical and psychological - on the community, and Forest City seemingly glides through the law and processes meant to check bad development with ease. Yet the thought that 'some thing's a little funny here' hasn't occurred to anyone in the mainstream press . Why? I can speculate; Ratner's an insider of the New York establishment, and while they're happy to string up some hicks from Texas, they have a different standard for their own.

Gargano's being investigated, Forest City's very bad project is being investigated, yet Mike Bloomberg, perhaps unaware of the dirty subways, over crowded schools, increasing pollution, crumbling infrastructure, is tossing 200 million to a billionaire developer so that he can buy land that he's already getting at 100 million below it's value. Elliot Ness, where are you?


(**I remember, when I worked in an investment house shortly after graduation - -post Miliken, post boom, a sales assistant reminding me that Miliken's sales assitant spent more time in jail than Miliken. Similarly, during the John Gottfriend bond scandal at Solomon Brothers, the clerk who executed the orders was unceremoniously fired on the spot, while Gottfriend walked away with 100 million for his trouble. So are the ways of Wall Street.)

Let's Kick out Some High School Students and Build Luxury Condos

Greed, Inc, otherwise known as forest city, just can't get enough of public subsidies and public land....
RATNER NOW WANTS BROOKLYN TECH!

As if the Atlantic Yards illegal land-grab wasn't enough, billionaire developer Bruce Ratner now has his sights set on acquiring the Brooklyn Technical High School building.

And here's a good reason why this is a bad deal for the school:

In addition, Broooklyn Tech is currently in the midst of it's own alumni-funded multi-million-dollar upgrades. In late 2005 the school announced it had received a record $10 million in donations from their alumni. In their 11/05 press release they stated their commitment to the school: "Over the past 20 years, the Alumni Association has funded major projects in the school including a state of the art robotics laboratory, modernization of the school library, and the completion of a new athletic facility." Many alumni, as well as residents of Fort Greene share the belief that the school is a venerable gem and should be a protected as if it was a landmark.

as I said earlier:

The usual excuses: better facilities for the kids - will be used - to funnel yet more control over to Forest City (they get taxpayer funded tenants at his failed Metrotech park, he gets their prime vintage buildling in the heart of Fort Greene) Will he attempt to raze the building or add stories? Given his track record, I venture to guess yes. But the real loser will be Brooklyn Tech students - they have a building with a long history - that could easily be revamped giving them one of the most pristine facilities in the city, a prime location and their own space and identity - who among us would want to look back on high school and say we attended it in a corporate park with a dozen corporations? Are the dull, lifeless poorly designed building really the best environment for them to learn in?

The more I read and hear about this guy the more revolted I am. If Bruce Ratner is a 'favorite' among politicians, the new york times and our so called elite then it is a clear indicator or just how warped and corrupt they are. So its not so much a question of would Bruce Ratner kick out this or that person, the question is who wouldn't he kick out/use for profit?

The Original Article from South Oxford makes the point:

The Brooklyn Technical School of today includes multiple gymnasiums, a huge basement level swimming pool, open air rooftop handball courts, libraries with fireplaces, a metal working foundry, multi-level rooms for architectural reconstructions, laboratories of all types (including materials testing labs and an Aeronautical lab with a large wind tunnel), the second largest auditorium in the city (after Radio City), elevators with cast metal doors, WPA murals, a broadcast radio studio (complete with the large antenna that's visible from all over Brooklyn), and more. The stately 1922 art deco-styled building enjoys easy access across the street to Fort Greene Park for athletic activities such as track and tennis. It also shares close proximity to its own football field on Fulton & Clermont, which, by the way, was donated by a generous Brooklyn Tech alumni, Charles Wang (founder of Computer Associates).

What a difference between the Wang and Ratner: one gives back invests in infrastructure and quality of life , the other one takes, takes takes, and robs the public coffers to enrich himself.