The New York Observer » Bruce Ratner http://www.observer.com Just another WordPress site Tue, 14 Feb 2012 14:59:31 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Waiting for Bruce: The Commercial Observer Tours Atlantic Yards Arena A chauffered Lexus LS sedan pulled up to the corner of Dean Street and Flatbush Avenue and out slid Bruce Ratner from the back seat. He was 15 minutes late.
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]]> http://www.observer.com/2012/02/waiting-for-bruce-the-commercial-observer-tours-atlantic-yards-arena/ Bruce Ratner “Walked Between the Legal Raindrops”

That is Michael Powell's assessment of the Brooklyn developer in his column in today's Times, noting that Mr. Ratner is involved in at least two corruption scandals involving state politicians. Read More

]]> http://www.observer.com/2012/01/bruce-ratner-walked-between-the-legal-raindrops/ Tip-Off Tip Over? Barclays Center Facade Maker Goes Out of Business, Possibly Imperiling Opening Day After years and years and years of delays, debates, lawsuits and left turns, things have been moving along at a favorable clip at Atlantic Yards—at least compared to past history.

Since the Barclays Center broke ground two years ago, construction has continued pretty much unabated, a few rodents notwithstanding. Meanwhile, Bruce Ratner is behind on his plans for new apartment towers, but he is also shaking things up with the idea of making them prefabricated.

It is then a little surprising to learn that the firm responsible for the facade of the new arena has abruptly shut its doors, and the completion of the Barclays Center could hang in the balance. Read More

]]> http://www.observer.com/2012/01/tip-off-tip-over-barclays-center-facade-maker-goes-out-of-business-possibly-imperiling-opening-day/ How Invested Is Bruce Ratner In Prefab? Oh, Only a Few Million Last week, The Observer looked at Bruce Ratner's plans for a prefabricated Atlantic Yards project—whether he was serious about the project and whether he could achieve the steep 20 percent savings he claimed for the modular building process. A number of real estate professionals were skeptical on both counts, but they all pointed to the developers out-sized investment in prefab technology as an indicator of his seriousness. Now we know just how much of an investment that has been. Read More

]]> http://www.observer.com/2011/12/how-invested-is-bruce-ratner-in-prefab-oh-only-a-few-million/ The Mod Squad: Will Bruce Ratner Transform the Way New York Builds, or Is Prefab Another Project Too Far? For nine years now, Bruce Ratner has talked of transforming Brooklyn with his Atlantic Yards project. Bringing professional sports back to the borough, creating a new skyline, “a neighborhood practically from scratch,” as architect Frank Gehry once described it. There would be union jobs and affordable housing for all to enjoy.

As of now, only basketball and a handful of those jobs are guaranteed, all of which took three times as long as originally planned. Mr. Ratner and his partners like to blame the economy and the holdouts who sued to save their property, but the fact remains, they are running well behind schedule, possibly even in violation of previous commitments made to the state when the project was approved.

To catch up, Forest City Ratner has come up with a novel solution for myriad problems with his project: modular construction. More than transforming Brooklyn, Mr. Ratner may transform the way the entire city, even the world, builds. At least that is his hope.

“It’s taken us a while to get there on the architecture,” Mr. Ratner told The Observer last month on the day he unveiled his new plans for a modular approach at Atlantic Yards. “We did a lot of work to make sure it was something appropriate, in fitting in with the arena and a good reflection on Brooklyn, the city and our country.”

He is not alone in his optimism, either. Read More

]]> http://www.observer.com/2011/12/the-mod-squad-will-bruce-ratner-transform-the-way-new-york-builds-or-is-prefab-another-project-too-far/ You See, the Mayor Sees, We All See ICSC

That friendly man was Bruce Ratner, head of Forest City Ratner Companies, who had no  idea that he had just invited two reporters from The Commercial Observer to join him. Read More

]]> http://www.observer.com/2011/12/i-see-the-mayor-sees-we-all-see-at-the-icsc/ How ‘Bout Them Brooklyn Nets? Brooklyn may be home to a swelling creative class, but all that brain power—or at least that of Jay-Z, Bruce Ratner and Mikhail Prokhorov—could do no better than "the Brooklyn Nets" when it comes to naming the team, which moves to the borough next season. The Observer was really pulling for the Brooklyn Queens Expressways or the BroBos, but our dreams were rejected like a Kris Humphreys lay-up. Read More

]]> http://www.observer.com/2011/09/how-bout-them-brooklyn-nets/ Jay-Z Announces “Brooklyn Nets” Title, Tells Everyone To Stop Watching Knicks Games One year from now, Jay-Z will be performing in his hometown Brooklyn. That's the good news. The rapper's love of basketball has led to his owning a small stake in the former New Jersey Nets, which from now on will be the Brooklyn Nets. (We would have really preferred it if owner/Russian billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov had actually named the team after his girlfriends.)

The group will find its new home at the soon-to-be-built Barclays Center on Flatbush and Atlantic Ave., as part of Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards Project that's been going so well. Jay himself announced the official name in a "brief and anticlimactic" ceremony in New Jersey today.

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]]> http://www.observer.com/2011/09/jay-z-announces-brooklyn-nets-title-tells-everyone-to-stop-watching-knicks-games/ If Bruce Ratner Builds It: Forest City Files DOB Application for First Apartment Tower Here comes the next round in the city’s most intractable debate over the further development of Atlantic Yards, as it appears that exactly one week ago, Forest City Ratner filed its first building application for a residential tower on the corner of Dean Street and Flatbush Avenue. Read More

]]> http://www.observer.com/2011/08/forest-city-ratner-atlantic-yards-first-apartment-application/ Ratner’s Traps: Pest Control and a Pesky Lawsuit Late last month, a "rat tsunami" descended on Brooklyn, kicking up rodents on the streets surrounding the Atlantic Yards project. Neighbors in Prospect Heights and Fort Greene complained that construction of the Barclays Centre was sending rats into the neighborhood. Though a Forest City Ratner spokesman at the time suggested to The Observer that the problem was not conclusively worse than anywhere else in the city, the developer has now seen fit to pony up for some industrial strength garbage cans for neighbors as well as a tougher pest plan. Read More

]]> http://www.observer.com/2011/07/ratners-traps-pest-control-and-a-pesky-lawsuit/ Bruce Ratner, Arch-Ironist The Brooklyn Academy of Music and Forest City Ratner just announced a partnership to host a handful of large-scale events at the Barclays Center beginning after the Nets inaugural season there in 2012-2013. In an interview with The Times, Bruce Ratner gave an interesting explanation for the BAM/Barclays hook-up: Read More

]]> http://www.observer.com/2011/06/bruce-ratner-arch-ironist/ First Atlantic Yards Tower Coming This Winter, Will It Be Prefab? [Video]

Bruce Ratner went on Bloomberg yesterday to discuss the state of the local economy and progress at Atlantic Yards. During the interview, he said he expects to break ground on the first apartment tower at the site by December or January.

That is pushing Ratner's promise made last fall to have the tower under construction Read More

]]> http://www.observer.com/2011/real-estate/first-atlantic-yards-tower-coming-winter-will-it-be-prefab-video Eminent Cinema: Atlantic Yards Doc Coming to a Rooftop Near You

It took almost as long for Bruce Ratner to get his Atlantic Yards project through the huge community fight as a movie about that fight to get made. The Battle for Brooklyn will have its debut this summer, opening on June 3 at Brooklyn Heights Cinema as part of the  Brooklyn Film Festival with a showing Read More

]]> http://www.observer.com/2011/real-estate/eminent-cinema-atlantic-yards-doc-coming-rooftop-near-you Prefabulous? How Atlantic Yards Could Revolutionize New York City Real Estate Atlantic Yards has its problems. Bruce Ratner's arena-cum-condos megaproject has involved insider deals and eminent domain, Russian oligarchs and Chinese visas, bratty Brooklynites and disgraced lobbyists. The news, revealed in today's Times, that Ratner is trying to save on construction costs by using prefab building technology is far from the biggest story to Read More

]]> http://www.observer.com/2011/real-estate/could-atlantic-yards-revolutionize-new-york-city-real-estate You Can Finally Rent a Piece of New York… by Gehry, That Is Much has been made of the fact that Frank Gehry's spetacular apartment tower at 8 Spruce Street boasts hundreds of different facade panels to create its unusual rippling exterior. Less known is that all those curves in the building now known as New York by Gehry also create more than 200 different apartment layouts Read More

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